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Published: September 16th 2009
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M'Bifé is Bambara for I love you. It is also the title of my favorite Amadou & Mariam song (
&feature=related) and pretty much the way I feel about everything right now. Next Saturday Sadio and I along with our 16 other friends in the group will get on a school bus bound for Montréal. And from there, Mali awaits....
In the last little while:
Last wednesday for our group day we talked about agriculture and the economy. In the morning Lise Beaulieu, a local organic farmer talked to us about the importance of being connected to the food you eat. I found her very inspiring. She and her husband have adopted 7 children who were victims of abuse and run a beautiful farm with horses, pigs, sheep, gaots, geese, chicken, and a huge garden. Her farm provides food for 140 families who buy their meat and vegetables directly from her every 3 months. She used two important words: abundance(I have everything and need plus some to share) and opulence(I have too much so I waste). To her, the most important things in the world are those that nourish us, and it is because of this that farmers and producers
can be proud of their work.
Everything revolves around health....
The health of the soil>The health of the plants>The health of the animals>The health of humans
It is the responsibility of farmers to be careful with and respect their soil. A farmer must be able to live from their work - have enough to feed themselves and their children, receive a fair price for their work, and thus produce a quality product from the soil. When a producer takes care with their land it is healthy and hence produces enough for himslef and for others; this is how we start a commerce. Things are out of balance when a producter sells something he doesn't eat. Lise spoke a lot of fair trade, and a fair price for the producer and the consumer. When the consumer buys for quantity rather than quality it is because of a fear of missing- a fear of not having enough money to buy more expensive quality food.
Other than that, last weekend my parents came up to visit me before our depart for Mali. It was great to see them and we did a little sightseeing in the area (which I haven't
had the opportunity to do). We went to the Gaspe Park and hiked up a beautiful mountain and also visited the Jardins Metis, about an hour away on the old estate of Elsie and Robert Reford. The gardens were really incredible and the old family summer house was open with a great exhibition that displayed life 75 years ago.
This week's educational day, which I just returned home from, was tree planting. We planted 300 trees at the dump in Matane, but with 18 people it only took an hour! We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the grass and talking about Mali. In the morning we met in sub-groups to help organize the various upcoming events. I'm organizing the compte-rendu with Sara and Aboubacar which is two days next week when we will wrap up our experiences in Matane and begin to prepare for Mali. Things are really coming to a close, our goodbye party is Friday night and next Saturday were gone.
Things with my host family are going perfectly right now, and I'm happy it's going to end on a high note. Sadio and I are getting along very well and I have
full confidence that when it comes time to chang roles in Mali she will be a wonderful guide and teacher. Speaking of teaching, I've been volunteering at the school in Saint-Leandre. I've gone a couple of times to help with the English class and have really enjoyed it. There are only 14 kids in the school, all in the same class but varying from grades 4-6. On Friday Sadio and I will go to the school together and she'll do a little presentation on Mali.
So far, the volunteers have no idea what we'll be doing when we arrive in Mali, but we do know we'll be living in a village of 750 people called Karadje. The village if a few hours North of the capitol Bamako and has no electricity or running water! There is a rumour that we are going to work together as a group tree-planting for the whole time, but no one knows for sure. I guess we'll find out soon enough....
Kanben, Celina
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Erika Seidenbusch
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so excited!
Hey Celina! It's so nice that your parents came to see you.. and so cool that your dad showed Sadio pictures from the Guat! I can't wait to hear about Mali! the countdown is on! <3