As I near the end of my service in Mali, I cannot help but feel my time here is just starting. I guess that’s the big pay off for sticking it out the full two years; to realize at the end that it all has just begun. The best part is that in recognizing how little time I have here left I can savor the passing moments: working with the tailor, participating in the daily shop talk and gossip, attending my association’s adult literacy classes with my teacher and being so proud of what amazing strides these women have taken in such a short time. Feeling accepted, loved and at home where before I felt uncomfortable, hot, guilty and so very alone.

The last few months have been a whirlwind of soul searching, hosting, teaching and learning for me. I helped train a promising new group of volunteers in February who helped me realize just how much I’ve accomplished here already and motivated me to finish off my service strong and with good intentions - something that is often forgotten amongst end of service volunteers with temptations of “senioritis.” Then, my home that I miss so much was brought to me when my cousin came to visit with her friend in March. While it was challenging to represent my whole life here in a short three weeks, whilst acting as their translator and tour guide, the rewards of quality time outweighed the company stress. And after short recuperation, I was back at site, full of my overload with American time and ready to reassess why I’m here and what I want to show for it.

I came back to a surprisingly prepared women’s association, all geared up and ready to realize their dream. They had the plans, the trainers and most importantly, the budget outline ready for me to write up a proposal in hopes of getting a SPA (small project assistance) grant through Peace Corps and USAID. Only five weeks later and I’m here in Bamako, waiting for my 4 million CFA grant (about $8,000.00) to build a multifunctional education and sewing center for my women’s association that is open to all women in the community. The center will start primarily to teach sewing as a skill, but the space is available for their adult literacy classes (funded by my stateside mothers) as well as nutrition and HIV/AIDS trainings and a community garden. And my favorite part – they’ll be learning to sew on recycled plastic bags picked up locally and sell the products for a profit.

It’s truly amazing to be at this point in my service. I’m at the best my language can be, I’m working with highly motivated community members who make my volunteer work effortless, and I have strong relationships with people here who trust me, I trust them and we are truly the happiest just to be around each other.

My counterpart and friends keep asking me to extend another year (or two or three!) and when they look at me and I think about all they have done for me these last two years, it breaks my heart to tell them “no.” I simply say, “My mother will not agree. She will not be happy and she wants me home NOW!” That, they understand, because mothers are the most important.

I am happy to report a successful technical exchange I took with my community counterpart, and the President of my women’s association. We toured the northern part of the Segou region, meeting with women's centers and associations involved in female empowerment and income generating activities in hopes of opening a women's cooperative center with the members in our community

We started the exchange in Markala with an adult literacy group. They hold basic Bambara reading and writing classes and basic math once a week in the volunteer’s counterpart’s concession. They were provided literacy books from peace corps and the chalkboards, chalk and notebooks were provided with funding by the Peace Corps Volunteer.

In Niono, we visited the “Center for sewing and cutting,” of which the current PCV serving there has contributed to their impressive organization.

The center highlighted their teaching approach for their students, starting with sewing simple straight lines, moving on to making patterns from paper and then on to childrens’ clothing. Additionally, they hold seminar trainings on HIV/AIDS, female circumcision, nutrition, cooking and other useful information for their demographic of younger troubled teens.

As an added bonus (!) I gave them samples of my recycled plastic bags and they LOVED them. And want to start producing them right away. Niono is a dirty town, I mean dirty... and these plastic trash bags are everywhere with no real solutions. So small projects like this could make a real impact and raise awareness.

At the debrief with our association following the technical exchange, their enthusiasm for the project increased ten-fold. They are actively in touch with many associations in their communities who make soap, shea butter and are interested in food drying. My association is VERY interested in starting a sewing center and literacy classes, and they have a strong partnership with my counterpart NGO, where they would provide information seminars on topics such as AIDS, nutrition and female circumcision.

Seeing those associations in action was invaluable. The association's President was inspired and motivated. It was very important for her to see a successful Malian organization because simply hearing it from me, the "toubabu" sounds like folklore. Witnessing the determination of the other associations showed her that opening a center like this takes tremendous work but is entirely possible.

I am actively looking for potential sponsors for the center and have a few inquiries already, but am putting some of the pressure on the association and my counterpart to utilize all of their resources first, before I can contribute my part in assisting them with realizing their goal.

That's right! They named a baby after me. Move over Mother Theresa! ok, maybe it's not quite sainthood, but it's a pretty good feeling. Of course, having a baby named after you comes with some attachments, like taking it back to America with me...j/k Oh come on mom! she's pretty cute! Officially her name is Jessica, but everyone calls her Alima fitini (little Alima), which means I have graduated to Alima koroba! (big, old Alima...) what an honor. It's my tailor friend, Vielle's baby.

In other news, I'm happy to announce the start of my first funded project. My women's group got their millet grinder last week and are preparing to install it. They're taking out a loan with the local bank in my town to build a cement house to hold the machine, then work can begin. In'shallah, there will be minimal setbacks and hassles, and they can start earning for themselves quickly.

While not entirely tabled, my plastic bag project is on a bit of a hold while I study for the GREs, and try to figure out the best way to approach things. Although I have found a women's sewing center to produce and bags and children are coming to my house by the droves with collected trash bags, it's a matter of connecting the dots and convincing everyone that the project is worth it. Thankfully, school has started and a handful of children are doing some pretty good advertising for me with their bookbags in class, so I know parents are interested, as well the Supervisor for the NGO I work for. As with most things, anything that could be done in a day in America, usually take about a month, give or take. I'll be sure to post updates.

A few days ago, during a 6 hour stretch at the tailor, I faced an inevitable evil at the machine. I sewed my finger.

I was just finishing a sack to match a dress I had made that day and was feeling pretty good about my progress as a ‘seamstress.’ Fasting was about to break, so the sun was setting and because of the late afternoon rains, we had all retreated inside where now my only light source was from the door way into the windowless shop.

On my last few stitches, the machine lost my attention as I guided my hand right under the needle and it stabbed clear through my index finger. Normally, the force of an electric machine would have swiftly pulled the needle out without much hesitation, but this machine is manual. Something as dense as flesh and bone slows it down a bit, to a full stop and my finger stayed pinned down. As I sat there staring at my finger, needle pocking out both sides, in shock of course, I took my free hand to manually remove the needle by turning the wheel.

