Welcome to the DtM Field Journal

In summer 2003, Design that Matters and four members of the MIT Kinkajou design team conducted an extensive field study in Mali and Benin. The objectives of this study were to broaden our network of collaborators among local communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), test a prototype educational tool developed by the student team, share information on existing DtM design innovations, collect data for new DtM design challenges, and generally experience life in sub-Saharan West Africa.

This journal is an account of our experience. Listed below are some of our favorite entries. You can read the complete story in the journal archives, which are listed in the right-hand column.

The Field Journal category archives are organized as follows:

Book Recommendations: books that we felt gave us insights into West African culture, and contributed to our understanding of international development.
Design Challenge: these are open design challenges--unsolved problems faced by underserved communities that were either identified or further explored during the field study.
Design Resource: notes taken during the field study that help to describe conditions in West Africa, and generally provide useful information for development-related design projects.
DtM Partner Org: these community groups and NGOs help Design that Matters to identify appropriate design challenges, and they take the lead in testing and implementing DtM innovations.
Journal Entry: our personal observations on the trip.
Kinkajou Design Review: notes from the many design reviews conducted during the field study.
Light Up the World: notes from our various field tests of the LUTW solid-state lamps.

Before the trip

Hello out there. I am Kateri, recent grad from MIT's department of mechanical engineering. I have been on the Kinkajou team since the fall of 2002 and worked on the project in the spring. I am thrilled at the opportunity to venture out to West Africa next week to test out our projector and to learn more about the people who will use it. As my father told me before I left, we will probably learn more from the Malians than they from us.

My expectations:

It will be an adventure worthy of a survivor episode...well maybe not. I hope that no one gets sick. Everyone I've talked to has linked Africa to AIDS and malaria. No one ever thinks of what the people are like and how they live their daily lives without the things that we take for granted. I think that the experience will be a humbling one that will make us all think more about where we come from and where we want to go in our lives.

I've never been to Africa before. In fact the first time I flew overseas was last week to visit my boyfriend, Jacob, in Japan. He is working for the summer at the University of Tokyo. Being outside the US for the first time allowed me to see what it is like to be a foreigner in an unfamiliar place surrounded by people who speak a completely different language than I'm used to.

I don't speak French much, the official language of Mali. I have some teach yourself books, but I haven't gotten very far. I hope that I will be able to communicate with people in Mali as well as with my friends and family back home in New Mexico and around the world.

Before I left home, my parents both expressed their concerns for my health and safety while on the trip. I know that there are risks, but I told them that I would rather die living than sit in front of the TV and waste my life wishing. I know...harsh words to tell parents, but it was the way I could see them connect with what I am feeling. No one is going to die. We may get a little sick, but in the end the trip will make us stronger and more knowledgable.

Getting ready

Late night, sorting through a mountain of gear here in our living room. It seems like Liz and I have been getting ready for this trip for weeks, maybe even months. Liz has a very smart, modern-looking pack that weighs 18 pounds with empty water bottles. Somehow the apostle of travelling light has wound up with a 35-pound albatross. Where did all this stuff come from? How much lighter will my bag be if I leave my toothbrush behind?

I'm excited to get on the road, to get back to West Africa. I'm curious as to what has changed in the last six years. Cell phones and internet cafes are obvious--what are the other inroads of technology and development? Has any of this stuff penetrated beyond the big cities? Has it had any kind of meaningful impact on the way ordinary rural people live their lives?

DtM on Morning Edition

Today on NPR's Morning Edition, you'll hear an interview we gave about Design that Matters and the field study. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what it's like to visit a recording studio. Fortunately, Neil and I both have faces for radio.

Listen to the broadcast (mp3 file)

Neil reviews the script with Morning Edition editor Margaret Evans.



Tim in the studio with journalist Suzanne Bates. There was a "cough" button on my microphone console, but I had to supply all of the other sound effects.

The WBUR station lobby.

Listen to the broadcast (mp3 file)

Finishing Touches

The Kinkajou team in the 2.744 lab at MIT with less than 24 hours to go before takeoff.

Martin Tolliver as Electrical Engineer.

This pictures comes free with the McMaster-Carr catalog..



The team on their last night at MIT. Notice how clean everyone's clothes are.

DtM-Kinkajou Team in Mali

After a quick dash through Paris for croque monsieurs at Trocadero and a team photo under the Eiffel Tower, we arrived in Bamako on Wednesday night. We've had a busy schedule ever since!

On Wednesday, we met Violet Diallo from Ashoka, who has been enormously helpful in getting us squared away here in Mali. Violet helped us navigate the crowds at the airport baggage claim and Mali customs. She has loaned the team a cell phone for our trip (vital for arranging meetings in Bamako on a tight schedule) and yesterday helped us find an apartment in the city. She also introduced us to Mustafa, our fearless driver.

Thursday morning, we got our first look at Africa. Crossing from our hotel lobby onto the street, Liz said, "It's like walking into movie." Woman in brightly-colored pagnas, door-to-door tailors clacking scissors and carrying their sewing machines on their shoulders, sheep nibbling at the hedges. The air smelled like charcoal smoke and this kind of distinctive, peppery spice. It was hot and surprisingly humid--although not yet Florida hot.

We spent Thursday morning and afternoon at the Mali Folkecenter (MFC) with the director, Ibrahim Togola, his colleague Tom Burrell, and the rest of the staff. They gave us a tour of the facility and a brief presentation on their work in Mali. We also demonstrated the Kinkajou projector and got their feedback on the design.

That evening, we followed Tom, Jack and their driver to Koumantou, a town to the southeast of Bamako. On the way, we stopped for dinner in Bougouni and had our first Malian french fries.

We spent Thursday night in a village outside Koumantou, and on Friday Tom gave us a tour of the MFC projects in the region. The first project was the multifunction platform--a diesel engine converted to run off a kind of vegetable oil, and connected by belts to two kinds of seed press machines. One machine produced a paste from nciya nuts, turning eight hours of manual labor into fifteen minute's work. The other machine pressed jatropha seeds, the oil of which was used to power both the multifunctional platform engine, as well as the MFC team's truck.

In the Koumantou region we also visited a solar technology training center. whose buildings were designed for woodless construction using arches, domes and barrel vaults. Construction techniques like this reduce the demand for wood in construction, and thereby help to reduce regional deforestation and desertification.

Just before we left, we visited a village clinic where MFC had installed a 60-watt solar panel, fluorescent lights and a solar-powered refrigerator. The local doctor demonstrated how important solar lighting was inside the dimly-lit clinic, even during the day.

So now we're back in Bamako. We've reclaimed Martin's lost luggage and we've all had a chance to organize our field notes and take care of laundry. We'll head back out of the city tomorrow. We've got lots of pictures from our first field visit, which we'll post as soon as I can find an internet cafe with USB-enabled computers.

Bonjour de Afrique!

It is Saturday, July 12. We are now in Bamako, the capital of Mali at a Cyber Cafe. We arrived last evening after visiting 2 villages 200 miles south of Bamako. The experience of living among the Togola tribe was amazing. People are very friendly and everyone wanted to shake our hands. The children just grabbed our attention, well we had theirs as well. Children would come gather around us just to get a peak at us. They would line up to have their pictures taken, like professional models, and would giggle hysterically upon seeing themselves on the digital screens of our cameras.

Our food has consisted mainly of bread, water, coffee, chicken for dinner, greasy french fries and green beans. It's a lot better than I expected. No one has gotten sick yet.

We have had the luxury of a hired driver and a nice SUV. Our driver, Mustafa, is an interesting guy. He was giving us lessons in Bambara as we taught him a bit of English. He resembles Eddie Murphy a bit, especially when he laughs, though Dr. Doolittle wouldn't poke at a lizzard on a window screen.

