Somatra

“Yesterday, my friend Amanda and I set out on our way to her site, a Victorian style French town 35 km north of Segouville in the Segou region. We had just stayed four days in Segou, swimming in the pool, drinking margaritas and getting ready to leave for our respective sites. I, for one was very anxious about finally riding public transit on my own, since I am notoriously bad at it. I remember being in San Francisco last summer and trying to get a bus to Sacramento when I got all worked up and just stood on the corner and watched busses go by, too afraid to get on. Bush taxis are a whole different animal. Bush taxis (or boches) are old jalopy conversion vans that Malians like to cram at least 2-3 times the maximum intended passengers into it at one time. Sometimes there are original seats in the vans, but they’re usually taken out so they can pile more people/goats/chickens/(insert strange object/animal you never thought would be in a motorized vehicle with you EVER) in their place. Most of the time the doors are off or broken so there’s the added fear of falling out of the boche while en route. I must admit I was petrified. So I thought I’d ride up to Amanda’s site with her for a few days and get my public transit wits about me before heading out to site alone…for three months…

Amanda and I shared a cab to the boche pick up and had thought we agreed on a fare with the driver at 500CFAs per passenger. When we got to the side of the road where the driver dropped us off, the fare had changed. Or at least that’s what I’m thinking happened. When we got out of the cab, we were swarmed with about 15 men, all anxious to know where we were going, grabbing our bags out of the trunk, which included three huge backpacks, a propane tank and stove for Amanda’s new house, plus various kitchen and cleaning supplies in separate and cumbersome plastic bags. While trying to keep track of our belongings, we handed him our 1000CFAs. Apparently that was not enough, and the man started yelling at us and tried to hand the money back. “O ma chan!” (that’s not enough!) Of course all the other men started getting into it with him, and us. I remember in our cross cultural sessions, our trainers stressed that greetings and joking will get you out of most situations like this, so I grabbed at any straws I could. “What’s your last name!? Are you a bean eater?” They just kept yelling and arguing in fast angry muttered Bambara that I couldn’t begin to decode, especially when all my translation skills had just shut down because of pure fear. Our language was just not good enough to get us out of this, so we agreed on an extra 500CFAs and the cab guy finally left us alone. I think I called him a liar (I ye galontige ye) and told him I was “not happy.” So lame. Thinking back on it I put together beautifully poetic Bambara jabs that would have surely gotten the fare lowered, but alas.

The stress didn’t exactly end there. The 15 men swarming us at the cab had scooped up all our bags and carried them across the road to where other men sat and drank tea. We asked if this was where the bush taxis would pick us up and they said, “No, the bush taxis aren’t running today, the gas is bad and we are getting you a private car to take you.” I knew we were being schooled. They kept saying, “I sigi, I sigi” (sit down sit down) but I was so annoyed I kept calling them liars and asking them why they thought I would believe that the bush taxis weren’t running today. Finally, after 20 minutes, the first bush taxis showed up on the other side of the road, FULL of people and goats piled on top. The men were resistant, but grabbed our stuff and headed for the taxi. Then an empty taxi showed up behind that first. Naturally, for comfort and sanity reasons, we wanted to get on the taxi with less people, so that was another round about of arguing price, getting our stuff on the right one. I befriended a Malian woman on the more empty bush taxi to kind of take our side (I think) and get us on the roomy, less expensive bus.

I’ve learned now to always take the bush taxi that is completely full. Otherwise, we’ll in the hot Africa sun for hours waiting for passengers to fill up the empty bus. OR! Drive back into town searching for passengers. At one point we went the wrong way down a one way street, almost bulldozing some donkey carts in the process to find a woman standing on the side of the road. She got right on the bush taxi like it was completely normal. I couldn’t believe it was happening at the time, but find myself saying more frequently, “This is Africa.”