No blood. No blood. I’m OK. I looked toward Dirisa, a well-seasoned tailor, sitting across from me, not able to communicate what had just happened. Half embarrassed, half pissed that I was so dumb not to pay attention to something so easy to avoid. Then I looked back at my hand as I saw the blood, not a lot, but thick, coming out both the entry and exit wound. For some reason, it doesn’t take much for me to feel woozy in this climate, so I broke into a cold sweat. I thrust my hand to Dirisa, who now understood my predicament and he too was speechless. He called Vielle over to look at my hand. Only seeing one hole, he said to me, “Oh don’t worry Alima, this is nothing. Little Vielle pierced his finger last week and the needle went clear through!” I had my head down on the table, moaning in between bursts of nervous laughter. I heard Dirisa’s voice mumble lowly, “Vielle, it went all the way through, there was blood on both sides.”

Vielle barely reacted. He calmly doused my wound in machine oil(!) and wrapped the finger in a piece of cloth from the shop floor. Work, for me, was done for the day.

We sat outside giggling over my mishap, breaking fast with tea, bean cakes and peanuts. Knowing me almost too well at this point, Vielle joked, “You had better call your mom and tell her what happened!” And I secretly had been wanting to hear her voice, so I called to make her miss me that much more.

The other tailors were on their way back from praying and upon seeing me with my bandaged finger raised above my heart promptly knew what had happened. “Eh! Alima! You stabbed yourself with the machine needle! You’re a true tailor now!” What a way to finally be welcomed into the group. They all proceeded to share with me their war stories of them versus the machine. Some do it all the time, others only once. But in all their years as a tailor, only one of them has never once sewed their hand into the machine, Vielle.

Last month, I followed a hunch down to Ghana to research an organization called “Trashy Bags.” A group of sixty women collect plastic trash bags from the streets of Accra and turn them into recycled accessories ranging from simple handbags and toiletry organizers to change purses and even kitchen aprons.

I’ve struggled, as most first year Peace Corps volunteers do, with not only starting a project, but finding something that inspires me as much as it inspires my community counterparts. While some volunteers find solace in soak pits and community gardens, I’ve been drowning myself in the local language and culture, while patiently waiting for a project more creative to present itself.

Only now, at the year mark, do I have the confidence in my relationships, language and integration to feel like I can go out, have some semblance of blending in, and start a “dooni dooni” project. That being, a lifestyle change that I set as an example, seeing it catch on by people who feel capable of doing so, and having that action stay sustainable until after I am long gone.

For the past six months, I have worked closely with a tailor to learn how to cut and sew complets, dresses and handbags. I started off on his grandfather’s antique foot peddle machine watched by the other tailors as they snickered at me trudging along, fighting with the machine to hem a straight seam. Recently, however, I’ve graduated to the better machines, gaining trust amongst even the tailor association heads who frequent my “sewing station” tucked back in the market place which is barren during the days of the week until Sunday market day when it booms with children and women’ selling various goods.

Before arriving on this continent I was told that Africa’s 'flower' was the plastic bag. “You’ll see it everywhere, just prepare yourself.” Imprinted on my subconscious, that comment is finally taking shape as a possible project. Only, instead of stopping to smell the roses, I’m picking them up off the ground of my village, washing them and sewing them into stuff. Litter is carelessly scattered everywhere, which originally lead me to think that it would be difficult to convince Malians to pick up the trash on their own streets, so I set out one day and just started picking up plastic water bags as a sort of social experiment. I went only as far as my block when I had to turn around and get another receptacle to fill up. Within minutes I had children following me with their own trash bags, pointing to areas where I could get more while women even brought me their own collections from inside their concessions. I was impressed by the community’s receptiveness to cleaning up.

That morning, I washed the trash in alternating buckets of soap and bleach, lay them out to dry on a reed mat in my concession and took them over to the tailor’s to experiment. That day I made a small purse, a book bag and a dress.

Upon seeing my creations, Malians had varying reactions. Mostly they were very impressed by the book bag, women wanted to buy the dress and children were screaming for me to make them one. Ok, not exactly what I was going for, but it’s starting a conversation. One of the tailors asked, “Alima, why are you picking up trash when you can just buy plastic and make things out of that?” As I started to speak, a women sitting in front of my machine, waiting for her complet to be finished interjected, “this opens people’s minds about picking up dirty trash, buying plastic does not help people.”

Ok, so the ideas are there, Malians do not want to live in their own filth and are not shocked by people picking up trash, even if that person is white. I am still in the VERY early stages of this project as an income generating activity, but my smallest success was measured this morning when I returned to my concession. Three children were at my front door waiting for me. They each held out a trash bag full of empty water sachets they had picked up from around town. “Here Alima, you can make something out of this.”

My Women's Association and me after our training last week.

Women participating in a community map!

Wedding motorcade through town for my host family

Signing the marriage license at the mayor's office

I love mangoes. I love mangoes so much that I agreed to come to Mali for two years and live in a mud hut, 100+ degree heat with no A/C, poop in a hole and eat only rice, millet paste and dirt sauce because I read that Mali had ‘the best mangoes in the world.” Thankfully, what I read was true and all the other stuff is worth it because the mangoes here are phenomenal.

My favorite part is not just eating the mango, but how. I was recently surprised by Americans who cut into a mango, befuddled by its mechanics and end up with reckless chunks, peels and a yellow sticky mess. I've always known mango eating as a ceremony that pays homage to the best fruit on earth. First, remove all white clothing and stand near a sink or easily accessible paper towel. Then cut the two large sides off the mango around the pit. Taking each halve, score the “meat” like a checker board, invert it so the perfect square pieces unfold into a flower. This method has relatively little mess aside from the pit section, which is peeled and the remaining fruit bitten off around the pit with nature’s floss as a takeaway. I had always assumed that everyone knew this was the proper way to eat a mango…I was wrong.

