So this post was supposed to be about Segou Music Festival (which was awesome!) and about my impromptu vacation to Spain (I decided 3 weeks beforehand that I would just go to Spain for awhile so I could eat pork and cheese and go to a beach- all the things I missed. Madrid and Valencia were really nice and I loved seeing my friend from college, Crystal.)... but it's not. Instead it is about the end of my Peace Corps journey.

The second day that I was in Madrid, Crystal and I were at the high school where she is an English teaching assitant in the teacher's lounge when one of the English teachers said "Did you hear about what's happening in Mali?" And I told her "Yea you mean the marches and the gunshots heard in Kati?" To which she replied "No, there was a coup d'etat. The President was attacked and the military is now in control." This was schocking information to me, and to be honest I didn't believe her. What would a Spanish woman know about Francophone country in Africa hundreds of miles away??? Crystal allowed me to check my Facebook and email on her iPhone, and that's when I found out that the teacher was right. There in fact had been a Coup d'Etat in Mali. The jist of what actually happened is that a man named Capt. Sanogo and a group of low ranking Army officers were tired of the way Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure, ATT, was handling the Tuareg Rebellion in the north of Mali (Tuaregs are fighting for an independent state in the north that they call Azwad). So to do something about this they ransacked the Presidential Palace in Bamako, declared that ATT was no longer in power and suspended the Constitution. Because of this ATT went into hiding, many ministers of government were arrested, a curfew was put in place, gunshots were heard all over Bamako, cars were stolen, the Senou International Airport was closed, land borders were closed and looting of houses and administrative buildings occurred.

Peace Corps Mali was immediately put on Standfast, where volunteers are to stay where they are and wait for further updates, and then put on Consolidation, where volunteers have to all meet up at the different emergency consolidation points all over the country. My volunteer friends were on consolidation for 8 days when the situation in Mali started to look better. There were no more gunshots heard, the Mutineers had re-opened the airport, no one had been killed, the Constitution was reinstated, and life was pretty much back to normal in the Capital. The majority of volunteers were taken off consolidation, and were even told they could go back to site. But then everything got worse. With the instability of the government in Bamako, the Tuaregs in the north were able to gain a lot of ground for their cause. Tuareg rebels were able to take control of 3 regional capitals in the north: Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. There have since been reports of imposed Sharia Law, rape, and looting. Luckily there haven't been volunteers as far north as Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu for several years, so no volunteers were in immediate danger, but there were fears that the Tuareg rebels would make their way down to Mopti and Sevare where there are volunteers. Volunteers in the north were evacuated to Bamako, and then a day later all volunteers were brought to Bamako as a precautionary measure. That same day it was decided that Peace Corps Mali would have to evacuate to a neighboring country and Peace Corps Mali would be closed.

All of this happened while I was in Spain (I left for Spain on March 20th, the Coup happened on the 22nd, and I left Spain on the 29th), and then later in Morocco (I've been here since March 29th), where I flew to when I was told I wasn't allowed by Peace Corps to come back to Mali. Peace Corps has put me up in Rabat with a stipend and a hotel room for the past week. Rabat has been very nice, but honestly I've hated being by myself and I've hated the emotional roller coaster I've gone through with the news from Mali constantly changing. I did not enjoy Spain to the fullest because I could not stop worrying about my future in Mali. Morocco has been even more rough because I have been by myself. I hate being alone, and being sad and alone is even worse. When I found out that Peace Corps Mali was being evacuated I can honestly say it was the saddest moment of my entire life. I had grown to love that country and its people with all my heart. I may not have "liked" it there all the time but I truly "loved" being there. All that kept going through my mind was that I never got to say goodbye and I didn't get to finish my library (It was almost done!!! All that needed to happen was painting the building and installing all the furniture). I couldn't believe that I left Mali thinking I'd only be gone for a week but now I may never get to go back.

Mali has been my life for the past 2 years (well almost 2 years, we were just 3 months shy of our 2 year mark). I can't even attempt to explain how my Peace Corps experience has changed me, except to say that it has been the most remarkable experience of my entire life. I will cherish all my memories from my time in Mali and Mali will always hold a special place in my heart. Since I didn't get to in person, I want to use this blog post to say goodbye:

Goodbye Moussa, you have been the best counterpart I could have ever hoped for! I have never met someone as motivated as you. I don't think anything but acting for the good of your community was ever on your mind. Thank you for all that you and your family have given me. For everything from building me a new house when I complained that I needed privacy, to laughing at my dumb jokes, to being the only one who really understood my broken French, to fixing anything that was broken, and even to fetching me water when the tap outside of my house would go dry. I will miss you so much.

Goodbye Afu, you have been a great host mom! You were so scared to host me at your house in the beginning because you don't know French and didn't know how we would communicate, but we found our way! Thank you for always having food for me to eat and thank you for being one of the only people who made a daily effort to speak to me in Bambara and not Senoufo. Thank you for helping your daughter Mayi get comfortable being around me, and thank you for letting me in on some of the village gossip! You opened your house and kitchen up to a perfect stranger who you then made feel like family.

Goodbye Mousieur le Mayor (Pornon), Diakalia, and the rest of the Mayor's Office Staff. You guys were my hosts every Wednesday and I could always count on you for a laugh. You were also my providers of a tasty Rice! meal every week. In the last few months you let me charge my computer with the solar panel there, and you always joked that you would build me a bed so that I would have a place to nap whenever I came to the Mayor's Office. You also all invited me into your homes for many a meal. So I just wanted to say Thank You for everything, I don't know if I've ever met a nicer group of guys!

Goodbye Teachers of the Secondary School and my host dad Kafono. You all have been the most understanding of me being an American living in a foreign place out of all the people in village. I could come to you guys for political debates and to talk about current events. Even though we may have argued about teaching methods, I always cherished the time I spent with you. Thank you for being the people I could connect with on a deeper level.

And finally Goodbye Zanferebougou. I don't think I could have asked for a better village. I've seen pictures from other volunteers sites and even though this is incredibly biased, I truly believe that Zanferebougou is the fairest of them all! Zanferebougou is beautifully laid out with cartiers (neighborhoods in French) that actually make sense and follow a grid. Zanferebougou is lush and green with mango trees everywhere. Zanferebougou also has the nicest people I've evr met who were willing to drop everything to help me. I will always love Zanferebougou and I am proud to say that I got to be a member of that community for 2 years.

...

The next step for me is to meet up with my fellow PC Mali volunteers in a neighboring country (I am currently not allowed to publicly disclose this location, but I'm pretty excited to go there!) this Saturday where we will have a 1-2 week Transition Conference where we will basically tie up all the administrative strings before heading back to America. That being said I think I will be back in the States in about 3 weeks. I'm Coming Home!

Since the one sentence stream of consciousnesses-esque blog was such a success I'm gonna go ahead and try it again:

While on a mission to find pork in Sikasso, Helen and I instead made friends with 2 Malian Christians, Theodore and Matthew, who gave us free beers and promised to have pig meat for purchase the next time we come.

I've been wearing my hair straightened with a flat iron and out of braids for the past two weeks because I wanted to see how long my hair has gotten; It's about two inches past my shoulder blades!

There is a very good chance I will get three more piercings done in village(3rd holes on both ears and then a cartiledge piercing)... okay more like a definite chance.

Every time I see a white person, or someone who is obviously a foreigner, I can't help but stare and think 'What the hell are you doing here???'

I finally turned in my Small Project Assistance Grant request for my Library (a request for $4000)!

I appreciate the fact that Sikasso has avocados year round, but I have to say they taste gross and are nothing like black Hass avocados in America.

The thought of city skylines in the US, skyscrapers in particular, surprisingly scares me...How can buildings be so tall!?! (Mali doesn't have a single skyscraper)

My mom's birthday is this month, on the 9th, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

I am currently researching transatlantic cruises to take back to America as an alternative to flying and a way to see more of the world!

I'm super into marathoning TV shows right now; I just finished How to make it in America and I am currently watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I'm on season 5).

Volunteers in my stage, Team America, are starting to pick their Close of Service dates which means I should know exactly when I'll be leaving Mali very soon!

Since living in Mali I have developed a love of cooking with green bell peppers and fresh cloves of garlic.

Malians, and unfortunately a lot of PCVs who have grown accustom to it, think it's totally cool to pick their noses in public and I'm talking the digging for gold type of nose picking... um GROSS!

My village and the villages around us are starting to prepare for their annual (for my village it's every 2 years) traditional all-village festival where everyone dresses up and dances to balofone music for hours!

The Diva Cup is one of the greatest inventions known to women and I recommend that every girl I know go out and buy one!

My host family made fun of me for paying $4 for a sweatshirt because they say it should have cost $2... seriously I heard them speaking in Senufo and constantly saying my name and "sweatshirt" and "$4!?" for like an hour.

For the past 2 weeks I have listened to 4 songs on repeat, and these 4 songs only: Sexy and I Know it by LMFAO, Rack City by Tyga, Dance (A$$) by Big Sean, and Rain Over Me by Pitbull... seriously, this is no joke.

The African Cup of Nations Soccer Tournament is currently going on in Gabon and Equitorial Guinea and Mali actually isn't doing all that bad.

There is quite a bit of terrorist activity going on in the North of Mali right now (near Timbuktu and in the Gao region) but to be honest I feel safer in my village than I ever did in suburban America.

As my Peace Corps service is coming to a close I have started a journal to document all the things I will miss about Mali as well as all the things I definitely won't miss.

I am trying to read as many "Classic" books as I can while in Mali... I'm currently reading 1984.

I leave for Segou in 10 days to spend 2 days at Melissa's site and then go to Festival sur le Niger which will most likely turn into a 5-day crazy Peace Corps party.

So it's probably pretty evident that I'm terrible at this whole blog writing thing. I haven't written anything in weeks going on months because it is so hard to motivate myself to sit down and write when I could be watching a movie instead! Writing a blog post in village means using precious computer battery life... This is why I'm writing this post in Bamako where there is constant access to electricity!! Choosing to open my computer to write isn't the only problem I have with writing a blog post, there's also the fact that I most often feel like I have nothing to write about, or at least nothing people other than me would find interesting (For example my version of a "big story" is that everytime I hear a rooster crow I think of the opening soundtrack to Network Africa on the BBC... now who wants to read about that? No one.). So this time around I'm gonna try something new. I'm going to write a post entirely of random one sentence stories... Maybe this will spice things up a bit?

My Handwashing Campaign, aka my first official project, was a complete success with 30 tippy taps erected all over my village and two murals depicting the importance of soap use.

I spent Christmas this year in Manantali with a small group of good friends, like last year, and it was so relaxing and just nice to get out of the normal swing of things.

New Year's Eve was spent in Bamako again, only this year was a lot more chill than last year with a small house party and no firecracker shenanigans.

My Library project has finally hit the ground running!

I've recently watched a ridiculous amount of movies, my favorites having been Repo Men, Contagion and Inside Man.

My heels constantly cracking is the biggest worry on my mind at present.

I've been adding one bracelet to my wrist for every month that I have spent in Mali, I'm up to 18 now!!

It shocks me how different my youngest brother Kevin looks in pictures, and to be honest I'm kinda nervous to go home and find a giant has replaced my sweet little shoulder-height baby brother.

In America I was super anal about my eyebrows looking good, in Mali I let them grow to be catepillars and only pluck them before seeing other Americans.

One of my best friends in country, Meredith, is back in Mali after having been Medivaced then Medically seperated and finally reinstated!

I loooovvve going to the market in Bamako to look through piles of old second hand clothes hoping to find that one cute top to wear out to one of Bamako's ridiculous clubs.

By just looking at my pictures on facebook it may seem that all I am doing in Mali is partying, but in actuality I party once a month if that.

I just had one of the best paninis I've ever had in my life, Mexican Steak Panini, and it was in Bamako, Mali.

The worst mosquito bites are the ones on your face, the soles of your feet and the palms of your hand.

I painted a gigantic American Flag in my bathroom at site one day just because I was bored.

My 2 year old host sister Mayi peed on this guy that no on really likes' foot and proceeded to laugh histerically about it.

I gave my homologue a Florida Gator hat which he now wears almost everyday... The Gator Nation really is everywhere.

I am going through an odd obsession processed meats like summer sausage, pepperoni and jerky.

My 8k bike ride out of my village to this day still kicks my butt and in my defense it's mostly uphill!!

To pass time at site I have been making beaded bracelets and surprisingly it is primarily the men that have asked me to make them one, but I say no way that they are just for women!

The newest stage in Mali was named the Madhatters, and they are all now at site beginning their 3 month lock down.

My village's Mayor's Office just got a computer which is powered by a solar panel which now means I can charge my computer at site!!!

It is currently cold season in Mali where I actually sleep with a blanket and I have to remind myself to cherish these moments because hot season is fast approaching.

I bought my ticket to Segou Music Festival (Festival sur le Niger), so that's the next big event coming up in my Peace Corps life.

...

That wasn't so bad.

Written November 9, 2011

So I would love to say that the reason I haven't updated my blog in so long is that I have been really busy studying for the GRE which I am taking in Bamako on the 19th. This however is not the case. I'm lucky if I spend more than 2 hours a day studying. It's really hard to make yourself do something (i.e. study) when you've gotten use to doing a whole lot of nothing (i.e. sitting in my hammock reading romance novels...) Anyway here is what I have been up to:

So my Tippy Tap project has actually taken up a lot of my time. I have spent the past couple of weeks painting a bunch , 30, of old cooking oil jugs white and then drawing the Peace Corps symbol on them. These jugs are what hold the water that you control with a foot pedal attatched to the top of the jug with rope. Pressing down on the foot pedal makes water come out in a stream which you wash your hands with soap under. My homologue and I then took all of the jugs. rope and soap and set them up on their wooden frames in all of the public areas (the market, by the public latrines, at the schools, etc) in my village. In Bambara we call the tippy taps Tege ko yoro (hand washing place); everyone was super excited to test out their tege ko yoro! The Chief of the Village even filmed some children washing their hands with his cell phone! Along with the 30 tippy taps, I also painted two murals that depict hands being washed with soap and that say "Wash hands with soap!" in French with the help of 3 other PCVs. I really am glad that I was able to carry out this project and that my village actually appreciates the work done because washing hands with soap is probably one of the most important messages that Peace Corps Volunteers can get across and I think my villagers get that. In America we think of soap use as second nature, but here it really is something that Malians aren't use to. Little by little people are understanding that handwashing is good for their health because it prevents disease.

At the beginning of October I met up with Melissa and Meredith in Bamako so that we could act as tour guides around Mali for 3 volunteers on their COS (close of service) trip from Cape Verde. We met Jon and Elyse back in February at WAIST and then again when we vacationed in Cape Verde, and we met Brendan upon his arrival in Mali. Their first night in country we took them out for a night of dancing in Bamako and then the next day took a Peace Corps shuttle up to Sevare. We spent that night in Mopti and then spent the next day walking around Mopti's riverside market and then later taking a boat ride. We then made our way to Bandiagara where we started a 3 day Dogon Hike the next day. Each day we walked through 3 or so Dogon villages. This hike was really awesome because we got to see all of the ancient cliff dwellings and even got to hike up and down the cliff which was actually pretty scary for me. After the hike our next destination was Djenne to see the world famous mud mosque. I was actually pretty disappointed with Djenne because the city itself is super dirty with open sewers everywhere and you are constantly berated by incredibley annoying guides who won't take no for an answer. After Djenne we made our way back to Bamako where we said bye to the Cape Verde kids. Jon, Brendan, Elyse: I had so much fun with you guys and we really miss you!!

Seli Ba, a big Muslim holiday that I don't know the name for in English (it's Tabaski in French), was just a few days ago. For two days we ate a ridiculous amount of sheep in goat meat because practically every family slaughters an animal for the holiday. I actually got kind of sick because my body just isn't use to animal protein anymore because I can go several months having only eaten a morcel or two of beef or chicken. Everyone got super dressed up in their new Seli Ba clothes, but I didn't have an outfit made because my homologue is Christian and I felt it would be odd if I walked around in fancy clothes next to him in plain clothes. I spent both days of the holiday going around visiting people and having tea at their houses, and like I said earlier, eating lots of meat. The evening of the second day was the Balofone dance party. I love going to these just to watch people dance, but I never actually dance myself because I hate being the center of attention, well no more than I already am as the visibly lighter skinned foreigner amongst everyone. This dance party was particularly eventful because there was a drunk 20-something guy who kept tapping on the different instruments, jumping in the middle of random dance circles, and then in the end throwing punches at people and even pushing a woman with a baby in her arm! It was so crazy and actually kind of scary! Everyone started screaming while this dude was throwing punches and fighting with the crowd. I hid behind my giant of a homologue the whole time; I was not trying to get caught in the crossfire! I have no idea why this guy was even allowed to come to the party in the first place. I found out later that he had had 3 liters of wine to drink before the party! It always surprises me that people can get drunk like this with Mali being a predominantly Muslim country and all.

A little over a week ago I went to Bougouni for a Peace Corps Halloween Party. My friends, Melissa, Meredith and I had planned on going as the Three Little Pigs, but it turned out that Melissa and I were the Two Little Pigs because Meredith got medevacted out of Mali a couple weeks before Halloween. I think there were close to 50 volunteers that came down for the party. It was all really fun, and I always enjoy every chance I get to see volunteers from other regions. Unfortunately I passed out pretty early so I missed a lot of the party so Melissa got to claim the position of the Pig who built the brick house since she was the last one standing!

Up next for me: Well of course there is the GRE which I will continue to force myself to study for, but almost immediately after that is Thanksgiving. This year it is the Team America volunteers of the Sikasso region's turn to plan Thanksgiving. Helen and I took on the main planning roles, and it has really been a lot of work, but luckily we have lots of help from the other Sikasso volunteers! We had to find venues for Thanksgiving dinner itself and for a Mexican themed pool day the day after. We also had to find turkeys and ingredients for all of the side dishes, enough to feed at least 70 people, lodging for 3 nights for all of those people, and then clubs that we can go to at night. So I think we've done a pretty good job getting everything together, so here's to hoping it all comes together well and that all the Peace Corps Mali Volunteers who come truly enjoy Thanksgiving in Sikasso!

Written September 12, 2011

If you couldn't tell already, I'm a big fan of the mini story blog post, so here we go again!

Language:

I don't know what exactly changed in village, but recently I have been able to communicate a hell of a lot better than I ever have, in Bambara that is. I'm not sure if it is that my Bambara has gotten better or if people just feel more comfortable talking to me now that they have known me for a year. My host mom, for example, will now have full conversations with me when before we just talked about food, "come eat", "I'm full" and so on. Before for communication beyond food topics she would say what she wanted to say in Senufo to her husband or my homologue and they would translate it into French for me. Now she sees no need for a middle man! My homologue also now tells people "A be se ka caman caman fo Bamanankan na!" which means "she can say a lot in Bambara!" when before he told people I could only say a little. It feels really good to have people compliment me with my language!

Nose Piercing:

I have wanted to get my nose pierced since probably middle school, if not before then! I was never able to because my Dad basically threatened to disown me if I ever did it! Well, so sorry Dad, I finally did it! I figure now that I'm officially on my own and independent (well except for the packages that my mom sends me that I really appreciate!!!) that I can do whatever I want, so I did. A lot of women in my village have their noses pierced so I figured it would be a cool thing to do integration wise as well as accomplishing something I've wanted to do for a long time, a sort of "killing two birds with one stone." Thankfully Helen, the volunteer closest to me, and I decided to get our noses pierced together because I'm not sure if I would've been brave enough to do it on my own. I asked the girl who normally braids my hair where she got her nose pierced and if she knew someone who could pierce mine. She told me that she pierced her own nose and that she has pierced a bunch of other girls noses too and that she would be more than happy to pierce mine! It was as easy as that! So Helen and I went by the girl's house one afternoon a couple of weeks ago and both sat down ready to just get it over with. The girl used gold stud earrings that were super pointy and sharp at the end and just pushed them through our noses. I heard the earring pierce through the cartilage, but besides that, it wasn't too bad! A couple of tears dripped down my face, but I couldn't have been happier! It looks so good! Helen's too! I've been cleaning it with anti-bacterial soap and Betadine, and so far no infection!

Cat:

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'd know that I previously had a cat, but was only able to keep it for a few days out of extreme annoyance. Well... I did it again, I got another cat. This is gonna sound bad, but I have no desire to own a cat, I just really need one because I have a serious mice problem. There have been 2 mice terrorizing my house. Every single night they run all over crashing into things making it very hard for me to sleep. They also eat anything and everything! They ate half a pack of spaghetti, half a clove of garlic, 2 onions, chewed holes in 4 bell peppers, chewed through a basket, chewed through the top of a bottle of hot sauce, and they got into several of my pasta sides bags! It was getting ridiculous, so I needed a mouses worst nightmare. I got my cat yesterday, and so far so good. I didn't hear anything mouse-wise last night, so here's to hoping that continues! Oh and I haven't named the cat yet, I have to judge her personality first.

First SPA Update:

My SPA was approved!! I now have to wait for the 230 some odd dollars to be deposited in my account and then I can begin! My SPA was for 30 Tippy Taps to be placed all over my village and for 2 hand washing murals to be painted at both of the schools! I'm very excited to start this project and it seems like my villagers are too!

Host Sister:

My little host sister, who is a month away from her second birthday, finally likes me! When I first got to my village and met my host family my host sister would scream any time I appeared. It took probably 2 or 3 months for her to quit screaming but still not want to have anything to do with me. A few months ago she just began to let me pick her up, but now she actually comes up to me with her arms held up!! She sits in my lap and tries to touch my face while laughing, it's super cute! I'm so happy she finally likes me because I saw her take her first steps and say her first words so I've always felt this connection with her but haven't even been able to hold her. All is good now!

Hot Priest:

Blegh. I really don't like this guy. It had been several months since I last saw him (thank God!) but good ole Hot Priest decided to stop by for a visit a few days ago. I heard a moto drive up to my concession and I figured it was my homologue or someone else I like, but then that person kept knocking on my gate door, something my homologue or his family members never do, so I figured this might be someone I don't want to see. I was in the process of making popcorn on my gas stove so I was also annoyed that I would have to leave that and run to open the gate. As I opened the gate the only thought going through my mind was "You've got to be kidding me!" It was Hot Priest! He also brought his sister and her kid along with him so I felt obligated to be cordial. He saw that I had laundry hanging up and could tell that I was occupied with something in my house, but he still decided to sit down. I ran back inside to save my popcorn, which burned a little!, and then came back out to sit with him. he kept talking about how it had been so long since we'd seen each other, but I just kept looking at the ground and giving him one word responses, I was quite cold towards him. After about 5 minutes I think he got the picture and got up and said his good byes and then left. This visit wasn't nearly as annoying as past visits, but still! Besides the fact that Hot Priest is beyond annoying, I also hear that he is always talking to my homologue about me and Helen and how we don't come by the church. First of all, as Peace Corps volunteers we're not really supposed to associate ourselves with churches (we can go to services and so on and practice our religious freedoms) because we don't want our villages thinking we're missionaries, and second of all I'm not even Catholic! so I wouldn't be going to his Church anyway! My homologue thinks it's funny that I don't like Hot Priest, he doesn't like him much either, so he always tells me about Hot Priest bringing my name up just to see my reaction. Blegh.