Violet is the contact person with whom Tim had corresponded from the Ashoka Fellows. She helped us out upon our arrival and arranged a nice hotel for us to stay our first night. She introduced us to Tom, an Englishman, and Ibrahim, both from the Mali folkcenter. Tom and a fellow named Jack escorted us to the villages where Mustafa got to put our SUV's 4WD to the test through huge mud puddles.

Today was the first day that we had to filter our water. We've also been lucky to have access to showers. Last night, however, I got locked in the bathroom of the house where we are staying. The bolt became disconnected fom the nob. It was at least an hour before Martin heroically kicked the door open. Now we have to find a carpenter to fix the door!

Tomorrow we are off to Siby. I hope to find another internet connection soon so that I may keep in touch.

Good bye for now.

MFC Site Visit in Koumantou

The day after we arrived in Mali, we raced off to the Koumantou region with Tom Burrell from the Mali Folkecenter, to visit MFC project sites in Tabacoro and Bougoulaba. For dinner, we stopped at Chez George in Bougouni for chicken and french fries.

Across the street, you could hear the kids playing soccer on the high school field, and the shouts from the peanut gallery sitting on the school wall.

MFC Site Visit in Tabacoro

Here are some brief notes and lots of pictures from our site visit in Tabacoro. In this village, the Mali Folkecenter has installed a number of solar panels, and they also operate a training center for solar hardware technicians. We collected some fantastic design feedback on the Kinkajou, which we summarized on video before leaving town.

This was our first overnight stay in a village, and conditions took a little getting used to. For example, by three in the morning everyone had given up trying to identify the various creepy animal sounds in the bedroom.

The first stop in the morning, after lunch at the gare in Koumantou, was the solar training center. As an example for the region, the MFC constructed the buildings in the training center without using an wood. Using arches, domes and barrel vaults, they were able to do without the usual wooden beams used over doors and in the roof. This is an important innovation in a region threatened by desertification. Given the thick walls and domed ceilings. the buildings were relatively cool inside. They were also nice to look at.

We got loads of useful feedback in a design review of the Kinkajou with a team of solar trainers from the village.

Our last stop before heading back to Bamako was the village health clinic. The community doctor gave us a tour of the facility, which included a pharmacy and a maternity with a solar-powered refrigerator and lights.

Siby Hiking and Field Test

A beautiful village surrounded by a wall of red stoned mesas, Siby greets visitors at its tourist information center where a tax of 1000CFA per person is requested. Siby is my favorite place in Mali so far. Before we even saw the village, we were mystified by the surroudning greenery and a distant waterfall in the cliffs. There we hired a guide to take us to the great arch. He not only took us to it; he had us climb all the way to the top where we could see for miles around. Small kids followed us, barefooted and with torn clothes. With our hiking gear we appeared over-prepared.

In the village we tested the Kinkajou.

We gave a demonstration to Sekoubu Craovè, teacher of French, History and geography; Sekou Sidibè, director of second cycle de Siby; and Lssa Souleymone CAMARA Directeur Siby i cycle B

The school in Siby serves a village of 20,000 people, and 769 students from the 1-6th grades. There are 156 students in grade 5 alone. It costs 6000 CFA per book currently. Each student has a French book, a mathematics book and a work book. Many of the books are falling out of their bindings and the covers are worn.

The response to the Kinkajou was very positive. The younger teacher saw many potential uses for it. He wanted to use it to post problems at night where the students could write it down and study it and go over the solution the next day. The classroom could be made dark enough to see the Kinkajou during the day.

They like the ease of operation and think that they could put all the 5th year books on it to cut costs. They would like the flexibility to change the material to suit their needs.

One teacher commented on the size of the images, particularly in reference to adult education. He likes how large the image is because many adults are going blind and it is difficult for them to read out of books.

The ministry of education gave them a teaching tool before. It is a wooden box with a roll of paper with images. It has a handle to turn the images. We are very intersted in seeing this device.

Shop 'till you drop

Back in Bamako after yesterday's day trip to Siby. Today's objective is shopping for pagnas (sheets) and prayer mats for the trip to Mopti. This modem is unbearably slow, as is my typing speed on this crazy French keyboard. It looks like we'll be able to post pictures soon. Stay tuned!

In the city

Bamako is hardly a metropolis; on the same busy road you'll see cattle crossing the street, donkeys pulling carts and expensive SUVs raging past the slow and crowded city busses (old green VW vans without seats or doors). Taxi cabs and other old cars fill the air with emissions to rival NY. Many motorcyclists wear a dust mask to filter the pollution. The only tall buildings around are the banks. There are half-built buildings along the Niger river and across from them, on the banks of the river, are professional clothing cleaners, washing and laying out clothes on the hot ground to dry. Busy and noisy street markets line either side of most roads, but even in the midst of it all, people will stop to say bonjour or ça và with a smile and a hand wave.

Bamako is unlike any place I've ever seen.

The Kinkajou Team, Week One

We took these pictures yesterday in Kati, a small town about 15 km northwest of Bamako where we met with Maria Diarra and her colleagues at the Institute pour l'Education Populaire. Clockwise from upper left, that's Beto Peliks, Kateri Garcia, Stacy Figueredo and Martin Tolliver. Parents, please notice that everyone still looks healthy.

A Walk in Kati

This afternoon I decided to venture into Kati to a marché in search of pagnas (fabric that we intended to use as sheets for our journey up to Dogon country). Kati is a small town about 10 km outside of Bamako. We had been to the Gran Marché in Bamako a few days earlier and the experience was exhausting.

Tim's African shopping negotiation tactics meant spending about 15 minutes chatting with the sales guy for about every 2,000CFA (~$4) we spent. Progress was slow, but we got to meet a lot of Malian shop vendors and many of their friends. At one stall, we were even offered hot tea. The markets are all outside along the narrow streets and are made up of simple wooden stalls and tables that wind on for blocks. Vendors display their goods including all kinds of food, clothing, shoes, mats, soap and other items for daily living. Walking around the market requires a great deal of attention - hopping between giant red puddles of muddy water, avoiding the impatient taxi vans that bump along through the market streets, and ducking between women carrying stacks of fabric or bowls of fruit on their head. One false move and you could trip over a goat or accidentally stand in a bowl of peanuts.

Fortunately Kati was a lot smaller and quieter. I headed out down the street toward the center of town passing a group of women washing clothes in buckets of soapy water and spreading them out over the ground to dry by the side of the road. Mali is a colorful place. Many men and women wear printed shirts, pants and dresses all made from brightly colored fabrics - they also wrap things up in fabric to wear on their head or women wrap their babies up and tie them onto their back. Walking along the edge of the road I watched almost everyone stare at me as I walked by. There are many different ways for people to call out to get your attention - "piisssst, piisssst…" or they purse their lips and make a loud kissing sound or often the kids just yell out "toubab" or "blanc" which means basically "hey you white person!" They even have a little song that they sometimes chant, "toubabou tababou…". I smile, wave, and say "bonjour…ça va". Yes, I am a white person and I stand out.

The marché in Kati was relatively quiet that afternoon. I found a stall selling pagnas and flipped through the different patterns to find something bright and cheery. The guys helped me pick out two fabrics and cut them to a single pagna length - usually they sell 2-3 lengths for the women to make into dresses or skirts. I didn't bother negotiating the price - the price he gave me was already well below the price we paid for the pagna we bought in the Bamako market after 20 minutes of chatting/negotiating. I even managed to have him take me to a tailor to have the edges hemmed for a mere 100CFA. While I waited, the tailor's friend presented me with a small photo album of all the different dresses and shirts I could have sewn - many of the women's dresses were made with round puffy shoulders, fitted waists, and a number of big ruffles. I admired the dresses and his craftsmanship and declined the invitation to choose a ruffled outfit. I already stand out enough.