When I saw my first mango eaten by a Malian, it was barbaric; the way they bite right into the skin like an apple, and then suck the juice out through a hole. Once they had gotten most of the meat out, they’d pop out the pit, chew on the skins, then throw the remains on the ground for a donkey, sheep, or closest wandering farm animal to graze. And I rarely see a Malian eat a perfectly ripe mango; always the super tart green ones, or those way past fermentation. I would cringe, and even tried to show a few of them my method to no avail or impression.

As with every other Malian habit that takes some getting used to, at first I’m appalled and then shortly after the shock wears off… I’m integrated. Malian mango practices are now endearing, romantic and above all, practical. Of course they’re not going to take the time to cut, score and flower their mangoes. There are just too many mangoes to get through before the season is over and they’re all rotten on the roadside, who has time to waste with a knife? And lastly, once the fruit under the skin is exposed, it’s a race between you and persistent flies the size of dogs that swarm instantly and stick into the pulp.

I’ve since thrown away my meticulous scoring and flowering method and dive right into these huge, buttery delicious mangoes. I barely even rinse them off at this point (sorry Dr. Dawn!) I usually bite off the bottom, then peel away the skin with my teeth, eat the rest like an apple while doing the "Macarena" in a circle and waving the mango hand back and forth to keep the flies away. Then, with my upper body drenched in mango leftovers and flies at the ready, I race to a salidaga*, rinse off and wait for the next mango eating time to present itself, which is usually within the half hour. Ah, Africa redeems itself.

(For those of you who don’t know what a salidaga is, I guess I didn’t bless you with a “Peace Corps Mali” bathroom story while I was back in the states. Like an acid flashback I remember the graphic descriptions I gave to some of you, and for that I am so, so sorry… They are plastic tea pots filled with water used instead of toilet paper and running water… think about it.)

May 3rd, 2010

Well, I’m back. From America ...fuck... At least that’s how I felt when I landed on the plane in Bamako. I sat there frozen, enjoying the last little bits of recycled cold air, gripping the arm rests and staring forward at the blank TV screen while everyone else unloaded. My trip home was so surreally wonderful I had forgotten everything remotely good and rewarding about Africa, Peace Corps and my village. But today - after a week of hiding out between friends’ houses and the stage house in Bamako, delaying the inevitable – I made the journey back to site. The hardest part truthfully is the anticipation of coming back. What has or hasn’t changed since I’ve been away? Will my people be mad at me for staying away for more than a month? Those hesitations, teamed with pining away for the American distractions that whisked me away from certain realities and tempted me to stay away from Africa again. Take a hint, Jessie(!); sick grandma, coup des ta, VOLCANO!??? I guess I can’t say that I heed much caution to signs, no matter how blatant.

But here I am. In my bed, under a mosquito net, fan blasting for another 45 minutes before the power cuts out for the day. And I think I’m OK. My saving grace? The “wet noodle” which is a wet piece of cloth, continuously dunked in a bucket of water by my bed then draped over me as I lay in the 100+ degree heat, trying to doze off. I was told about this technique at the beginning of training while older volunteers boasted about how they got through hot season. I remember thinking it sounded ridiculously soggy and uncomfortable, but it is in fact, divine… It’s so effective that it has me feeling like the rest of hot season just might be bearable.

When I climbed down off the bus onto my street, toting my guitar case and back pack, I searched the road for a familiar face. While I didn’t recognize anyone right away, they all knew me. “Traore!” (my Malian last name) “In I fama!” (it’s been a while) rang out from under thatched hangars that lined my street and I looked ahead in the near distance, fixated on the entrance to my concession. Then as I had hoped and secretly feared, the children came running down the street to greet me and grab my bags, all too heavy for their little frail, boy sized old man frames. Two took my guitar case, almost toppling over as they hoisted it proudly on their shoulders. “Alima na na!!” (Alima has come). They chanted. As soon as I crossed the threshold into my house, greeted by my Mango tree with fruit the size of my head, host dad Brahma and his colleague Dada ironing clothes in the shop next door, I knew I was home. Or at least I can call it that for the next 17 months.

No matter how resistant I was to returning to Mali and finishing up the 2/3rds I have left of service I knew there had to be something real pulling me back, and I remembered as soon as I set foot in my village. I have a family and real friends here. I may not have the most motivation to start projects, build a school, dig a well, or save the world, but I’m making real connections with people that I know in time will pay off. Even if its 5-10-20 years post my service, I’ll know that my time spent here was important to me and the people I’ve met. And who knows, I may save a baby or two.

I have spent the last month in gluttony, vacationing back in the states to see my family, eat real food, drink real beer and reconnect with my American self, who I didn’t know how much I had missed. The best part of all is that being around everyone was effortless and I don’t feel like I’ve missed a beat. Volunteers hear from the past that upon returning home, there is a disconnect between yourself and the people you left behind. But I strongly disagree. If there was one thing missing the most from my life in the first 10 months in Africa, it was being with the people who knew me before all of this. My new friends here, while important and wonderful, have no frame of reference to my personality prior to coming to Mali, and it was nice to come home to familiar and heartwarming faces. Thank you everyone who I saw and talked to while I was home. It was great to see everyone and I’m excited to come back to you some day.

In an attempt to break up a stale routine I had established back at site, I varied up my greeting route and went over to the tailor for a quick, “Good afternoon, are you well? And your family? Children? Wife(s)? it’s been a while? And your family?” This tailor is the town favorite, and a good tailor in Mali is hard to find, so I’m eager to be on good terms with him. Also, there was a trusting familiarity in his “Andre 3000” voice.

Sitting there in his workspace in between small talk, I looked around at the fabric strewn everywhere, two small kids, and another guy at three foot peddle machines, turning gaudy waxy fabric into Malian couture. The heat is starting because it’s the end of February and you can feel how thick the air is, and literally the walls are sweating. We’re trying our hardest not to talk about how oppressively hot it is because it only makes us sweat worse.

Every Malian asks me if I can do what they do. Women pounding millet, or cooking t’oh, breastfeeding babies: they all ask, “Alima, can you do this?” Sometimes I say “yes”, sometimes “no,” depending on my mood, because sure enough, I’ve found my self hopping into the millet pounding lineup, or strapping a baby to my breast. (just a joke, but recently, the little girls in my concession have been really touchy feely with my boobs. They keep asking me to see them because they’ve never seen a white boob before. I think I’ll leave that one to their imagination.)