Since my last blog post quite a bit has happened:

1. New Volunteers sworn in

2. Trip to Bandiagara/Mopti

3. Animist Funeral

4. The Mask comes out

5. My First SPA

1. It seems like we just had a bunch of new volunteers, the Kennedys, sworn in just yesterday but turns out that was all the way in April! The new-new volunteers were sworn in on August 5th at the US Embassy in Bamako. I felt as if I had already done the whole "Swear-in thing" so I slept through their ceremony, but of course there was no way I was gonna miss their Party! This time around the party was held at Espace Bouna in Bamako. Bouna is a super chill outdoor bar with a huge open dance floor. I really love partying at Bouna but a lot of volunteers think that it's starting to get overdone because majority of our volunteer parties are held there. I could care less though because I just want to dance and as long as there is a dance floor I am happy! Anyway, at the party the new stage was given the name Goodfellas, I'm not really sure why, and we all had a really good time dancing the night away together!

2. Literally the next morning after the swear-in party I got on the Peace Corps Shuttle to Sevare. Every month, and sometimes multiple times a month, Peace Corps cars (Land Cruisers) drive to every region to pick up and deliver stuff to and from all of the regional houses. One of our awesome volunteer priviledges is that we can sign up to be on these shuttles! This means that we don't have to take public transport, and if we're lucky enough to sign up for one of the 8 spots in the car then we get an airconditioned and much faster trip to whichever regional capital that shuttle is going to. So the morning after swear in I was lucky enough to get one of the spots on the shuttle going up north. This was pretty much an all day trip so I was really glad that I got to ride in the comfort of a Peace Corps car and not on a smelly, hot bus that is probably inches from falling apart. The reason for going up north was to go to a party in Bandiagara and then to also hang out in Mopti and Sevare for a few days. The party in Bandiagara was pretty fun, but the best part of the trip was going to Mopti! We got to hang out at these two really cool restaurants and take a boat ride on the river! Also in Mopti I had a guy come up to me and ask if I wanted to trade my watch for one of the necklaces he was selling. My watch was actually broken (the band that holds the strap had ripped off) and I was waiting to go back to Sikasso to just throw it away and put on a new watch my mom had sent me. I explained to the guy that it was broken but he didn't care about that, he only cared that it was water proof. He told me that he wanted to give the watch to his father who I guess was a fisherman and could benefit from a waterproof watch. Seeing as I was planning on throwing away the watch anyway, this was quite an opportunity! I ended up picking out this really cool camel's tooth necklace with brown accent beads. Cool huh?

3. I recently attended my second funeral in village. This one was different though because it was an animist funeral! Basically this entailed women being present at the funeral, lots of balafone playing, lots of dancing, and the body being present. Not only was the body present though, the body was being danced with!! This was seriously the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life!! The men at the funeral took turns rocking the body back and forth to the music, and as that was going on women were throwing candy in the air and kids were diving down to retrieve it. They paraded around village with the body stopping every once and a while to conduct parts of the animist ceremony. There was also a bunch of guns going off since the deceased had been a hunter. Everytime a gun was shot it would make a noise so loud that I would get scared and jump every single time, which everyone thought was hilarious. One woman came up to me during the parade and asked if I would come hold/dance with the body with her. I shouted out NOoooo! There was no way I was gonna touch let alone dance with a dead body! At one point in the parade/ceremony the music stopped and everyone stood around as an old man sat in front of the body and waved a knife around in the air. After about 30 seconds of this the old man got up and a group of men rushed up to grab the body and the dashed off with the body heading toward the grave. When I say dashed, I mean it! They were speedwalking, nearly running, to this grave that was about a mile away. I nearly had to run to catch up to them to see the body go into the ground! After attending this funeral I can say that this was seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen but it definitely gave me the creeps and made it extremely hard to fall asleep that night!

4. That night of the funeral was also the first night that I had been in village at the same time that The Mask had come out. The Mask is a mask that a secret society of men from my village carry around at night every once in a while to the accompaniement of drums and singing as a sort of animist ritual. I'm not sure the purpose of the mask, but I've been told that women can not participate and are forbiden from seeing the mask. In fact the belief is that if a woman sees the mask she will die. All of the women in my village are deathly afraid of the mask, so when ever they hear the singing and drums they drop whatever they are doing to go inside and hide. Every other time that the mask had come out in my village I had for some reason or other been in Sikasso. Because this was my first time being present with the mask out my homologue decided to wait out side my door to make sure I stayed inside and I guess out of sight from the mask to protect me from dying. The whole time the mask was passing my house and I could hear the music I really wanted to take just a peek at the men and their mask. I decided not to though because even though I seriously doubt a mask could kill you, you never know...

5. So...I just filled out my very first SPA!! A SPA is small project funding from the Peace Corps. I originally wanted to fill out a SPA for my library, but at the moment there isn't enough money in the Peace Corps Mali budget to pay for it. My Library is going to require about $10,000 to build, and I will most likely have to wait for the next fiscal year to do this... oh well. In the meantime I decided to do a much smaller project instead. So the SPA funding that I asked for is to put up 30 hand washing stations, or "Tippy Taps", throughout my village and also to paint two handwashing murals. The reason I want to do this is because very few people in my village wash their hands with both soap and water, most just swish their hands around in a bucket of water before eating and often times it is the same water that one or more people have already used! I'm sure that this is the reason that so many people have diarrhea in my village and also the reason I'm sick all of the time (I've gotten Ameobas twice!!). I'm hoping that with Tippy Taps being visible and accessible all over the village, people will no longer not have a reason to wash their hands without soap! This project is pretty small so it shouldn't be too difficult to see through and it will be a good way to keep me busy while I wait until I am able to build my Library.

Besides all that, everything has been pretty chill in village. I have been doing a lot of work on my garden lately. I have a pretty legit crop of cilantro growing right now! I seriously can't wait to make some homemade salsa and guac with my cilantro!! I also have a papaya tree that is growing strong; it's almost my height now! I also have 5 okra plants shooting up, some wildflowers and 2 tomato plants! I've never gardened before in my life, so I'd say that things are going pretty well!

Written July 27, 2011

So I'm 23 now... This was my second birthday in country (July 18th) and I have to say it wasn't too bad. I did happen to be quite sick but overall it was a better birthday than last year where I spent the day getting my hair done all alone with none of my friends to celebrate with me. Three days before my birthday (the 15th) I woke up feeling like I was going to throw up. All I wanted to do was stay in bed, but I had to go to Sikasso that day because we were having a Site Visit party for the PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) new to the Sikasso Region. I didn't actually throw up until halfway into my 8k bike ride out of village, and then from then on I pretty much couldn't stop throwing up. I never really stopped biking either, I just kept pedalling and whenever I felt a heave coming on I just stuck my head over my arm and let it all out. It was probably my most miserable bike ride ever. I managed to hold off throwing up again until after the bus ride to Sikasso where about 30 minutes after arriving I threw up all the water I had just tried to drink. From that point on I threw up on average about once an hour. The really unfortunate thing was that we were having a Mexican food night complete with guacamole, mango salsa, taco meat and velveeta for the new kids. The thought of missing out on that was completely unacceptable to me so of course I forced myself to eat a giant burrito. I'm sure you can guess what happened abouit 2 minutes after I shoved the last bite in my mouth... I stayed sick for the next 4 days (the 16th, the 17th, my birthday, and the 19th) but as those days passed I got progressively better- On my birthday I only threw up twice! Besides my sickness my birthday was actually really fun. Several of my friends in country left their sites to come down to Sikasso to celebrate with me. On the night of the 17th we made loaded nachos (salsa, guac, spicy cheese sauce, and taco meat) and then went out to a bar that had a dance floor. We danced and danced to an awesome playlist that myfriend had previously made and that the DJ let us play for most of the night. At midnight I kept hearing this little jingle go off and I thought it was someone else's phone because it wasn't my ringtone, but then it turned out that the sound was coming from my bag. I took my phone out and then noticed that it was a set notification that was making my phone sound. The message, "Happy BIrthday to me!", literally made me laugh out loud because I have no memory of ever entering that in my phone. Overall it was a great night and I especially enjoyed singing "Go girl it's your birthday!" along with Trey Songz to his song "Say Ahh." The next morning we woke up early to get ready to go to the Woroni Waterfalls. After a quick vom in the bathroom I was ready to go. Before heading to the falls we picked up schwarmas for lunch and then began the long drive (2 hours) to Woroni. I had yet to go to the waterfalls, so when I finally saw them I found them to be quite breathtaking, seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen. After fully taking in the falls we all took out pagnes to spread out on the ground to take naps (we were all still very tired from the night before). I got about 2 hours of sleep in waterside before it started to rain. We had planned on staying at the falls all day, but the weather cut this trip quite short. Suprisingly we were all okay with this and were all ready to leave. We all just wanted to crash on a comfy matress. Once we returned to Sikasso and once we all took even longer naps, we cooked pancakes, bacon and eggs for dinner ( Thanks to my mom for sending all the essential items of this dinner!) and then red velvet cake for dessert!! It was DELICIOUS!! All in all this was a pretty decent birthday.

As for village life things have been going pretty well lately. My homologue and I are making progress on the library plans (we just completed our 2nd try at coming up with an acceptable and affordable building plan) as well as on my garden (we've planted mint, cilantro, basil, okra, tomatoes and bell peppers). When it comes to my homologue I feel genuinely blessed to have gotten him selected to help me in my village. My homologue is always willing and ready to do anything I need him to do, and he usually goes above and beyond my expectations. He is incredibley motivated to improve his village and to learn just about anything. He also has the most infectious laugh ( I call it a cartoon laugh because it seriously sounds fake and something that could only come from an animated animal).Besides his laugh, the thing I like best about my homologue are his story telling skills. He always has some story to tell me, whether it be about his childhood or something that happened in the fields, and it always comes complete with sound effects and hand gestures! There is almost never a story telling moment where he doesn't have me cracking up and where he isn't laughing himself! My homologue is a key factor in my enjoying my time in village.

Here are two random mini-stories:

1.The other day I went to see an English teacher who is back in my village for vacation and who has offered to tutor some of the 7th graders. I sat in on his tutoring session where he asked me to look over all of his writing and then proceeded to have one of the longest conversations I've ever had with a non-Peace Corps staff Malian. One of the things he told me was that he wants to practice his English with me so I told him that he can come over to my house any time to chat and to that he gave me a confused look and then explained that he had been warned to never go to my house. He told me that people in my village had told him that no one is to go to my house because an American lives there and they don't like when people bother them. I was shocked to hear this! I honestly have no idea where he heard this. I made sure to ask around and find out if other people had heard the same warning. No one confirmed what the English teacher said, so my homologue and I figure that he must've just imagined the whole thing out of some misconception he has about white people (he kept calling me white regardless of how many times I pointed to my skin to prove I'm not white).

2. Today has been a day of gifts. This morning my homologue and his son came over with a chicken for me. He said that his mother had given it to him to give to me. I was pretty confused by this because normally chickens are given to newcomers and strangers to the village, and since I've lived here for an entire year, I have no idea why I was presented with this gift. I didn't however question it and had no problem graciously accepting this large source of protein! My next gift of the day was money to go buy a soda in market from the Mayor. Again this was another unprecedented gift that I had no problem accepting. My final gift of the day was one of my few female friends in village asked me to go with her to the photo studio to have a picture taken with her baby. She originally wanted just me and her son in the picture, but then I convinced her and her older daughter to sit next to me and the baby. She is going to have a copy of this picture printed out for me. People really are incredible nice in my village and I feel so grateful that I am able to live with these people during my time in Mali.

Written July 10, 2011

Whoa! It has basically been forever since I last wrote a blog post... sorry. So I'm gonna use this post to catch you guys up on everything that has happened over the past month and a half.

World Map:

Before leaving for my vacation I wanted to do something for my village that I knew they would really appreciate, and to be quite honest, something that would be so visible to them that they wouldn't forget me while I was gone. So I decided to paint a 2 meter by 4 meter world map at the primary school. Helen and Chelsea, the two closest volunteers to my site, came to help me paint my map. It took us about 3 days to complete the map. It was pretty miserable standing outside for at least 10 hours everyday gridding, then drawing and then finally painting. I'm so happy we finished and I'm very glad we did it, but I honestly never want to do another world map again!

Vacation:

So I've actually been away from site for quite some time. On June 8th Melissa, Meredith and I flew to Cape Verde by way of Dakar. We spent two days in Dakar awaiting our flight to Praia, CV. While in Dakar we ate tons of Nice Cream (Dakar's delicious Ice Cream Parlor), did tons of shopping and even got to jump on the oceanside trampolines! Meredith called jumping on the trampolines the most fun 15 minutes she's had in Africa! On our flight to Praia we decided that we were going to make the most of our super expensive tickets by asking for as much food as we could possibly get. I think I ate 3 sandwiches and who knows how many little cakes. Melissa's family is from Cape Verde and she still has several family members living there, so they are the ones who met us at the airport and opened their house to us. We spent about 7 days on the island of Santiago dividing our time between Melissa's family and Peace Corps Cape Verde volunteers that we had met back in February at WAIST. The CV Volunteers basically showed us all over the island. They first took us to Tarrafal which is this gorgeous cove on the north side of the island. We had to drive up and down the mountains to get there, and I was scared out of my mind the entire time (I have a slight fear of heights...). Tarrafal has some of the clearest water I've ever seen, and it seemed so secluded. It would definitely be an ideal place to live! The CV volunteers next took us to Cidade Veija (I can't spell in Portugese, so I'm pretty sure that is misspelled but it means Old City). It was so quaint there because it is a World Heritage Site, so it looks just like a little colorful town out of the 1800s. This was the original city on Santiago and was a major slave trading post. The final place we were shown was the black sand beach on Santiago. This was probably one of the coolest things I'd ever seen in my life. The sand was so black that it looked like mud, but it felt just like white sand! The waves at this beach were also perfect for body surfing. Meredith, Melissa and I had so much fun catching waves. Although the absolute most fun that I had in Cape Verde was at a Rave on the Beach. A company called I Love House Music (I think...) set up this huge tent on the beach with wood floor boards. The music was so loud and pumping that you could feel it move through your body! The best part about it though was that since the floor boards were made of wood they would bounce with everyone dancing on them and it made this kind of clapping sound (kind of like Riverdance!). I was having so much fun that I couldn't stop laughing and I even yelled out "This is the most fun I've ever had in my life!!!" to Meredith. Cape Verde is one of the best vacations I've ever taken in my life and I am so greatful to Melissa's family and the Peace Corps Cape Verde Volunteers for showing us a good time and letting us stay at their houses.

One Year Anniversary:

I've officially been in Mali for an entire year!! It feels so crazy to be able to say that! It seriously feels like I've only been here for about 3 months or so. Before coming to Mali I was told by Returned volunteers that your first year will feel like forever and then your second year will speed by. If this is the case I guess my second year is going to feel like just one month!

4th of July:

This year we spent 4th of July in Manantali, the same place I spent Christmas and probably my favorite little corner of Mali. Meredith and I got to Manantali about a week before the rush of people coming for the 4th and we were all by ourselves at the Manantali transit house. It was incredibly relaxing. We spent our days down by the river and our nights marathoning TV shows (Freaks and Geeks for me and True Blood for Meredith). Once everyone else arrived for the 4th, some 40 volunteers, we spent all of our time hanging out and spending a ton of time at the river. Some volunteers had fireworks to set off and we even had a "hoodrat" game tournament. We played horseshoes, hill billy golf, beer pong ( I didn't play this one, not a big fan of this game) and we even had a 3 legged race as well as a baloon toss. The 4th was really great, and kind of worked as a detox from my vacation to get me prepared to head back to site after having been away for so long.

Back to Site:

I'm surprisingly content being back at site, I say this because I honestly wasn't looking forward to coming back and being all alone (alone in the sense that I'm the only American in my village and that I basically go days without speaking English). I guess I had forgotten how tranquil it is at site and how much I cherished this. I got back to site in the evening, ate dinner and then basically passed out for 12 hours straight! I think my body was very happy to no longer be on the move. 2 new additions came back with me to site which could potentially be life changers for me: a camping egg crate and a shortwave radio. The egg crate is a life changer because this means that I will have a way to bring eggs back to my site which means a huge addition to the protein in my diet. Tonight I even had the best egg sandwich I've ever tasted (2 eggs scrambled with bell pepper, onion, basil, maggi, and salt on bread with mayo and ketchup... insanely good!) thanks to my egg crate! The radio is a life changer because now I actually will know what is going on in the world, whereas before I only got to know the news of the world when I would go into Sikasso and when I would maybe go to Cnn.com. Now I can listen to the BBC all day everyday! I already feel more informed and worldly after just one day!

Written May 27, 2011

I am writing this blog entry on my bed which is located in my beautiful new room in my amazing new house!! I LOVE IT HERE! Tonight is going to be my second night by myself. The first night was great. It was almost as if I had no idea what to do with all the privacy! I spent most of the day unpacking, then I read for a couple hours in my hammock, then cooked a delicious meal (Knorr Pasta Sides, Stroganoff), and then set up my Bug Hut tent to sleep outside. I was outside in my tent for a good 4 hours before my fear completely engulfed me and I had to go inside. It's unfortunate, but I have been afraid of the dark for since I can remember. In college I even slept with a night light! I'm totally cool when I have someone in the room with me, but when I'm all alone I need some kind of light source, sad I know. Back at my homologue's house I had a tiny flourescent light wired into my room that was powered by his solar panel. It was almost as if my homologue knew about my fear and prepared for it even before meeting me! Unfortunately for me I don't have enough money to buy a solar panel, and thus there will be no tiny flourescent light for my new room. To make up for this I left my head lamp on for the entire night, well until dawn when I woke up and switched off the light and then went back to sleep. I'm sure you're thinking that this is going to get ridiculous after a while, but no worries! I have rechargeable batteries and a solar charger!!

Anyway, besides my nighttime darkness issue, I'm seriously obsessed with my new house. This morning I was able to walk to the bathroom in just shorts and a sports bra! (My house is completely surrounded by a very high wall) Back at my old house I basically had to follow all the conservative clothing rules at all times, but now that no one can see me, anything goes!! Today I also spent some quality time with my garden, tilling the soil and so on. I can't wait to see what my green thumb is capable of! I was also able to do my laundry outside! This is big because for the past 9 months I had been doing my laundry in my room because I didn't want people watching me wash my clothes and then critiquing what I was doing (when it comes to manual labor Malians won't let you do the work on your own, they will either take over completely or constantly critique what you are doing and tell you that you should be doing it this way or that way). It feels so good to be able to do anything and everything without always having eyes on me!

Oh and cute story: I think my homologue and his family miss me living with them. I have barely been gone for 24 hours and they have already visited me like 20 times. My homologue keeps coming to check in on me. He's like a mother bird who's experiencing empty nest syndrome. Oh and tonight his son and Brehma (the boy that lives with them and helps out with the chores) walked all the way to my new house to bring me tea! Too cute!

Written May 27, 2011

I am writing this blog entry on my bed which is located in my beautiful new room in my amazing new house!! I LOVE IT HERE! Tonight is going to be my second night by myself. The first night was great. It was almost as if I had no idea what to do with all the privacy! I spent most of the day unpacking, then I read for a couple hours in my hammock, then cooked a delicious meal (Knorr Pasta Sides, Stroganoff), and then set up my Bug Hut tent to sleep outside. I was outside in my tent for a good 4 hours before my fear completely engulfed me and I had to go inside. It's unfortunate, but I have been afraid of the dark for since I can remember. In college I even slept with a night light! I'm totally cool when I have someone in the room with me, but when I'm all alone I need some kind of light source, sad I know. Back at my homologue's house I had a tiny flourescent light wired into my room that was powered by his solar panel. It was almost as if my homologue knew about my fear and prepared for it even before meeting me! Unfortunately for me I don't have enough money to buy a solar panel, and thus there will be no tiny flourescent light for my new room. To make up for this I left my head lamp on for the entire night, well until dawn when I woke up and switched off the light and then went back to sleep. I'm sure you're thinking that this is going to get ridiculous after a while, but no worries! I have rechargeable batteries and a solar charger!!

Anyway, besides my nighttime darkness issue, I'm seriously obsessed with my new house. This morning I was able to walk to the bathroom in just shorts and a sports bra! (My house is completely surrounded by a very high wall) Back at my old house I basically had to follow all the conservative clothing rules at all times, but now that no one can see me, anything goes!! Today I also spent some quality time with my garden, tilling the soil and so on. I can't wait to see what my green thumb is capable of! I was also able to do my laundry outside! This is big because for the past 9 months I had been doing my laundry in my room because I didn't want people watching me wash my clothes and then critiquing what I was doing (when it comes to manual labor Malians won't let you do the work on your own, they will either take over completely or constantly critique what you are doing and tell you that you should be doing it this way or that way). It feels so good to be able to do anything and everything without always having eyes on me!

Oh and cute story: I think my homologue and his family miss me living with them. I have barely been gone for 24 hours and they have already visited me like 20 times. My homologue keeps coming to check in on me. He's like a mother bird who's experiencing empty nest syndrome. Oh and tonight his son and Brehma (the boy that lives with them and helps out with the chores) walked all the way to my new house to bring me tea! Too cute!

Written May 19, 2011

It's mini story time again!

New House:

My windows and doors were delivered to my village today!!!! You have no idea how happy I am! It was slightly over 2 months ago that my APCD agreed to have my doors and windows paid for with Peace Corps money. It has been such a long and frustrating wait, but I'm happy to say that I am now that much closer to moving into my new house! The doors and windows are all the remains in the construction of the house, so once my homologue installs them I will be good to go! I seriously cannot wait!! I have major plans for my new house! I'm going to start a garden as well as hang up flower pots (well oatmeal tins, basically like small coffee cans) all around my gwa. Also I am going to cover my walls with glow in the dark stars as well as display my Gator Pennant, oh and maybe even paint a Gator head on my wall! The possibilities are endless! But most of all I can't wait for my PRIVACY.

Wedding Season:

Weddings, weddings, weddings! It seems like there is one every single day in village! This week alone I attended 2 weddings and heard of 3 others. There have also been quite a few civil marriages at the Mayor's office in the past few weeks (Malians have to have a civil ceremony, which is basically like getting a marriage license back home, where they swear to a bunch of stuff and have witnesses and have someone from the Mayor's office as the officiant. It's not obligatory, and many Malians can't afford to do this or often times they wait several years before they do this, but a wedding party is thrown after the bride and groom return from the Mayor's office. This, I guess, could be compared to the reception after a wedding back in America. Basically at these parties all the men sit together at one side of the family's concession and all the women sit together on the other side. Or actually the women are usually not sitting, but cooking and cleaning and getting things for the men; even the female guests are put to work! The men spend the whole party conversing, eating, and playing cards. At some point a main meal is served, usually Zame (sort of like fried rice or jollof rice), by the women, the men eat and then the women eat and then dancing starts or people (men) go back to their conversations or card games (women start to clean up). Attending weddings is something I definitely like to do here because it means lots of free food! Although weddings can also be kind of sad because arranged marriages are something quite common here, and often times a very sad bride gets paired up with an old man. One of the marriages I attended had a bride that looked like she was near tears, she could barely answer the questions asked of her at the Mayor's office. I feel really bad for these women, but to be honest, it's times like these that I'm so happy to be an American where I have free will!