I decided to wander around the market and a few of the streets of Kati before heading back. I tried to politely ignore the sounds of people trying to get my attention coming from different doorways along the way. I passed the "American Rap Shack" along the way - an aquamarine shack, with a tin roof and a stereo blasting rap in what sounded like French. I passed lots of goats, chickens, mangos, papayas, and plastic home furnishings. Most little shops along the street have a couple of worn plastic woven chairs out front and usually a couple of guys sitting talking or drinking tea out of little pots that they heat over a small charcoal stove. I greeted many people along the way as I made my way back out of town - declining a couple of taxi rides and waving at groups of curious little kids.

Just as I returned to the headquarters building for the Institute pour l'Education Populaire - it started to rain big heavy drops. The women that were washing their laundry an hour ago were now gathering it up and dumping out their buckets of water. A small kid was running around naked, laughing and getting clean in the rain. I'd survived my first solo marché expedition and, although I was tired of attracting so much attention, it was good to know I could get a ruffled dress made to order anytime I wanted.

Somatra Speed Wagon

Somatra, we discovered, is not the way to fly. Bamako to Sevare, including stops in Segou, San and innumerable tiny villages, took just over twelve hours.

Still, the view of the Sahel shading into desert was lovely, and along the road we got glimpses of village life.

Pretty sunset, too.

In Sevare

After a twelve-hour bus ride, we bid farewell to the traffic and humidity in Bamako for the red cliffs and desert heat in Sevare. We've reached the zone of the baobab trees, unmistakable with their massive trunks and crazily-twisted branches. Although we're much closer to the desert, being the rainy season it's still remarkably green here. On the road, we passed flooded rice paddies and sandy fields with corn and peanuts. We saw groves of mango trees (although nothing like those in Siby), and teams of little kids tilling the earth with ox-drawn plows.

We spent the night in air-conditioned luxury at the Mankan Te. We'll pass the afternoon touring Mopti, but it'll be an early night as we leave for Dogon Country tomorrow morning at 6 AM.

Sevare is the first place we've visited that I can truly claim to recognize from previous trips to Mali. That said, a lot has changed since 1997. The forest of NGO signs lining the road at the entrance to town has grown, and now includes all the modern development lingo (wetlands conservation, microenterprise development, etc). The Mankan Te restaurant--where Scott and I practiced our judo flips--has gone upscale, with tablecloths on the patio and a new disco ball in the salon. The Peace Corps stage house has moved to a different part of town, and there's now a gigantic gas station across the street. They've put in a new tourist shop next door, which includes this fancy (if incredibly slow) internet cafe.

This morning, I arranged for our trip to Dogon Country with Hassimi Guindo, our guide. Hassimi is a bright young man from Ende, a Dogon village south of Bandiagara. Unlike our blistering 1996 hike from Douentza to Sanga--which Scott and I later christened the "Dogon death march"--this time we'll be travelling in colonial style, with a donkey cart to carry our backpacks and real food awaiting us each night. By skipping the dehydration headaches and mystery meat by candlelight, I may be short-changing the students on a "real" Mali experience, but now that they know the way they can always come back!

Low Tide in Mopti

Today's adventure was a day trip to Mopti, a bustling city about 20 km from Sevare at the confluence of the Bani and Niger rivers. In addition to being a major port, Mopti is also the tourist capital of Mali, with tour groups leaving by boat for Segou and Tombouctou, by bus for Douentza and Gao, and by SUV and bashe (covered pickup truck) for Dogon Country.

Hassini, our guide, lead us on a tour of the city. Our first stop was the port itself, where from the elevated roadway we could look down the cobbled ramp to the river's edge and the collection of slender pirogues (small, flat-bottomed punting canoes) and bulky pinasses (30-40 foot, motor-driven cargo boats, like long canoes with arched awnings made from grass mats). The air was thick with flies and reeked of dead fish--which reminded us, it's time for lunch!

To get to the restaurant, we had some kids pole us across the mouth of Mopti's small harbor.

From this vantage point, we could see into the boatyards on the riverbank where carpenters were constructing pinasses using hand-made nails and gigantic planks from the coastal rainforests. The river was wide and calm, a sort of cafe au lait brown, and the mud huts of the villages on the opposite shore wavered in the heat.

The Bar Bozo, so named for the Bozo ethnic group who fish the Niger, was built on a promontory overlooking the Bani. As we dined on rice, french fries and omelettes, we could watch the boats passing on the river and attempt to guess the nationalities of the other tourists in the bar (a collection of mostly scruffy Europeans).

After lunch, we plunged back into the sunlight for a tour of the city. We walked through the fish market with its baskets of dried, smoked, flattened and generally unappetizing-looking river fish.

We climbed up on a friendly rooftop to get a better view of Mopti's Grand Mosque, a smaller cousin of the massive mud mosque in Djenne.

Having seen the sites, we turned to the artesenal market, where we attracted hordes of salespeople pushing everything from blankets to necklaces to swords to pajama pants to model Harley-Davidsons made from Coke cans. It quickly became exhausting to have to pass up on so many once-in-a-lifetime deals. Our new friends were sad to see us go, and even as we walked away their sales pitches (and in many cases the vendors themselves) followed after us with promises of unbelievably low prices that would beggar their families for generations.

We piled into our rental four-by-four for the short drive back to Mopti, our driver honking at every moped and donkey cart lest they suddenly decide to swerve into traffic. From the raised roadway we could see out over the endless flat acres of green ricepaddies blanketing the flood plains on either side.

Off to Dogon Country

In order to beat the desert heat, we leave for Dogon County tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. We'll be away for three days, hiking along the Falaise south of Bandiagara. We'll be sleeping under the stars and filtering our own water. We'll be back to Sevare, and our umbilical connection to the internet, on Monday night.

In the meantime I've gone back through the site to add lots of new pictures and content from our trip to date. Send us your comments and suggestions for things to write about and pictures to post.

Dogon Country

We're back in Sevare after three days and two nights hiking, riding oxcarts, fording streams and scrambling over rocks in Dogon Country. It was a journey of extreme contrasts--sublime views and maddening insects, warm hospitality and unimaginable poverty.

Here's a view from our last sunset in Dogon Country, from a point atop the Falaise near the village of Begnematow.

Here are some pictures from the trip. Details to follow.

A young goatherd at the waterfall in Begnematow.

Filtering water in Begnematow.

The village of Tele, seen from the now-abandoned cliff houses.

A Dogon grainery.

The tourgina, or meeting house, in Ende.

The Hogon at Ende, the last person living in the village's old cliff-houses.

Back from Dogon

Dogon Country is definitely God’s country. I saw some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen, yet I encountered the most humbling living conditions and people working in ways I never thought humanly possible. We hired a guide to take us from Severe through Dogon, where we passed through various villages and had the opportunity to meet many people. All around us were cliffs, like the mesas through western NM and Arizona, yet everything was green and lush. The highlight were the cliff villages, much like Mesa Verde, but people still live in many of them. We did a lot of rock climbing (not by choice) and even got to ride an oxen cart (again, not by choice). Yet the experience was more than a tourist adventure. It was a glimpse into the lives of people whose hope for survival depends on the rain. There were instances that brought tears of guilt to my eyes and made me promise to never complain about small annoyances in my life again and there were others that made me want to stay there forever.