So, in true Malian form, the tailor asks, “Alima, can you sew clothes?” I’ve seen a few other tailors at work and I think to myself, “God, if my grandmother saw what they were doing she would flip!, they are so sloppy.” So I had thought sure I could do it better than half the Malian tailors. After a little banter about how he’s so busy and has no time or money to finish all these clothes, he sets me down at the foot peddle machine and patiently watches me try to sew a hem on a piece of fabric.

That was yet another humbling moment in Africa. All my notions about Malian tailors have dissolved since my time spent with this tailor. Sure, he blindly cuts huge chunks out of fabric and doesn’t pin or iron a single seam, but the way these guys work is nothing short of remarkable. I knew nothing about how to work a foot peddle machine and they are impossible beasts. Just getting it started takes incredible arm strength, then to keep it going is a whole other work out with your legs. I get so excited when I can finally get the machine working, but then my hands can’t function at all because I’m so focused on peddling. It’s like patting your head, rubbing your belly, doing hopscotch and having a really serious conversation about American politics simultaneously. Also, as soon as I start getting the hang of it, everyone and mother (literally) comes berating me with questions. “Oh! Alima! You’re learning how to tailor!? Are you used to it? Can you do it well? Really well? Oh! (As the turn to the tailor) Did you find yourself a white woman? Did you buy her at the market? Are you teaching her how to sew? What’s her last name? Oh, Traore, that’s bad, she’s a bean eater, she can’t tailor…” And so on…

I’ve gone there now for 5 afternoons now, so in Peace Corps Mali time that’s like 8 months. So far, I’ve gotten the hang of it a little bit more, but as I sit there struggling to hem one side of a pagne, while the guy next to me bangs out three ornate complets, all with satin hems, and elaborate embroidery. Everyone gets a kick out of seeing the white girl try to do anything, so I’ve now added another trick to my repertoire as the town mascot.

January 11, 2010

My mindset when I ride my bike has definitely evolved in the last six months. I remember at first having a healthy fear of riding my bike alongside the main road, whether it was at homestay, or when I originally got to site. I had seen a few accidents already in my short stint in Mali on the roads, so I knew it only took a moment for the road kill to be me.

After a few weeks at site, I had established a few great routes through the corn fields by Konobougou for my morning ride, and could kind of clear my head from the fear that had daunted it in previous weeks. I could predict the slopes in the road, where water would pool from the night’s rain, where the dried nyegen waste to avoid was, and had a new keen eye for donkey carts, goats, and naked children darting across the dirt streets.

One morning in early November, I climbed on my bike and rode out from my house, greeting everyone I could along the way, including my neighbor, Brahma. He was riding on the back of a rickety old moto (this thing had old bike pedals to start it and had parts falling off as it bounced uncontrollably along the dirt road to Baroeli). I was having one of those moments where I really appreciated Africa, its greeting customs and how everyone is so friendly and welcoming. I had just slipped into the groove of the ride, and was anticipating a turn into a large cornfield.

In a second that now replays over and over in my mind like a nightmare in slow motion, I glance up to see less than ten meters ahead of me as Brahma and the man on the moto turn quickly in front of a boche and get run over. I will never forget the sounds of metal and bones crunching, followed by a deafening silence, seeing the bodies in a pile of mess and scraps in the middle of the road, motionless. The boche had pulled off to the side of the road, but the people in it stayed inside, maybe delaying the inevitable because they knew there was no life there in the wreckage. I struggled with shock and confusion as I ran through my mind what exactly it was that I could do. I’m not a doctor, there were other able bodied large men there that could lift the men from the scene of the accident, but all protocol that we have in the states just doesn’t exist here. Is there an ambulance? Would Brahma go to the hospital in Bamako or Segou? Where could he get relatively better care? Here at the CSCOM in Konobougou the extent of their stock room is gauze pads and penicillin. I figured I would alert my family and Brahma’s neighbors so that they could make those decisions for me because I had no where near the language, cultural, or medical where with all to help these two men, who I wasn’t even sure were still alive.

I peddled back to my house in a daze of shock, afraid of how cowardly I looked, fleeing the scene like I did, but I didn’t see an alternative. After a mess of trying to explain the accident to my host brothers, Dada and Brahma, I hid in my house…for three days.

This past fall was a definite test of my emotional strength. It’s a struggle to properly process the terrible things that happen here. One foot in front of the other I guess. I easily locked myself in my room, watched movies, and wrote in my diary, pretending maybe that it didn’t happen... I went to the clinic to visit my neighbor, the older man had died at the scene of the accident, but my neighbor survived for a few more days, while my host dad cared for him with the doctor, without much response. I visited him one day and will never get that image of him out of my head; wrapped in bandages, lifeless on the disintegrating foam mat on the floor, blood speckled on the dirty tile.

Before the accident, I had a hard time connecting with the suffering that Malians and Africans go through on a daily basis. Sure I knew it was sad and horrible and “3rd world,” but there was and always will be too many differences in my upbringing and privileges to identify with them. It wasn’t until the conversations with my host dad in the following week that I began to really connect with a Malian. My host dad was caring for Brahma in much the same ways that I’m familiar with: changing bandages, lifting him to bath, and hurting his back as a caretaker. My biggest frustration when the accident happened was that because of my language barrier, I couldn’t properly grieve with the people in my community. I spoke with my English speaking friend, Brahma (I know, everyone is named Brahma, just bear with me), but it still wasn’t enough to say how I felt. When someone dies, Malians say a number of benedictions to one another, but I couldn’t get them memorized with enough sympathy and frankly, my brain was too full of Bambara and post traumatic stress.

It was in my conversations with my host dad, sitting with him outside on the street every night as his back and heart ached from taking care of his neighbor tirelessly all day that I had the most satisfying cultural breakthrough. We compared stories about me and my dad, motorcycles, careless driving and all while laughing at his children and looking up at the remarkable night sky. We were transcending the language barrier because in the moments between talking, in those moments of silence, I felt a connection closer to him than I had ever thought I could get to a Malian. God was there, helping us both get through this horrible event in our lives that I now see as a landmark in adjusting to life in Africa.