Finally we headed out of Segou and on to Amanda’s town. It was around 5 o’clock and the sun was starting to set over a picturesque African landscape as I reflected over the afternoon’s somewhat hellish events. I was astonishingly relaxed, as I seem to always feel when I’m eventually on public transit. Finally the heat had let up, the sunset was breathtaking as usual and we were finally on our way. After a few stops and a run in with about 200 cows crossing the road, we were dropped off in Amanda’s town. It was dark now and pouring rain, of course. We stood under an awning at the bus stop/market and waited while we thought of the best way to get to her house, two miles away. We called her contact at site, who had picked her up at site visit to take her to her house, but of course his phone was off. Plan B. Well, we didn’t really have one. So we stood there as various people came up to us and asked us what were doing and where we were going. We kept trying to say we were on our way to our house, but had too much stuff to carry if we walked. Mostly we got some blank looks and offers to come drink tea in their house down the street. At this point we just wanted to get to her house, dry off and cook delicious pasta and tomato sauce that we had purchased at the butigi across the street.

Nothing like a two mile walk on a night in the pouring rain through flooded mud streets to work on those muscles! We hoisted our bags on our backs, balanced plastic bags on our arms and carried the propane tank between the two of us and headed toward our house. “We are going to be so much closer after this.” I exclaimed, “Or we’ll be enemies,” Amanda muttered. “Impossible.” I said. We were both impressed by how high our spirits were. There really was no point in being cranky because there was no alternative to getting to her house. We stopped a few times to readjust, fix a broken plastic bag and re-angle my headlamp so we could see the rivers in front of us that we had to navigate around. At this point as I’m writing this, I’m laughing hysterically to keep from crying but wincing from the pain in my ribs because I seriously pulled something last night. As we trudged on, I was afraid to ask how much farther it was to her house. All I know is, we made it, and it really didn’t seem that far once we got to her house, “nsh Allah”.”

Swear-in

We came back to camp early Sunday morning after our last ten days at homestay and an overwhelmingly emotional “final farewell.” It is very taboo for Malians to cry in public, so I was caught off guard when all the women in my family were practically wailing. In what I think was a defense mechanism on my part, I felt nothing and just wanted to get out of that village and on to my site. The last ten days at home stay were definitely the roughest. I had come back on a high from site visit, my language skills had really improved and I felt so integrated that I went practically unnoticed as a Toubab! Well, not really at all, but I was definitely more comfortable with my village, greetings in the local language, and even the food! My digestive system now feels like a tank, ready to take on anything Africa can throw at me, due also in part to the probiotics a little angel sent me in a care package (hi mom!), but I digress.

I would like to take a little time to talk about my host sister, Mama, because I feel that without knowing her, you won’t know anything about me in Africa and the strange personality that I have taken on as this “Alima” character. Mama is a sixteen year old who acts like she is the boss of her village. While at first it was endearing and kind of awesome because she acted as my body guard, she had become increasingly persistent and copped some sort of attitude with me every moment we were together. However, it was in those interactions when she bossed me around, that I developed the greatest cross-cultural asset, “sass.” I guess acting like a puppet by making me dance for other Malians at the market, or eating t’oh over and over again has its advantages. I can confidently say I am ready to take on any kind of crazy, rude, invasive Malian that’s thrown my way because I’m pretty sure I’ve dealt with one of the worst. Not to say that she’s bad, but she’s definitely… sassy. Mama may be the source of most of my frustration with Africa, but she was also my greatest learning tool.

On our last day at home stay, our village had a little party for us. Since it is Ramadan, dancing or partying of any kind is not encouraged, but our 101 year old village chief said “screw it” (loose translation from Bambara) and had a dance party for us anyway. We all gathered in his concession, greeted and thanked and blessed one another in much the same way as the first day we arrived. When I think back to that first day, driving into our village, trash covering the streets, nyegen pools overflowing, hundreds of children with unfamiliar faces, covered in flies, I was petrified. Little did I know that after two short months I wouldn’t notice the trash anymore, I’d be comfortable walking through the streets and the market, and not only know all the children, but like them too! I was sitting next to my host mother, Kyatu, and her little baby boy and had my three favorite gals, Batama, Awa, and Ara standing behind me, listening intently to the village chief and our language facilitators exchange blessings. Batama (my African C.C.) had her hands on my shoulders and would occasionally pick a little pimple off my back. I’d turn around and look at Awa, her big beautiful smile beaming at me and laughing like she would never be able to stop. Sitting there with them was another one of those reflective moments. These past months have been a part of the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life and it definitely sucked at times, but this moment and the way I feel know in Africa has made it all worth it.