Food!!:

I would have to say that Malian cuisine is definitely no where near the top of my favorite foods list, but there are a couple of dishes that are working their way up there! One of these is Moni. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it is basically a porridge that is made with little balls of millet flour that has lait caille (kind of like yogurt) and lots of sugar mixed in. I thought Moni was disgusting the first time I had it back during PST, but now I can't stop craving it. I use to say no thanks everytime it was presented to me, but about a month ago I decided 'oh what the hell, why not give it another chance,' so I did, and it was AWESOME!!! Now I eat it every chance I get!

My other new found Malian food favorite is Cabbage! I know there is cabbage back home, but this is different. Malians came up with the brilliant idea to add cabbage to their sauces to be eaten over rice. Cabbage in Tige Dege Na (Peanut Sauce) is legit one of my favorite things to eat, and it's good for me!

All Alone:

Well this isn't really true, but it is kind of a sad time in village because several of my friends have left. My friends were Stagiers, or teachers in training, who were here to be student teachers, and their school-year long program has come to an end. The stagiers were from a bunch of different regions of Mali, so they basically all went back to their hometowns to take their final exams and become real teachers. These were the guys I would play Uno for hours with. They also were the only ones besides my homologue that I could have a legitimate conversation with because they are fluent in French. I will miss them greatly, and I hope the stagiers next year are as cool as these guys were.

Things people call me:

So I found out the other day that kids in my village have been calling me Toubaboo Nyera which means Red Toubab! I find this to be incredibly amusing and also very interesting! Back in America people of my skin tone are often called "redbones" and Native Americans who share my skin tone were also called red. It's kind of cool that I'm all the way across the world and similarities like this can be found.

I also found out that Secondary school students have developed an odd fascination with my real name, Elizabeth Coomber. They love to repeat it over and over. They also try to spell it out loud to each other to see who can get it right. I found this to be amusing at first, but then it started to really annoy me. The reason I find it so annoying is because they are so terrible at pronouncing my name. They say Eh-liz-a-bette Cum-bear. The other day I got fed up and tried to correct them, I announced that it's Coooom- bur not Cum- bear. After this one of the boys had the nerve to tell me that the English teacher told them that it's Cum-bear, implying that I must be wrong. Um no! I think I'm the authority when it comes to pronouncing my own last name kid!

Written May 5, 2011

I was in the middle of teaching my Adult English class when one of my students asked me if I was going to have a party. I had no clue what he was talking about so I asked him 'What for?' He replied to this by laughing and then saying "Osama is dead. All the Americans are happy!!" I was taken aback by this and had no idea how to respond so I just gave a small smile, looked down, and then continued with the lesson. Three days earlier I received a text message from Peace Corps saying that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by the US Military and that we should be aware of the public reaction and for us to keep a low profile. When I got this message I had been in mid-conversation walking through a market in Segou with Melissa and she actually told me to shut up and look at my phone because she had looked at the message before I was able to. We both stopped in our tracks completely shocked. I couldn't believe that the day had finally come, 10 years! this man had been hiding and evading capture all the while still being the venerated leader of a terrorist group that has caused so much pain in the world, and on top of all of that I am receiving this news in Muslim West Africa! As Melissa and I continued to walk my emotion of shock jumped to fear. There are quite a few people in this country who held Bin Laden in very high esteem, as well as a group in the north of Mali who call themselves Al Queda. You could go to almost any market and find Bin Laden stickers to plaster on to your moto. I was very worried that I would be singled out as an American and forced to pay for the death of Osama. Unfortunately for me I was in Segou and had to make my way back to Sikasso that day (a 6 hour bus ride). I didn't know how I would be able to keep a low profile with a whole day of travelling ahead of me. Before heading to the bus station I got my fill of the news from the internet and figured that I should be okay because most Malians don't have access to the same kind of quick info as I do. I was banking on the fact that the news of Osama's death wouldn't hit Mali until several hours after I found out. I was so wrong. I got to the bus station and news of Bin Laden's death was plastered ALL OVER the TV and the Radio! It wasn't just news that he was dead either, they had to throw in the fact that he was dead at the hands of Americans and the Americans everywhere were celebrating. Here I was trying to keep a low profile, and the TV and Radio were making it all the more hard for me. Before heading to the bus station I made the decision to not speak English for the rest of the day, and to basically hide my American-ness. I was so worried that someone would ask me where I was from, as often is the case when I am travelling and someone sits down next to me, but lucky for me no one did. I got away with using only French and Bambara and no one trying to speak to me in English. The only remote give-away I encountered was when I had finally reached Sikasso and I was walking to the Stage House and a little boy shouted out "Toubaboo!" ( what Malians call the French, but what also basically means white person or foreigner) at me. Normally I would yell back "Toubaboo te! Americaine!" (Not a French person, an American!), but this time I just kept on walking and ignored the kid. Once I reached the Stage House all my worries left me and I felt safe again. As surprising as it sounds I pretty much had forgotten about Osama's death until it was brought up in my class; I guess this is proof that life goes on.

In order to stick to Peace Corps' recommendation of keeping a low profile, I had decided that I would speak to no one about Bin Laden's death, just like I choose to not ever bring up politics. It's just easier and less messy when topics like this aren't brought up. However, after Osama was mentioned in class, my homologue kept dancing around the topic. While we were walking home after class, my homologue turned to me and said "That Osama was very good at hiding!" and I just thought 'Oh what the hell' and said "yea, for 10 years!" My homologue seemed shocked by this and I could tell he probably didn't have much knowledge on the subject. I asked him if he knew why Americans were so angry at Osama and why they are happy he is dead and he said that he didn't know the story of Osama. In explaining I tried to keep it as unbiased as possible and said that there is a very grave date in American History, September 11, 2001. I said that on that day Osama had planes fly into two sky skrapers and this killed thousands of people (had to keep my explanation very simple because my French skills aren't all that advanced!). I told him that the war with the Arab states was started after this event. He then asked me if Osama was a Muslim. This is where I had to tread very lightly because my homologue is a devout Christian whom I expect would jump on any opportunity to say that Islam is bad and Christianity is better. I told him that yes, Bin Laden was Muslim, but that he was a bad man, but that that doesn't mean that Islam is a bad religion. He seemed to get what I was saying, and I figured that was as far as I should go into the topic. As of now I haven't heard of any backlash against Americans here in Mali, so here's to hoping it stays that way!

Written April 24, 2011

Today is Easter and I got to eat pork!!! This is huge because since Mali is a predominantly Muslim country (people who practice Islam are not allowed to eat pork), very few people eat pork here. Christians are really the only ones who eat pork, and they really only do it on big holidays. My homologue is one of the few Catholics in my village, so he along with 6 other people bought a pig for the Easter feast. God it was good!! I miss pork so much. I miss bacon. I miss pork chops. I miss pork tenderloin. I miss hot dogs... You get the idea. Anyway I basically shoved my face full of pork today. I ate and ate until my stomach hurt. I figured I should probably eat a ton because it could be another year before I get pork again! Besides our yummy pork feast, we attended a short Mass in the Village's tiny Catholic Church with my homologue as the Celebrant. My homologue is not an ordained priest, so we didn't get to have Communion. The church service was held in Senufo, so i just zoned out the whole time but also tried to pay attention to when people got up to stand and when they went to sit back down. At one point during the service, I guess I zoned out too far, I hadn't noticed that I was the only one standing and my homologue, mid-sermon and from behind the alter, says aloud "Gnire, you can sit down now." It was pretty embarrassing, but oh well. After the service was over, we all walked back home and sat under a big tree to drink tea. My homologue asked me to bring out my Uno cards so that we could play Uno with his friends. We ended up playing Uno for the rest of the day, and I mean all day; we started playing at 10:30 am and continued to play until I left to go take my bucket bath at 6:10pm! They are seriously obsessed with Uno here! Overall it was a pretty nice holiday. I wish I could've been home where I could've participated in the egg hunt and received a well stocked Easter basket, but since I couldn't be there, this was a nice replacement

Written April 19, 2011

I've been in village now for almost a week since I got back from Bamako where I attended the New Stage's Swearing In Ceremony. This bunch of new kids, I think there are 60-something of them, has been lucky from the beginning. Their Staging was held in Washington DC where they got to meet Aaron Williams, the Director of the Peace Corps, and their Swearing In Ceremony was held at the President of Mali's house with the President himself giving one of the speeches! I am supremely jealous of the new kids and all of their luck! Anyway... the ceremony itself was awesome! The President's mansion, called Kouluba (big hill in Bambara), is this huge compound on the top of the big hill in the middle of Bamako. Kouluba is the prettiest place in Bamako for sure! The ceremony was held in the banquet hall and after the ceremony the were refreshments served at the front of the palace. Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT), the President of Mali, is surprisingly nice! In his speech he made several jokes and talked about how much he appreciates the Peace Corps. After the ceremony and on his way to the refreshments table, ATT shook my hand and asked me "Ca va?"!! It was great! I think I probably said 'ca va' back, but who knows! I got to meet the President!! A few minutes later everyone and their mother was trying to get a picture with ATT. This all started after one of my best friends here, Melissa, was brave enough to be the first to ask his Excellency for a picture! Because I get really nervous around famous people (the reason I was never able to get an autograph from Tim Tebow even though I saw him almost everyday on the University of Florida campus!), I decided to stay away from the crowd. I reallllllyyyy wanted a picture with ATT, especially after Melissa was able to do it, but I couldn't bring myself out of my state of nervousness long enough to ask for one. Lucky for me ATT asked me for one instead! Well sort of... Amadou Toumani Toure, the President of Mali, saw me standing near him and waved me over to come and get in a picture with him and some other people! How many of you can say a President waved them into a picture??

So that's probably the most exciting thing that has happened to me in Mali and probably the most exciting thing that will ever happen to me while I'm here. Besides that my life has been slow and uneventful, as usual. One thing that has severely disappointed me is that my house is still not done yet. It is completely built and pretty much ready to be used, except that it has no doors and windows. Because Peace Corps promised to pay for and deliver the doors and windows, there is nothing my homologue or I can do except for wait. To pass the time my homologue dug out and bordered a garden plot for me within my enclosed yard and he also put up my hammock. For the past couple of days I have been going to my new house in the afternoons to hangout by myself. I figure that since my house is basically done, why shouldn't I make use of it? It is super breezy and shaded over there, so I really enjoy laying in my hammock with a good book for a couple hours. Someone else has noticed how comfortable it is at my new house and has decided to hangout there in the afternoons as well, a big fat pig! I find this stupid pig right under my hammock every time I enter my yard! Luckily it listens to me when I yell GET OUT! because I have no desire to spend the afternoons with him. My homologue tells me we will be eating him for Easter, so I guess I will only be having this unwanted house guest for a short while longer...

Today was a nice day because after hanging out with my homologue and some of his friends, my homologue and I explored the hill behind my new house. This is going to sound dumb, but I had no idea that there was even a hill there! My excuse is that it is sort of hidden by tall trees, but I guess I never really looked close enough. Anyway it is basically awesome up there. You can see all of my village and all of the fields, hills and plateaus past it. This hill behind my new house is actually a plateau as well. As we climbed up, my homologue pointed out all of these different fruits I had never seen before in my life. Most of them tasted gross, but it was really cool to discover new things! The top of the plateau was really cool looking. There were all of these boulders everywhere, and it was fairly barren which was a cool contrast to all of the trees and shrubs that populate the sides of the plateau. The landscape of my village is so diverse and beautiful, I really love it here and can't wait to go exploring some more!

Written March 27, 2011

So I'm just gonna lay down a few random stories from the past few days.

Adult Learning:

This past Thursday I had my first Adult English Class. It was interesting... Out of a projected 17 participants only 6 showed up. I wasn't too disappointed because that Thursday was the first day of a school vacation so a lot of people had left the village. My class of 6 was however relatively high-profile! I had the 2nd in charge under the Mayor, the 3rd in charge, The President of the APE (basically the PTO/PTA), The Chief of the Village (well the administrative chief. My village has 2 chiefs, one a super old guy that has Chiefdom in his lineage and the other a young Gov't/village appointed Chief. The young one is the one that does all the administrative stuff for the village, the old one is kind of just there for show), and 2 women. Once the vacation is over I will also have the Mayor and the Director of the Secondary School as well as some teachers in my class. The first lesson we did was on basic greetings like How are you, I'm fine and you? etc. We spent almost 2 hours going over about a half a page of material. It is going to be very difficult teaching these people conversational English. The hardest to teach are the women because they are too shy to speak in front of the men, and thus won't repeat after me which is crucial for them to get the pronunciation right. It was actually very annoying when the women wouldn't participate. The Chief of the Village tried to explain that women are different from men and they are too shy to speak in front of groups. To that I was like "Um no... I am a woman and I am speaking in front of you just fine. If I can do it, they can do it." That didn't go very far. In the end I decided to give up on trying to get the women to speak because I can't make someone do something they don't want to do.

Hot New Shoe Fad:

So remember the Jellies I wrote about in older posts? Well forget about em! When it comes to Malian footwear, Jellies are the shoes of yesterday. Today everyone is wearing a bright new neon pair of Abibis! These are just plain hard plastic flip flops that come in a variety of neon colors: hot pink, lime green, bright blue, etc. Men are the ones who have really taken on this fad, and surprisingly the most popular color is hot pink! Dudes will cuff their jeans so you can see their bright new Abibis. One of my PCV friends recently bought a pair so he could be up on the fad, and he has informed me that they are more expensive than your regular pair of flip flops (1000 cfa, about $2, instead of 500-750 cfa, around $1) and that they are not even comfortable. I have no idea where this fad came from, it seems as if it hopped out of nowhere. I'm considering buying a lime green pair myself.

New House:

Well my new house is practically finished! The wall is halfway done and I am only waiting for Peace Corps to deliver the windows and doors! I am beyond excited to move into it! I have a huge hangar that I can't wait to sleep under and even a small area where I'm gonna plant a garden. This small area was something I had to fight for though! My homologue was gonna try and build me this little tiny wall that really only gave me the space under the hangar as my enclosed front yard. Totally not cool. The house is already tiny and I really didn't think it was fair for him to give me a small yard too especially since I have spent nearly 8 months now waiting for a house that was supposed to be finished in 3 months at the latest. To get a more spacious yard I basically had to throw a hissy fit. My homologue had already laid the stone foundation for the tiny wall he wanted when I walked upon the building site. He asked me if it looked nice, and that's when I laid down the law. I told him it was small and then tried the whole pouty face- I'm really sad routine. He was like 'fine then where do yo want it?' I showed him a spot about a meter away from where the stones were already laid and he started to laugh. He said there was no way the 500 bricks they already made would be enough to fit what I wanted. To that I was like 'Can't you just make more?'... a bunch of stuff was said in Senufo amongst my homologue and his friends who were helping him and it sounded like they were arguing, but then my homologue took out his measuring tape and said 'Where do you want it?'... So yea I got my way. While they were changing the foundation I was trying to hide the smug smile on my face. I even helped move a few of the stones to try and not seem like a total spoiled brat.

Bike Trip:

This past Friday my homologue and I took a little day trip to a nearby village. The village is only 6k from mine and the ride was super picturesque. I had no idea that there were so many hills behind my village and all kinds of different flora. This village was like the quaint version of my. Life seemed a little slower there and all the house were a lot closer together. There was even an old town and a new town. The old part of the village is gradually being abandoned for the new part which is a couple hundred meters away. The old part looks like an ancient city with runes. It was pretty cool. While I was in this village I also got to see a man give out Polio vaccinations. It was comparable to a mail man going door to door with letters in a big sac, but in this case they're weren't letters but instead little bottles of clear liquid. All the small children lined up in front of the man and stuck their tongues out ( I assume they'd done this before because the children got right up without being told what to do). All it took was 2 drops of the vaccination on each tongue and that was it. I really liked this village and I was excited to find out that they might be putting a PC volunteer there in the near future!

Noises:

So There are a ton of different and very distinct noises Malians make. My favorite noise has to be the ehh eh? It is used in instances of shocked surprise. For example Aminata is pregnant and we don't know who the father is, response: Ehh eh!? A very close second favorite of mine are all of the animal calls ,or rather noises to shoo animals away. I've been told that everyone makes the same noises for each particular animal, but I'm not sure if this is all over Mali or just the noises Senufo people make. For chickens it is a sort of Shhhh shhh which is sort of like shushing but more choppy. For donkeys it's Tru tru and for sheep it's chet chet. There is also a very loud kissing sound that is often used after making any one of those noises. When Malians make these noises they look and sound like they are having a Tourette's induced fit. It took me quite some time to get use to all of this.

Written March 27, 2011

So I'm just gonna lay down a few random stories from the past few days.

Adult Learning:

This past Thursday I had my first Adult English Class. It was interesting... Out of a projected 17 participants only 6 showed up. I wasn't too disappointed because that Thursday was the first day of a school vacation so a lot of people had left the village. My class of 6 was however relatively high-profile! I had the 2nd in charge under the Mayor, the 3rd in charge, The President of the APE (basically the PTO/PTA), The Chief of the Village (well the administrative chief. My village has 2 chiefs, one a super old guy that has Chiefdom in his lineage and the other a young Gov't/village appointed Chief. The young one is the one that does all the administrative stuff for the village, the old one is kind of just there for show), and 2 women. Once the vacation is over I will also have the Mayor and the Director of the Secondary School as well as some teachers in my class. The first lesson we did was on basic greetings like How are you, I'm fine and you? etc. We spent almost 2 hours going over about a half a page of material. It is going to be very difficult teaching these people conversational English. The hardest to teach are the women because they are too shy to speak in front of the men, and thus won't repeat after me which is crucial for them to get the pronunciation right. It was actually very annoying when the women wouldn't participate. The Chief of the Village tried to explain that women are different from men and they are too shy to speak in front of groups. To that I was like "Um no... I am a woman and I am speaking in front of you just fine. If I can do it, they can do it." That didn't go very far. In the end I decided to give up on trying to get the women to speak because I can't make someone do something they don't want to do.

Hot New Shoe Fad:

So remember the Jellies I wrote about in older posts? Well forget about em! When it comes to Malian footwear, Jellies are the shoes of yesterday. Today everyone is wearing a bright new neon pair of Abibis! These are just plain hard plastic flip flops that come in a variety of neon colors: hot pink, lime green, bright blue, etc. Men are the ones who have really taken on this fad, and surprisingly the most popular color is hot pink! Dudes will cuff their jeans so you can see their bright new Abibis. One of my PCV friends recently bought a pair so he could be up on the fad, and he has informed me that they are more expensive than your regular pair of flip flops (1000 cfa, about $2, instead of 500-750 cfa, around $1) and that they are not even comfortable. I have no idea where this fad came from, it seems as if it hopped out of nowhere. I'm considering buying a lime green pair myself.

New House:

Well my new house is practically finished! The wall is halfway done and I am only waiting for Peace Corps to deliver the windows and doors! I am beyond excited to move into it! I have a huge hangar that I can't wait to sleep under and even a small area where I'm gonna plant a garden. This small area was something I had to fight for though! My homologue was gonna try and build me this little tiny wall that really only gave me the space under the hangar as my enclosed front yard. Totally not cool. The house is already tiny and I really didn't think it was fair for him to give me a small yard too especially since I have spent nearly 8 months now waiting for a house that was supposed to be finished in 3 months at the latest. To get a more spacious yard I basically had to throw a hissy fit. My homologue had already laid the stone foundation for the tiny wall he wanted when I walked upon the building site. He asked me if it looked nice, and that's when I laid down the law. I told him it was small and then tried the whole pouty face- I'm really sad routine. He was like 'fine then where do yo want it?' I showed him a spot about a meter away from where the stones were already laid and he started to laugh. He said there was no way the 500 bricks they already made would be enough to fit what I wanted. To that I was like 'Can't you just make more?'... a bunch of stuff was said in Senufo amongst my homologue and his friends who were helping him and it sounded like they were arguing, but then my homologue took out his measuring tape and said 'Where do you want it?'... So yea I got my way. While they were changing the foundation I was trying to hide the smug smile on my face. I even helped move a few of the stones to try and not seem like a total spoiled brat.

Bike Trip:

This past Friday my homologue and I took a little day trip to a nearby village. The village is only 6k from mine and the ride was super picturesque. I had no idea that there were so many hills behind my village and all kinds of different flora. This village was like the quaint version of my. Life seemed a little slower there and all the house were a lot closer together. There was even an old town and a new town. The old part of the village is gradually being abandoned for the new part which is a couple hundred meters away. The old part looks like an ancient city with runes. It was pretty cool. While I was in this village I also got to see a man give out Polio vaccinations. It was comparable to a mail man going door to door with letters in a big sac, but in this case they're weren't letters but instead little bottles of clear liquid. All the small children lined up in front of the man and stuck their tongues out ( I assume they'd done this before because the children got right up without being told what to do). All it took was 2 drops of the vaccination on each tongue and that was it. I really liked this village and I was excited to find out that they might be putting a PC volunteer there in the near future!

Noises:

So There are a ton of different and very distinct noises Malians make. My favorite noise has to be the ehh eh? It is used in instances of shocked surprise. For example Aminata is pregnant and we don't know who the father is, response: Ehh eh!? A very close second favorite of mine are all of the animal calls ,or rather noises to shoo animals away. I've been told that everyone makes the same noises for each particular animal, but I'm not sure if this is all over Mali or just the noises Senufo people make. For chickens it is a sort of Shhhh shhh which is sort of like shushing but more choppy. For donkeys it's Tru tru and for sheep it's chet chet. There is also a very loud kissing sound that is often used after making any one of those noises. When Malians make these noises they look and sound like they are having a Tourette's induced fit. It took me quite some time to get use to all of this.

Written March 27, 2011

So I'm just gonna lay down a few random stories from the past few days.