January 18th, 2010

I have owned a copy of Jan de Hartog’s, Peaceable Kingdom for almost ten years. It’s been on my, “next to read” list since then because its 900 pages and the absurdly small text print are a little daunting for someone who pretty much hates reading. I acquired it in my first years at George School, because it’s a novel about the beginning of the Quaker movement and the love story between George Fox and Margaret Fells. My grandmother, Big Mama, knowing that I was not much of a reader, read it for me and gave me some cliff’s notes as she “trudged” through it every night before she went to bed in Beach Haven one summer. I have always promised myself I would read it, and it is the only book I brought with me to Africa because with my track record, I figured a two year stint would be sufficient time to read one novel. I often think about that summer with Biggie, in her bed in Beach Haven, her little reading glasses on the tip of her nose, I’m standing in the doorway to say good night on my way upstairs to bed and she says, “Oh Jessica! This book is truly remarkable, but it’s a lot to get through!” As I read it now, with all of life’s events unfolding as they did, I am comforted knowing that she flipped through these same pages for me, so that she could tell me what it was all about knowing I never would get around to reading it before her. But now I sit here, finally in Africa, trudging through it as she did, and finding that the story would not have impacted me as it has, had I read it before coming here. Its parallel to my emotional quest, search for truth, or at least a reason for why I’m here has been surprisingly poignant.

The protagonist’s spiritual struggle reminds me of my first few months here, being thrown into a home stay family in a village covered in trash and stench, the streets filled with wild, foreign children all screaming in fear and excitement and crying at the sight of us. Those months were definitely the hardest part so far and I am comforted knowing that the worst is over.

“Now the idea that she would have to lie down in the straw to sleep with the children while there might be rats burrowing all around her was petrifying. The voice of fear was much stronger; anything was stronger than the pitiful whisper that pleaded with her to go to those children. Why should she? What were they to her? She had tried her best, hadn’t she? Was there any hope she would ever get through to them? They were beyond human reach… Then the still small voice rose up inside of her, ‘All He has is thee’

That first step turned out to be the most difficult; once she had discovered the candle flame would survive as long as she went slowly, she took heart. She found that if she concentrated on going down those steps to the exclusion of everything else, the whole thing became possible.

She had never quite realized before how horrendous this place was, how futile her effort to relieve some of its horror. It was not fear that would defeat her, it was hopelessness, the conviction that she would never be able to change this place, that nothing could, that the one thing likely to happen was that it would change her.

As she sat there, in the darkness, with the child on her lap, she felt moved to go into meeting quite alone. She relaxed her body, emptied her head of thoughts, even the small babbling ones, until she sat there blank and passive, waiting for that of God to rise within her.

What rose was a thought. A cold thought, almost angry: ‘What is so godly about sharing in their filth?’

It startled her; she had expected something noble, soothing. Looked at coolly and without religious rapture, there was indeed nothing godly about her sitting there waiting to feel the first lice on her scalp. Rather than sharing their filth, she should make them share her cleanliness.

That of God within her manifested itself to clean out this pigsty first thing in the morning.

She suddenly was sure that Christ, had He been a woman, would have done the same.”

As the initial culture shock wears off, the every day “Africa” that used to freak me out, has become pretty normal. I’m gradually becoming under whelmed by things I had first thought remarkable. I haven’t quite figured out if this is a good thing or not, when I take a step back and realize what it is that I am capable of getting used to. For instance, earlier today when I was sitting and chatting with my neighbor, her baby, who she is “potty training” had to poop (another thing I’ve gotten WAY more comfortable with than I had ever imagined… I know, even I can be more comfortable with a bodily function.) Anyway, the mom made a makeshift port-o-potty with her feet that the baby sat on and pooped on the ground between her mother’s feet. Her mom nonchalantly tossed some dirt over it, then swept it up with a broom made of threaded reeds, into a dustpan that was a cut out of a plastic jug… The first time I saw someone do this, I thought, “OMG, that’s the ground the kids roll around in, and I know my neighbor dropped a ladle there the other day and just dusted it off and kept stirring sauce with it…” But today, it’s totally normal.

Another side effect of the fizzling culture shock that felt a lot like tunnel vision is that I’m noticing a lot more about my village. Street signs… Who’d have thought? Not only street signs, but address numbers! I think mine house is # 182. It’s written on a bright blue ceramic tile, pressed into the mud wall facing the street, totally out of place and somewhat remarkable against the brown landscape surrounding it and the trash that lines the streets. It’s these little things working their way into my African routine that I fear will go undocumented as a significant part of my journey. Like the way people just blow their noses out into the open air and wipe the remainder left on their hands on a nearby wall or child’s t-shirt - I’m surprised we use tissues in the states at this point - or how I recognize Africa’s heartbeat, and it’s not some hippy drum circle, it’s the women pounding millet early in the morning. I wake up to it as the sun rises and I can predict their hands “clapping” as they toss the mortar up into the air and slam it into the pestle, scrapping along the side. (or is it the other way around? I can never remember which is which, the mortar or the pestle. It’s a kolon and a kolonkalan in Bambara. Way easier.) It’s this rhythm that makes up the “pizzazz” that accompanies their labors, as if pounding millet all day wasn’t impressive enough.

My village is in no way the most beautiful place I’ve traveled, or even the most spectacular landscape in Mali. It’s pretty developed and has no trash collection (well, unless you count the children who sift through my leftovers and later use my Emergen-C packets as pot holders). There are trees, but not many. Most houses are basic square, cement dwellings, no romantic huts with thatched roofs and adorable little hangars made out of palm fronds. Most of the “foliage” comes from the corn and watermelon fields on the outskirts that make my village look more like Iowa than Africa. Despite its visual shortcomings, Konobougou’s villagers are pretty awesome. They are so genuine with their generosity, respect and politeness because those basic human qualities are just a part of their culture. The other day I was walking home from my homologues house and a little girl walking home from school was so excited to see me, she handed me her half eaten potato and a little bag of salt. She said, “Hi Alima! My name is Alima too! Here’s a potato and some salt, I want you to have it. Can I walk you to your house and carry your bags?”