I’ve grown not only to like Malians and feel comfortable with them, but I am also growing closer to our group of 66 volunteers. It’s taken a while to get to know them all individually because there are so many, but I can definitely feel some long lasting friendships forming already. Everyone is really respectful and supportive of each other, and we haven’t had anyone “early terminate” yet, which is apparently a huge accomplishment for Peace Corps Mali. Groups from previous years had lost a significant amount of their members by this time in their stages, so we’re all pretty proud of how “die hard” our group is, especially since Mali is a hardship country and the 3rd poorest in the world.

We officially swore in as Peace Corps volunteers on Thursday (I’ve posted new pics of the ceremony and the after party!) I’m now in Segou, and I leave for my village on Tuesday. I’ll be there for the next three months, working on my language, getting to know people in my community and trying to figure out projects I want to work on. Today, I am excited and ready to get to my site. I’m ready for the change of pace and finally getting control over my daily schedule. Training was definitely starting to wear on all of us but the structure and preparation of it all has truly impressed me. Peace Corps is much more organized than I had anticipated and I feel totally taken care of.

I heart Africa

At this rate, the two years are going to fly by. Last week, we split up into groups to do a “community assessment” project in different villages. Some of us went “brusse” and others stayed close to the capital. My group had an overnight visit in a town about two hours south of Bamako, where a Madagascar transplant had been for four months. His site was breathtakingly beautiful. No trash, vast sweeping fields and tons of baobob, mango and shea trees (it doesn’t take much to impress my eyes these days). He was less impressed by the scenery since his last site in Mada was next to a waterfall. Damn him.

The most important thing for us to do first when we arrived was to greet the important people in the community (around two hundred in the whole village). We walked around for about an hour, stopped at most concessions and sat, said hello, thanked them for letting us come to their village and so on. I had heard that they bought a goat for us, and had yet to find out what exactly that meant. (Are we going to ride the goat? Pet it?... oh no.)

As we waited for lunch to be prepared, we went ahead and started the “workshop” of sorts in the village’s school building. Seventy people attended, which apparently was a lot. The volunteer there wasn’t sure if people came for the program, the food or the white people, but it didn’t matter as long as people showed. We figured we could get about 20 attendants per white person and should use our “star quality” as a strategy.

The first part of the project was a “community map” where villagers simply draw a map of their village, and highlight important landmarks. Peace Corps Volunteers act as a facilitator for these communities to do their own assessment. Each volunteer is paired with a counterpart at their site who they empower to run these sessions independently of Peace Corps once the volunteer goes back to the states. We just ask the right questions and give them a big pad of paper and a sharpee. I didn’t realize just how amazing this part would be until we split the group into men and women. I sat in with the women while they drew their version of the community map. For the first ten minutes they discussed who should be the one to draw and didn’t know if any of them had actually held a pen before. Finally, three or four of them escorted the one woman they deemed educated enough to the front of the classroom and watched as she drew the beginnings of the map. While they all were seemingly shouting at her, they were supporting her every move. I don’t know why I thought this was so remarkable, but seeing this woman portray her version of a “tree” was nothing short of a spectacular stick figure. I almost cried.

What they were proud of: their water pump, the school, fields, mango groves, vegetables, the well, “protectors of the field”, hunters, the mosque, animals, farmers, teachers, and the road. After the two groups drew their respective maps, they got together to present. This part was very important to them: presenting their drawings and affirming that they did a good job. Every few words the presenter would say, the group would respond with a short “owo (yes)” or “mm-hmmm.” The call and response demonstrated their immeasurable respect for one another.

Judging by what we were told to expect from our session, our group did well. People paid attention and it all happened quickly and efficiently.

After the first part of the session, we had lunch. No more goat prancing around the concession, but alas I should have seen that coming. But where was all the meat? All I saw were organs and bones. I’ve gathered now that Malians rarely eat the meat, they throw that to the dogs and save the really “good” stuff for their guests. We had another session after lunch and a rain storm (All Malians activity stops when it rains). When the second session was over, the village elders thanked us one hundred times over. One man said, “We know what you’re doing is very important. We know that health, food, security and success comes only after knowledge and you are here to bring that to us.” He went on to say, “You have left home, and now you have come home.”