Adult Learning:

This past Thursday I had my first Adult English Class. It was interesting... Out of a projected 17 participants only 6 showed up. I wasn't too disappointed because that Thursday was the first day of a school vacation so a lot of people had left the village. My class of 6 was however relatively high-profile! I had the 2nd in charge under the Mayor, the 3rd in charge, The President of the APE (basically the PTO/PTA), The Chief of the Village (well the administrative chief. My village has 2 chiefs, one a super old guy that has Chiefdom in his lineage and the other a young Gov't/village appointed Chief. The young one is the one that does all the administrative stuff for the village, the old one is kind of just there for show), and 2 women. Once the vacation is over I will also have the Mayor and the Director of the Secondary School as well as some teachers in my class. The first lesson we did was on basic greetings like How are you, I'm fine and you? etc. We spent almost 2 hours going over about a half a page of material. It is going to be very difficult teaching these people conversational English. The hardest to teach are the women because they are too shy to speak in front of the men, and thus won't repeat after me which is crucial for them to get the pronunciation right. It was actually very annoying when the women wouldn't participate. The Chief of the Village tried to explain that women are different from men and they are too shy to speak in front of groups. To that I was like "Um no... I am a woman and I am speaking in front of you just fine. If I can do it, they can do it." That didn't go very far. In the end I decided to give up on trying to get the women to speak because I can't make someone do something they don't want to do.

Hot New Shoe Fad:

So remember the Jellies I wrote about in older posts? Well forget about em! When it comes to Malian footwear, Jellies are the shoes of yesterday. Today everyone is wearing a bright new neon pair of Abibis! These are just plain hard plastic flip flops that come in a variety of neon colors: hot pink, lime green, bright blue, etc. Men are the ones who have really taken on this fad, and surprisingly the most popular color is hot pink! Dudes will cuff their jeans so you can see their bright new Abibis. One of my PCV friends recently bought a pair so he could be up on the fad, and he has informed me that they are more expensive than your regular pair of flip flops (1000 cfa, about $2, instead of 500-750 cfa, around $1) and that they are not even comfortable. I have no idea where this fad came from, it seems as if it hopped out of nowhere. I'm considering buying a lime green pair myself.

New House:

Well my new house is practically finished! The wall is halfway done and I am only waiting for Peace Corps to deliver the windows and doors! I am beyond excited to move into it! I have a huge hangar that I can't wait to sleep under and even a small area where I'm gonna plant a garden. This small area was something I had to fight for though! My homologue was gonna try and build me this little tiny wall that really only gave me the space under the hangar as my enclosed front yard. Totally not cool. The house is already tiny and I really didn't think it was fair for him to give me a small yard too especially since I have spent nearly 8 months now waiting for a house that was supposed to be finished in 3 months at the latest. To get a more spacious yard I basically had to throw a hissy fit. My homologue had already laid the stone foundation for the tiny wall he wanted when I walked upon the building site. He asked me if it looked nice, and that's when I laid down the law. I told him it was small and then tried the whole pouty face- I'm really sad routine. He was like 'fine then where do yo want it?' I showed him a spot about a meter away from where the stones were already laid and he started to laugh. He said there was no way the 500 bricks they already made would be enough to fit what I wanted. To that I was like 'Can't you just make more?'... a bunch of stuff was said in Senufo amongst my homologue and his friends who were helping him and it sounded like they were arguing, but then my homologue took out his measuring tape and said 'Where do you want it?'... So yea I got my way. While they were changing the foundation I was trying to hide the smug smile on my face. I even helped move a few of the stones to try and not seem like a total spoiled brat.

Bike Trip:

This past Friday my homologue and I took a little day trip to a nearby village. The village is only 6k from mine and the ride was super picturesque. I had no idea that there were so many hills behind my village and all kinds of different flora. This village was like the quaint version of my. Life seemed a little slower there and all the house were a lot closer together. There was even an old town and a new town. The old part of the village is gradually being abandoned for the new part which is a couple hundred meters away. The old part looks like an ancient city with runes. It was pretty cool. While I was in this village I also got to see a man give out Polio vaccinations. It was comparable to a mail man going door to door with letters in a big sac, but in this case they're weren't letters but instead little bottles of clear liquid. All the small children lined up in front of the man and stuck their tongues out ( I assume they'd done this before because the children got right up without being told what to do). All it took was 2 drops of the vaccination on each tongue and that was it. I really liked this village and I was excited to find out that they might be putting a PC volunteer there in the near future!

Noises:

So There are a ton of different and very distinct noises Malians make. My favorite noise has to be the ehh eh? It is used in instances of shocked surprise. For example Aminata is pregnant and we don't know who the father is, response: Ehh eh!? A very close second favorite of mine are all of the animal calls ,or rather noises to shoo animals away. I've been told that everyone makes the same noises for each particular animal, but I'm not sure if this is all over Mali or just the noises Senufo people make. For chickens it is a sort of Shhhh shhh which is sort of like shushing but more choppy. For donkeys it's Tru tru and for sheep it's chet chet. There is also a very loud kissing sound that is often used after making any one of those noises. When Malians make these noises they look and sound like they are having a Tourette's induced fit. It took me quite some time to get use to all of this.

Written March 27, 2011

So I'm just gonna lay down a few random stories from the past few days.

Adult Learning:

This past Thursday I had my first Adult English Class. It was interesting... Out of a projected 17 participants only 6 showed up. I wasn't too disappointed because that Thursday was the first day of a school vacation so a lot of people had left the village. My class of 6 was however relatively high-profile! I had the 2nd in charge under the Mayor, the 3rd in charge, The President of the APE (basically the PTO/PTA), The Chief of the Village (well the administrative chief. My village has 2 chiefs, one a super old guy that has Chiefdom in his lineage and the other a young Gov't/village appointed Chief. The young one is the one that does all the administrative stuff for the village, the old one is kind of just there for show), and 2 women. Once the vacation is over I will also have the Mayor and the Director of the Secondary School as well as some teachers in my class. The first lesson we did was on basic greetings like How are you, I'm fine and you? etc. We spent almost 2 hours going over about a half a page of material. It is going to be very difficult teaching these people conversational English. The hardest to teach are the women because they are too shy to speak in front of the men, and thus won't repeat after me which is crucial for them to get the pronunciation right. It was actually very annoying when the women wouldn't participate. The Chief of the Village tried to explain that women are different from men and they are too shy to speak in front of groups. To that I was like "Um no... I am a woman and I am speaking in front of you just fine. If I can do it, they can do it." That didn't go very far. In the end I decided to give up on trying to get the women to speak because I can't make someone do something they don't want to do.

Hot New Shoe Fad:

So remember the Jellies I wrote about in older posts? Well forget about em! When it comes to Malian footwear, Jellies are the shoes of yesterday. Today everyone is wearing a bright new neon pair of Abibis! These are just plain hard plastic flip flops that come in a variety of neon colors: hot pink, lime green, bright blue, etc. Men are the ones who have really taken on this fad, and surprisingly the most popular color is hot pink! Dudes will cuff their jeans so you can see their bright new Abibis. One of my PCV friends recently bought a pair so he could be up on the fad, and he has informed me that they are more expensive than your regular pair of flip flops (1000 cfa, about $2, instead of 500-750 cfa, around $1) and that they are not even comfortable. I have no idea where this fad came from, it seems as if it hopped out of nowhere. I'm considering buying a lime green pair myself.

New House:

Well my new house is practically finished! The wall is halfway done and I am only waiting for Peace Corps to deliver the windows and doors! I am beyond excited to move into it! I have a huge hangar that I can't wait to sleep under and even a small area where I'm gonna plant a garden. This small area was something I had to fight for though! My homologue was gonna try and build me this little tiny wall that really only gave me the space under the hangar as my enclosed front yard. Totally not cool. The house is already tiny and I really didn't think it was fair for him to give me a small yard too especially since I have spent nearly 8 months now waiting for a house that was supposed to be finished in 3 months at the latest. To get a more spacious yard I basically had to throw a hissy fit. My homologue had already laid the stone foundation for the tiny wall he wanted when I walked upon the building site. He asked me if it looked nice, and that's when I laid down the law. I told him it was small and then tried the whole pouty face- I'm really sad routine. He was like 'fine then where do yo want it?' I showed him a spot about a meter away from where the stones were already laid and he started to laugh. He said there was no way the 500 bricks they already made would be enough to fit what I wanted. To that I was like 'Can't you just make more?'... a bunch of stuff was said in Senufo amongst my homologue and his friends who were helping him and it sounded like they were arguing, but then my homologue took out his measuring tape and said 'Where do you want it?'... So yea I got my way. While they were changing the foundation I was trying to hide the smug smile on my face. I even helped move a few of the stones to try and not seem like a total spoiled brat.

Bike Trip:

This past Friday my homologue and I took a little day trip to a nearby village. The village is only 6k from mine and the ride was super picturesque. I had no idea that there were so many hills behind my village and all kinds of different flora. This village was like the quaint version of my. Life seemed a little slower there and all the house were a lot closer together. There was even an old town and a new town. The old part of the village is gradually being abandoned for the new part which is a couple hundred meters away. The old part looks like an ancient city with runes. It was pretty cool. While I was in this village I also got to see a man give out Polio vaccinations. It was comparable to a mail man going door to door with letters in a big sac, but in this case they're weren't letters but instead little bottles of clear liquid. All the small children lined up in front of the man and stuck their tongues out ( I assume they'd done this before because the children got right up without being told what to do). All it took was 2 drops of the vaccination on each tongue and that was it. I really liked this village and I was excited to find out that they might be putting a PC volunteer there in the near future!

Noises:

So There are a ton of different and very distinct noises Malians make. My favorite noise has to be the ehh eh? It is used in instances of shocked surprise. For example Aminata is pregnant and we don't know who the father is, response: Ehh eh!? A very close second favorite of mine are all of the animal calls ,or rather noises to shoo animals away. I've been told that everyone makes the same noises for each particular animal, but I'm not sure if this is all over Mali or just the noises Senufo people make. For chickens it is a sort of Shhhh shhh which is sort of like shushing but more choppy. For donkeys it's Tru tru and for sheep it's chet chet. There is also a very loud kissing sound that is often used after making any one of those noises. When Malians make these noises they look and sound like they are having a Tourette's induced fit. It took me quite some time to get use to all of this.

Written March 27, 2011

So I'm just gonna lay down a few random stories from the past few days.

Adult Learning:

This past Thursday I had my first Adult English Class. It was interesting... Out of a projected 17 participants only 6 showed up. I wasn't too disappointed because that Thursday was the first day of a school vacation so a lot of people had left the village. My class of 6 was however relatively high-profile! I had the 2nd in charge under the Mayor, the 3rd in charge, The President of the APE (basically the PTO/PTA), The Chief of the Village (well the administrative chief. My village has 2 chiefs, one a super old guy that has Chiefdom in his lineage and the other a young Gov't/village appointed Chief. The young one is the one that does all the administrative stuff for the village, the old one is kind of just there for show), and 2 women. Once the vacation is over I will also have the Mayor and the Director of the Secondary School as well as some teachers in my class. The first lesson we did was on basic greetings like How are you, I'm fine and you? etc. We spent almost 2 hours going over about a half a page of material. It is going to be very difficult teaching these people conversational English. The hardest to teach are the women because they are too shy to speak in front of the men, and thus won't repeat after me which is crucial for them to get the pronunciation right. It was actually very annoying when the women wouldn't participate. The Chief of the Village tried to explain that women are different from men and they are too shy to speak in front of groups. To that I was like "Um no... I am a woman and I am speaking in front of you just fine. If I can do it, they can do it." That didn't go very far. In the end I decided to give up on trying to get the women to speak because I can't make someone do something they don't want to do.

Hot New Shoe Fad:

So remember the Jellies I wrote about in older posts? Well forget about em! When it comes to Malian footwear, Jellies are the shoes of yesterday. Today everyone is wearing a bright new neon pair of Abibis! These are just plain hard plastic flip flops that come in a variety of neon colors: hot pink, lime green, bright blue, etc. Men are the ones who have really taken on this fad, and surprisingly the most popular color is hot pink! Dudes will cuff their jeans so you can see their bright new Abibis. One of my PCV friends recently bought a pair so he could be up on the fad, and he has informed me that they are more expensive than your regular pair of flip flops (1000 cfa, about $2, instead of 500-750 cfa, around $1) and that they are not even comfortable. I have no idea where this fad came from, it seems as if it hopped out of nowhere. I'm considering buying a lime green pair myself.

New House:

Well my new house is practically finished! The wall is halfway done and I am only waiting for Peace Corps to deliver the windows and doors! I am beyond excited to move into it! I have a huge hangar that I can't wait to sleep under and even a small area where I'm gonna plant a garden. This small area was something I had to fight for though! My homologue was gonna try and build me this little tiny wall that really only gave me the space under the hangar as my enclosed front yard. Totally not cool. The house is already tiny and I really didn't think it was fair for him to give me a small yard too especially since I have spent nearly 8 months now waiting for a house that was supposed to be finished in 3 months at the latest. To get a more spacious yard I basically had to throw a hissy fit. My homologue had already laid the stone foundation for the tiny wall he wanted when I walked upon the building site. He asked me if it looked nice, and that's when I laid down the law. I told him it was small and then tried the whole pouty face- I'm really sad routine. He was like 'fine then where do yo want it?' I showed him a spot about a meter away from where the stones were already laid and he started to laugh. He said there was no way the 500 bricks they already made would be enough to fit what I wanted. To that I was like 'Can't you just make more?'... a bunch of stuff was said in Senufo amongst my homologue and his friends who were helping him and it sounded like they were arguing, but then my homologue took out his measuring tape and said 'Where do you want it?'... So yea I got my way. While they were changing the foundation I was trying to hide the smug smile on my face. I even helped move a few of the stones to try and not seem like a total spoiled brat.

Bike Trip:

This past Friday my homologue and I took a little day trip to a nearby village. The village is only 6k from mine and the ride was super picturesque. I had no idea that there were so many hills behind my village and all kinds of different flora. This village was like the quaint version of my. Life seemed a little slower there and all the house were a lot closer together. There was even an old town and a new town. The old part of the village is gradually being abandoned for the new part which is a couple hundred meters away. The old part looks like an ancient city with runes. It was pretty cool. While I was in this village I also got to see a man give out Polio vaccinations. It was comparable to a mail man going door to door with letters in a big sac, but in this case they're weren't letters but instead little bottles of clear liquid. All the small children lined up in front of the man and stuck their tongues out ( I assume they'd done this before because the children got right up without being told what to do). All it took was 2 drops of the vaccination on each tongue and that was it. I really liked this village and I was excited to find out that they might be putting a PC volunteer there in the near future!

Noises:

So There are a ton of different and very distinct noises Malians make. My favorite noise has to be the ehh eh? It is used in instances of shocked surprise. For example Aminata is pregnant and we don't know who the father is, response: Ehh eh!? A very close second favorite of mine are all of the animal calls ,or rather noises to shoo animals away. I've been told that everyone makes the same noises for each particular animal, but I'm not sure if this is all over Mali or just the noises Senufo people make. For chickens it is a sort of Shhhh shhh which is sort of like shushing but more choppy. For donkeys it's Tru tru and for sheep it's chet chet. There is also a very loud kissing sound that is often used after making any one of those noises. When Malians make these noises they look and sound like they are having a Tourette's induced fit. It took me quite some time to get use to all of this.

Written March 23, 2011

So there was a camel in my village today... very strange. I live in the south of Mali where it is semi-tropical, so being a desert animal a camel isn't something you would expect to see here. I was biking home from drinking tea in the market with my homologue and his friends when I passed by the camel. I left my homologue and his friends after only round two of a typically three round tea session because I had already been sitting with them in the market for two hours; another round would've probably meant another round of me sitting bored out of my mind. So anyway I decided to say that I was tired and I that I was going to go home and rest as a way to get out of staying for the third round. This is basically something I do every Wednesday. Every Wednesday is market day, and every Wednesday my homologue likes to bring me to the market with him to have tea with his "Grein." A Grein is a group of friends who have grown up together, hang out together, dress alike for Fetes (special occasions or holidays), and drink tea together. My homologue's grein is made up of a very tall man that they have nicknamed Dangereux, a Fulani man, a guy that has teeth that are really spaced out, and a really sweet woman named Abi, although Abi isn't so much apart of the grein as much as she is the grein's mother (i.e. servant who does everything while all the men sit around doing nothing). Anyway... back to the camel. So I was leaving the grein when I saw in a distance a camel with a turbaned man on top. I got kind of scared at first and stopped my bike because I saw a black thing in the man's hands (the reins) and thought it was a gun. Why this was my first thought I have no idea. I guess I just got scared because I was seeing something out of the ordinary. Once I got over my fear I kept on biking towards the man on the camel and once I got to him I said I ni ce (basically hi in Bambara) and kept on going. I did notice that all the villagers surrounding the man and his camel did not look the least bit surprised. It was as if seeing a camel was no big deal to them. It was a huge deal to me! Once I got back to my house I thought 'Damn it! I should've asked for a ride!'

Things have been pretty good in village. I am spending a lot less time at home and way more time out and about with my homologue. We spend a ridiculous amount of time playing cards (uno), but it's all good because I'm getting to know more and more people. Yesterday was one of the few times I've ever truly been upset in village. It wasn't because of anything anyone had done to me in village, but rather a phone call from my APCD (my Peace Corps supervisor). He called to say that he was upset about something I did, it all turned out to be a misunderstanding, but it upset me nonetheless. I then went from being upset about that phone call to having to sit through a meeting that took literally all day. I believe I wrote in a previous blog post how much a HATE meetings here. I honestly don't understand why my homologue keeps bringing me to them when I've told him more than once that I don't like them because I understand nothing that is going on. This meeting just added to my frustrations of the day, but it was all alleviated when one of the guys who works at the mayor's office walked into the meeting wearing jeans that had two GIANT Nokia phones embroidered onto each pant leg! Funniest pants I've ever seen in my entire life, second only to a pair I saw a month or so ago that were embroidered with all different types of guns with "Welcome to the Hood" stitched on the bottom of the left pant leg. Oh Mali...

Yesterday may have been the first time I was really upset in village, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it was the only time I've ever been upset in Mali. I will go as far as to say that a few days ago I was the maddest I've ever been in Mali, and I mean I was furious. The way to tell when a Peace Corps volunteer is so incredibly mad is when they revert to yelling in English because they are so mad that they can only express themselves in their maternal tongue. I reached exactly that point. It all began when I was already somewhat annoyed because I had been waiting for a bus to take me back to village for an hour before I actually caught one. This bus was particularly crappy by Mali standards, but I decided to take it anyway because it was past 5pm and I needed to get to Helen's village before 6:30pm when the sun went down and it would be too late to bike my 8k back to my village. It normally only takes 45 minutes to get from Sikasso to Helen's village, but lately it has been taking an hour plus because the road is being repaired. Knowing this I figured I would still be able to make it in time, so I got on the bus and handed the Prentigi (the driver's apprentice; there are usually 3 of these guys on every bus and they are usually the ones who collect your money and give you a ticket) 5 mille (about $10). My ticket was only 1 mille ($2) so I asked the prentigi for my 4 mille in change ($8), to which he said it was coming. I didn't want to annoy the prentigi to make him do something like pretend to not notice my stop or even to make me get out way before I'm supposed to, so I patiently waited for him to bring me my change. Except he didn't. This prentigi got off the bus when we reached the Sikasso check point (about 25 minutes later) and never got back on. I immediately thought 'aw crap, did I seriously just lose 4 mille???' This may not sound like a big deal, but 4 mille is a HUGE amount of money to me, and I am currently trying to save up to go on a big vacation so it would do me no good to lose any amount of money. Anyway I sulked for a bit and then decided that I wasn't going to give up on my change. I then called another prentigi and told him that I was owed 4 mille. This prentigi called up to the front of the bus a couple of times to ask about my change, but I suspect he was just doing this to shut me up because no 4 mille came of this. I continued to sit patiently hoping that my change would come eventually, but also thinking that I wouldn't get off the bus without my 4 mille. The bus also kept making a bunch of stupid and very long stops, so by the time they reached the village before Helen's and decided to take a 5 minute prayer break it was already dark. This mad me even more annoyed because not only did I not have my change, but now I was going to have to spend the night in Helen's village. Once everyone got back on the bus after the prayer break I asked the prentigi again for my change and told him that I needed it now because I was getting off at the next village. He did the whole yelling up to the front thing again, and again nothing came of it. By the time the bus stopped in Helen's village I still didn't have my change. This was when I started to yell. I screamed out I WANT MY CHANGE (up to this point every verbal exchange had been in Bambara), to which several prentigis told me in French that I should just get off the bus and my change would be given to me. I replied : NO I CAN NOT GET OFF THE BUS, GIVE ME MY 4 MILLE (in Bambara) I NEED MY MONEY, I NEED 4 MILLE (in French). IF I GET OFF THE BUS YOU WILL JUST LEAVE (French). GIVE ME MY MONEY NOW!! A woman sitting in front of me turned to the person next to her and said "This girl can scream!" I continued to yell for them to give me my money and several other people on the bus yelled out "Just give her her money!" All the while all of the prentigis had gotten off of the bus and were all laughing hysterically at me. I was finally handed my 4 mille by a prentigi who said "is this how much you need?" with a big smile on his face. I snatched the money and climbed down the stairs relieved that I got my money but also very distraught by the whole situation. I was so distraught that the only thing that I could think of to say was THIS IS BAD (Bambara) over and over again and then THIEF (Bambara) while pointing to each of the prentigis. I also unfortunately tripped as the last Zon (Bambara for thief) was coming out of my mouth. This made them laugh even harder. A prentigi then came up to me and asked me in French, "Madame are you finished?" This was what set me off. I was beyond furious when I yelled SHUT THE *$&^ UP! at him. As you can see I could only express my true extreme anger in English and with a expletive (I almost never curse, so me cursing is another indication of how truly angry I was). The bus pulled away and I could still hear the laughter in the distance. I was fuming as I walked to Helen's house, but then some kids came up to me and offered to take my bags. By the time I made it to her house I was fairly calmed down because of the kindness of the villagers around me. I realized that those prentigis were jerks and that village Malians are nothing like them, and that I was just glad to be back in village.

Written March 12, 2011

Hot Priest struck again. I was having such a good day, until I was walking into my concession after spending the entire day at the secondary school and it was his face that I saw. Ugh he is so annoying!!! Every time he is around he basically forces you to spend time with him. He makes it seem disrespectful if you even try to leave his presence. This time he came for a visit and brought a few guests with him, two women and a man. Turns out they were two nuns and a priest, all Anglican. Also turns out Hot Priest told them that I was also Anglican (same thing as Episcopal, the church my family attends back home) and that I have not been attending mass (Catholic mass and an Episcopal service are basically the same thing, so I very well could be attending mass here, but I have chosen not to because it is held in Bambara and French and I have no desire to spend 2 more hours of my life a week not understanding anything, also I don't like Hot Priest, so I really don't want to spend 2 hours with him either). Because Hot Priest let that info slip, I was given a 10 minute lecture about how I am Anglican and I can go to a Catholic Church, and that it is important to go to Church and that I shouldn't lose my faith. I can't stand lectures like this (My dad, my real dad back home, knows this already). I pretty much just sat there with a blank look on my face until it was all over, oh and I couldn't help but curse Hot Priest for bringing this upon me. He ruined such a great day!