Our guide, Hassimi, met us at 6:30AM at our hotel. We set off through Bandhiagara but stopped off for gas and ended up picking up a hitch hiker; a little boy no older than 3 with a soccer ball and a hand full of CFA coins. He needed to get to Bandhiagara. As we drove up the dirt road the little boy grew sleepy and fell asleep on Tim’s shoulder. It was a memorable drive.

The first Dogon village we visited was Djiguibombo. The roads to Djiguibombo were built by the Germans. They are nicely flat red earth roads with concrete bricks laying out the path on each side. They were much friendlier than the roads to Siby but they were still unpaved. Hassimi walked us through the village where we were greeted by a gang of five children and their pet flies. I’ve never seen so many flies before, but they didn’t seem to annoy the children who walked along side us and held our hands. The huts of the village were square in shape at the base, about 3 meters by 3 meters and extended about 5 meters up. They had huts for grain and millet, separated for the men and the women. The women are supposedly stingy with their grain so they get their own smaller huts. Each family has several huts. The inequality between women and men is shocking sometimes.

The Dogon are famous for their wood carved doors, windows and wood posts with figures of men, women and animals carved into them. Each family has their own unique symbols. In the center of the village is an open hut built of crafted flat wooden poles that branch out in a Y shape. Each pole has a different animal or person carved into it. The poles support a large roof built of thousands of small twigs. These particular huts are meeting places where the wise old men of the village gather to sort out problems. It serves almost as a court house. They have separate ones for the women, one for the children to play in and one for the very old men. We were fortunate enough to meet the oldest man in the village. He is over 90 years old and is still smoking on his pipe that he lights by hitting stones together. I felt so out of place in this village yet at the same time we were welcomed with big smiles and the extended Dogon greeting that translates to How are you? How’s your father? And your mother? And your wife? And your children? And your friends? And so on…When the villagers would pass each other their greetings to one another rang out like a song or a chant. They would exchange greetings while passing one another, even from a distance.

The village of Kani Kombole has the same features as Djiguibombo except that it boasts a beautiful mud mosque and a busy market. After Kani Kombole we stopped in Teli to see the cliff dwellings, which were still lived in until 60 years ago. The Dogon arrived in the 11th century after they were driven from their own land by Muslims who forced them to either give up their Animist beliefs and convert to Islam or die. So the Dogon packed up and left in order to preserve their culture and their beliefs. They settled in the area now known as Dogon country, but they sort of kicked out the Tellum people who were believed to be the Pigmies who now inhabit the Congo. It was very interesting learning about the history of the places we visited. Our guide was very knowledgeable and encouraged many questions. Yes, the men typically have many wives and up to 20 children. The most prevalent crop that we saw was millet, and no the children don’t have a choice of what they get to eat. It’s typically rice and spaghetti sauce; Dogon style (lots of onions).

Our final stop for the day was in Hassimi’s village of Ende, which he claims is the Dogon Capital of Mali. We were set up to sleep on the roof top of a tourist resting facility when the thundering clouds appeared from over the cliffs and we were driven inside.

There is more to come on our adventures in Dogon, but I haven’t eaten in 7 hours so I am off to dinner. Once again, I’ll have the Capitan brochette. After seeing all the cute animals everywhere and they way they tie up the goats to be slaughtered I don’t want to eat red meat again, but fish I can endure any day!

Hassimi Guindo, Superguide

Hassimi Guindo, a young Dogon from the village of Ende at the southern end of the Falaise, was our guide. In addition to seeing to our every need, Hassimi was a fountain of information about the region. He told us fantastic stories from Dogon history and folklore, gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of local arts and crafts, and happily fielded the most random questions from a bunch of engineers.

Those seeking a guide for Dogon Country, Mopti, Djenne or even Tombouctou can leave a message for Hassimi in Sevare at the Maison des Arts or at the Hotel Mankan Te.

Mask Dance in Begnematow

On our last morning in Dogon country, the village of Begnematow organized a mask dance on a rocky amphitheater high on the Falaise overlooking the plains. Fortunately the masks were in a friendly mood, and didn't display their more terrifying aspect (beyond charging one of the guides and scaring Beto).

Dogon Art

While hiking through Dogon Country, we got to visit a number of local artists at work. For example, this gentleman in the village of Teli produced statues and other carvings based on Dogon folklore.

Common themes are the crocodile (who first lead the Dogon to water in their migration from the Manding region) and various exaggerated human figures.

These men in Ende worked with bogolan fabric, dyeing the cloth and tailoring it into shirts and other garments.

In Ende we also found an indigo workshop, where women produced the dye from a mysterious substance that I couldn't translate (leaves? dirt?).

By tying knots in the fabric with thread that they release after soaking the cotton in dye, they are able to create complicated patterns and designs.

Meetings in Dogon Country

We ran into all kinds of people in Dogon country, from Pular women selling raw cow's milk to old muslim dudes zipping around on mobylettes to women pounding grain to whole families digging up weeds in their millet fields. We also met lots and lots of curious kids.

And in one instance, lots and lots of sheep.

Djenne

Wrapping up our visit to northern Mali, this morning we took a trip across the Bani River to Djenne, home of the world's largest mud-brick mosque.

Recording the Experience

Now that we have less than a week to go before the Kinkajou team leaves Mali, it's important that we try to capture as much information as possible. At night after our meetings, the students have started compiling their paper notes into on-line summaries for the field journal.

I've been working on indexing our videotapes (six hours so far, and counting), audio files (about 40 clips to date) and gigabytes of photos. I've got pages of notes with meeting details, and there's always a feeling of having a million other details in my head to write down.

Once the students head back to the US, my wife Elizabeth and I will head to Benin overland via Burkina Faso. We're hoping that a couple days on the beach at Grand Popo away from meetings and internet cafes will give us a chance to get caught up on organizing all of our records.

Tim and Liz, Day 18

Here we are taking lunch at Le Relax, a noisy Lebanese restaurant not too far from our apartment in Quartier Hippodrome. Alas, the chawarmas here can't compare with those in Abidjan, but we do appreciate the plastic placemats.

Cooking with Kinkajou

Martin and Beto spent this morning-into-afternoon working on a video describing the Kinkajou design for future teams of student designers. They had to hunt around the apartment for a spot with decent lighting, and then they laid out a script for the story.

The team is doing a fantastic job of preparing the Kinkajou design project for their successors, both in terms of documenting their work to date, and in terms of building partnerships with potential users and manufacturers of the device.

Although the students will all be headed for other jobs when they get back from Mali, they've all expressed an interest in staying involved with the project as mentors for the next generation of student designers.

Bamako by Car

On most of the weekdays we've spent in Bamako, we've had the good fortune to be able to hire a car and driver to get around the city. We've been all over Bamako in search of NGOs, schools and factories, and the view out the car windows is always changing. For example, this is from yesterday morning, at the edge of the industrial zone, where we ran into a roadside livestock market in full tilt. This cow had enormous horns, and the handlers were worried that the sound from the passing cars would drive into a rampage.

Where ever we go we pass dozens of fruitstands, with their pyramids of lime-colored oranges and green bananas.

Driving through the city is like driving through an endless, open-air shopping mall. You don't even have to get out of the car--the vendors come to you. At every intersection, we're approached by kids selling prepay cell phone cards, toothbrushes, water bottles, leather belts, soccer balls, dog leashes--you name it. Here, down by the river, we passed a clothing store among the trees.

Traffic is sort of a competition, and some formula based on horsepower and momentum seems to dictate the right-of-way. We've only passed a couple accidents, including a mobylette (moped) squashed between two sotramonts (minibusses). Here's what they look like when not crashing.

About Internet Cafes

In the last two weeks, we have become conoisseurs of the African internet cafe. We have learned how to convert keyboards from the French layout back to English. We have learned how to entertain ourselves during the interminable wait for pages to load. We have learned that a gang of kids rushing into the joint to instant message each other pretty much overloads the modem.