They all stood up and started clapping and singing and put our trainer in the middle of the circle and sang her a song with lyrics that were, “The moon is God’s messenger and you are its star.” My God, these people really know how to pull on heart strings.

Needless to say they liked us enough to slaughter two more goats (yes that’s three total in 24 hours). As I watched one of the sacrifices I realized this would be the first of many and I had better get used to it.

That field trip was the beginning of all good things for me. After being here a month and a half, I’ve finally gotten a taste of freedom and control of my life. The next day I was brought to my site for a five day “site visit” with my community counterpart (An elder Malian man named Makona Diarra (my joking counsin! We make “fart” jokes to each other constantly and it’s our sole form of communicating. He’s a total rock star and reminds me of “Mufassa” from the Lion King.) I’ll be living in a community of about 6000 people along the main road between Bamako and the old French capital, Segouville. I couldn’t be happier. It’s a small enough village where I get to feel a part of the village, and big enough for some anonymity. I’m set up to work with a women’s cooperative that makes shea butter and also to help with a community garden that is 7km away. My banking town is Segouville, which has a Europian/Arabian nights feel: wide tree lined cobblestone streets, huge markets with rugs and beautiful cloths for sale, and sunsets over the Niger. Oh, and white people. White people! And most locals speak French.

I set two main goals for myself at this site visit: first was to find my core group of women/my new best friend and second was to find the best cook in town and have her cook for me, or show me how to cook. If anyone knows me, that didn’t take long. I live in a three room cement house with electricity and share a courtyard with a family. The wall of our courtyard is shared with a family of all women right next door. Perfect. I immediately went over to them, sat down on a mat, drank tea and tried my hardest to tell them in my broken Bambara/French that they were my best and only friends in all the world. They understood me perfectly and gave me five guinea fowl eggs as a welcome gift.

The second goal happened with no effort on my part at all. My new host dad, Braima Diarra took me over to a woman’s house the first day for lunch. He kept calling her the “jatigi muso” which I’m guessing means some sort of “important classy woman”, and her name is Tante. She speaks perfect French, Bambara and Tomaschek, her house has tile and her children are the cleanest babies I’ve seen in Mali. I later found out her daughter lives in Chicago and she’s been to visit her frequently. Seeing the few luxuries in her home made me feel so happy and safe, but guilty at the same time. I shouldn’t like this woman exponentially more because she knows the importance of hand washing and not eating “to” for every meal, but I do.

The last five days have been nothing short of blissful. One thing I’m certain of is that I’ve learned from my mistakes at homestay and have set clear boundaries for personal space in my new living situation. No one is allowed in my house, and when I want to go to bed, I don’t have to kick out a gaggle of women that insist they can sit on my bed for hours and chat and fan me til midnight. My house is my own little sanctuary. I’ve got a bedroom, a kitchen and a yoga room. Yes, I’ll be burning incense (f***ing hippies).

I’ve set up my house as best I could with what the previous volunteer left me: a comfy double bed, gas stove, bookshelf, trunk, mirror, (did I mention I have electricity? POSH CORPS!) Also, I’ve been fed so well it’s ridiculous. Gotta pack on all those pounds the amoebas got rid of! I have a routine set up where I spend mornings alone, my host mom, Jeneba, brings me some porridge, I do yoga, take a bucket bath, then walk over to Tante’s house for lunch, spend a little time with my counterpart and his family, back to my house for midday nap, then next door with the ladies and drink tea. (My host mom thought it was hilarious when she found me over there drinking tea. “You’re Malian already, Alima!”)