I go to school with my host sister a few days a week. She’s in the third grade. I walk into the classroom with the teacher, Monsier Maiga and all 180 children stand up, cross their arms infront of them and say, “Bonjour Madame, Bonjour Monsieur, Bienvenue au classe.” And then all sit, cramming five kids into each desk made for two. I guess their politeness can somewhat be attributed to the switch made out of a rubber door jam that the prof carries on his shoulder as he walks around the class, petrifying them into politeness… But those kids sure are damn cute.

Some days, it feels like my house is located at the heart of the village. There are hangars positioned right next to the street where, groups of men gather everyday to play checkers, smoke cigarettes, drink tea and pick at their feet. I can’t help but make comparisons and notice that these guys are the Malian equivalent of our male clientele at the Sugarloaf Lodge, only I must say, there are much more enjoyable and friendly (sorry Grumpa! But I know you don’t read this). Probably because they don’t drink, but they sure do gamble!!!! Oh yes, they bring out these charts with numbers and horses names on them and I watch their adorably juvenile expressions get all excited and pensive as they place their bets on little scraps of cigarette packets and old newspapers that my neighbor tucks discreetly in his breast pocket and disappears into the night on his bicycle. When I walk by they ask me to place my bet and I yell out random numbers and they laugh and pretend to write them down. One day, I think I won. It was a big to do, they gave me a slice of watermelon.

In the same area in my little neighborhood, there is a rotation of women who sell various street food next to a mud brick oven constructed in the dirt. Twice a week, a woman and her daughter bring fish from the Niger and set up shop on the corner, where they fillet and fry fish of various shapes and sizes. Some are little minnows, whole fried and eaten as such, and other huge fish are gutted, cut into thirds and fried. The fish is actually really good if you don’t think about what it was swimming in. Malians chomp right down on the whole fish, head and all, chew for minutes and meticulously spit out the perfectly cleaned bones, while none seem to get lodged in their throats. I pay pretty close attention because I’m always amazed when the little kids aren’t choking. It’s done with such a careless finesse, at first it looked painful, but now I realize that it’s truly an art form, as are most Malian habits and activities. The way the pick up their children by one arm and sling them onto their back, then quickly wrap a piece of cloth around them with one loose knot and the child stays there all day (The babies LOVE this btw, it’s called “boma” and they practically beg their moms to ride along in the sling on their backs.) Or the way they trim their toenails with razor blades and manage not to slice an artery.

I especially like it when they sort millet or peanuts. They wait for the wind to be blowing just right, so that when they hold one gourd high in the air and tip over its contents, the dirt, dust and husk particles are sifted out by the wind and the larger stuff falls into the new gourd below, ready for cooking. Although maybe this isn’t fool proof, since I still have to be somewhat careful when I chew. I’ve had some close calls with rocks in the past four months. (btw, break a tooth, get sent to America to a dentist in DC to fix it! I’ll keep my fingers crossed!)

A Malian’s hands double as a remarkably efficient water faucet. I don’t know how they do it, but they can cup their hands in a way that multiplies the amount of water they’re using by maybe a gallon. When they wash their dishes, their hands, their babies… anything, it’s amazing how they’ll dip their hand in a bucket, and pull it out with a stream that runs for significantly longer than it does for the average person, completely dousing whatever it is they are rinsing.

Care Package updates:

Good cheese! A horseradish cheddar, I swear if you package it well, it will get here. It’s been done.

Cute tops! My clothes are destroyed. No hiking/sport tops you’d think would be great (Please! No typical “Peace Corps volunteer gear,” I’ve got all the lesbian clothes I need, thanks. And you bet I’m leaving them in Africa.

Something fun I can hang on my wall that reminds me of you and the states.

I’ve now put my public transport woes behind me and find my time on busses and boches utterly amusing. For instance, the last one I was on, the engine caught fire and all the passengers ran off the bus in a cloud of smoke where we proceeded to stand on the side of the road for an hour while everyone emptied their water bottles onto the engine and got back on the bus, only to break down again in the next town a few kilometers away. I decided to hop in the next moving, hopefully non-combustible vehicle that went by to make it to my language lesson in village two hours late. Sometimes I have to laugh to keep from crying and just go with the flow. This is Africa.

I’ve been at site almost a month now and every day that I’m here I feel that I make a progress, if only to say that I’ve survived another day in Africa. September might have been the slowest month of my life, but it’s over now and I’m already feeling October fly by. I’m settling into the groove of my village, feeling more and more comfortable. I guess I stay in my village more than other volunteers because they're starting to call me a "site rat"... They're just jealous because I love my town more than they love theirs... It's true!!! My town is known for its watermelons and the Sunday market. Every Sunday, it explodes with people from all over the region selling their produce and some of the most random items: car parts, furniture, dried fish, prayer mats, gateaus, bread, fresh cow’s milk, sour cow’s milk, really old and nasty cow’s milk… I can find pretty much anything I need on Sundays. Sometimes it’s just too overwhelming, but I love walking around and getting lost in it. The great thing about Mali (and I've heard this about most of West Africa) is that once you’ve met someone, you are friends for life, so it’s very difficult to feel alone. I always find a friend to walk around with, or just to say hello and feel like I belong. I wander aimlessly, looking for anything in a cooler because I know there’s a slushy, icy treat in a plastic baggie. I usually go for the frozen yogurt with coconut, but there’s a ginger and hibiscus tea which I just learned how to make last week. I try to find someone new to sit with and watch them sell their items, scoping out their produce or cloths for the day and try to finesse my bargaining. I guess you could call that part of my research for “small enterprise development” but I have a hard time feeling like this is “work.” Everyone is really eager to teach me Bambara, so they’ll humor me, or ask me the basics, “Are you married? How many children do you have? How do you like Mali? Are you French or from “Ameriki.” click click… (did I mention there’s clicking in Bambara? It’s subtle, and more of a signal that they’re listening or understanding. I definitely have the click down, it makes me sound like I know what’s going on…)

