Hey! I'm back in America.

here are some pics from the 50 cfa zoo in Bamako....possibly the most depressing zoo I've ever seen.most of the animals pictured on the map arent there. The Manatee IS there, sitting in its tiny tank...its just dead. And has been dead for two years. According to the guard (who wouldn't let me take a picture- but let me poke it), the dead manatee will stay there until the new one is shipped in- any day now.

there's a concrete dinosaur across the street for no reason whatsoever

so anyway, i amused myself at the zoo- mistakenly ate an uncooked brochette and made myself sick, went and visited the Keita's and generally freaked myself out on my last day in Bamako.

I did manage to get on the plane and not fall asleep in the IRC like many volunteers, but as soon as I got on the plane i passed out and didn't wake up until they were kicking me out in Casablanca.

I spent a lovely four hours at CMN, and then an even lovlier seven hours at JFK- where I spent three dollars on a cup of tea, and cursed at a little old lady because I forgot that everyone in America can understand english. oops.

Once I arrived in Bmore, I basically dropped my stuff, said hi to my parents and then passed out for two days. When I woke up I realized I wasn't jet lagged- I had malaria. Again.

Which I really don't understand, because four days before that- I had bloodwork done through the Peace Corps and I'm pretty sure I tested negative for everything known to man. eh.

All this meant was that I had to wait a little longer to eat sushi.

Um, so the point of all of this grammatically incorrect rambling is that I will no longer be updating this blog because its called Amber In Africa, not Amber in Poverty. I will keep posting pictures on flickr though, so just check the photo page for updates.

cheers!

My host sister's new baby- Sita

My tree guys building a hangar (while fasting)

The finished product

The finished pepiniere yoro

Thank you again to everyone who donated, i swear thank yous are coming as soon as i can track down Karim and the donor list.

countdown to leaving site- 7 days

countdown to leaving country- 13 days.

wheee!

i just had 80000 cfa stolen from me in the market = some jackass in sugu ba is now $150 richer.

luckily the Peace Corps replaced the money.

gah.

i.am.pissed.

nope. didn't work.

still sad.

last night it rained for 5 straight hours and this morning i woke up and couldn't get out of my door because my gwa had collapsed. sigh.

in other news Id like to say congratulations to the PC Mali volunteers who have recently gotten married and/or are on the way to engagement.... you are so much braver than I could ever hope to be!

Because Ive been sad for the past couple weeks, I've decided to go to Koulikoro to meet the new stage replacing my teammates up north. Going to Kko reminds me....

RIP Dr. Waffles. According to Koulikoro Kaw, Dr. Waffles was eaten by the neighbors.sad.

Hey everyone, thanks for the Bday wishes [and packages Poptarts!]

Ive been in a fairly bad mood for the past couple of weeks, mainly because I slapped a cop and was arrested.

I thought a nice trip out of Koulikoro would help, so that weekend I went to Kayes....and i think that made my bad mood worse.

So as of now, I will be completing my last project in Samaya and the probably getting the fuck out of here.

Ill keep everyone updated.

Site announcement happened yesterday.... and yet again I don't have any teammates.

4 (or 5) Education volunteers are going to be living in Bko/Kati, and there's an environment volunteer in a village outside of Siby, (which is pretty far away from my site), and then another new volunteer 50/60 km from my site.

Koulikoro region has over 20 new volunteers, which seems like a lot- until you consider all of the Ed volunteers in the city and the fact that everyone's very spread out.

Here's to another 8 months of only seeing volunteers when I go into the Peace Corps bureau. Yay!

just got back from a field trip to Keliya (?) with the NRM/Aggies, aka the Enviro group.

I like this new stage, theyre all just fresh off the plane, clean and upbeat.

And there are three asians in this group - thats right, i said THREE. (To be fair though, the last stage had a few asians, but they all moved to the north of the country so they're dead to me now.)

Anyway, for the next month or so I should be heading back and forth to training at Tubaniso trying to convince the cooks to let me eat dinner there.

here are some pictures of the Belushi's, I thought I'd post some since everyone's going home soon. Enjoy.

Everyone on the bus after swear in Mud wrestling

Outside of the huts at Tubaniso Ryan at the pool during Waist Team Kayes at 4th of July

!!!!!!THANK YOU!!!!!!

Thanks to several generous donations, the Samaya Tree Nursery Project was funded in just a week!

(or at least i think it was funded, because it wasn't listed on the Peace Corps website last time I checked)

proper thank you's will be coming as soon as I get Peace Corps Mali's staff to cough up the donors list.

PLEASE HELP

Hello there-

as everyone knows, I recently moved sites from the oven that is Kayes to the slightly smaller oven that is Samaya. Because I just arrived here- I figured my first project should be something small, and related to trees.

So please help me raise money for a small collective of pepenierists who support their wives and children on the income they make from selling trees.

please go to

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-266

donate away!!

- and if you don't donate, it means you hate nature.

And children.

Malian children.

Pics from Barcelona are now up on Flickr.

Cancellation of Newsweek

Dear Friends,

As connectivity and technology have improved in the countries where we serve, many Volunteers now have access to news and information as if they were home in the United States. Even in remote areas, Volunteers have access to information through cell phones, laptop computers, and Internet cafes. This follows the growing trend that most people now receive their news electronically rather than in print.