So anyway today was so great because it was the first time I had my English teacher's meeting. My homologue came up with the idea for me to meet with the 3 English teachers of the secondary school so that we could exchange ideas and so I could give them tips on how to better run their classes. This is sort of a way that I can teach all of the students of my village without actually being there in class and teaching them. The secondary school desperately needs teacher training, so I feel as if I am doing my part. I however am not a trained teacher, so I make no claims to know everything, but I do feel as if I myself was given a very good education, so I am sort of trying to replicate the classroom learning that I experienced growing up. My homologue helped me set it up so that the 3 teachers and myself will meet together every Saturday morning for two hours. I have asked that they bring their lesson plans for the week to come with them to each meeting. Today they just had their plans for just one class period next week since we only just started this weekly meeting. The two hours were first spent discussing how time in class is normally spent and then how I think it should be spent. Then we went over the class period plans for the 9th, 8th and 7th grade English classes, which basically meant me correcting all of their example sentences that were full of grammatical errors and also me explaining the need to have everything that is said or written on the board in English translated in French, and Bambara or Senufo if possible. At the end of the two hours I asked the teachers if they thought the meeting was productive, and they happily agreed that it was. I think that these meetings are really going to be beneficial to the students of my village because now English isn't just going to be spoken at them, but now it is going to be translated, broken down and explained to them, all in the hopes of their comprehension... I'm sure your thinking 'that doesn't exactly sound fun, and you said your day was so great,' well you're right, that wasn't the fun part. The fun part was spending the entire day playing very competitive Uno.

A couple of days ago I thought the teachers of the secondary school and my homologue how to play Uno. They absolutely loved it! Uno is very similar to a card game that is very popular here called Cent Cinquante et Un (151), so Uno was very simple for them to understand and pick up very quickly. The teachers her are SUPER competitive! We started keeping a tally of how many times each person won a round of Uno to then see who was the overall champion. It was so much fun making them draw four or skipping them and having them genuinely get upset and then turn vengeful on you. Who knew a simple game like Uno could make someone bloodthirsty!

Oh and if you read my last blog post I assume you are wondering how my little test for the 7th, 8th and 9th graders went. Well, it went terribly. But that was expected. I expected that the students would pretty much all fail my tests because in all honesty they don't know English. This is especially sad because English is one of their core classes, like math or science. Each grade had their own 15 question test. I graded the tests on a 30 point scale. I gave a correct response 2 points (well sort of correct, for example if the spelling was off by a letter or two I still gave them the 2 points), a response that I could sort of understand and see what they were trying to say 1 point, and then a response that was completely wrong 0 points. The tests all started out with the question What is your name, and then either Where are you from or what is the name of your village? The other 13 questions were all translation questions: 6 words given in French that they should translate into English and then 5 words given in English that they should translate into French. These words were ridiculously easy too. For example two of the words from the 9th grade test were nothing and sugar. No one knew those words. There was a ridiculous amount of scores of 0, 1 and 2 amongst all three grades. I was, however, very easily able to find the top ten students (well 11 for the 8th grade because there was a 3 way tie of the score 21) for each grade to be the members of my advanced English class which will begin as soon as my house is done.

As for my house, all the remains now is building the fence and putting up the hangar, oh and installing the doors and windows. Peace Corps decided it was going to pay for my doors and windows. My supervisor ( my APCD) came to my village a few days ago, a sort of surprise visit, to tell me that the doors and windows were going to be paid for by Peace Corps! I was so happy to hear this because he had originally told me that Peace Corps was only going to provide me with 5 bags of cement, so him coming to my village and giving me this news was great! I have no idea where the doors or windows, or rather the money to buy the doors and windows was going to come from otherwise.

Oh and as for the adult English class, we set a date for our very first class, the 24th of this month! So far we have 21 people signed up and they are all very excited to begin learning!

written March 2, 2011

There really are ants in my Salidaga and I have no idea why. First off I'm not sure if I've ever explained what a Salidaga even is, so let me go ahead and do that: A Salidaga is a sort of large plastic kettle that holds water that Malians bring into the bathroom with them to use instead of toilet paper. I however ONLY use my salidaga as a part of my hand washing station. I still have, to this day, NEVER had to go without toilet paper (knock-on-wood)! Okay, back to the ants. So yea, for some reason ants love to commit suicide in my salidaga. Everyday I find hundreds if not thousands of dead sugar ants floating in my salidaga, it's really very gross. The first time I discovered this I almost died. I was attempting to wash my hands when these large black clumps were poured over my hands. At first I thought they we clumps of dust, like cobwebs or something, but then upon closer look I realized they were tiny ants! Ridiculously disgusting! Anyway I'm now back in village after having been gone for about 2 weeks in SENEGAL!!! Amazing trip! but I will get to that later. When I first got back to village on Monday I was really really really annoyed. I came back expecting for my house to be entirely finished since on the day I left all that was left to be done was cement the floors, add the doors and windows, dig the hole for the negen, put on the tin roof and build the fence, all of which could be done in less than a week. Turns out only the roof was put on and the hole dug! I was so pissed. Now I won't be able to move into my house for at least another week if not more. I just want my privacy!! I want to be able to walk to my bathroom without having to greet anyone, I want to be able to chill in my house without hearing my homologue's TV, and I want to be able to do my chores without having everyone watch me. I honestly can't wait for my new house, and I'm going to bring it up everyday to try and annoy my homologue so that maybe the process will be expedited.

Today in village we had another meeting with this Malian education NGO that comes and kind of does a diagnostic of all your education problems. I'm not sure yet if they actually plan on doing something about the problems or if they are just here to point them out. Anyway, this is the fourth time they have held a meeting in my village. I've ...(If this was a live journal writing you would know that I was just called away by some dude, I have no idea who it was because it is dark outside, but he yelled out my name twice, once I got to my door and stepped outside we said the normal greetings and then he started to say something in Senufo to which I had to tell him that I didn't understand and he then translated and said that he came to greet me. Sooooo annoying!! If I had my own house this wouldn't happen... well actually it probably would, but on a more controlled basis because this dude really came to see my homologue and not me, but just also decided to call me outside too) where was I... oh yea, I've always hated attending meetings in village just because I never understand anything until it is translated in French for me and they are always really long and boring. I especially hate these meetings though. The people who work for this NGO, one woman in particular, are always very condescending towards me. I like to be a silent observer in meetings and not have all the attention placed on me, but on whatever everyone came to meet about. The people of this NGO always like to draw me to the center of attention by pointing out something dumb like me not understanding or something. One time the woman saw me writing in my journal (I was particularly bored that meeting and decided to pull out my journal and write) and she came and stood over my shoulder and said "So you're writing in English."

Me:Yes

Annoying NGO Lady: What are you writing about?

Me: My life, my experiences

Her: Why don't you write in French?

Me: English is my national language, it's what I speak so I write in that

Her: Is it because French is hard to write in?

Me: No. I write in English because that's what I speak.

Her: So you can write in French, you just don't want to.

Me:Yep.

So basically this woman just wanted to be nosy and read what I was writing, but can you see how condescending she was being? Another thing that made me really dislike this woman was that she took the one and only Youki, my favorite soda here (it's fruit cocktail flavor), and only drank half of it while I drank nothing because all that was left were cokes and I hate coke. I'm not saying it's a good reason to dislike someone, but it's a reason nonetheless, especially since the only thing that keeps me going through these meetings is knowing that I'm going to have a yummy lunch (i.e. something besides Toh) and boissons (soda) provided, and that particular day I felt like I was shafted. Today's meeting however was relatively okay. I was able to steer clear of the annoying lady, and was actually able to meet two really cool women from a village that's like 45 minutes from mine. There was this man from their village who was hitting on me hard-core (he was saying thing like I am sooo beautiful and charming and nice, and that he was going to come to my village everyday to chat with me), and the two women kept saying that he had no chance with me, and kept joking with him to help alleviate the awkwardness that he was creating. It was really funny because after I would tell him no for something, for example I told him I was only interested in American men, they would shout out DISQUALIFIED!! There was also a point where he found out how much I loved mangoes and one of the woman pointed out how his village has no mangoes and then burst out into laughter. It was really a fun afternoon with those women, and I hope to meet them again.

SENEGAL- So my vacation in Senegal was AWESOME! I loved every moment of it. Being in Dakar, the capitol, was basically like being in America. There were high rise apartments, city buses, and garbage trucks!!! There were also legit grocery stores, Aldos (the shoe store), and I even saw a Curves!!! (the exercise place for women). Not only is Dakar like a mini-America, it also has the beach!!! I hadn't seen the ocean in 8 months, and God did I miss it! We got to go to two Islands while in Dakar, Goree and Ngor. Goree was really cool because it use to be a slave hub, so it wa scool to see all of the historical things, and Ngor was cool because it is a beautiful Island right off of Dakar where Akon, or so we were told, has a house! We also got to eat some amazing food while in Dakar. They have an ice cream shop called N'ice Cream that is honestly comparable to if not better than Coldstone back in America! I had a flavor called Obama that was rich chocolate ice cream with hazelnut fudge mixed in and little crunchy chocolate pieces as well. SOOOO GOOD! We also had amazing Cape Verdian food that my friend Melissa, who is from Cape Verde, got us for free just because she could speak their language with the owner. I also had yummy pizza and Mexican food!! All in all it was a great trip! Oh and as I mentioned in the previous blog how I wasn't going to play softball, I stuck to that and didn't swing a single bat.

I'm really excited right now because tomorrow I am going to test all three grades of the Secondary school. My host dad, the director of the school, came up with this idea when I came to him and told him I was ready to begin teaching his students English. I already give informal lessons everyday when I go to have lunch with my host family, but now I want to give legit structured classes. However, I am aware that it would be impossible to teach all 300 something students, so I have decided that I want to give advanced classes to the top 10 students in each grade. I originally just went to my host dad to have him pick the 10 kids, but he felt like the village parents would accuse him and my homologue of just choosing kids that they wanted, and would accuse him of not being fair. So he came up with the idea for me to create a small test for all of the students and for me to correct them and then select the 10 highest scorers, and for those to be the members of my advanced English class. I haven't quite decided what I am going to put on the tests yet, but I'm thinking of just having them translate a bunch of vocabulary words from French/Bambara to English and vice versa. I'm going to continue having the informal classes everyday at lunch for the other students, but I am really excited to start up this Advanced class. I am also going to start, sometime very soon, a Adult English class. I am going to teach them conversational English one evening every week. The adults of my village are very excited for this to begin, especially my homologue, and so am I.

written February 11, 2011

Today I was handed an unopened Fanta that had stuff floating in it. I drank it. All of it. This is how far I have come. If you can believe it I once use to be a bit of a germophobe and I had to give that up real quick once I arrived in Mali. Back in the States my opinion of people would often be based on how sanitary they were. For example my freshman year of college I was taking a French class and there was this really cool girl who sat next to me. We had some pretty interesting conversations, and I was pretty sure a friendship was developing. Well, one day I was in the bathroom washing my hands after doing my business when I heard a toilet flush and then saw my friend come out of the stall. She waved hi to me and then walked right out of the bathroom. Just walked right out! I was floored, and disgusted. Who doesn't wash their hands with soap and water after using the bathroom?? From that moment on I knew we couldn't be friends, and I'm pretty sure I never spoke to her again. Anyway now that I am living in Mali I can't afford to judge people like that. I would literally have no friends since very few people in my village wash their hands with soap and water.

I am constantly dirty in this country. There is red dust everywhere now that the rains have stopped and we've entered dry season. Every day the water I pour over myself during my bucket bath runs red from all the dirt caked on my body. It's pretty gross. My clothes always have dirt stains on them, and I guess I've just gotten use to it. I actually had an issue with this in my village recently. Every day I walk around with my green backpack, so inevitably it got pretty dirty from all the clouds of dust I have to walk through on a daily basis. The light grey patches on it were basically red. I got a lot of flack for this in village. Everyone would stare at my bag and would then whisper some stuff in Senufo while still looking at the bag. I'm sure they were talking about how dirty it was. I could've cared less about what they thought because there was no way I was gonna spend like an hour scrubbing that bag when it would only take a day for it to be filthy again. I guess the diapproval of my dirty backpack reached its boiling point because the other day my homologue came to my door and told me that he told his wife that she should wash my bag the next day and that first thing when I woke I should hand it over to her. I don't know why, but at that moment I was incredibley embarassed. My bag had never embarassed me before, but I guess it was the fact that everyone thought I was incapable of cleaning it that got to me. I tried to say no like a million times and I tried to explain that I could do it, to which my homologue said no that he already explained to his wife that she had to do it and that it was okay because I probably just wasn't use to washing things like that (I wanted to be like "Um I'm not use to washing anything because we have washing machines in America and as you can see my clothes are always clean, when I begin my day anyway, so I think I have the whole washing by hand thing figured out and I'm sure I can figure out how to clean a bag, I just haven't done it yet... of course I didn't say all that though). I eventually just gave in, and the next morning I handed my bag over. When she returned it at the end of the day man it was clean!!

So since my last blog quite a bit has changed when it comes to the plans for my new house. A few weeks ago my homologue walked me out past the mango trees to this open space and explained to me that the house I thought I would be moving into wasn't the best option. He explained that the house was owned by the Catholic Church in my village and that there is a possibility that they might want to reclaim it sometime in the future. He told me that he believed it was best that they just build an entirely new house for me, and that it could be a house that the village could continue to use for guests, like other Peace Corps volunteers, in the future after I'm long and gone. I told him that that was definitely a better option, but that I wanted to move into my house sisan sisan (bambara for right now). He told me that it only takes a few days to build a house, and that I would be able to move into it very soon. I told him that that was all good and well, but where would the money come from? Peace Corps was only willing to donate 5 bags of cement to my cause since they already dumped a bunch of money into the unacceptable house I am currently living in. My homologue told me that there had been a meeting the day before with the APE and the CGS (APE= the Malian equivalent of the PTO and the CGS= the school board) and they agreed to pay for everything. I was super happy to hear this because the open space where we were standing would be my new yard, and there was a water spicket just a few steps away! (with the Catholic house I would've had to walk to a well and draw my water, which would suck because even my unacceptable house has a water spicket and I've gotten very spoiled by it). Also I have several bars of reseau where my new house will be!!! (Reseau is French for cell phone service) No more walking around searching for bars of service for me!! Anyway that all happened about a month ago, so it didn't quite happen in just a few days like my homologue said it would. Two weeks ago all of the 7th and 8th grade students in my village came to move the 2000 bricks my homologue made to the open space, and about a week after that the students moved rocks that would be used for the foundation. It was really a sight to see! The Director of the Secondary School, my host dad, just ordered all of the kids to come do the manual labor as if it were classwork. I felt kind of bad that the kids had to do all of this for me under the hot sun, but I reallllllyyyy want my new house. Over the past few days some of the men in my village have been building my house, and they pretty much finished the construction of the house today. All that is left is putting on the tin roof and putting in the windows and the door, all of which can be done in less than a day. Also they have to build a wall and put up a gwa (basically a hangar, or a shaded awning type thing). The house is super small, but I guess I can't really complain though because at least now I will have privacy. Unfotunately everything won't be finished before I leave for Senegal on the 16th, but oh well. I'm hoping it will be done by the time I come back.

So yea, I'm going to Senegal!!! On the 16th a huge group of us Mali volunteers ( I think around 53 of us) will be getting on a 25-hour long bus ride to Dakar. I can't wait!! We're all going to Senegal for WAIST ( I think this stands for West African Invitational Softball Tournament). Basically it will be 3 days of Softball that I will not be participating in (I know, you're not surprised at all since I have never been much of a sports player). I'm probably going to explore Dakar and relax on the beach! After the tournament my friends an I plan on exploring other parts of Senegal for 3 days and then we plan on going to The Gambia (a tiny country right in the middle of Senegal)for another 3 days. This is gonna be a much needed vacation, and I can't wait to see all of my friends that I haven't seen since New Years!!

written January 11, 2011

It has been an incredibley long time since I last blog, and for that I apologize. I was never in the mood to sit down and type. This past month was pretty crazy. The first two weeks of December were IST (In-service training) at Tubaniso. It was so awesome seeing everyone again after our 3-month in-village lock-down. I spent basically all of my time with Melissa and Meredith. We went out in Bamako so many times that I feel like I've got that city down-pack. After IST we spent a few nights at the Bamako Stage House which is basically this big, super nice house with a bunch of bunk beds for PCVs to use whenever we're in Bamako; a transit house. A few days before Christmas we made our way to Manantali. Manantali is the most beautiful place I have seen thus far in Mali. It is right on the Bafing River, and there are hippos and monkeys (although I saw neither, but have been told that they are usually there). Christmas was very chill. I basically forgot it was Christmas since we didn't really do anything special except for relax and hang with friends. For New Years we headed back to Bamako where we attended a house party hosted by some Lebanese dude. It was a lot of fun except for that fact that I managed to get hit by roman candles and I now have a disgusting burn on my left leg and a HUGE bruise on my right. After New Years we spent a few more days in Bamako, and then it was back to Sikasso.

I've now been in village for about 5 days and it hasn't been bad at all, well for the most part. Several people in village have really gotten on my nerves, but overall I'm glad to be back. Life was pretty hectic and very expensive in Bamako, so it's nice to be back in my slow-paced village life. The main thing that has occupied my time since being back is trying to get the ball rolling on the fixing up of my new house. Absolutely nothing has been done since the day I stepped foot in this village, and that is very disheartening. All that they have to do is build me a wall, dig a latrine, slab some cement on the ground, build me a hangar (shaded place), and place screens on the windows. It sounds like a lot, but it's really not. All of that could be done in less than a week, but for some reason my homologue is dragging his feet. I'm starting to get the feeling that he doesn't want me to move at all, and because of this he is one of the people that I mentioned earlier who are getting on my nerves. The other person who is really annoying me is my host dad. Yesterday I heard him mention my name in a conversation he was having in Senufo, so I looked over at him hoping he would clue me in on what he was talking about. He then told me in Bambara that I don't talk, and from there he switched to French and said the 2nd year volunteer who lives a few villages away from me talks a lot. He also said that not talking isn't a good way of intergrating. This really made me mad because 1. I feel pretty well integrated in my village, 2. I can't talk with them if they are speaking Senufo, which he was, so if he really wants me to join the conversation then maybe he should pick Bambara or French, 3. We had just had a long conversation about our vacations, so how much more does he want me to talk, and 4. The volunteer he mentioned has been here a lot longer than me so her language skills are better and I highly doubt he's ever had more than a 10 minute conversation with her which we actually have had on several occassions. My host-dad is the only person in village I don't like, and it sucks because he is my host-dad, but it's alright because he is almost always out so I rarely see him.

My days in village are usually very uneventful, but today was kind of crazy, or rather late afternoon was kind of crazy. Around 4 or so I got a surprise visit from Helen (she's 8k from me and I have to go through her village to get to mine). It was really great to see her because she is one of my favorite people in Peace Corps. Helen and I chatted it up a bit and then she left about an hour later. About 15 minutes after saying goodbye to Helen, a Peace Corps vehicle pulled up and PCMO (PC Med Officer) Michelle got out. She came to do my medical site visit where she looked around to see if my house was in good repair, to see what my water source was, and so on. She stayed for about 20 minutes and then left. About 30 minutes after her leaving another Peace Corps vehicle pulled up! I thought it was Michelle coming back because she forgot something, but turns out it was Mama, our regional coordinator. Turns out today Peace Corps was testing their Emergency Action Plan, and they had been trying to reach me all day, but because I only have phone service if I got out to this one spot, they were unable to reach me. So because of this Mama drove all the way out to my village to see if I was alright! That's pretty awesome, huh? The fact that he came all the way out here makes me feel very safe, and if there ever is an emergency I know I won;t be forgotten.

One of the things that I most appreciated before coming to Mali was a blog entry of a current volunteer that listed everything they packed. This volunteer included a complete list of everything that they packed and then included a reflection upon the list, for example what they use the most here in Mali, what they wish they hadn’t brought, and what they wished they had brought. Soo… since that was so helpful for me, I’m going to do the same for the new Stage that arrives in Mali in February!

Complete Packing List

o 1 bottle of Contact lens solution

o 5 tubes of Oxy spot treatment

o 20 or so Safety pins

o 1 roll of Duct tape

o Needle and thread (2 of those little clothing repair kits you get for free at hotels)

o 1 Towel

o 1 Pillow

o Hard drive (500gb)

o Netbook Computer, case, charger

o 1 big bottle of Shampoo

o 2 big bottles of Conditioner

o Hair Straightener

o Curling iron

o Gifts (American flag pencils, 1 watch, 1 bracelet)

o Candy (1 bag of pixie stix, 1 bag of pop rocks, 1 bag of ring pops, 1 bag of blow pops)

o Snacks (10 Cup of Soups, 2 boxes of Apple Nutri Grain Bars)

o Underwear (I’m not sure but I think I brought like 30 or so pairs)

o Bras (I think I brought between 8 and 10)

o Face wash (2 bottles of Apricot Scrub and 2 bottles of Oxy face wash)

o Clear mascara (5 tubes)

o Mascara (2 tubes of black)

o Eye shadow (more than 10 colors)

o Eye liner (5 tubes)

o Vaseline lipgloss (5 tubes)

o Foundation (liquid and powder) (2 bottles of liquid, 1 compact)

o Makeup brushes (2 eye shadow brushes, 1 foundation brush)

o Nail clippers

o 2 Emory board s

o 3 Thumb drives

o Miniature French-English dictionary

o 6 pairs of Socks

o 4 Skirts (all past my knees, 1 to my ankles)

o 3 Shorts (2 athletic, 1 pajama)

o 3 Tank tops (2 of which are spaghetti straps)

o Pants (1 dress pant, 2 cargo pants, 1 jeans)

o 10 T-shirts

o 1 Sweat shirt

o 2 Ponchos

o 1 Very cheap Rain Jacket

o 2 Baseball Caps

o Sleeping mat

o Bug Hut 2 Tent

o Sleeping bag (thin fleece)

o 2 boxes of Infinity Pads

o 2 boxes of Tampons

o 2 Bags of travel Toilet paper (3 rolls in each bag), 3 packs of wipes

o Headphones (4 pairs)

o 1 bottle of Body wash

o 2 Loufas

o 1 pack of Hair ties

o 2 Brushes

o Comb

o 10 Headbands

o 2 bottles of nail polish

o 2 tubes tooth paste

o 5 tooth brushes

o 4 bottles of face lotion

o 6 sticks of deodorant

o 15 sets of Dailies contacts

o Razors (8 Intuition refills)

o Glasses (3 pairs)

o Tweezers

o 6 or so Pens

o Small Photo album

o Ipod

o CD player

o 2 CDs

o Ziploc bags

o 1 pair of Flip flops

o UF Gator Pennant

o Letters with stamps

o Medication

o 1 pair of Tennis shoes

o 2 Sunglasses

o Wedding ring

o 2 Head lamps

o Travel pillow

o Backpack

o Adapter plugs

o Playing Cards

o Uno

o Sudoku book

o Batteries

o Solar charger

o Rechargeable batteries

o Swiss army knife

o Money belt

o Calculator

o 2 Books

o Bandana

o 2 digital Cameras

o 1 bottle of Perfume/body spray

o Camera case

o Sticky tack

o Speakers

o Gameboy and 2 games

o Gold bond powder

o 3 Shower caps

o Floss

o Ear swabs

o Mirror

o Mesh laundry bag

o Watch

o Glow in the dark stars

o Jewelry

o SD card

o Addresses of friends and family

o Paper calendar

o Ipod cord

o Biosilk

o Cell phone and charger

o Gum

o Earrings

o Hair wrap

o Bobby pins

o Scissors

o Envelopes

o Notebook Paper

o 2 water bottles (1 Nalgene, 1 Aluminum)

o 2 Pairs of Sandals

o Ipod case

o Camera case

Ok so after reading all of that you’re probably thinking that I am a diva, but that is honestly what I packed. Alright so now that I have been in Mali for almost 6 months I think I can pretty accurately critique my list, so here we go:

-Thing I am the most happy I brought: Netbook Computer! I watch a ton of movies and TV shows and I also use it to charge my Ipod.