During my first week at site, Ramadan had ended and everyone broke their fast with a celebration called Sambe Sambe. For three days, gaggles of women and children multiplied on the streets, swooshing as they walked around the village greeting each other in their newest shiny wax fabric dyed in a wide array of vibrant colors. The men in their elegant flowing boubous - the tuxedos of Mali - slaughtered many a livestock that everyone ate. And ate. And blessed. And ate. And blessed again. The children, like trick or treaters, ran around to houses singing benedictions and asking for money. My host mother had bought her grandbabies cheap plastic watches and sunglasses and they rocked them like they were the coolest kids in village, which of course they are. My host mother, Tanti, is the sweetest person in all of Mali, but you’d never know it by the tone of her voice, so it took some getting used to. The sheer volume of it sometimes makes me think she is yelling at someone she hates across town, but no, she’s just talking to her children across the concession. I now love her for it, but was a little scared of her at first. Plus she makes the best food in Mali (well actually her children do, she puts them all to work): rice with peanut sauce and lots of veggies, fish gumbo and rice porridge, flour tapioca porridge, she makes me crave Malian food now! Her t’oh is even gourmet! All her children are fat and happy, people in the village even refer to her one daughter as “Batoma Bilibiliba” (Batoma, the fat one). She has another daughter in America and feels like it’s her duty as a mother with a daughter overseas to take care of me.

My brain is totally overloaded with Bambara and I’m hoping it’ll work itself out soon and I’ll actually be able to form complete sentences. Right now I just spit out random vocabulary to get my point across, but don't make any real sense. I think Yoda is my inspiration… ("Sleepy I am", "hunger I have", "you are going where?") I meet with my language tutor four times a week for Bambara lessons in French. It’s a fun couple of hours where we play charades and sometimes I get it right. He’s a highly respected man in my village and as I mentioned before, he’s a rockstar. He and his cousins were the only educated kids in his village growing up where there was no school, so they started an organization that sold various things their community made and saved that money to build the first school in their village. He’s still active and extremely motivated at age 65, plus has three wives and 10 plus children!

Peace Corps sent my Language Coordination Facilitator (LCF) to come and stay with me for a week for more intensive language training. I think if there’s a way to “over” integrate, I’ve done it. Not only am I here in this little village in Africa, eating, working and conversing with Malians, but now I have a Malian living with me in my house, and am absolutely comfortable with it, actually I couldn’t be happier. Back at homestay I had joked with my LCF, Yagare, that I was going to take her with me to site, so when Peace Corps set up this extra language training and asked me who I wanted my LCF to be, it was a no-brainer. I keep trying to write about her in my journals or my blog, but I’m without words because Yagare is just… she’s just… amazing! She’s so sweet, funny and incredibly intelligent but is in her own little world sometimes and it brings me the most joy just watching her. She could stare at a flower for many minutes before noticing anything going on around her. Her English is nearly perfect and has little quirks in its syntax that I just cannot correct it because I think it is too adorable and I wish everyone spoke like her. One day, I came to her house after a group yoga session we had after class and she was laying out clothes she had just washed on the rocks around her courtyard. I asked her why she didn’t come do yoga with us and she replied, “Oh! I was laundering.” So many gems like this, it’s hard to pick just one to share with the world. Her voice, with its low dulcet tones is simultaneously light and lofty, like she’s singing to my heart when she speaks! Aside from my inappropriate love for her, I’ve really benefited from this week at my site with her. She has made me much more comfortable with my village and she has helped tweak the things I’ve learned in pre-service training so I can incorporate them into my daily routine: ie. greetings (slightly different dialect in my region from what I learned in training), bossing children around (I cant get them to do pretty much anything for me now) et c. It’s exhausting the lengths Malians go to bless things or greet people, and just when I thought I was doing it enough, I paid attention to Yagare and realized I had to up my game. I now fill about an hour more of my day just going through the same blessings.

There are times when I know that what is coming out of my mouth is pretty accurate Bambara and Malians react in the strangest way. It’s like when David Blaine does a magic trick that totally freaks people out and they kind of scream and run away, but then turn around and slink back to him saying, “how did you do that?” You get the picture. I’m a lot like David Blaine.

So, my mom keeps asking what I’m doing. I guess she means work. But everyone knows I’m no good at that. These first three months as a volunteer are supposed to be devoted purely to language and getting acclimated with my community. I have basic survival language skills now, but I have to improve my vocabulary to start working with Malians in a productive way. A little more than just, “Good afternoon! Are you well? And your family? Did you spend the night in peace? Where are you going? Is your female friend there? How is she? How is her family? (Meaningless word that is very important inserted here) Nse, (literal translation: it’s because I am a woman) May God increase the blessings of this (insert anything here ie: day, afternoon, donkey cart) Amiina, Amiina, Amiina, Amiina. Tomatoes here? Are they good? How much for a pile?” It may seem monotonous, but it’s all very important. As soon as you greet someone, they are instantly your best friend and ally. If I’m going to get anyone to trust me enough to work with me, or think I’m here to help them and not some spy from the US government, then I have to greet and just spend time with as many people as I can. I drink a lot of tea. And I yaala yaala (to walk around and greet) a lot. Yes, there’s a term for “to walk around and greet” and it’s a totally acceptable answer to “where are you going?”

Africa is definitely growing on me. I’m not just talking about the amoebas and jungle funk. The first time I felt that “connection” to Africa that I hear from people who have traveled here, or want to travel here, or love Africa (for whatever reason, I didn’t really get it), was when I noticed my extremely heightened sense of smell. I’m starting to notice things I would never have in the states. The way the breeze wafts over toward me sometimes I can tell exactly what’s going on with my neighbors: tea time, roasting corn over hot coals, making shea or peanut butter, washing clothes. Malians are 90% Muslims, but I know there are Christians in my village because I smelled pork cooking the other day. At first I thought my nostrils were playing a trick on me and I just missed Beach Haven that bad because I was reminded of those mornings I would wake up and know that Biggie was downstairs in the kitchen preparing one of her amazingly sinful breakfasts of fried tomatoes or blueberry pancakes and always bacon…lots of bacon, crispy and charred for everyone, but a special plate of limpy and undercooked pig for Grumpa and Uncle Al. They like their eggs runny too. I confirmed the Christian inhabitants in my village the following day when a light breeze sent the aroma of pork chops over to my concession and I knew it had to be pig. No cow could smell that good and make me wish I had a jar of applesauce at my disposal.