To top it all off, I found my new best friend on my last night at site. I had been introduced to her on a tour with my counterpart two days before, but paid her house a visit again on my own after walking around town one evening. She’s Peulh, so she’s practically one of the most beautiful people in the world. Additionally, she impressed me with her elegant tea preparations. I walked into her concession and sat down to greet, drink tea and awkwardly chat. We met in the middle somewhere between French, English and Bambara. I’ve gathered that she’s twenty two, and lives with her husbands family even though he lives in South Africa most of the time for business. Her family lives in the same village as she does, but a few blocks away, but she has to live with his family because she is his wife. When I come back to live for good, she’s going to braid my hair and teach me how to cook “zame” (my favorite dish). In a long pause in our conversation I thought, “this is her, this is my new BFF” and in that moment she turned to me and said, “tu es mon ami premier!” Ah, yes. Biggie??? Where are you???

She went on to ask me if I’d help her learn English in exchange for Bambara lessons and of course I agreed. The first and most important thing I thought to teach her was “You are my BFF.” She said it flawlessly.

Two days ago was the one month mark from leaving home (but who's counting!?) While most days have seemed to drag on as some of the longest days of my life, the month has flown by. I owe my salvation and sanity to the medical unit in Bamako. I had heard of this magical place with comfy mattresses and AC, but never allowed myself to think of it for long. Finally, after a four day escalated bout with amoebas, I checked myself in. What a good idea! Movies and ice cream and pizza! Oh My!



As it turns out, Africa's pretty dirty and it's hard to avoid getting poop in your food.



Four gatorade packs and an antiparasitic later, I was back with my homestay family. They insist I must have gotten sick from the clean bleached water at Tubaniso, but I just don't have the language (or the heart) to tell them otherwise...



I now realize that I have become a complete characature of myself. Everything involves a huge hand gesture or body movement that accompanies my broken Bambara. "Hello! How are you? how is your family? and your husband!? I am on my way to the place that I study! With my American friends! Then I will eat, and then I will dance! May God increase the blessings of this day!" Seriously, I've said all that... a lot.



Each morning I wake up to my host sister, Mama, saying my name about 8 times before I answer. I haven't thought of a clever enough way to tell her to stop bothering me a 6:30 am, so I just say, "No, mama! I am sleepy. I want to wash myself" And then I get up, carry my things for the shower outside, grab my bucket of water and head to the Nyegen. Bucket baths are my best alone time, so I cherish them. Balancing clothes and toiletries on the wall, delicately soaping up while trying not to drop the bar down the hole in the cement floor (I've lost one brand new lavender oatmeal soap and two razors... I have nightmares about dropping my toothbrush and sunglasses down there too). When I get back to my room accross the courtyard, Mama is there waiting for me. She has made my bed, swept my floor, and has tea and an assortment of "breakfast" items waiting for me.

"Drink tea Alima. Drink it, Drink it." she says. She's got the most attitude I've ever seen in a sixteen year old and I kinda like it.

"Ok mama! let me put my clothes on first."

I'm sweating by now, since I've been out of the shower for 8 seconds, and I'm trying to decide if I should put mosquito lotion on first or sunscreen, but it all just mixes with the sweat and runs off my skin by the time I leave for school. "Eat the bread, Alima. Eat it. Eat the Siri (rice porridge). Eat. Eat Alima." I try to curtail the lb of sugar and cup of powdered milk she puts in everything, but fail. Then I scarf, so as not to be rude, say I'm full about 4 times before she believes me, and head off to school in my diabetic coma.



Recently, I've discovered that my new BFF, "Muso Kura" (Amanda, who also went to CU Boulder and who's mother's name is Kathy Duncan. I'm not kidding, Mom! totally a "Parent Trap" moment.), gets the best food because her host mom is an amazing cook. This is where my life in the states has translated perfectly into my Malian lifestyle. I stop by her house around meal time every day and graze, then get my second supper of "to" and onion sauce with my family. It's great becuase it's rude not to eat when you pay a visit during meal time, and this way I don't offend my host mom who doesn't know how to cook anything but millet gluten yuckiness!

I had one of those strange moments a few days ago when I realized my eating situation was dire in comparison to Amandas. I went over to her house almost to tears after being served rancid four day old rice without much of an appetite due to the parasites. She was just getting ready to eat and said, "That's it, we're having beans and you're eating here from now on." Her mother brought her a table. A table! "WHAT???????" I said, "You eat off a table!?" Well, yeah Alima, what do you eat off of? "THE GROUND!" We laughed. She even had a table cloth. Needless to say her family is happy to serve me because I eat A LOT when i'm there.



