Life in the Stage House

**This blog entry is dedicated in loving memory of Peri Dansira, the best little monkey a boy could ask for who, despite being a totally uncontrollable mentally bipolar force of destruction and havoc, was also an adorable, entertaining, affectionate friend who relieved the doldrums of village life and will forever allow me to talk about the days when I had a pet monkey. Alah ka lawula sumaya; ka hina a la (May G-d keep her grave cool; may he pity her soul).**

In my small farming village of Niantanso, the average citizen doesn't drink beer, speak English, know who Radiohead are, watch "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," pay attention to global politics, know how to play Yahtzee, appreciate Taco Night with real cheese, or realize and joke about just how silly Mali can sometimes be. What is a poor Peace Corps volunteer to do when there's nobody in the village with whom to commiserate, make fun of locals, and enjoy the simple pleasures of White-Life? They get the hell outta there and hit the city! Sure, we all joined the Peace Corps to see what life is like in a different kind of culture, and we agreed on Mali because we are probably some of the most adventurous people you know. But even the most die-hard cultural integrators, the deepest burrowed-in site-rats, will sometimes have to leave the mud-and-grass nest of the African bush to plug themselves back into the electrical wiring of Americana. And that is why the benevolent souls who run the Peace Corps established the entity that recharges the sanity, soul, and mp3 players, of volunteers everywhere: The Stage House.

Scattered throughout the country, in the most centrally located hubs around which PCVs are placed, are houses, owned by the PC, operated and maintained by the local volunteers. Most of these houses are located in "banking towns," which as the name implies, are the towns where PCVs excitedly stream at the start of each month, like goldfish at suppertime, to withdraw our monthly allowance. We also take advantage of the trip to pick up our care packages (our immensely appreciated care packages, thank you very much), recharge our iPods and/or double-and-triple-A batteries, check emails, update blogs, stalk Facebook accounts, upload photos (I'll have some up soon, I hope), catch ourselves up on all the news, pop culture, and worldly goings on that we miss out on in our villages.

One thing I've always found a bit ironic is that while I'm practically living under a rock when it comes to current events here – I was in America as well except for when I accidentally read something in the paper or saw something on television, neither of which I get here – I am actually more up-to-date on the latest movies, pop music, and celebrity gossip than I ever was in the states, since that is what the people around me devour with the most vigor. The stage house in Kita, where I occasionally go to get online, is packed with the last six months of People, Us Weekly, and Entertainment Magazines, while when all is said and done, most people spend their spare time lounging around the house watching the DVDs sent by friends or pirated downloads of all the stateside hit new movies. I have also had a couple of real marathon runs, watching in a matter of days, entire seasons of the aforementioned "Sunny," "Entourage," "The Office," and my new favorite addiction, "True Blood" (come on, everyone else loves vampires these days, why can't I have my fun?).

The stage houses are also where PCVs get their supply of books. There are generations, literal decades worth of accumulated books in the library of each house, and since PC tends to attract a rather intelligent and creative bunch of folks, the stock is actually pretty good, although the entire shelf full of Star Wars novels in Kita is a bit of an oddity. Since even the busiest PCVs have periods where they are liable to slip into a coma on account of the sheer boredom alone, we go through enough books during our service to warrant granting each of us an honorary BA in English Lit. My personal tally is in the low 30s, and I feel embarrassingly far behind most of my friends until I remember that it's a really silly thing to feel embarrassed about.

Stage houses are also good places to party, because what would a bunch of rurally-stranded Americans rather do when they get together, aside from watching TV and movies, than party? I don't mean party in the sense of buying a few cases of beer, some cheap liquor, and hanging out with the music blasting and the revelry thriving. Okay, I do mean that. But I also mean the parties that help us pretend that we're still in America. Each major holiday has its own designated location so that by tradition, every year, Thanksgiving is in Sikasso, St. Patty's Day is in San, Christmas is a 3-day hike in the famous Dogon Country, and July 4th is in my own Stage House of residence, Manantali, which is often called the best stage house in all of Mali, thanks to a gorgeous rustic landscape and a property outside the city, a bar and pool right nearby, endless acres of mountains and woods to hike in, whole extended families of monkeys that regularly visit the house, and the Bafin River right next to the property where, as responsible PCVs, we never go swimming or wading because of the risk of river-born illnesses and hippopotami, and we most certainly never buy truck tire inner tubes and spend lazy afternoons floating downstream, though that, too, sounds like fun.

Manantali also just hosted the second annual Seder, the ritual ceremony and meal that celebrates the Jewish holiday of Passover and thanks to my parents and aunt, gave Mali a rare dose of such Jewish standards as gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, and Manischewitz wine. I'm pleased to say we doubled last year's turnout with a baker's dozen in attendance, only four of whom were Jewish. We even invited the PC's medical officer to come while she was doing checkups in the neighborhood. She arrived just in time for dinner and stayed just long enough to find the Afikomen. (The Search for the Afikomen, for all of you Wikipedically disinclined gentiles who aren't in the know, is to the Passover Seder what, roughly speaking, the Egg Hunt is to Easter Sunday. The major differences are that rather than searching for a chocolate egg, we look for a broken piece of matzoh, the unleavened bread, and while the Afikomen was probably what Jesus ate for dessert at his Passover Seder which later turned out to be his Last Supper, the Easter Egg might well have been the first thing he ate a few days later, if you are of the belief that he awoke in time for Sunday Brunch on Easter.)

Many PCVs consider their banking/stage house town like a second home in Mali. Of course, it's not the US, but as I said, we didn't sign up to be in the US. We signed up to be in Mali, be it the sticks or the city, but even back home, staying in the same place all the time can be a bit of a drag. I think most of us also feel stronger personal connections to our fellow PCVs than our neighbors at site, and it is in the context of the stage houses that we build and strengthen those bonds. They are like our college roommates; the people we see the most of now, and will probably keep closest in touch with when we go back to the "real world." For my part, I have loved my life here in the Manantali area. I take a 2 1/2 hour bike ride from Niantanso to our house in the woods, and spend my time lounging by the river, hiking in the woods and cliffs around the lake (the dam is visible on Google Maps!), eating delicious and dirt-cheap local street food which I know I will never find again in the States, spending afternoons at the bar, and of course, being with the other members of Team MANantali (gender imbalance would be an understatement) and also my slightly further away Team Kita crew. But Manantali will always hold that special piece of high-class real estate in my heart. While other stage houses make you feel just a bit like you're back in America again, Manantali feels like your at your vacation house in America – the cabin in the woods. I could easily see myself retiring there, or at least, as well as I can see myself retiring period at this point in my life. And when it's time for me to leave West Africa and come home, I'll remember my stage house with as much fondness, and sometimes even more, than my house in Niantanso. Life at site is the real Peace Corps experience – it's what I came for, but Manantali is what made it just a little more fun, and that is justification enough for me.