I did something today, Mom! (I know I already called you to tell you all about it, but I thought I’d share this one on the blog too) I set up a time to chat with the women in the Maternity CSCOM (health clinic) in my village and they said they would be more than happy for me to come in and observe/assist them on Sundays and Tuesdays when all the pregnant women come in for their open clinic checkups. I was lucky to have Yagare here with me for my first time going to the clinic so she could fill in the blanks in translation and let them know why I was there and how I could help/observe. I sat in the clinic room while women came in one by one to get their bellies measured, a basic obstetrics exam, and an HIV test. The first test I witnessed was another one of those profound “holy shit I’m in Africa and I’m watching a pregnant woman get an HIV test where she’ll find out in about four minutes whether or not she and possibly her baby have HIV” moments. I felt a little light headed. All the results were negative, I ni ce Allah, because I could not handle that on my first day. Twenty or so women came in, each one climbed up on the rusty metal table, lay their pagnes (cloth wrapped skirt) at their sides, while the Attending, donning a threadbare lab coat, long flowing colorful pagne and matching head wrap examined them. “Is there anything hurting you?” All of them replied with a simple “Nothing at all.” Then women in their last few months were encouraged to come back when they were in labor because it’s safer to give birth in the clinic than at home. They were directed to the male doctor in the adjoining building to get an anti-malarial shot and some prenatal vitamins.

During an examination, I almost missed a woman walk through the room into the back birthing room wearing all black, her face covered. I didn’t think much of it until the midwife turned to me and asked, “Do you want to help deliver her baby? She’s 5 cm dilated right now.” “Right now? She’s delivering right now?” I asked. “Not right now, but soon. Do you want to watch?” I felt so unqualified and nervous and anxious but knew that I desperately wanted to be a part of it, so of course I said “yes.” When the time came, I walked into the adjoining room and felt helpless as I stood behind the once head to toe covered woman splayed out completely naked on a metal table, obviously in pain, but not making a sound. I couldn’t believe how quiet she was, and so was the midwife who was assisting her. I helped swab her leg for an injection then got shuffled around to the receiving end and watched the “miracle of life.” The last thing I remember before passing out was when the midwife tossed the newborn into a dirty sink, then threw some water from a cup onto it and walked away into the next room, the mother still laying on the cold metal table with a bed pan under her, catching the leftovers.

I came to, sitting up in a chair with a cup of water in my hand, the women were chuckling to themselves and I felt like a complete idiot. I can’t wait to go back on Tuesday.

“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”.”

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

Since my last post, there has been political upheaval in the main city, Antananarivo, in Madagascar. Peace corps has since notified me and the other prospective volunteers that all Peace Corps volunteers in the country are safe and accounted for, but they are postponing our trip until the dust settles.

Some articles include last week's NYtimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/africa/03madagascar.html?_r=1&hp

and the latest from CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/02/07/madagascar.protest.deaths/

As of now, my new departure date is March 9th. Here's hoping things are smoother by then, I will try my best to keep everyone posted!

I'm now starting to feel a little more pressure as I get ready to leave in something like two weeks! I've been strictly instructed by Peace Corps to make my goodbyes meaningful and make sure to load up on all my favorite foods before I leave... So I've been doing just that. Even though I feel totally underprepared to speak Malagasy and expand Malagash small businesses, atleast I've fattened up over the holidays. (Just kidding uncle john, i've been doing some reading on Madagascar too and I won't embarass our family)

I'll be leaving February 11th for Philadelphia to go to Pre-service training, called "staging". This is where we'll fill out paperwork, get shots, meet the other PCVs et c. Then we fly out of JFK on the 13th to Johannesburg (17 hours!) then to Madagascar the following day. I have mostly all my essential packing items together and am pretty confident that I won't regret packing light. ALTHOUGH, care packages will be greatly appreciated and can be sent to:

Jessica Alice Duncan, PCT Peace Corps

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 12091

Poste Zoom Ankorondrano

101 Antananarivo

Madagascar

This adress is for the first three months of training, after that I'll be relocated to my permanent site. For training, we'll be about an hour outside of the main town, Antananarivo. I'll have access to a phone while training but will rarely be able to use it, but I'm planning on getting a cell phone once I get to my site. I've heard the people in my program are located in larger towns with service, and some texting is free or cheap.

For email, I'll still use my jessicaaliceduncan@gmail.com account, but I have a new peace corps account that I may be checking more while I'm over there, it's pcvjessicadmg@yahoo.com. I think facebook is going to be an outlet for me to keep in touch. And Skype!

Well, for now, I'm in Colorado spending some time with my dad, then back to the keys Feb 2nd until I fly out on the 11th. Hopefully I'll be posting again before we leave the country.

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog! 

Wow, when I heard my dad tell me over the phone that my new country assignment for the peace corps was Madagascar, I was beside myself. How totally cool.  My previous assignment was in Togo, West Africa and that was great and all, but who knows where Togo is? I would be spending the rest of my life drawing that map of Africa in the air and pointing out Togo, then saying, "It's between Benin and Ghana and near the Ivory Coast" and still, some people would not know what I was talking about.  So, you can imagine my relief when I hear Madagascar! ok, but seriously, so exotic and beautiful and AWESOME!  

My official program is Small Enterprise Development and I'll be a Small Business Advisor.  This is a brand new program that started in July 2008.  Most peace corps volunteers work in health services and agriculture so my secondary programs will be working with them and NGOs.

I'll be living in either a small town or a larger city and I'll be learning a mix of French and the local language, Malagasy (which I've already downloaded the language learning tapes so I can get started'...)  Salama! (hello)

We're given a health pack during orientation that has all our medical supplies and pills and shots, bandaids, mosquito nets, et c. 

"Your community will either build you a house or identify one for you to rent which could be a local material structure with a thatched roof or a cemetn dwelling with a tin roof" ...ok... 

FOOD: boiled rice, corn, cassava and a simple sauce.  Send veggie supplements!

In the meantime, I'm spending some time out in Colorado with my dad, probably taking a trip to California to see friends and then back to the keys for the holidays.  I started this blog so I won't have to send mass emails, everyone can just keep checking here when I get to Madagascar to see photos and what's happening with my life in the peace corps!