-Thing I regret bringing the most: all the Cup of soups I brought, they just didn’t taste very good so now they are sitting in a trunk in my room, I think I ate one of them.

-What I wish I brought more of: 1. Body Wash!! I only brought one bottle and went through it pretty fast. It is possible to buy body wash in country, but for the first two months we are basically stuck at our Home stay sites with no access to stores. 2. Towels! I only brought 1, this was super dumb because what was I supposed to do when my one towel was being washed? I had my mom send me 2 extra towels. 3. Baby Wipes. Toilet paper is kind of expensive here and public bathrooms never have anything so it’s good to always carry a pack on you. I only brought 3 packs, so now I have my mom send me 1 pack in every package she sends me. 4. Contacts. I barely wear contacts (I only wear them when I go out at night), but I’m not sure that the 15 pairs of Dailies will be enough (I re-use them until they start hurting even though you’re supposed to throw them out after 1 day). 5. FOOD. This is probably the most important. I wish I had brought wayyyyyy more snack food because I am not particularly fond of Malian food. There were quite a few nights where I went to bed hungry because I didn’t want to eat whatever weird food I was given for dinner during Homestay. I would suggest bringing a few boxes of granola bars, and then comfort foods like cookies, chips and candy.

- What I didn’t need to buy, but am still happy I got anyway: Hard drive. Whenever volunteers get together sooooo much file sharing goes on!! We trade TV shows, Movies and Music like nobody’s business. I came to Mali with 6 full seasons of the Office as well as like 50 movies on my hard drive, all of which were very much appreciated by other volunteers.

- What I have yet to use, but I hear will be very useful during hot season: Bug Hut. It has been kind of annoying to lug around for these past 6 months, but people tell me I will be very thankful to have it when it is so miserably hot that you won’t even want to enter your house. I hear that basically everyone sleeps outside during hot season, even Malians!

Alright I think this is all I’ve got, or at least all I can think of for now, so I hope that this helps! And to all of you coming to Mali very soon: We can’t wait to meet you guys!!! But in the meantime live it up in America! Eat all the delicious and terribly unhealthy American food that you can and make sure you spend all the time you can with your loved ones!

One of the things that I most appreciated before coming to Mali was a blog entry of a current volunteer that listed everything they packed. This volunteer included a complete list of everything that they packed and then included a reflection upon the list, for example what they use the most here in Mali, what they wish they hadn’t brought, and what they wished they had brought. Soo… since that was so helpful for me, I’m going to do the same for the new Stage that arrives in Mali in February!

Complete Packing List

o 1 bottle of Contact lens solution

o 5 tubes of Oxy spot treatment

o 20 or so Safety pins

o 1 roll of Duct tape

o Needle and thread (2 of those little clothing repair kits you get for free at hotels)

o 1 Towel

o 1 Pillow

o Hard drive (500gb)

o Netbook Computer, case, charger

o 1 big bottle of Shampoo

o 2 big bottles of Conditioner

o Hair Straightener

o Curling iron

o Gifts (American flag pencils, 1 watch, 1 bracelet)

o Candy (1 bag of pixie stix, 1 bag of pop rocks, 1 bag of ring pops, 1 bag of blow pops)

o Snacks (10 Cup of Soups, 2 boxes of Apple Nutri Grain Bars)

o Underwear (I’m not sure but I think I brought like 30 or so pairs)

o Bras (I think I brought between 8 and 10)

o Face wash (2 bottles of Apricot Scrub and 2 bottles of Oxy face wash)

o Clear mascara (5 tubes)

o Mascara (2 tubes of black)

o Eye shadow (more than 10 colors)

o Eye liner (5 tubes)

o Vaseline lipgloss (5 tubes)

o Foundation (liquid and powder) (2 bottles of liquid, 1 compact)

o Makeup brushes (2 eye shadow brushes, 1 foundation brush)

o Nail clippers

o 2 Emory board s

o 3 Thumb drives

o Miniature French-English dictionary

o 6 pairs of Socks

o 4 Skirts (all past my knees, 1 to my ankles)

o 3 Shorts (2 athletic, 1 pajama)

o 3 Tank tops (2 of which are spaghetti straps)

o Pants (1 dress pant, 2 cargo pants, 1 jeans)

o 10 T-shirts

o 1 Sweat shirt

o 2 Ponchos

o 1 Very cheap Rain Jacket

o 2 Baseball Caps

o Sleeping mat

o Bug Hut 2 Tent

o Sleeping bag (thin fleece)

o 2 boxes of Infinity Pads

o 2 boxes of Tampons

o 2 Bags of travel Toilet paper (3 rolls in each bag), 3 packs of wipes

o Headphones (4 pairs)

o 1 bottle of Body wash

o 2 Loufas

o 1 pack of Hair ties

o 2 Brushes

o Comb

o 10 Headbands

o 2 bottles of nail polish

o 2 tubes tooth paste

o 5 tooth brushes

o 4 bottles of face lotion

o 6 sticks of deodorant

o 15 sets of Dailies contacts

o Razors (8 Intuition refills)

o Glasses (3 pairs)

o Tweezers

o 6 or so Pens

o Small Photo album

o Ipod

o CD player

o 2 CDs

o Ziploc bags

o 1 pair of Flip flops

o UF Gator Pennant

o Letters with stamps

o Medication

o 1 pair of Tennis shoes

o 2 Sunglasses

o Wedding ring

o 2 Head lamps

o Travel pillow

o Backpack

o Adapter plugs

o Playing Cards

o Uno

o Sudoku book

o Batteries

o Solar charger

o Rechargeable batteries

o Swiss army knife

o Money belt

o Calculator

o 2 Books

o Bandana

o 2 digital Cameras

o 1 bottle of Perfume/body spray

o Camera case

o Sticky tack

o Speakers

o Gameboy and 2 games

o Gold bond powder

o 3 Shower caps

o Floss

o Ear swabs

o Mirror

o Mesh laundry bag

o Watch

o Glow in the dark stars

o Jewelry

o SD card

o Addresses of friends and family

o Paper calendar

o Ipod cord

o Biosilk

o Cell phone and charger

o Gum

o Earrings

o Hair wrap

o Bobby pins

o Scissors

o Envelopes

o Notebook Paper

o 2 water bottles (1 Nalgene, 1 Aluminum)

o 2 Pairs of Sandals

o Ipod case

o Camera case

Ok so after reading all of that you’re probably thinking that I am a diva, but that is honestly what I packed. Alright so now that I have been in Mali for almost 6 months I think I can pretty accurately critique my list, so here we go:

-Thing I am the most happy I brought: Netbook Computer! I watch a ton of movies and TV shows and I also use it to charge my Ipod.

-Thing I regret bringing the most: all the Cup of soups I brought, they just didn’t taste very good so now they are sitting in a trunk in my room, I think I ate one of them.

-What I wish I brought more of: 1. Body Wash!! I only brought one bottle and went through it pretty fast. It is possible to buy body wash in country, but for the first two months we are basically stuck at our Home stay sites with no access to stores. 2. Towels! I only brought 1, this was super dumb because what was I supposed to do when my one towel was being washed? I had my mom send me 2 extra towels. 3. Baby Wipes. Toilet paper is kind of expensive here and public bathrooms never have anything so it’s good to always carry a pack on you. I only brought 3 packs, so now I have my mom send me 1 pack in every package she sends me. 4. Contacts. I barely wear contacts (I only wear them when I go out at night), but I’m not sure that the 15 pairs of Dailies will be enough (I re-use them until they start hurting even though you’re supposed to throw them out after 1 day). 5. FOOD. This is probably the most important. I wish I had brought wayyyyyy more snack food because I am not particularly fond of Malian food. There were quite a few nights where I went to bed hungry because I didn’t want to eat whatever weird food I was given for dinner during Homestay. I would suggest bringing a few boxes of granola bars, and then comfort foods like cookies, chips and candy.

- What I didn’t need to buy, but am still happy I got anyway: Hard drive. Whenever volunteers get together sooooo much file sharing goes on!! We trade TV shows, Movies and Music like nobody’s business. I came to Mali with 6 full seasons of the Office as well as like 50 movies on my hard drive, all of which were very much appreciated by other volunteers.

- What I have yet to use, but I hear will be very useful during hot season: Bug Hut. It has been kind of annoying to lug around for these past 6 months, but people tell me I will be very thankful to have it when it is so miserably hot that you won’t even want to enter your house. I hear that basically everyone sleeps outside during hot season, even Malians!

Alright I think this is all I’ve got, or at least all I can think of for now, so I hope that this helps! And to all of you coming to Mali very soon: We can’t wait to meet you guys!!! But in the meantime live it up in America! Eat all the delicious and terribly unhealthy American food that you can and make sure you spend all the time you can with your loved ones!

One of the things that I most appreciated before coming to Mali was a blog entry of a current volunteer that listed everything they packed. This volunteer included a complete list of everything that they packed and then included a reflection upon the list, for example what they use the most here in Mali, what they wish they hadn’t brought, and what they wished they had brought. Soo… since that was so helpful for me, I’m going to do the same for the new Stage that arrives in Mali in February!

Complete Packing List

o 1 bottle of Contact lens solution

o 5 tubes of Oxy spot treatment

o 20 or so Safety pins

o 1 roll of Duct tape

o Needle and thread (2 of those little clothing repair kits you get for free at hotels)

o 1 Towel

o 1 Pillow

o Hard drive (500gb)

o Netbook Computer, case, charger

o 1 big bottle of Shampoo

o 2 big bottles of Conditioner

o Hair Straightener

o Curling iron

o Gifts (American flag pencils, 1 watch, 1 bracelet)

o Candy (1 bag of pixie stix, 1 bag of pop rocks, 1 bag of ring pops, 1 bag of blow pops)

o Snacks (10 Cup of Soups, 2 boxes of Apple Nutri Grain Bars)

o Underwear (I’m not sure but I think I brought like 30 or so pairs)

o Bras (I think I brought between 8 and 10)

o Face wash (2 bottles of Apricot Scrub and 2 bottles of Oxy face wash)

o Clear mascara (5 tubes)

o Mascara (2 tubes of black)

o Eye shadow (more than 10 colors)

o Eye liner (5 tubes)

o Vaseline lipgloss (5 tubes)

o Foundation (liquid and powder) (2 bottles of liquid, 1 compact)

o Makeup brushes (2 eye shadow brushes, 1 foundation brush)

o Nail clippers

o 2 Emory board s

o 3 Thumb drives

o Miniature French-English dictionary

o 6 pairs of Socks

o 4 Skirts (all past my knees, 1 to my ankles)

o 3 Shorts (2 athletic, 1 pajama)

o 3 Tank tops (2 of which are spaghetti straps)

o Pants (1 dress pant, 2 cargo pants, 1 jeans)

o 10 T-shirts

o 1 Sweat shirt

o 2 Ponchos

o 1 Very cheap Rain Jacket

o 2 Baseball Caps

o Sleeping mat

o Bug Hut 2 Tent

o Sleeping bag (thin fleece)

o 2 boxes of Infinity Pads

o 2 boxes of Tampons

o 2 Bags of travel Toilet paper (3 rolls in each bag), 3 packs of wipes

o Headphones (4 pairs)

o 1 bottle of Body wash

o 2 Loufas

o 1 pack of Hair ties

o 2 Brushes

o Comb

o 10 Headbands

o 2 bottles of nail polish

o 2 tubes tooth paste

o 5 tooth brushes

o 4 bottles of face lotion

o 6 sticks of deodorant

o 15 sets of Dailies contacts

o Razors (8 Intuition refills)

o Glasses (3 pairs)

o Tweezers

o 6 or so Pens

o Small Photo album

o Ipod

o CD player

o 2 CDs

o Ziploc bags

o 1 pair of Flip flops

o UF Gator Pennant

o Letters with stamps

o Medication

o 1 pair of Tennis shoes

o 2 Sunglasses

o Wedding ring

o 2 Head lamps

o Travel pillow

o Backpack

o Adapter plugs

o Playing Cards

o Uno

o Sudoku book

o Batteries

o Solar charger

o Rechargeable batteries

o Swiss army knife

o Money belt

o Calculator

o 2 Books

o Bandana

o 2 digital Cameras

o 1 bottle of Perfume/body spray

o Camera case

o Sticky tack

o Speakers

o Gameboy and 2 games

o Gold bond powder

o 3 Shower caps

o Floss

o Ear swabs

o Mirror

o Mesh laundry bag

o Watch

o Glow in the dark stars

o Jewelry

o SD card

o Addresses of friends and family

o Paper calendar

o Ipod cord

o Biosilk

o Cell phone and charger

o Gum

o Earrings

o Hair wrap

o Bobby pins

o Scissors

o Envelopes

o Notebook Paper

o 2 water bottles (1 Nalgene, 1 Aluminum)

o 2 Pairs of Sandals

o Ipod case

o Camera case

Ok so after reading all of that you’re probably thinking that I am a diva, but that is honestly what I packed. Alright so now that I have been in Mali for almost 6 months I think I can pretty accurately critique my list, so here we go:

-Thing I am the most happy I brought: Netbook Computer! I watch a ton of movies and TV shows and I also use it to charge my Ipod.

-Thing I regret bringing the most: all the Cup of soups I brought, they just didn’t taste very good so now they are sitting in a trunk in my room, I think I ate one of them.

-What I wish I brought more of: 1. Body Wash!! I only brought one bottle and went through it pretty fast. It is possible to buy body wash in country, but for the first two months we are basically stuck at our Home stay sites with no access to stores. 2. Towels! I only brought 1, this was super dumb because what was I supposed to do when my one towel was being washed? I had my mom send me 2 extra towels. 3. Baby Wipes. Toilet paper is kind of expensive here and public bathrooms never have anything so it’s good to always carry a pack on you. I only brought 3 packs, so now I have my mom send me 1 pack in every package she sends me. 4. Contacts. I barely wear contacts (I only wear them when I go out at night), but I’m not sure that the 15 pairs of Dailies will be enough (I re-use them until they start hurting even though you’re supposed to throw them out after 1 day). 5. FOOD. This is probably the most important. I wish I had brought wayyyyyy more snack food because I am not particularly fond of Malian food. There were quite a few nights where I went to bed hungry because I didn’t want to eat whatever weird food I was given for dinner during Homestay. I would suggest bringing a few boxes of granola bars, and then comfort foods like cookies, chips and candy.

- What I didn’t need to buy, but am still happy I got anyway: Hard drive. Whenever volunteers get together sooooo much file sharing goes on!! We trade TV shows, Movies and Music like nobody’s business. I came to Mali with 6 full seasons of the Office as well as like 50 movies on my hard drive, all of which were very much appreciated by other volunteers.

- What I have yet to use, but I hear will be very useful during hot season: Bug Hut. It has been kind of annoying to lug around for these past 6 months, but people tell me I will be very thankful to have it when it is so miserably hot that you won’t even want to enter your house. I hear that basically everyone sleeps outside during hot season, even Malians!

Alright I think this is all I’ve got, or at least all I can think of for now, so I hope that this helps! And to all of you coming to Mali very soon: We can’t wait to meet you guys!!! But in the meantime live it up in America! Eat all the delicious and terribly unhealthy American food that you can and make sure you spend all the time you can with your loved ones!

So right now I am at Tubaniso for a 2 week in-service training, this means that I have been able to hang out with people I haven't seen for 3 months and I get to go into Bamako whenever I want, it also means that I am going to be bored out of my mind for the next 2 weeks since we have back to back technical sessions. On top of the extreme boredom, I have been sick for the past 2 days. I'm not sure what I'm sick with, but I haven't been able to keep food down. This morning was the first time I was able to eat in 2 days. I don't know what it is about Tubaniso, but everyone seems to always get sick here, for example I was never once sick during Homestay and I was never sick for the 3 months in village, but as soon as I get to Tubaniso I get so sick I feel like dying. Anyway I feel slightly better now, and hopefully I reach full health capacity by tonight because we are planning on going out in Bamako!

So I just want to announce that my 3 month lock-down is OVER!!! I no longer have Peace Corps restrictions on me (in case you forgot, new volunteers are required to stay in village for the first 3 months and are only permitted to leave twice to visit their banking towns), which means I can basically do whatever I want, well within reason. So because I can leave my village, I plan on doing it up big for Christmas and New Years. I'm also very excited to just be able to travel and see the rest of Mali; Sikasso is pretty great, but I wanna see the rest of the country too. I also have plans to travel to Senegal in February which may also include side trips to The Gambia and possibly even Cape Verde.

So you have all probably noticed that I have been slacking in timely blog updates, so in order to catch up I'm gonna fill you guys in on what has gone on since my last post. The biggest thing was definately Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was so great!! A bunch of volunteers from all over the country came down to Sikasso to celebrate with us. On Thanksgiving day we ate turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, green beans, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. The food was soooo good!! The day after Thanksgiving was Mexican day where we had Mexican food poolside. Unfortunately the pool was kind of green which turned me off so I didn't go in, but we had tacos with cheese (well, velveeta) and guacamole!! Both of those nights we also went out clubbing in Sikasso. It's so much fun to go out with Peace Corps people because we basically take over the club, also everytime we go out I always make it a mission to get the DJ to only play American Music.

Village life has also gotten a lot more fun recently because I have gotten closer to the teachers at the 2nd cycle school (middle school). I have gone and played cards with them a couple times and even watched them play soccer. They asked me if I wanted to play but I was wearing a Tafe (long wrap skirt) so I wouldn't have been able to run, I told them that I would play with them next time (we'll see if that actually happens).

written November 19, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY P.I.C JENN!!

Here are some random mini stories:

There isn't much of a variety of names here, for example I can't tell you how many Moussas, Oumous, Salimatas, or Brehmas I know, so it's fairly necessary that nicknames be given out. What is interesting to me is that these nicknames are usually not the nicest, or the most politically correct. For example there is a girl here who is named Sita and she isn't the skinniest girl in the village, but I wouldn't necessarily call her fat either, but everyone else in the village does. They call her Sita Ba which translates to big or fat Sita. Another example is my homologue who is a big dude and also very tall; they call him Le Gros, which is French for the big guy. There is also a man named Amadou that they call Amadou Noir, which means black Amadou because his skin is so dark. My homologue and others even joke that how can he be so black? He must paint himself every morning. Coming from an American background where we tread lightly on subjects like these, I find it a little uncomfortable to laugh at these nicknames with my fellow villagers, but it is all quite funny isn't it?

Moms here pretty much let their children eat and drink anything. I don't know how many times I've thought to myself 'aren't you gonna stop him/her, that's covered with dirt!' Mothers will hand their children food that has fallen on the ground instead of eating it themselves. They also will give children water to drink that has been used for hand-washing. It's pretty gross. I can't decide if it's terrible or kinda good because if you think about it, these mothers are building up there children's immunities.

Very few people, especially children, shout out Tubaboo when I pass by now. This is great! I feel like I'm fairly well immersed in my village, and that the majority of people know me. Pretty much everyone calls out my name, Gnire (pronounced gNeer- Ray, I think I may have gotten the pronunciation wrong in my earlier post on Site Visit), whenever I pass by. A few days ago a young woman even called out my name on a bus coming from Sikasso (she was from my village, but I'm pretty sure I had never met her before).

Exciting news! I found someone in my village who can do my hair! This was actually quite difficult because apparently the very simple plaits (braids) that I always get are considered a "modern style" and not many people know how to do them since no one in village ever gets them done. I think the reason no one ever gets them done is because it is kind of expensive to buy the hair (they call the weave/extensions/fake hair Meshi). Meshi costs about 1500 cfa (about $3) a pack and to do my hair I need 2 packs; 3000 cfa is considered quite a lot for something simple like hair. Anyway I'm really happy I found her because I don't like my hair lady in Sikasso; she's not very nice and she doesn't listen to me, however her braiding is impecable. My new village girl isn't the best, but she will do!

written November 18, 2010

I don't feel very good. My stomach is full of goat meat and I think I might throw up soon. I unfortunately made the decision to eat a good deal of the air-dried goat leg I was given as a gift. I've been given quite a few hunks of meat as gifts over the past two days. Today was the last day of the 2 day Holiday called Seli Ba. That's the Bambara name for it, all I know about it besides that is that in French it is called Tabaski and it is the Islamic Holiday where they kill a lot of sheep. In my village they don't just eat sheep meat, they also butcher cows and goats, so it's basically like a meat schmorgusborg. My stomach can't handle it. Meat is usually so hard to come by in my village that I've basically become a vegetarian. The only meat I eat is the tuna my mom has sent me in care-packages, and maybe a few pieces of chicken no more than once a month (this doesn't include the schwarmas or hamburgers I get every time I go to Sikasso). Anyway Seli Ba has been pretty chill. I expected it to be pretty crazy in Village because it's a holiday, but everything pretty much stayed the same except that people dressed up a bit and we ate a lot of meat. There was also a lot of balofone music. The first night they played until 4am!! I couldn't believe that they could stay up dancing that late (They work so hard during the day, you'd figure they'd be too tired to stay up that late). Over the past two days my homologue and I pretty much just went to all of his friends house's to say hi, or rather to "donner les bonjours" (give hellos). This wasn't that much different from what we do on a day to day basis. The first day was a little different because several people gave me candy and a few people gave me money (not a lot, basically like 20 cents worth or less) for the holiday. My homologue said it was to wish me a good year. The second day, today, all of my gifts were of meat. It was kind of gross to be handed a dried hunk of meat that was just hanging on a string from a tree. I've learned that it's incredibly hard to look grateful when you're disgusted by something. Another interesting thing about Seli Ba, and I guess really all Holidays here, is that everyone likes to get dressed up. What's interesting about that is that all the boys' idea of dressed up is a track suit with a stiff baseball cap, and all the girls have the same complets (full outfits) as their friends. The boys all also get their hair cut so that their heads are completely shaved except for a circle patch of hair on the top which many of the boy's had designs shaved into. It's all very 1980s. The girls look very cute with their little head wraps, but the boys just look ridiculous (to me; this is all my opinion, clearly not theirs).