For the past years, the Peace Corps has purchased copies of Newsweek for Peace Corps Volunteers. With the speed of news today through electronic means, the stories in Newsweek are many times out of date by the time the magazines reach the Volunteers. In many cases, the distribution of the magazines can be an additional burden and expense to posts as well.

With most Volunteers preferring to receive news electronically and the increased costs of purchasing the magazines and distributing them, we have decided not to renew our contract with Newsweek at the end of the fiscal year. This will provide a significant savings to the agency, and there are many other ways in which we can support the Volunteers with those dollars.

As the end of the fiscal year approaches, please inform your Volunteers about this cancellation. We will still be providing the Peace Corps Times to Volunteers every quarter, and as we discussed at the Country Director Conference, we are working on several new ways for you to communicate with your Volunteers electronically.

NOOOOOOOOOOooooooo.......

Tomorrow I'll be hopping on a plane heading to Barcelona, then back to Mali-la for COS Conference in Mopti.

I'm looking forward to not waking up to the sounds of:

-roosters

-donkeys having sex

-goats eating my fence

-call to prayer

-4 children all under the age of 6

-the radio blaring Malian music at 6 am

see ya in a week.

here is the beginning of a list of things that drive me insane in Mali

1. men and women who drive with little kids on the front of their motos

2. arguing with cab drivers over the price of a ride, and then spending the rest of the ride listening to how you shorted him 250 cfa

3. telling a cab driver where you're going, then five minutes into the ride having him say "you know where this place is right? because I don't."

4. cab drivers in general

5. post offices not having any change....ever

6. Ex-Pats sitting in a house with a pool complaining how hard life in Mali is

7. men waiting until brousse taxi's are crammed full, and then lighting up a cigarette next to a woman with a baby

8. being called Chinois/Chine by random men on the street

9. being called Chinois/Chine by children

i'll think of more later......I'm only this bitter because it's hot season- I swear.

Rauschenberg.

http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=19254&z=3

also, Happy Mother's day...late.. i totally forgot.

anyway- here's a picture of a three legged cat.

Before

After

4 years of college to become a ditch digger.

who wants to buy me a book?

metal roof + mango rains = less sleep for Amber

you would think the sound of falling rain would be soothing...instead it sounds like someone dumping marbles on my roof for 45 minutes.

In West Africa, the last name "Diabaté" is a bit like the surname "Smith"

Interview

I have a new least favorite drug- fasigyn.

I took fasigyn and threw up for the following two hours. But apparently this will kill the amoebas living inside me.

i think i'm going to be in bamako for a while.

& as a side note, i sincerely believe that anyone with a soul patch should be punched in the face.

it's hot.

very very hot.

sad.

also- I've opened comments to anyone now. So post away!

note- The word for shea butter in french is Karite. The word for karate in french is Karate.

The Most awkward conversation of my life

Man who randomly showed up at my house- I saw you running on the gidrone and i was wondering if you could teach me karate.

Me- (thinking he said karite)- Of Course! What village are you from? Are you with an organization?

Man- No...it's just me. I'm from Kabala.

Me- I really don't do formations with individuals.

Man- what formation? If you want to find a group, we can go to Sebenikoro this evening and find the group there.

Me- Why would they be meeting at night?

Man- Because thats when they do karate.

Me-?

Me- Yeah..I really don't want to go all the way to Sebenikoro at night for a formation.

Man-Ok, well you can just teach me here then.

Me- in Kabala?

Man- Yes, if that's where you want to go.

Me-I just went to Kabala- and the Women's Assoc. said they were pretty well funded and sell shea products in France...

Man- The Women's Association? What? Can you just come and teach us some karate? Or do you at least know kung fu?

Me-.....oooohh KarAte. I don't know karate.

Man- why not? You're Chinese.

Me- ok. I'm going to go away now.

long story short.

I'm an idiot who just wasted 15 minutes of this man's life.

Hello everyone, I'm back in town briefly to open up a bank account. Apparently I can't just keep my account open in Kayes. blah.

But while in town I participated in my first Bamako Hash Run- which oddly enough includes a lot of hazing and rocky terrain. For 3000- you go on the run, drink all the beer you can and then go enjoy a dinner at someone's house. fun fun.

i also got to say goodbye to Ryan's dad, who hopped on a flight Sunday morning.

I should be back in town in a couple weeks.

I'm having problems uploading pictures on the blog

check out http://www.flickr.com/berhead instead.

I figured that since i'm still waiting around in Bamako, I should give everyone an actual post.

Here's what's been going on with me during the month of February~

I've been drifiting around Bamako for the past couple of weeks waiting for my site to become liveable ( read: waiting for a latrine to be dug), and luckily i've run into random PCV's coming through town for work/travel/parent's visiting. I had the pleasure of meeting Ryan S's father who looks just like Ryan, and is equally as freakishly tall, I also got to see my favorite Asian Belushi Trinh, other Sikasso kaw who I would never see otherwise and Waister's who brought back a lot of interesting gossip from the Waist Tourny in Senegal. (apparently a PCV from another country set his face on fire attempting to down a flaming shot... and all of the newbies apparently think Elieen and I are 'negative'...which I guess is actually correct.)

there's not much else to report~ hopefully more interesting things will happen in the next few months.

Update- my APCD called the other day and I should be able to move into my new site on Thursday or Friday. YAY!

That's right everyone. I'm back in Bko after a very short and pointless stay in Kayes.

Any PCV's heading through the Ko in the next couple o days please call me (!)

~ I'm offically Koulikoro kaw now!~