Originally, when the children saw a group of us walking through town they'd yell, "Toubabu! Toubabu!" (white person! white person!) but now, because I have pretty much become the poster child for integration, the new word for "white person" is, "Alima Jan! Alima Jan!" The other volunteers tell me that the little children yell that to them, even when I'm not there. Well, atleast I'm integrating!

Homestay

I just got back to Tubaniso after twelve days living with a Malian family in a nearby village. Eight of us from the Small Enterprise Development stayed in the same village and met each day for Malian culture and Bambara classes. My host family is the Traores. My host dad, Adama, was not at the initial welcoming cermony, so I was taken to my house by my sisters, Mama and Umu. They gave me a Malian name, Alima and showed me to the room in their house that peace corps had set up for me. (They named me Alima after the grandmother of the family, Alima Diara. I later found out my name is the same as a famous Malian women's rights activist, Alimata Traore.) After about 20 minutes of mixed hand gestures and awkward pauses of just staring at eachother, we set up my room and had a silent lunch. The meal was "to", a form of millet pounded to death, turned into gluten and eaten with your hands. Your right hand. The left hand is considered "dirty." My first hurdle. We have "to" or rice or pasta with every meal and an onion sauce. Some other trainees have had peanut sauce, which sounds divine, but I haven't had it yet.

My host dad is a farmer, so he brings me cucumbers and melon every day from the fields and they are an awesome source of vitamins in an otherwise carbo loaded diet. Beans are the absolute best thing Malians make, but there's a cultural joke around them so you get made fun of if you eat them. I don't care, they are great! Can you tell I'm having some cravings right about now?

My family is all women. I live in a compound of four houses all with courtyards and the gaggle of women sit and talk and pound millet and braid eachother's hair and make me dance and sing. (sound familiar?) Sometimes we walk aorund the village to the market and they parade their american and tell me what to say.

Greetings are very important and a huge part of Malian culture. Each greeting is a long exchange of questions and answers that varies depending on what time of day it is, "Good morning! How are you? how did you sleep? how is your family? how is your father and your mother? What is your family name? ooooo, Traore? you eat Beans!!! hahah, No you do!!!" And you have to do that with EVERYONE you see on the street or you are considered impolite.

It's exhausting, but those moments where I understand what's going on and I can actually particpate in the exchange are worth it. I am really lucky. I LOVE my host family. They are always so excited to see me when I get home from class and we mess around with eachother, joking and dancing and making fun of eachother. My little sisters are the coolest chicks I have ever met. One of them, Batama, is so hard core. She can pump water with a baby on her back and abucket balanced on her head while laughing at me. Awa, is the best dancer around and knows all the Malian hip hop songs so she's teaching me some new moves. I spend the most time with Mama. I think she was kind of put in charge of me, so we eat together and she gets me my bucket of water in the morning for my "shower."

Everyone asks me who my husband is and when I reply that I don't have one, they assume it is because I would not make a good wife, so they are actively trying to make me a good wife. I am learning how to cook and clean and carry water in the bucket on my head and never get tired from it. They do all these things and never sleep! The women are so strong and wonderful. They laugh a lot and eat, and eat and eat. They want me to get fat so they can show that they are providing for their American. Which would be great, except that everything is going straight through me, so I 'm not exaclty living up to their expectations.

Being back at Tubaniso is a much needed break from our village stays where we live in a fish bowl, followed around constantly by little children screaming, "alima jan! Alima jan!" (Alima, the tall one) Which is so adorbale for the first five minutes. Thank god it's socially acceptable and encouraged to beat children... (no I haven't! but i'm close)

Things I wish I had brought: yoga mat and yoga pants! duh. Emergen-C's acai berry flavored. Pro bars! Craisins. Ice. can you ship that to me? There is no ice in this country and it's 100 degrees.

I made it!