Here is the Kinkajou team hard at work.

Here's my typical computer setup. I draft articles and edit photos on my laptop, and then transfer them to the internet cafe machine with a USB compact flash card reader.

Here's a better picture of the card reader. All of the machines here run Windows 98, so I typically have to install the device driver before I can get started. We've been pretty lucky so far in finding at least one machine with USB ports at every cafe.

Malian Miracle Diet

Want to shed those pounds fast? Just drink some unfiltered water! The sights of Mali and its people are absolutely incredible, but for me, being sick for the past couple days is the most I have experienced what peoples lives must be like. I am in the best possible conditions that most Malians could hope for, eating the best food and staying in one of the nicest houses in the area. For the past few days all I have thinking is that toilet paper comes directly from God and that heaven is my moms kale soup. All of us have felt sick at least once on the trip, but we get to go home, and i have insurance. I didnt know that "drink coke" could mean "don't contract dysentary" because it is bottled in some gleaming factory far away. I didnt know that the life expectancy here is 48 or that people can just learn to live with malaria.

Mali

Mali seems to be a living juxtaposition. I have travelled throughout the world, but have never visited a place where such kind people could live in such a beautiuful natural setting but in such a disturbing world.

Since I have been here, I have met a man who built a hangglider from scrap materials and actually flew it; have been offered tea by complete strangers; and have made ‘friends’ with Malians just by sitting on the bus or watching a soccer game on the street. On the way to the internet cafe I saw two parties in the street with live music and dancing. In Dogon country I witnessed one of the most spectacular natural vistas I have ever seen.

However, all this exists in a land where most people die before 50; malaria and other diseases seem to be more of a way of life than an epidemic; and homelessness is a fact, not a problem. The sewers in the city are meant to be covered by cement blocks, but many sewers are still left open on the sides of the streets. There are no trash cans (as we know it), so people just litter wherever. The markets are an array of nauseating odors, from rotting fish to animal defecations.

I doubt there is any city in the United States which has such a poor infrastructure and is so polluted than Bamako. But, amidst such poverty, you learn to appreciate any little luxury. Here, a first class hotel is one that has a toilet and a shower. A 'smooth' highway is one that is paved. A nice taxi is one that only stalls once or twice on the ride and where all the door handles work.

One thing which I sort of disliked in my more recent travels is that you can always find someone who speaks English and you can always find food and lodging that is just like home--in otherwords, it's possible (and likely) to travel thousands of miles from the US to experience something which is not really unique. This trip has satisfied my thirst for the extreme travel experience. And, athough I have been able to fall back on pizza a few times, most of the trip has been so completely unique, that, for one of the first times, I really am beginning to miss all the luxuries which I have become accustomed to back home.

More than anything else, it is the people that make Mali not only a bearable place, but a country which I am proud to have been to. Earlier, I mentioned how much of Mali looks like the slums in Brazil, and,if I were to have come here alone, I probably would have imagined most of the people to be violent crooks (in Brazil people never go the slums) and would have stayed in the toursist hotels, never eaten in any of the shacks--and never experienced the people, who really make Mali great. (ironially, it was our only real tourist adventure--the one to Dogon country, where they actually have tourist camps built for the Americans and French--where we got sick). Were it not for the extreme generosity of people here then not only would this trip have been unproductive but also probably unbearable. Unfortunately, most of my interactions have been secondhand (with Tim as a translator) and i really wish I spoke French or Bambara (besides 'hello', 'how are you', and 'get lost').

This trip has been an eye opener into the developing world and I now have much more respect for how many people in the world live. It's hard to imagine how life is here from the documentaries and infomercials to donate money who live off a dollar a day, but once you're here you not only realize just how hard their lives are, but also just how hard it is to improve themselves in such a poor and isolated environment. Honestly, I can't wait to get back home to TV, air-conditioning, and fly-free food; but at the same time, I can't wait to use my new-found knowledge and experiences to help make the Kinkajou and other related endeavors successful.

The Things I Never Knew

"I'm going to Mali to work on a thesis project."
"Maui?"
"No Mali. Its a country in Africa."

I think that is how my explanation of this trip should start because I am pretty sure that is how all my conversations went before arriving in Africa for the first time. Honestly, I didn't know anything about Mali myself before the Kinkajou project. After being here for three weeks I think there are many things about Mali that I couldn't have imagined without experiencing them for myself. I knew that I would be sleeping under a mosquito net. But only after being too tired to set one up last night did I get bitten 15 times on the unlucky leg that stuck from between my matress and my bedsheet. I could get malaria like most Africans eventually do. But I am lucky enough to be on medication to prevent the disease.

I knew I could get a little sick, like most travellers do. My stomach has been troubled, to say the least, for three or four days. But I didnt know that the water that people drink out of is a cloudy greyish brown, comes from the same water that animals use, and it is served in a plastic bag. We brought chlorine and water purifiers and bought bottled water and still got sick.

I knew that people went to the bathroom in a outhouse with a hole in the ground before I came to Mali. But when I went to Dogon country and had to use one of those bathrooms in the middle of the night during a rainstorm I was reminded of the childhood panick of going alone to the bathroom. Instead of just a walk down the hall, I was wading through puddles that I hoped were only water.
Toilet paper and antibacterial soap are priceless, and knowing that other people dont have then makes it easy for me to see why it is condisered rude to use your "dirty hand".

I knew that the architecture would be like nothing I had ever seen. But when passing a Tuareg tent that bordered sand dunes of the Sahara I cant say I was truly in awe of how people can survive anywhere. And it is funny to discover that people in Mali just dont see why right angles in houses are all that necessary. The door scrapes the ground a little and the windows are propped open with a stick, but the rain will wash much of the mud huts away so they will have to do it again next year. Rebuilding the ancient mosque after the rainy season every year is like a village party where everyone comes to help and to celebrate. Instead of being sad at its loss they are glad it is reborn. I didnt know that the people in Mali, thought by many westerners to be "muslims and therefore potential terrorists," could be so welcoming and generous.

I knew that people in Mali were poor, but the fact that i can spend more money on dinner at cheap restaurant is more than some people make in a month is something I was never forced to think about until I was trading CFA in a village. The fifty cents I was bargaining for was so much more to them than it was to me.

I knew that people worked during the day and went to school at night and that it cost a lot of their time to learn to read. I didnt know that to go to school could mean having to farm less (meaning eat less) every day, or that you cant save for tomorrow what you dont even have today. I knew they read by candlelight but it never really hit me that doing so meant sacrificing their eyesight. I knew that the Kinkajou was a really fun experiment for a MIT student to build but I couldnt imagine that this project could help so many people.

I knew that our team would do well in Africa, but I didnt know that Kateri (and her mom) packing extra cough drops could make me feel so much better. Tim's jokes made my stomach hurt from laughing (pestomaker), which took my mind off of the actual stomach pains. Liz was there to cheer us on, and share in our excitement of strange looks, broken down taxis, and bus stations. Beto would do whatever was best for the team (including sleeping on the floor...sorry). Martin was my best friend and I am glad someone made sure I drank enough gatorade and kept the creepy crawlies out of our hut .

I knew our trip would be fun... but this was incredible.

Footprints in My Memory

The most memorable moment I have embedded in my head is when we came out of Dogon Country. Watching the sunrise over the cliffs was a breath taking experience but witnessing the poverty and the reality that the people lived through was like throwing cold water on me in my sleep. Our guide had hired some teenagers to carry our bags for us. At first we saw it as a way for them to get out of their daily chores and earn some extra money but I began to observe more closely the feet of the girl who was carrying my bag.