Besides all of the excitement of Seli Ba, not much has happened. My wrist is basically back to normal, with spurts of pain every once and a while. I've also taken up the hobby of jewelry making which wasn't difficult seeing as my mom sent me like 4 packages full of jewelry making materials. I've made several bracelets, some of them fairly complicated, and even tried making bracelets with a few of the girls in my village. That was interesting because it's almost as if kids here have no creativity, they all want to copy everything you do, so since I made a pink and blue bracelet, all five girls made pink and blue bracelets even though I had more than 10 colors of beads to choose from. Oh well.

In other news, I think I may be getting sick because for the past 3 or so days I have been perpetually tired, like I could sleep all day if left alone. I really hope that I'm not sick because Thanksgiving is a week from today! I'm super excited for Thanksgiving because every year Sikasso hosts a Peace Corps' Thanksgiving dinner/weekend type thing and a bunch of PCVs from all over Mali come down to celebrate. I'm excited for good food and for seeing people I haven't seen for quite some time!

I am currently sitting on the couch at the Peace Corps office in Sikasso. I am on med hold. Why is that? Oh, i just got hit by a moto yesterday morning, and now I have a very painful sprained wrist. I was planning on going back to village for another 2 week stint yesterday morning, but that was before I got hit. All I was trying to do was cross the street. I had made it halfway across the street when this moto coming from behind the roundpoint decided to speed up when he saw me. Malian drivers are weird. I feel like they play this game called 'Let's scare the pedestrian' by speeding up anytime they see someone cross the street. Maybe they think it's funny to see people run the rest of the way across the street scared? I have no idea, but they do this. So anyway he sped up and then I guess at the last moment when he realized he was going to hit me he decided to slow down, and his bike swerved a bit. That was when I decided it would be a good idea to stick my right hand out and try to stop the moto from hitting me, because I have super-human strength? So yea that was a major idiot move on my part, but it was kind of like an unconcious reaction, like how you always reach out to catch something that is falling. My hand ended up grasping the handle bars of the moto for a second and then getting pulled back with the moto because of course the man didn't stop after he hit me. This is what must've sprained my wrist, it getting jerked back with the moto. Immediately afterwards I screamed, but did anyone rush over to help me? NO. Was the street full of people? Yes. I don't get it. Malians are very nice and hospitable, but I've noticed that they aren't ones to rush and help someone when they need it. I'm sure that in the US after getting hit by a moto several people would've asked if I was okay.

So anyway my wrist is in a lot of pain, I can barely use my right hand which is a major issue here. It's rude to do almost anything with your left hand like eat with it, or hand someone money with it. So all day yesterday I had to struggle to put money in my limp hand and painfully raise it to drop whatever coins into the vender's hand. It really sucked. I also spent most of the day icing it and laying down because Dr. Dawn (Peace Corps Medical Officer) advised me to do so. The day of the accident I was in quite a lot of pain, but today it is manageable, but I think that's because I've just taken 800mg of Ibuprofen. So yea, hopefully tomorrow I'm pain free and can head back to village, but until then I'm gonna watch a lot of movies, TV shows and be online 24/7. I've already caught up completely on the Office which I didn't think was going to be possible with my terrible internet connection, and I've watched half the 1st season of Mad Men. I'm really enjoying this technology filled few days, even if the cost of having them is a swolen wrist.

written October 28, 2010

So market day yesterday was alright. I didn't buy any boiled peanuts or doughnuts, but I did get rice which was great! So anyway here are a bunch of random small stories from yesterday:

1- One of my homologue's favorite things to do is point out how he is "fais Americaine"ing which means that he is doing something that he considers American. For example he will be eating lunch, and instead of eating with his hand out of a bowl on the ground, he will set the bowl on a small table and still use his hand and then call my name and say "Gnire (my name)! Je fais Americaine maintenant!" or he will eat with a spoon and say the same. It's really quite funny, but also kind of annoying because he is constantly pointing it out.

2- I was sitting in the Premiere Adjoint's office with the Mayor and my homologue, and we were talking about Obama and Blacks and Whites in the US. The Mayor asked me if I was on the side of the Blacks or if I was on the side of the Whites (whatever that means?). I told him I was in the middle because I'm mixed and my mom is white and my dad is black so I don't want to pick a side. The Mayor was like "No, no, you should be on the side of the Blacks. You should side with your dad!" and I was like "no, what about my mom?" He then said "Don't worry your dad will be there, and if you go your mom will follow you to the side of the Blacks because your dad is there." It was a weird conversation.

3- I saw my first University of Florida shirt yesterday! Random used clothes get shipped to Mali from all over, so I expected to see a UF shirt sooner or later. Surprisingly enough I finally saw one at my Host Dad's house! A girl who is living there to attend school in my village was wearing it. I tried to explain to everyone that her shirt was from my University and how exciting that was, but they didn't get it. T-shirts and what are on them don't matter to Malians.

4- I saw a pair of shorts at the market today with a "Abfrorombe and Fitch" label on it.

5- The Mayor thought that the capitol of Jamaica was Miami.

6- Another thing that my homologue tries to do to "fais Americaine" is have people pay 50 francs for dropping trash on the ground at his house instead of taking it to the trash pile. He wants to buy a trash can for his house, but until he gets one people will just have to walk to the trash pile.

7- The priest I mention a few blog posts ago, the only Malian I've ever considered (from now on I will refer to him as Hot Priest), came by for a visit yesterday. I had just gotten home after spending the entire day with my homologue and I really just wanted to relax by myself. I already found Hot Priest kind of annoying because every time he has come over in the past he has insisted on a full tea session that takes about 2 hours and has asked me a lot of questions about how I worship and religion which I don't like to talk about. So anyway I heard a motorcycle pull up so I looked out my window and immediately recognized Hot Priest's bike jacket. I immediately ducked down and attempted to hide, I was in no mood to entertain anyone, let alone annoying Hot Priest. Unfortunately for me my door was open (this is a sign for everyone that says 'hey! Gnire's home!'), so he knew I was in there. He came to chat with my homologue so he spent about 20 minutes looking for him which led me to believe that I was in the clear... That was until he had one of the boys who lives with us call out my name at my door about 6 times. After the 6th time I felt kind of bad for making him yell out my name so many times so I finally just went to the door and pretended that I had been sleeping. Hot Priest believed me, but then kept asking me how it was possible that I was able to sleep through the noise of his motorcycle. I told him I guessed I was a really deep sleeper. (Am I going to go to Hell for lying to a Priest??) Anyway just like all the other visits before, Hot Priest insisted that we have tea. He also asked me to bring out my computer because he had brought his USB and wanted to get some music from me. I found this to be very annoying because I don't like flaunting my wealth in village thus I like to keep things like my computer and ipod hidden. I brought it out anyway and transfered 23 songs to his USB, but not before being lectured by Hot Priest about how I need to clean my computer because dust is very bad for it. He also knows very little about computers and doesn't know English, but yet still tried to tell me how to put music on his USB and how to use iTunes, a program I'm sure he's never used before in his life. Hot Priest is sooooo annoying! Hopefully next time I am more successful in my attempt at hiding.

written October 29, 2010

8- A few days ago I ruined my favorite pair of gold head phones by getting them caught in the wheel of my bicycle. Good came out of this though because I discovered that the other pair of headphones I brought with me has what is almost like surround sound! So for the past few nights I have been turning my music up, closing my eyes and pretending I'm at a club. I have my own private dance party. It's great. And what makes it even more great is the fact that I wear a head lamp and a tafe (pronounced taff-ay, basically and ankle length wrap skirt). I'm very hip.

9- There was a GIANT moth on my screen door last night and it was impeding my ability to close my metal door so that i could go to bed. I spent about 20 minutes trying to get it off by poking it with a stick, throwing water on it, and even trying to squirt it with bleach. I eventually gave up and called out to my homologue to get him to help me. He came over and couldn't stop laughing and even called over his wife and friend to see that I was scared of a moth. He told me through laughs "You know it won't bite you," and also pointed out all the water on the ground to everyone. it was pretty embarrassing, but also scary as hell!

written October 26, 2010

I've just stuffed my face with a BIG ole bowl of oatmeal (and burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth while doing it). It was great! I've also had 8 Pixy Stix, a handful of Nerds and one incredibley melted Reese's. I taste America in my mouth, and it's great! I know for sure that the thing I miss the most (besides friends and family of course) is American Food. You all don't know how lucky you are to just be able to hop in a car and have your choice of making a delicous meal with yummy groceries, or just pulling through some drive-thru. You have no idea what I'd give to be able to have a burrito from Taco Bell right now.

Oh so my Dad's birthday was yesterday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!), and I celebrated by eating Nerds, lots and lots of Nerds. I also spent the entire day at the Mayor's office because they were having a meeting about this year's budget. Now why was I there you may ask? and the answer is that I have no clue. My homologue carts me along to every single meeting at the Mayor's office, and every single meeting is in Senufo, so basically that means I sit for hours in silence not knowing what is going on. I'm an Education volunteer, so it made sense when he brought me to the meeting about the running of the schools and all of the issues they were having, but there is no reason why I need to be at meetings like ones about the Mayor's budget. The meeting yesterday was more than 5 hours long!! Normally I just sit in the meetings and listen intently even though I don't understand anything just to be polite, but yesterday I gave up on politeness and pulled out my book. The funny thing is that I wasn't even the only bored one in the room! The Premiere Adjoint (2nd in charge under the Mayor) had his head on the table, and a representative from the village over was snoring!! There is only one thing that I like about attending meetings at the Mayor's office, and that is that I get to eat lunch with them, which means I get to eat rice and not Toh!!!!!!! When I eat with my host family I only get rice once or twice a week because my host dad can't afford to feed his family rice everyday, instead we have Toh or Couscous, both of which I find disgusting.

Anyway not much is going on in village right now except that both the Primary and Secondary schools got Stagiers (student teachers), so now we have enough teachers so that no classroom should be unattended, or at least that's what I would think, but is not actually the case. Yesterday, for example, I went by the Secondary school to meet the stagiers and noticed that 2 of the 3 classrooms were left unattended; only the 9th graders were being taught while the 7th and 8th graders were left alone and were fooling around. This is unbelieveable to me because The secondary school has 3 permanent teachers, 2 stagiers and the Director. Why is it that only one of them was teaching? This is something that I definitely want to change about my village. I want to point out to the teachers that their job is to teach, so during the hours of 7:45- noon and then 3-5 Monday through Friday they should be in the classroom, and that whatever else they have to do can be done during the very long lunch break, afterschool, or on the weekend!

Allow me to end this entry with something I'm very excited about: tomorrow is RICE DAY!!! at my host family's. It is also my village's market day which I love because it means I can by the Malian version of a doughnuts and boiled peanuts! yummm!

written 10-11-2010

Today I single-handedly silenced a crammed room full of 100 plus 7 graders... for like a minute, then they went back to screaming and laughing because there was no teacher there to keep them in check. So today was my first day going to my village's secondary school (grades 7,8 and 9). It is a 3 roomed school house packed with kids and only 2 teachers and a principal (my host dad). There is an English teacher, a French Teacher, and then the Principal teaches Math, Physics and Chemistry. The French teacher also teaches History and Geography, and I'm not sure if the English teacher does anything else. I knew the Malian education system was bad, but today was my first real-life experience of it. It was pretty awful and I'm truly greatful I did my schooling in the US. First of all, there are close to 130 students jammed into a room for probably 50 students, and just one teacher. The students don't have textbooks and solely have to rely on what the teacher writes on the board, so the majority of class is spent copying down the lesson and very little teaching or learning for that matter goes on. I sat through a 9th grade math class where we got through 3 simple algebra problems! 3! I couldn't believe it! Also these 3 problems were homework problems from last Friday (today is Monday), so this should have been review. The students barely knew how to do the problems, and my host dad pretty much spent the whole class period yelling no at them. I also got to sit in on an 8th grade Englsih lesson. That was painful. The entire class period was spent on a 6 sentence dialogue (class is a little over an hour in length). The teacher just kept making them repeat the sentences of a dialogue that they had written in their notebooks from Friday. The book that they use for English is truely awful because this dialogue went something like this (I'm going from memory, so I think I've forgotten a word or two, but this is the majority of it):

Driver: Don't push me!

Nurse: Oh yes, I remember him. The big one with the cut on his leg. I gave him an inoculation.

Other person: What do you want?

Namundo: Can we sleep here please?

I heard the class repeat that about 30 times. It doesn't even make sense!! The dialogue isn't at all cohesive. At first I thought maybe the teacher had messed it up and left some sentences out, but nope, I saw with my own eyes that it came straight out of the book. The English teacher barely knows any English so he had no clue how terrible this dialogue was. I tried to explain how terrible it was to him, but then he got all defensive so I pretty much just backed down because it is his class afterall, and not mine. I really hope I will be able to help teach English here because they definitely need my help here, although I'm not sure I will be able to because the Peace Corps Education program in Mali isn't focused on teaching, but on basic literacy and things like girl empowerment and youth development. Another issue that I noticed today, which also has to do with the first sentence of this blog entry, is that the teachers here just walk off and leave a class of more than 100 kids to do whatever they want. After the lunch break, my host dad went off somewhere on his moto, probably to another village or something on business, but since there's only him and 2 other teachers, it meant that the 7th graders were left by themselves for 2 hours. They weren't even allowed to go home! They just sat there making sooooo much noise. That's why I tried to single-handedly silence them because I was trying to listen in on the 8th graders English lesson, but I could barely hear over all the 7th graders in the room over. It really made me sad that the students' time was wasted like that. I tried to explain to my homologue that it would even be better if they just went home, because honestly they could actually be doing something productive there. I also told him that if I were my host dad and I knew I wasn't going to be able to teach the class, then I wpuld at least pick the best student to just write that day's lesson up on the board for the rest of the students to copy. Especially since that's what he would've done anyway, just have the students copy the lesson from the board. Gosh this village has some serious Education issues, and I've only just seen the secondary school... there's still the primary school and the kindergarten to visit.

written Oct. 9, 2010

So I think I have some unconcious interest in putting myself in awkward situations. Just about every week 1 or 2 Catholic Priests come to visit my house to chat with my homologue (he's one of the few Christians in my village). Yesterday it was just the young, newly ordained priest who came by (funny enough, this priest is the only Malian that I have even remotely been attracted to... isn't that irony?). Everytime he comes by he asks me about my computer and whether or not it needs to be charged because when I first got to village I went to the Catholic Missionary to ask if I could use their electricity (solar panel powered) to charge my computer, and that was when I originally met him. Anyway from talking about my computer we got to talking about all of the music I have on it, and from there we started talking about the music he likes. He told me that he really liked 50 Cent! I literally laughed out loud. Can you imagine a Catholic Priest in a conservative country like Mali liking 50 Cent?? A man who has a Parental Advisory sticker on every single one of his albums? This was hilarious to me, so I asked him if he even understood what 50 was rapping about, and of course he said no. So this is where this unconcious interest comes in because I decided to take it upon myself to describe why he, a Catholic Priest, shouldn't be interested in rap like 50's (or Akon for that matter because he is also a big fan of his too). I told him that 50 uses really dirty words, disgusting words, and he didn't get what I meant and kept asking me "like what?" Well I wasn't about to curse in front of a Priest so I just told him I didn't know the words in French. I then tried to explain that most of 50's songs were about drugs and sex. That was pretty difficult. I told him that a lot of songs have to do with the rapport between a man and a woman in the bedroom (Why do I always seem to breech the topic of sex with Malians and then not know how to be specific about it?). Anyway what I did say actually worked because he said "Ohhhh! His songs are of a pornographic nature?" and to that I was like "Yes!!" and then changed the topic immediately. I think I should just embrace my interest in awkwardness.

written Oct. 8, 2010

So school has started up again here, and I feel like I should be walking to class with the teens and little kids of my village, seeing as I feel like a little kid myself. I don't see this as a bad thing, just as something very weird. I was just starting to feel like a grown up as I was finishing up at UF, but now I feel like I have been thrown back into highschool. In Mali I have very little Independence. This is for a good reason because I am a foreigner here, and it would be very hard to make it on my own, but still. I am constantly under the watch of some Malian which at times is very annoying to me because I just came from living on my own for thr past four years. I live with my homologue right now, and this just makes me feel even more like a kid because he's basically a father figure, and I have to live with him, so esentially I've moved back in with my father. He very rarely lets me go places by myself, and when I am away from him for a day or more, he calls me to see how I am doing. I think that this is all very nice and caring of him, but again coming from being on my own for four years, I find it to be a tad bit annoying. Oh well, I guess I'm either going to have to get use to it, or set my boundaries as an adult. I'm not sure which one I wanna do yet, because sometimes being babied and having everything done for you is great!

On a more disgusting note, I have Amebas! Yayyy! Except not. You may not know what Amebas are so lemme just throw you a little blurb on how amebas are transmitted from the amazing book Where There is No Doctor: "The stools of infected people contain millions of these tiny parasites. Because of poor sanitation, they get into the source of drinking water or into food, and other people become infected." So yea, I'm one of those "other people." Oh and to avoid disgusting myself even further, I'm just going to refrain from describing the symptoms of having Amebas, you can look that up on your own. This is all very horrifying to me, but I guess that's just what happens when very few people wash their hands with soap in the country that I'm doing my Peace Corps service in :/. Oh and I now have to take 8 pills everyday for the next week! How exciting! -__-

written Sept. 30, 2010

So today was a very weird day, a good day, but very weird. I consider all days that I make my way around the village and talk to people besides my homologue good days, and today I did just that. The first strange thing to happen to me was when I was at my host family's house for lunch. One of my host mom's friends was over and after lunch we were basically just hanging out. I'm only ever able to talk a little bit with them because my Bambara isn't that good, and neither is theirs since they speak Senufo.So anyway, I don't know how we go on the subject, but my host mom's friend, a young woman with a couple of kids (she's also the wife of the Secondary school's english teacher) told me that if she washed herself many many times it be possible to become my skin tone. I laughed out loud at this because I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. I had no idea how to respond to that in Bambara so I just said 'c'est pas possible!' (It's not possible). She just started to laugh too, and I said that her skin tone is good, and she pointed to my black shirt and said that my shirt and her skin were the same color. I told her over and over through laughs that it wasn't true, that both of our skin tones were good. A little later she asked me if when I go back to America would it be possible to take her baby girl with me hidden in my backpack, and once we get to America I could wash her a lot with American soap and then she will become the same skin tone as me. Again I burst out in laughter and said it wasn't possible. I tried to explain to them that their skin tone was good, and that there are lots of Americans with the same skin tone, my dad included. They didn't believe that at all, so tomorrow I'm bringing my photo album with me to prove that my dad has dark skin like them.

Today I also, without realizing, showed an inappropriate picture of my mom to my homologue's family and my Bambara teacher. This inappropriate picture was a picture of me with my mom and brother taken after church on mother's day. What it depicted was, gasp!, my mom in a skirt that didn't go past her knees! I have no idea what they said in response to seeing that because they were chattering at such an insane speed and also in Senufo, but I could clearly detect the shock in their voices. Once I knew what they were going on about I tried to explain to them that that was perfectly okay in America, and that women there often wear much shorter skirts than the one my mom had on. They went on to explain to me that a married woman would never wear that because her husband wouldn't allow it. Anyway, sorry mom, but a few people in my village now think you're a floozy :/.

The other weird thing to happen today was that these two teenage boys came to my house and told my homologue that they wanted to chat with me. I had my bucket and shower stuff in my hands when I walked past them and my homologue told me they wanted to chat. Hoping that it was going to be a quick question, I set my shower stuff down and sat in a chair in front of them. The first thing the boy asked me was if I was a Madame or a Madamoiselle. i always laugh at this question, I'm not sure why, but I answered Madameoiselle. Then he was like 'okay Madameoiselle we just came here to say good evening' (this was all in French btw), then he proceeded to ask me if I knew what AIDS was. I said of course and he went on to explain that he didn't believe it was a real thing, instead he felt it was a project brought to Africa by white people. I sat there in shock because I didn't know how to respond to that. The boy and my homologue took this to mean that I didn't understand what he was saying, so he asked me straight if I thought AIDS existed. I told them that I did understand and that of course it exists. He then asked me where it exists, and I said it exists in every continent, even the United States. He then asked me if I knew where AIDS began. I told him that I didn't and he said well if you don't know where it came from then how do you know it exists? Unfortunately my French is not nearly good enough to be able to discuss this topic adequately, but I did my best. I went on to ask him if he thought Yellow Fever was real, and he said yes, and then I asked him where Yellow Fever started, and of course he said he didn't know, and to that I said 'see it's the same thing. I don't know where AIDS came from and you don't know where Yellow Fever came from but they are both real.' I also told him that I knew of people with AIDS. I'm not sure I was able to convince him that AIDS is in fact real and not just a farce created by white people, but I hope I was able to make somewhat of a dent. I found the whole situation to be awkward because I don't feel as if I am all that knowledgeable on the topic of AIDS, and I never like talking about things I don't know all that much about. However I did ask them if they knew how AIDS was transmitted, and he said that it came from someone with AIDS getting cut and then the blood of that person getting on you. I tried to explain to him in my poor French that it can be transmitted through blood but not from something like coughing on someone. I also tried to say that it is transmitted sexually, but I completely forgot the word for sex in French, so I said it came from the thing a man and a woman do together in their bedroom. That was beyond awkward, and I only dug further into the awkwardness by trying to tell them about condoms, but again not knowing the word in French for that. For condoms I tried to use hand signals and said it was the thing in a box that a man uses. Thankfully the sun was going down, so I decided to use that as an excuse to leave that awkward situation and go take my bucket bath. I think they were all just as uncomfortable as I was so I think they were just as glad for me to leave as I was.

written Sept. 23, 2010

So the Independence Day celebration in my village was actually pretty cool, albeit exhausting. It was an all day thing starting at 8 am and finishinglate into the night. The first thing that we did was raise the flag. Everyone was all dressed up in their outfits made with the Cinquantenaire fabric. Amazingly enough I was wearing the exact same fabric as my homologue, even though I had only bought it the day before and had picked it out because I hadn't seen very many people with it. In fact only a handfull of people had the same fabric as us. The Mayor and the Premiere Adjoint (kind of like the 2nd in command under the mayor) were two other people with the same fabric, so basically I unitentionally dressed as a VIP. This worked out perfectly because, as usual, I spent the whole day with the VIPs. After the raising of the flag was the start of the bike race. It seems like almost every village in Mali had a bike race (I feel like this is a very French influence, very Tour de France-esque). There were probably 8 men racing and I've been told that they biked 52K total. It took them about 2 hours to complete the race. While the bike race was going on there was a lot of dancing to the balofone and drums and a lot of speech making. There were also a lot of games for the kids to play, one of which was very similar to musical chairs! There was also a 1k foot race and tons and tons more dancing. I tried to take videos and pictures of everything. I even got pictures of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners of the bike race. The most amazing thing is that they all raced in those jelly shoes that I described in a previous blog entry. A couple of the dudes were even wearing cut-off jean shorts. None of them looked like they were participating in a bike race, but I guess they were wearing what they had. Around 1 we broke for lunch. A huge group of men and I went to the Mairie (Mayor's Office) and had lunch there. There was a massive amount of Tigadegena (Peanut Butter Stew) and Rice for us to eat. We all sat in circles of 4-8 around a communal bowl. This made me cringe because there was no soap in sight and I didn't see very many buckets of water so this meant that not only would I be washing my hands without soap, but I would also be washing them with dirty water and then eating with them. The whole time I was eating I was thinking to myself, 'God I'm gonna be soooo sick tomorrow' and 'Uhp, guess I'll just go ahead and shove Giardia into my mouth.' I think in the future I should carry a bar of soap around with me, so even if I am using dirty water, at least I'll be killing some of the germs. Anyway, after lunch we got back to celebrating. The afternoon consisted of multiple dance competitions and an award ceremony for the top 3 highest ranked students in all the grades of the Primary and Secondary Schools. I was called up to hand out some of the wards to the students, and I had to pose for many pictures. The dance competition was smaller than I had expected because I had seen a lot more young people dancing at other village events I had gone to. The most fun competition to watch was the young boys competition. They were all so small, but yet they moved so fast! There were also competitions amongst young men, young women and young girls. Most of these I got on video and will try to upload to my facebook so you can see how crazy Malian dance looks. The last event of the day was the soccer game, where new jerseys and soccer balls were presented. Overall it was a really fun and inceredibley exhausting day. the mayor even joked with me at the end that I must be exhausted because I hadn't taken my usual nap, he was right though.