It's been almost a week now since I left the states with 66 other peace corps invitees headed to Mali. When I arrived in Philadelphia for initial orientation (staging) I was not ready to believe I was actually going to Africa until I held that plane ticket in my hand. The flights were long, tiring and exciting. Everyone in the group getting to know one another; chatting, cracking jokes, nervous and anxious. I think it was a total of 30 hours before we finally landed in Bamako, the capital of Mali. We walked down a flight of stairs off the plane right on to the runway and I can still feel the heat and I just remember the flatness of the landscape. This was such a huge moment. Two years I've been talking about joining the Peace Corps and going to Africa and it had finally happened...

Peace Corps trainees met us at the airport and directed us through the scene that was baggage claim. (pretty similar to Key West only aboud 200 people all trying to get their bags off of one belt) We drove to our Peace Corps camp training site "Tubaniso" dropped our luggage in our huts and got a crash course on the bathroom situation (Nyegen = cement structure with hole in the ground. Oh, and shower!) I vaguelly remember eating something in the refectoire (dining hall) and then laying down on the bed in my hut (glamorous living digs huh?) and just wanting to sleep so I could wake up in the morning and feel differently.

The past few days have been the longest of my life. Endless training/orientation sessions, language tests, interviews for possible sites and on top of that, adjusting to my malaria medication has me on a rollerscoaster of emotions. Most of them good, some of them great! Some of them really low, but the support network from the other volunteers has been really comforting.

The Malian culture is one of the friendliest and warmest I've ever interacted with. All the trainers I talk to and Malians are just so excited and happy that we are here. The orientation and interacting with the group of peace corps trainees feels a lot like those first days of boarding school, only less crying. haha We're in the romantic stages of the culture shock I think. Everything is new and exciting and the smells are exotic and, well, sometimes disgusting, but hey!

I LOVE my hut mates Ryne and Meggan, our laughter gets me through the mefloquin hangovers that I've been trying to deal with the past two days.... awful.

We leave for our homestays tomorrow morning and I am really nervous, but know it's going to be awesome. There are eight of us going to the same village and apparently there's a huge celebration when they welcome "tubabs" (white people). AND there's a wedding in the village the next day!

The worst part is the unknown, so I'm trying to stay present and take my time with the language and integrating because I know it will come.

The best part is that I know the Peace Corps staff here is really good at what they do and have been holding our hands through it all. I feel very comfortable talking with them about concerns and expectations and know they respect my interests.

I'll be without internet starting tomorrow but I'm getting a phone and will have reception! Email me for the number! I'll be learning the francophone national language which is Bambara and also getting a french tutor for doing business in the regional cities. Although I don't know where my site is I know I'll be near a city and working with Women NGOs and cooperatives. I'm hoping to be placed near a health sector PCV so I can help out with some of their projects too.

Well, there's a lot more I could say, but it's hard to gather my thoughts with everything going on. Love to all! Email me!

New Assignment, Mali

Soon after my trip home from staging I received another invitation for the Peace Corps to a new country in Africa. Mali. Still in the throws of my disappointment from Madagascar, Mali sounded like the last place on earth where I would want to spend two years with the Peace Corps. However, it is now nearing the end of June and I've had almost three months to marinate. While Mali is a landlocked HOT African country with one of the highest rates of poverty in Africa, there are really amazing things about the Malian culture and attitudes that I feel I can really have one of those amazing experiences everyone keeps telling me i'm going to have. It is the epicenter for African music and the people are said to be warm, and very American friendly, especially in light of Obama. I am left wondering now if I am still as excited as I was when I started this process over two years ago. So much has changed in my life that I'm struggling to keep my faith that this is the right path for me. Some days I believe it is something I want to do and other days I have serious doubts. Today is a good day. A day when I am motivated and have had enough rest not to go into complete emotional shut down. So,,, I'm thinking i'll move to Africa in two weeks. Two weeks!!!! omg. yes, omg.

I leave July 7th for Philadelphia where hopefully I'll get a little closer than last time and actually go through introductions, immunizations, get my passport and seat assignment on the plan to Mali. (Not Bali, by the way. That seems to be a common misunderstanding)

I'm already packed, so I'm not really worrying about all of that. Although I've already been able to subtract a few things from my bag in the three months of revising my life and readjusting priorities.

The next two weeks are going to be filled with sleep, volunteering a little more at WomanKind in Key West, (a non profit women's health clinic) and soaking up the family time.