Her heels hung out behind her beat up flip-flop sandals. Bright red blood glistened in the sun from a few cuts on her feet. I just felt horrible as I followed behind her in my $70 hiking boots with nothing on my back. Tim tried to take the bag and carry it for her but she just ran ahead and refused to be called weak by her peers. She was strong enough to do it. I watched as she flirted with one of the other teenage boys who carried another bag and I admit that her mind was not on her painful feet, but I couldn't get over it. When we reached the car I had already decided that I was going to give her my generic Teva sandals. She needed them much more than I did.

When I gave them to her she didn't know what to do with them or how to put them on. So I unstrapped them and helped her to ease her painfully blistered feet into them. She didn't ask for my shoes or for help from any of us, but the guilt weighed so heavily in my mind that it was the only reasonable and Christian thing to do. The girl thanked me several times and wore a big smile as she showed off her new shoes to her friends. After I got up I had to walk away to keep from crying in front of everyone.

The events of that day keep coming back to me sometimes haunting me in my sleep. Did I do the right thing? Will she think now that each time she carries a heavy bag for a white person that she will be given a nice "castaway" item from the Western world? Will she learn to take care of herself or will she let the boys she flirts with hurt her? There are many grim realities here in Mali and in other parts of the world, including the US. What I have learned towards the end of this trip is that even if I go around giving up all my belongings, though it is the Christian thing to do, I will only end up naked after helping a small number of people. I will teach people to depend on handouts and the kindness of strangers rather than depending on themselves.

I think Design that Matters is trying to make the greatest impact for the most people, not by giving away free computers that they cannot maintain themselves, but by providing them with valuable tools to help them help themselves for a better future. This trip has also helped four students from the US to learn valuable lessons that cannot be taught in 4 years, even at MIT.

And They're Off

Kateri, Martin, Stacy and Beto--the Kinkajou team here in Mali--left for Paris on an Air France flight from the Bamako Airport late this evening. It's been a busy three weeks, and together we've learned a lot about the Kinkajou project and about development in general. Alas, I was so busy saying goodbye that I forgot to take any pictures. All I've got is this shot from our second-to-last team dinner. What better setting for our last big meal in Mali than, well, Appaloosa, a bizarre Tex-Mex restaurant in downtown Bamako.

As for our actual goodbye, all I've got is this photo from Liz's camera, of the Mande Hotel on the banks of the Niger River where we had an impromptu dinner with Perri Sutton from JSI.

In addition to being a former Mali Peace Corps volunteer, a superlative ice-breaker and an all-around fantastic person, Perri works with Barb Garner at World Ed. It was the perfect book-end to the student experience, reconnecting with the organization that put us on the road to Mali in the first place. Thank you again to Barb Garner for helping us to get started, and thank you to Perri for such a memorable evening!

Welcome to Abidjan

This--the tarmac outside Abidjan's Felix Houphouet-Boigney International Airport--is the closest we'll get to a nostalgia tour of Cote d'Ivoire for the time being.

And the stewardess says, "Welcome to Abidjan."

A lot has changed in the seven years since I was a Peace Corps volunteer building latrines at elementary schools.

No news from Soubré in ages. I can't imagine what life has been like the last couple years for Lambert, the mason I worked with, and my colleagues at the Public Works department.

Cotonou, By The Sea

Now it's Benin, the capital city Cotonou. What a difference a day makes! We've gone from the the heat and dust in Bamako to what at first appeared to be a mostly deserted city in Florida.

Instead of killing ourselves with a five-day, 1500-mile overland journey through Burkina Faso and northern Benin in the rainy season, Liz convinced me that it made infinitely more sense to fly here directly. We were able to find one-way tickets on STA Trans Africa Airlines for under $300 each--double what I'd planned to spend on bus fares but the difference was still less than a single day of hiring a car and driver in Bamako. Plus, flying was it's own adventure as we debated the contents of the the cellophane-wrapped in-flight meal served between Abidjan and Lome.

Another bonus was the chance to see Bamako, Abidjan, Lome and Cotonou from the air. This is Cotonou.

The airport really was deserted when we arrived. We walked straight through the passport check, and then waited in baggage claim with about four other passengers. It was sort of comical to watch them crank open the roll-up security door and rev up the baggage moving machine for a grand total of five suitcases, which included the Kinkajou Pelican case, my duffle bag and Liz's backpack (which we'd had coccooned in plastic at the Bamako airport).

The only hustler we encountered was a pleasant young woman in a white blouse and blue jeans with an airport ID, who offered to set us up with a taxi to our hotel. Sure, 4,000 CFA was a ripoff for a ten-minute ride, but it was a relief not to have to deal with the usual crowd of pushy maniacs.

Other observations. The taxi driver was adamant about refusing a tattered 1,000 CFA bill, hanging around the hotel lobby and complaining for about fifteen minutes until I relented and traded him for a newer bill. After three weeks of handling all manner of mangled currency in Mali, I'd forgotten how picky people can be about money here on the coast.

The air here is much cleaner, the strong sea breeze apparently pushing all of the smog and dust inland. The broad-leafed trees of the Sahel have been replaced by coconut trees and other palms. The hotel, solidly in the mid-range of Cotonou logements, is already nicer than anything we were able to find in Bamako. The bright blue pool in the central courtyard was frothing with screaming little kids all afternoon.

Taxis here are ridiculously expensive, largely because they're so outnumbered by the more popular alternative: the moped taxi. Piloted by yellow-shirted young daredevils, these mopeds swarm the streets of Cotonou like schools of fish. Stepping onto the curb at a street corner is sufficient invitation to attract a buzzing crowd of them, all politely jostling and revving their engines in clouds of blue smoke in order to get as close to you as possible.

Liz and I hopped onto the backs of matching mopeds for our 250 CFA trip downtown to dinner. Watching other passengers bounce along the sandy streets around us, we figured that they all chose to hunch passively on the back with their hands in their laps (a) so as not to distract the driver by clutching them in a panic and (b) so as to have both hands entirely free to protect their heads and other valuables in case of a wipeout.

We've got just over two weeks left to go in this field study. We'll spend the next couple days out at Grand Popo, compiling our the notes, photos and video we've collected to date. After that, we'll head up to Parakou in central Benin to meet Gabriel Agbede from MVV in Kemon. Gabriel has put together a fantastic, three-day itinerary for our trip to his village. We'll get to visit a number of MVV-lead community development projects, and we'll have to opportunity to experience different facets of village life. After Kemon, we'll head back to the coast to Porto Novo, to visit Fr. Godfrey Nzamujo and his colleagues at the Centre Songhai.

In Benin

In Benin, at a very advanced internet cafe in the Cotonou Post Office. So advanced, in fact, that I can't connect my USB card reader thanks to the security and session timing software they've installed. No photos or long entries until we find an alternate cafe.

The students are all safely back in Europe or the US, we've made it to Benin, the weather is lovely on the coast and we have lots to do!

Independence Day

Today is Benin's Independence Day, marked last night by a mobylette tearing around Grand Popo's one paved road dragging a tin pot, and this morning by a full-blown, flag-waving zemidjan rally which ended in a confusion of mopeds crashing through the bushes at the war martyr's monument across from our Auberge. The green-shirted zemidjan drivers smartened up when the troops arrived with the town mayor, to lay a wreath at the monument and hoist the national flag.

Ouidah

This afternoon's adventure was a day trip to Ouidah, a former Portuguese slave port and now the capital of Voudun (voodoo) in Benin, where among other cultural landmarks we visited the Python Temple. In baby pictures, Liz wore a surpisingly similar expression when holding her little brother Dave for the first time.

Of course, it being the Python Temple, we both had to try wearing the pythons.

