EWB-USA Pittsburgh Professional Chapter

As we walk off the plane into what is the smallest commercial airport I have ever seen, in Bamako, Mali’s capital, a couple of “airport workers” kindly bombard us and help take our luggage to the van. We meet our translator, Sekou Camara, just outside. We also meet Kyle Lotier, the Peace Corps volunteer from Makili and another Sekou who claims to be our translator. It turns out that the men who helped us with our bags are in disguise. Conspiring with the first man who falsely identified himself as Sekou, they attempt to extort fifty dollars for carrying our luggage a couple hundred feet. I offer them one dollar as they argue in Bambara, the native language of Mali. Hurrying eleven people into the eighteen-seat van (about the same size as a seven-seater in the U.S.), we blast out of the airport to join the hordes of motorcycles that scattered about the highway. Its 2 am.

Some people are sitting, listening to loud music alongside the road, while tons of others sleep on the ground as we drive to the hotel. It is certainly clear how Mali can be rated one of the poorest countries in the world. Garbage is strewn everywhere. Stores are made out of tied-together sticks and aluminum siding. Stagnant, stinking, uncovered sewers line the streets everywhere.

In Bamako we visit the Peace Corps Office, stock up on water for the 110+ degree weather and make two more trips to the airport to retrieve Emma and Krishnan. We then head north to Segou, a market town about one hundred kilometers from Makili, the village in which we intend to build a fish farm. There we rendezvous with an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) we contacted before leaving for Africa. They intend EWB to fund them while they build a fish farm. We start to realize how difficult our undertaking was with the language barriers, cultural differences and different business rules. Working with Sekou to translate, we explain that EWB is not a funding agency. Next, we visit a few fish farms already operating in Mali to learn best practices and head over to our village, Makili.

I have never felt so welcome anywhere in my life, especially in a place that very much resembled 5,000 B.C.E., except equipped with motorcycles, bicycles and cell phones. The people of Makili are thrilled to have us here, excited about us helping them in whichever way possible. The children follow us everywhere- smiling, laughing and posing for pictures. Even as we take sitting breaks in Kyle’s hut between the topographical surveys and family interviews, children are hanging on the walls, peering over the side into the lives of seven foreigners (Marty, Mike, Suman, Krishnan, Vicky, Emma and me).

Meetings with the chief, village elders, a women’s group, teachers, health clinic and individual families tell us that the main problems of the community are education and income. Most believe that the surplus of fish created from a fish farm will help build a stronger economy for the community. This will eventually enable more families to pay for their children to attend school.

As we thank the chief for all the hospitality he and his villagers have given us, he tells us that not only may we have the appropriate land to help them build their fish farm, we will also have a plot of land awaiting our own quarters for trips to come. We spend eight days in a land foreign in just about every way possible, but we leave with Makili as our second home.

[Jeff Fein is a Physics student at the University of Pittsburgh and is a member of EWB-Pitt chapter. He traveled with the team to Mali on the site assesment trip on May, 2008. He is passionate about teaching kids. Jeff can be reached at jrf39@pitt.edu. To learn more about this project and how you can help, click here. ]

June 29th, 2008 | News