We hiked all the way out to the Sacred Forest, an important Voudun site, but it was closed for the day as the gardener was (apparently) occupied in chopping down all of the (presumably sacred) trees. The walk did give us the opportunity to tour the charming suburbs of Ouidah, and some of city's old colonial buildings.

After visiting the Ouidah Museum, set in a Portuguese fort from the 1600's, we set off via zemidjan down the sandy, four-kilometer Slave Road to the sea, which was lined with large, green statues of various divinities from the Voudun pantheon. At the shore, UNESCO and the government of Benin have built an immense arch marking the Point of No Return.

You could get a great view of the bas-relief columns of unlucky slaves chained together by their necks from one of the bars or gift shops crowding the site. There was a luxury hotel just down the road, next to what looked like a new condo development. As at Elmina in Ghana, I found the mix of history and the banal to be confusing and depressing.

Grand Popo

Long weekend in Grand Popo, watching the waves flop onto the beach while catching up on our record-keeping.

Alas, the undertow here is too rough for swimming, and it's been suprisingly cold (ie 78-80 degrees) and windy since we arrived. Still, after three weeks in dry and dusty Mali, we're quite happy to spend a few days shivering on the sea shore. The obligatory holiday snap:

Nightlife here consists of watching the bats swoop around the pillars of the veranda at the Auberge. As we seem to have gotten the room without cable TV, internet access or a free minibar, we're forced to entertain ourselves with board games.

Inspired by Dave Irvine-Halliday and his colleagues at Light Up the World, we bought LED headlamps before leaving the US. They've come in handy when recording field notes at night. (We're saving the batteries on the LUTW lamps Dave sent with us for our village and NGO demos).

Take the A Train

As we were feeling a bit carried away with the romance of rail travel (and as we missed the very cushy-looking Africalines bus this morning), we decided to take the train from Cotonou to Parakou. The first class tickets were cheap, about US$12 each. We soon learned that the train is best for those interested in studying the countryside in minute detail. The train made frequent stops in all manner of villages, and never seemed to get above 35 MPH. The roughly 300 mile trip took twelve hours.

One of the most noticable differences between Benin and Mali is the available forms of public transportation. There were at least five major bus lines operating between Bamako and Mopti, and several others serving different routes. The Bittar Trans gare in Mopti offered at least three busses a day to Bamako.

Here in Benin, we've only been able to find the one major bus line serving the main road between Cotonou and Parakou--and they offer one bus a day, at 7 AM sharp. Apparently this bus typically sells out well in advance of departure, and unlike the Price is Right rollcall of passengers on Malian busses, the system for getting onto the bus in Benin looked more like a rugby scrum, grannies and little kids and young men all hurling themselves at the door as soon as it opened.

Such frantic bus loadings may be a coastal West African thing, as it was at bus stations in Cote d'Ivoire that I first failed to develop the necessary social calluses that enables one to elbow a pregnant mother in the ribs in order to beat her in the door. I was forever missing busses in Soubré because of this handicap.

Although the train took forever, it did offer a unique view of the countryside.

At every village we passed, kids would come running down narrow paths between the mud-brick, thatch-roofed houses to wave and shout at the train.

At the rural train stations, porters would yank open the rusty door of the single baggage car and load and unload all manner of things. We saw, among other things, bicycles, bushels of cotton, bags of charcoal and cords of wood all being vigorously tossed back and forth.

In Parakou

After a twelve-hour train ride through the verdant hills of central Benin, we've reached Parakou. Although little remains of the dense forest that used to blanket West Africa, it's still seems mighty green here--especially after three weeks in Mali. Plants are shooting out of every crack in the ground. Along sections of the track, the train battered it's way through tall grass and overhanging tree branches, bits of plant flying in the through the open windows.

We leave for Kemon this morning; to spend at least three days visiting the village and projects run there by Gabriel Agbede and his colleagues at MVV.

A quick apology to everyone who's sent email over the last week. The internet connection here in Parakou sets a new standard for glacial connection speeds. Worse, although I can edit the website, my MIT webmail account is inaccessible. I'll hopefully be able to catch up my correspondence this weekend; when we're back from Kemon and have the time to find a better connection.

Morning at the Auberge

Spent the morning on the porch of the Auberge, waiting to connect with Gabriel in Kemon. Communications here are tricky. As Gabriel told the 2002 DtM class at MIT, Kemon has one telephone--a solar-powered radio-linked pay phone installed by the government a couple years ago, just before the last national election. The phone promptly expired about two months after the votes were cast, and no one's been out to fix it since. Fortunately, Elizabeth Eckel, a Peace Corps volunteer working on environmental education in Kemon, arrived in Parakou to collect us just after noon. The slow morning at the Auberge gave us a chance to catch up on documentation, for example cataloging our collection of DV video cassettes.

It was also an opportunity to organize the photo archive on the laptop.

We've gotten a lot of mileage out of our mountain of electronic gadgets. Once we get back to Cambridge, We'll post some of the fantastic video and audio files from the trip.

Danse Guelede

The directors of MVV organized a Guelede mask dance for our second night in Kemon. Ordinarily, this dance starts around midnight and can last until dawn, with everyone in the audience getting up to join the dance. At the beginning of the dance, the masks are called out of their palm-frond house by the dancers. Here is the petite mask, who comes out first.

The masks, each in their turn, sang to the community about the past and about current issues, both alone and as accompanied by the singers and tam-tam drummers. This is the grand mask, who came out second.

Both masks wore heavy iron bangles around their ankles, which made a tremendous clanking sound with every stamp of their feet. Both masks approached the crowd to bestow their blessings on various people with their fly-whisks. The directors of MVV, Elizabeth Eckel from the Peace Corps, and their guests from Design that Matters were all well-blessed by the masks.

The singers also had songs related to the community that they would call out when the masks retired to their palm frond house, and as they danced they would gracefully sweep their fans and horsehair fly-whisks just above the ground.

The mask dance was a big deal in the village. Dozens of people crammed their way into the compound of MVV director Enoch Fondohou's house.

Danse des Chasseurs

For our last night in the village, MVV organized a "Dance des Chasseurs", or hunter's dance. This involved fantastic music and singing, lots of dancing, and some amazing magic tricks and feats of strength.

In addition to carrying the fire on top of their heads, the chasseurs demonstrated their strength by having millet pounded in a mortar balanced on their stomach.

The made writing magically appear on a blank piece of paper, and pulled a string right through the middle of a little kid's hand without him suffering any ill effects. They also carried water in a cup full of holes (without any leaking out). Later in the evening, people in the crowd joined in the dancing and singing. The musicians kept up a ferocious rhythm for hours.

Back in Parakou

Spent a fantastic few days in Kémon, getting community feedback on the Kinkajou and the Light Up the World LED lamps, visiting projects organized by the local NGO Mieux Vivre aux Village, and getting an introduction to village life.

So we're back in the world's slowest internet café, waiting for email to load. Meanwhile, Liz and the café staff are watching some direct-to-African-DVD movie about a snake invasion in California featuring Harry Hamlin. More news when we get back to civilization.

Tea Time

Everywhere you go in Mali, you see people sitting outside drinking tea out of these little shot glasses. It's like the national pasttime.

The tea is drunk in 3 rounds (so they can recycle the tea). The first round is quite strong (and is "strong like death"), the second round is "sweet like life", and the last round is "sugary like love". and you're supposed to serve the tea with peanuts.

as you can proably tell, i'm no chef....

Ingredients:
-25g Green Tea (Gunpowder brand)
-2 sprigs of mint (a sprig is about 5-10 leaves, apparently)
-about a shot or two of sugar
-water

Round 1:
a) pour 3 'cups' of water into tea kettle (note: they use shot glasses instead of cups, so when I say a cup, I mean a shot-glass--maybe 1-2shots)
b) add 1 bag of tea (25g)
c) Boil for 15 min
d) add 1/2 cup of sugar
e) mix. mix by pouring some tea into the cup, then pouring the cup back into the tea kettle. repeat several times.
f) serve 3/4 of a cup per person. (serves about 3 or 4 people)

Round 2:
using the same tea as before.....
a) add 3 cups of water
b) boil 12-13min
c) add 1/4 cup of sugar
d) add 2 sprigs of mint
e) mix
f) serve

Round 3:
using same tea/mint as before.....
a) add 2.5 cups of water
b) boil 10min
c) add less than a quarter cup of sugar
d) mix. serve.

Does this Taxi Stop for Chickens?

We set out after breakfast from our Hotel in Grand Popo on our way to Ouidah, a small town about 25km east - also known as the voodoo center of Benin. To get to the main road, where we had the best chance of flagging down a taxi on its way between Togo and Cotonou, we had to hop on the back of a zemidjan - a moped taxi. Since there was only one zemidjan in sight, the driver convinced us he could take two of us…even though Tim looked incredibly skeptical.

Later that day we had a zemidjan driver in Ouidah that claimed he could carry 4 passengers or even 5 petit passengers! We quickly learned that zemidjan drivers are adept at handling all kinds of passengers - grande and petit (even little babies ride on the back of zemidjans wrapped in pagnas around their mother's back) and all kinds of baggage - including produce, bags of rice, household goods, firewood, tables….

Anyway, we were still new to the zemidjan experience at that point and without another zemidjan in sight, and the prospect of the long hot dusty walk to the main road, we decided to take our chances.

The ride was most difficult for Tim as he sat on the back and had to cling desperately to the seat. I was afraid we'd hit a big bump and loose him off the back of the zemidjan - but miraculously this didn't happen. Slightly wind blown and relieved, we arrived at the main road and paid our zemidjan driver who quickly sped off to find more people in need of a lift. Now all we needed was a bush taxi going in our direction.

Here is Tim on the side of the road waiting to flag down a taxi heading in our direction.

Unfortunately all the cars going in our direction looked like they were relics from the sixities - rather disheveled and kind of falling apart. It didn't take long before one of these cars rambled to a halt in front of us. Doors flew open, the driver (dressed entirely in olive green) jumped out and there was frantic discussion back and forth in both French and the local language. A few bags and people switched places, one passenger departed and then the driver indicated that we had better hurry up and get in like he might just leave without us. Two seats had opened up in the second row - apparently for us. We negotiated a price to Ouidah, then piled in, and we were all off.

Our bush taxi - also called a "septplace" in some W. African countries (since it technically seats seven people, two in the front with the driver, 3 on the middle bench, and two on the back bench) - was an old Peugot. The odometer read over 210,000 miles but it had stopped turning long ago, probably many thousands of miles ago. Every surface inside of the car was covered in a reddish-brown dust, many parts were missing, and the seats were all saggy and worn. All the windows were rolled down - it was a pleasant breeze - which was lucky because as far as I could tell there was no way to roll up the windows. There were no handles. There were also no door handles or locks - just rusty gaps in the door. I was amazed that the car held together over 40 mph - it seemed as if we went too fast or hit a bump the wrong way parts might just fly off and we'd be left with just a Peugot frame and some wheels.

The one thing I'd noticed that did function in every automobile in W. Africa is the horn. A loud horn is essential (unlike door handles) on anything that travels over 5mph. Beeeep, beep, beep! Women carrying firewood, cars, mopeds, goats, cows, chickens are all blasted out of the way with the aggressive and often abused sound of the car horn.

Our driver was a jolly fellow, with a round face, contagious smile and mischievous eyes. We quickly learned that seven was not the limit to the number of passengers that could fit in his Peugot. And as captive passengers on this journey he decided we all had plenty of time to join him on a few little errands on the way. Our first stop, 3 minutes down the road, was for fuel. There was a lady selling fuel in various sized glass bottles a top a small wooden table on the side of the road. Our driver hoped out, poured a bottle of fuel into the car, took a leak off the side of the road, and exchanged pleasantries with the nice lady selling the fuel. I would guess this was a regular stop for him by the way they joked back and forth and laughed like old friends.

A typical fuel stand on the side of the road.

Following our fuel stop we started acquiring more passengers and assorted baggage. An old woman, perhaps on her way to a market in the next village, slid into the front seat. Then we stopped at a cluster of mud brick buildings down the road where some young kids stood out front selling firewood. The driver started yanking bundles from a couple of stacks and tossed at least eight of them on the roof of the Peugot. I have no idea how they stayed up there as we swerved off down the road - but they did.

We picked up another lady with a little girl, who joined us in the second row..and then two young guys and a young woman. We now had 9 passengers and 2 small infants squeezed into our ramshackle Puegot. Suddenly we veered over to stop at a tomato stand. Both the driver and the young woman in the front got out to buy a few bags of tomatoes…the two woman in the back with the little baby voiced their impatience with our jolly olive green driver…" chauffer…" they called out expressing the exasperation with all his shopping errands but knowing there was little they could do about it.

Still, at least we didn't stop for chickens. We did pass a taxi on our way loaded with chickens on the roof! I couldn't really tell if they were alive or dead or perhaps just in a state of shock at traveling upside down tied to the roof of a car.

Back on the road again, it wasn't long before we encountered a police check. There were a few wooden barricades in the road and some uniformed police men with rifles wandering around looking official but slightly out of place. A few hundred meters before the police check, another taxi traveling in the opposite direction had flashed his brights and our driver had pulled out a red plastic taxi sign from a compartment in the dash. He plunked it on the roof and, with the plug from the taxi sign dangling by a short cord into the drivers window, we made our way past the police check. A few hundred yards past the police check, the driver took a quick look in the broken rearview mirror and, confident that he was out of sight, pulled the sign back down and tossed it back into the shelf in the dash.

As we got closer to Ouidah there was more traffic on the road - other ancient bush taxis, trucks and mopeds. There were times when the thick black clouds of exhaust became overwhelming, however rolling up the window to avoid excessive inhalation was not an option. I tried to hold my breathe in the thick of it…but it was impossible to avoid breathing in the heavy acidic fumes that shrouded the road.

At last we reached Ouidah. Our driver pulled over to let us off on the side of the street in the middle of a mob of young boys. They crowded around us to see where we wanted to go, while Tim pulled out our CFA to pay the driver. Unfortunately, the driver had no change (he'd probably spent it all on tomatoes and firewood) and so he took the rest of his fare from one of the kids standing around and drove off. We were now obliged to pay back this kid. We negotiated a zemidjan ride from him and his friend for the two us to get us to the center of town. And off we were again, traveling African style, into the voodoo capital of Benin.

At the Centre Songhai

And now it's the Centre Songhai, in Porto Novo, on the coast about an hour's drive from Cotonou. We've spent a delirious morning dashing all around this amazing facility, visiting the fish ponds and juice-making facility and machine shop and all sorts of other places, asking questions and taking pictures. More concrete documentation to follow soon!

Culture Shock in Europe

What happened to all of the moped taxis? Where are all the chickens and goats? It must be Brussels, which means we're halfway home. We'll spend the weekend dining on moules et frites and taking the sun at some sidewalk cafes, before catching the plane back to Boston.

Murray, Oscar--looking forward to seeing you both at the airport. To everyone else, thank you for all of your wonderful messages and your interest in DtM. We'll catch up with our correspondence first thing next week!

Back at MIT

And now it's Boston, and reviewing the mountains of field data with DtM cofounder Neil Cantor.