Oh, I forgot to mention that literally the entire day people kept coming up to me and asking me to get up and dance, and everytime I refused. Each time I kind of froze up like a five year old girl wanting to hide behind her mom because she's afraid of the stranger trying to talk to them. I was afraid that they were going to pull me up and make me dance with them. I don't know why I'm so afraid of dancing with them. I think it may be a combination of me not knowing how to dance like them and me not wanting thousands of eyes on me as I make a fool of myself dancing. I have however danced in public like this before, but that has always been with other Tubabs (white people/ Americans). When I'm with at least one other person I feel comfortable, because for me there is comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one who looks like an idiot. Anyway, Joyeux Cinquantenaire Mali!

written Sept. 26, 2010

Someone in my village has La Bouche's Be My Lover on a CD or a casette and they have played it pretty much everysingle night and several times during the day for the past week. Be My Lover just so happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs from the 90s, although I'm afraid that this random villager may be changing reversing that. I really hope they tire of it soon because I really don't want to hate that song.

Today I decided I would try and integrate myself into village life by doing something that women do here. I have previously avoided all other 'woman's work' because it's just too hard for me, and I'm also really lazy. For example, I have no desire to pound millet, no desire to go pick peanuts or peppers or whatever the in-season crop is, no desire to learn how to cook over a fire, and no to be able to pick up something scalding hot with my bare hands. Although today I figured I'd help with the corn processing because it seemed easy enough. All I had to do was pick the kernels off of whatever you call the thing that the kernels are attached to, you know the long cylindrical thing in the middle of corn, the part you don't eat. So anyway the corn had been dried so the kernels were very hard and somewhat difficult to get off, but once you get 2 or 3 off the rest come off pretty easy with multiple flicks of your thumb, or so I thought. Turns out those easy flicks of my thumb were destroying my skin. After about 10 ears of corn I looked down to see a GIGANTIC red, bulbous blister in the middle of my thumb. Apparently my dainty hands can't handle the work of Malian woman. It was kind of as if my body was like 'I told you so... there's a reason I didn't want you to do any of those things.'

Yesterday my homologue told me about a pretty common belief held by Malian villagers who have very little experience with foreigners. He said that they believe that white people, and in Mali I fall under this category I guess because I come from America even though there are Malians with lighter skin than me, can see the devil/demons. He said that there is a good chance that if I were to go walking with him, and we came upon a sacred place that someone would most likely shout out to him that he should watch out because I can see the devil and I will bring it to him, and thus kill him or terrorize him, I don't really know what Malian devils do to people once they are summoned. So my homologue and I proceeded to laugh at the thought of that, but then his laughter ceased and he looked me in the eyes and very seriously asked me 'You can't see the devil, right?' and to that I was like 'What?? No, of course not!'

So I'm heading back to my village today. I've had a really fun couple of days in Sikasso! The reason I'm heading back is because tomorrow is Mali's 50th anniversary of it's independence from France, so the whole country is partying it up. Tonight, the night before the big day, my village is having a big balofone (kind of like the xylophone) party. I've been told that all day tomorrow will be a party too, but I'm not sure what they have planned. I know that there will be a bike race on the main road, but since my village is 8k off the main road I won't be seeing that. I'm sure there will be lots of balofone playing and dancing. I'm excited for tomorrow, but at the same time I'm kind of tired and I don't really want to party all day. Also I'm come to realize that I'm not really a big fan of big groups of Malians, because all they do is stare at me, so I'm not really looking forward to that either. Anyway, by internet. I will see you in a few weeks when I come back to Sikasso for a week of language training (October 3-9).

So unfortunately I wasn't able to put up a blog post before I left for my village because the internet was pretty shotty, but anyway since my last blog post I've been in village for almost 2 weeks! I really haven't done much of anything because the first three months in village are supposed to be focused on further language acquisition, however I haven't been doing that either. I'm supposed to have a language tutor, but my village has been pretty slow in trying to help me find one. Everyday I ask my homologue if they've found me a tutor yet, and everyday he says he hasn't talked to the Mayor yet, but that I should know soon. So yea, hopefully that happens because I can honestly feel my Bambara seeping out of me because all I really use is French here since people don't usually speak Bambara here. Although I have come to find out that most people in my village do actually speak Bambara, they just don't. I'm starting to get really annoyed by Senufo. I honestly hate how it sounds and I hate how everyone insists on speaking to me in Senufo first even though they know I don't know any at all. Why can't they just speak to me in Bambara?? My homologue and other villagers keep pestering me to learn Senufo, and I've explained to them about a million times now that after the first 3 months are over I will I have to go back to Tubaniso to take a Bambara language test so I need my focus to be on Bambara not Senufo. Ah well hopefully they will get it soon.

So anyway, as I said earlier, I haven't done much of anything since being here. In the mornings I wake up around 8 am, take a bucket bath, make my breakfast and then do some kind of household chore like laundry or sweeping. After that I usually read. I've read 5 books in the past 2 weeks! I should probably slow down because I'm not going to have any books left. At about noon I walk to my Djatigi's house (basically my host family) for lunch. Everyday except for the first day I have had Toh and it has been disgusting. I can't stand Toh. It's awful. The consistancy is gross and the sauce is nasty. I'm sure I've lost like 5 lbs in the past 2 weeks because I barely eat anything. After lunch I usually have a tea session somewhere; all three rounds, so this usually takes like 2 hours. After tea I take a 1-2 hour nap, and then around 5 I take a bucket bath and then cook my dinner. For dinner almost every single night I've had macaroni and cheese. Ridiculously amazing! Favorite part of the day. I first boil the macaroni over my gas camp stove then I drain out some of the water, add powdered milk and some weird margarine spread that doesn't have to be refrigerated, and then I add 3 triangles of Vache qui rit (laughing cow cheese) which also doesn't have to be refrigerated. Sooooo good. After dinner I usually go outside and hang out with my homologue's family and watch TV with them or I read inside my room. I go to bed around 9, and then I start it all over the next day. God I'm boring.

So I found out that I'm not a cat person a few days ago. Ever since I got my nomination to join the Peace Corps I knew I wanted to get a cat to keep me company no matter where I went. In fact one of the first things I asked my homologue when I came for my site visit like a month ago was if it was possible for me to get a cat in village. So pretty much as soon as I got here he told me he knew of a family with a kitten for me. I was super excited and went to see the cat the next day. It was this super cute female kitten that was white with brown patches and blue eyes. I told the family that I would come get in the next day because I had to pick up food for it first. So the next day I went to the butiki (little shack store) and bought some sardines. the cat was so cute when I picked it up, and didn't fidget or make a noise in my arms the whole walk home. That all changed as soon as I put it down inside my house. From that moment on the kitten wouldn't shut up. My homologue and I figured that it was just crying for it's mom and that it would stop in a day or two once it got habituated. But it didn't. It got habituated alright, and even became a very loving cat, it just never stopped meowing. It constantly wanted attention, and followed me wherever I went. If I even left the room for a second it would start meowing soooo loud! I know this may sound cute to you, but to me it was beyond annoying. After the third day I was already looking for a way to get rid of it. It was so annoying I didn't even bother to give it a name because I knew I had to get rid of it. I was able to pass it off to some random family in the village who was in need of a cat for mice catching or something. I bought the cat on Saturday and was rid of it on Tuesday. It's kind of embarassing that I couldn't handle that small animal, but I guess I'm a low-maintenance pet/ no pet at all person.

These past few days in village I have witnessed a lot of dancing (Ramadan just ended so there was a big party called Seli that day, and I also went to a Soiree held by the Club des Jeunes, basically a youth club, where there was a concert by the Balofone player Neba Solo). I can't handle Malian dancing. Not only does it look like people are having seizures, but it's just too much booty shaking! Senufo dancing is a little different than the dancing that I had seen when I was in Bamako. Here the women, and men too, bend over, stick their butts out and then start stomping the ground at an incredibley fast pace, kind of like they're trying to step on ants. (Mom- it looks just like their doing Kevin's Irish Jig!). The funny thing is that they think their such good dancers! I think they look awful! I guess it's just because I'm not use to it, but honestly it's ridiculous. I'm definitely going to have to take a video of it so that you all can experience it too.

Not only are Malians terrible dancers, they are also terrible dressers, when it comes to wearing Western clothes that is. Their traditional outfits are beautiful, but when they try to look modern it's laughable. I think the 1980s was dumped on Mali. All of the young men wear tight jeans with random pictures and ornamentation on them, with belts with decorative belt buckles, tight shirts, and jackets that look like Member's Only Jackets. The men also pop their collars, and wear militaryish type button ups with fake medals and insiginia. The men also seem to think that a mullet type hair cut is cool here too. The top of their hair is a square cut, and the back is a little longer than the front, i.e. a black man's mullet. They look very much like 1980s Wesley Snipes or Eddie Murphy. The women aren't any better than the men because they wear these super shiny ill-fitting tight shirts over their traditional Pagnes. Fashion here is a hot mess! Oh and I forgot to mention the biggest trend amongst men now, the jelly sandal! I don't know if you will remember this, but I think sometime in the early 90s, when I was in about 3rd grade, jelly sandals were very popular amongst girls. They were plastic sandals that buckled on the side and came in all sorts of colors and usually had glitter mixed into the plastic. Well in Mali, practically ALL of the men have a pair. They're white or clear usually, but they're the same exact things that I was dying to wear as a little girl. Every time I see a 20-something year old dude in a pair of jellies with his tight pants and popped-collar Member's Only jacket I have to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing. Oh Mali.

So I have one more day left before I'm off to my village for the rest of my 2 years! I'm going to try to come into Sikasso every 2-3 weeks so that I can check my mail and do internety type things. I'm pretty excited to head to my village, but also kind of bummed because being in Sikasso these past 2 days has been really fun. I have done tons of shopping for my house as well as hung out a lot with the 2nd years who are really awesome. I have also had constant access to electricity and internet so that's going to be kind of difficult to part with.

Anyway I have a couple little stories to tell, so here we go:

Three nights ago, my last night at Tubaniso, I woke up to find myself screaming at the top of my lungs (at 1:35 am). Not just any screaming though, I'm talking horror movie, blood curtling screams. The reason for this was that I was having this terrible nightmare that there was a Malian man who had come into my room and was just standing looking at me inside my mosquito net about to kill me. In my dream I sat up and started to scream for help, and that's when I woke up because I realized I was not just screaming in the dream, but also in real life. Upon waking up I also realized that my roommate Eliza was now screaming with me too because my screams had scared her so bad that she had to scream too. Not only was Eliza screaming with me, but my other roommate Deborah was shouting out "Help us! Help us!" just because she had no idea what was going on. There were some people outside of our hut just hanging out, and they all came running to our room to see what the problem was. Through Eliza's screams and Deborah's yells I told everyone that nothing was wrong, that it was just a dream and that I was perfectly fine. Once everyone calmed down none of us were able to go back to sleep, so we left the lights on and I proceeded to watch 4 episodes of the Office. The whole situation was incredibley embarassing/hilarious.

When we got to Sikasso we did this thing called Protocol which means we were introduced to the Governor's office so that they know they have new volunteers in town. We met the assistant Governor and he was super excited to meet us all. He was also super excited for us to give him an American name since we all had Malian names. We all decided that we wanted to give him a really typical American name, but also one that we'd find hilarious. So... we named him Jose Washington! He loved it, and we couldn't stop laughing. It was great.

I AM NO LONGER A TRAINEE, BUT A BRAND SPANKING NEW PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER. The very, some-what excruciatingly long 2 month training period is over. Yesterday we were sworn in as PCVs at the US Embassy by the PC Mali Director and the US Ambassador. The ceremony is usually held outside, but that morning the heavens decided to dump out all of its contents onto the city of Bamako. It was seriously a torrential down pour, and the dirt roads turned into brown rivers. The worst part about it was that we were all dressed up in Malian outfits (mine was all yellow with gold embroidery) and we got soaked in them. Unfortunately for me, the cloth my outfit is made out of is incredibley see-through when wet. Thank goodness I was wearing a jacket because I was able to use it to cover up my bright blue underwear that was showing through my skirt. So I spent the entire ceremony with my jacket wrapped around my waist. Besides being miserable from being wet, the ceremony was really nice. The Ambassador gave a really touching speech, and even shed some tears! We all said an oath, and then afterwards 5 of my fellow PCVs gave thank-you speeches in the languages they had been studying (Fulfude, Bomu, Tomokan, French and Bambara). After the ceremony we all took a bajillion pictures in our outfits. We were then shuttled to the American Club where they had a big buffet for us with delicious AMERICAN FOOD (cheeseburgers, pasta salad, fruit salad, potato salad, quesadillas, and french fries). The American Club has a pool, so I spent most of my time poolside trying to fix this awful tan that I've acquired from wearing only shirts with sleeves and skirts that go past my knees. Swear-in Night is always a big party that is planned by the current volunteers for the new volunteers, so after the American Club, the current volunteers (I may also refer to them as 2nd year volunteers now that I am a volunteer too) organized it so that we would spend the night in a hotel and go out to 2 different clubs in Bamako. The hotel that we stayed at was pretty nice (air conditioning, bathroom, tv) and it was basically across the street from the first club. Both clubs were awesome!! I had soooo much fun dancing and celebrating being a new PCV (the clubs were suprisingly similar to American clubs, they even played mostly American music). After clubbing we didn't get home until almost 5 am, and my hair now reeks of old cigarettes.

Tomorrow morning begins my 3 month lockdown at my site (well technically a lockdown besides the 2 times we're allowed to go to our regional capitol, Thanksgiving, and our week long regional language session). My bus leaves tomorrow at 7 am, and from Tubaniso I have about a 6 hour ride to Sikasso where I will spend 3 days buying stuff for my house. I'm super excited to buy a bunch of new things but also kind of annoyed that I will have to move all of these new things into a house that I will only be living in for a few months as I wait for my actual house to be built. Oh well.

So I don't know if you could tell this earlier, but I'm super excited to be a volunteer and be done with training!!

August 20, 2010

So I'm back at Homestay now. I've been here since Tuesday (today is Friday), and I only have until next Satur day left. On the Sunday after, we head back to Tubaniso for a week, and then we get sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers at the US Embassy. Anyway, the past couple of days at homestay have been alright. I definitely wish that I was back at my actual site though because it is so much nicer than my homestay village. In my homestay village I cant go anywhere without being called 'Tubaboo', which is perhaps the world's most annoying word especially when said in the sing-song voice that the children here love so much. I realized today that it would be impossible to sneak up on someone here because a child a mile away will see me coming and start shouting Tubaboo Tubaboo Tubaboo! and then whoever I was trying to sneak up on would be alerted.

I knew coming into Mali that it was probably going to be a little difficult for me to live in a predominately Muslim country, but I had no idea how incredibley difficult it would be. I'm not talking about Christians getting along with Muslims (it's actually super chill here, they could care less that I'm Christian and not Muslim), I'm talking about the extreme lack of sleep I'm getting because of the 4:30 am call to prayer. Also now that it is Ramadan, there is a 3:30 am call for everyone to wake up so that they can eat before the day of fasting begins. Unfortunately my house is like 500 ft from the Mosque so I always get woken up by the loudspeaker. It is almost impossible to fall back asleep once I've been woken up. The worse thing is that It's not just the loudspeaker that wakes me up, but also the chickens, donkeys, goats and dogs that love to make noise at all hours of the night. It's really unfortunate because I'm always so tired during the day which makes language lessons torturous. Oh well, I only have 1 week left here!!

So today I had a very interesting discussion with my host-dad, in French of course because my Bambara is horrible, about the moon. It all started by him asking me if we had a moon in America, and I said of course we do, and he was shocked by this and then said 'but not the same moon, right?' And I was like 'no, we have the same moon.' To that he was like 'no way! That moon is for Mali, you have a different moon in America, a smaller moon.' I couldn't stop laughing because he was completely serious. Between laughs I tried to explain that the whole world shared the same moon, and that there is only 1 moon and 1 sun. I also told him that we shared the same stars too. I'm pretty sure I wasn't able to convince him, and I'm pretty sure he thinks every country has their own moon, sun and stars, or none of those at all. My host-dad attended some school, so I wonder if the teach the solar system at all in school? I think I'll try and find that out.

So 2 days ago I discovered something that will make my next 2 years here a lot more bearable: Vache qui rit cheese!!! (we have it in the US too, except its called Laughing Cow Cheese). This cheese doesn't have to be refrigerated and is spearable, so I eat it with the baguette that I get every morning, SO DELICIOUS. I ration one triangle of cheese per morning so that I have something to look forward too. Breakfast is now my favorite meal of the day because I get half a baguette with my vache qui rit triangle, a hard-boiled egg, and tea made with powdered milk and sugar. One thing that I find funny is that I'm obsessed with eggs here in Mali! This is weird because I hate eggs in the US. You could very rarely find me eating eggs, and the few times I did, I only ate them scrambled, and I especially hated hard boiled eggs. But in Mali I can't get enough of them! I think it may be because my body is protein deficient, so it craves any source of protein. Whatever the case is, I can eat eggs anyday, allday. I even hope to raise chickens at my site just so I can have eggs whenever I want.

August 28, 2010

I'm very hungry and I can't go back to sleep because the Mosque woke me up (it's 5:22 am) so I thought I'd write a blog post. Today is my last day at Homestay!!! I'm super incredibley excited because I was starting to get sick of this place. I can't wait to be sworn in as a legit volunteer and I can't wait to be back in Sikasso. I only now slightly feel like I'm going to miss Homestay because lastnight we had a sort of Thank-you gathering for all of the host families were we told them how greatfull we were that they allowed us to stay in their homes and that they took such good care of us. I invited my host dad and his 2 wives to come to the gathering, but none of them showed up, instead they sent 2 of their daughters in their place (one of the daughters really gets on my nerves so I really was unhappy to see her their instead of my host-parents). At first I thought the reason that they didn't come was because they didn't care, and that they were just as ready for me to leave as I was. Turns out this wasn't true at all. After the gathering, when I got back home, I gave my host parents the gifts I wanted to give them at the gathering (a watch for my host dad, and bracelets for my host moms). They all seemed genuinely happy to receive them, but nothing can top my host dad's reaction when I handed him the watch. The man was choking back tears. It was so precious. I have never ever ever seen him that happy! He could just not believe that anything like that would ever happen. Now because of his reaction I feel kinda bad... and the reason being that it was just an $8 watch from Walmart, granted it looked pretty nice and is probably better than any watch he'd buy, but still. Anyway I was super touched by his reaction, and I now know that they aren't in a rush to get me out of here and that they will miss me, and knowing this makes me kind of sentimental too whereas before I was telling people that there was no way I was gonna miss homestay and that I couldn't wait to get out of here. I think my problem was that I associated all of Homestay with language class alone, which I hate, and not with how nice of a family I got and all the super nice things they did for me.

So anyway that brings me to my next little blurb: I'M DONE WITH LANGUAGE CLASS (*sort of)!!! Yesterday afternoon I took my End-of-Stage (oral) Language test. For this test we have to achieve a score of Intermediate-Mid in Bambara to be sworn in as volunteers. I was EXTREMELY nervous because my Bambara isn't the greatest, and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to achieve inter-mid. So anyway I took the test and I wasn't very happy with myself because I had memorized some pretty advanced sentences and I never got the chance to use them. I spent several hours after the test ragging on myself because of this. I later found out from my LCF (my Bambara teacher) that everyone in my homestay village passed!! I won't actually receive the results from my test until Monday, but I'm super relieved to hear that I passed (hopefully this turns out to be true).

Random tidbit for you guys: So turns out it's shockingly rude to ignore a phone call here. My homologue in Sikasso is now in the habit of calling me everyother day (mind you we can barely understand eachother because my bambara sucks and my french isn't that great either) to ask me how I'm doing and to tell me how happy he is that I'm doing well. This may sound "cute" to you, but it's not, it's actually annoying as hell. So anyway, a few afternoons ago I was getting my hair braided when my phone started ringing. I looked down to see who it was, and yep it was my homologue. I let out an exasperated sigh and pressed ignore. The lady who was braiding my hair and her husband, who was sitting near by, both let out these gasps of shock. That completely threw me off guard because I had the habit of ignoring phone calls quite a bit in the US (not as often as Jenn though). I tried to explain to them that I didn't want to talk to him, but they didn't seem to get it. I later explained the whole ignoring the phone call situation to my LCFS and I got the same shocked reaction from them too! My LCF, once he lost his shock, explained that in Mali you never ignore a phone call because if someone is willing to spend the little money the have on phone credit to talk to you than you shouls be polite enough to answer. So his explanation made total sense and actually made me feel really bad about ignoring my homologue's call. Lucky for me though he called back literally a minute after my LCFs explanation, so of course I answered the phone! Again it was just a call to see how I was doing, and it didn't even last more than a minute. I guess from now on I'm just going to have to put up with these minute-long annoyances.

*it's only sort of because I have to do some language tutoring for the first 3 months at site.

I decided to bring my laptop to site visit because I remembered really wanting to journal/blog my first night of homestay. I am going to write a little bit each day so that by the end of the week I will have a mini entry for each day.

Day 1 (August 8)

So I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my entire life. I literally felt like throwing up the entire morning because my stomach was so knotted with stress. This morning we were told to wake up at 4 am so that we'd be ready to leave at 5 am. While eating breakfast my homologue came up to me and showed me his ticket and said something to me in Bambara, so I figured he was saying that he got both of our tickets. After breakfast we went to load the bus, but it turned out that there wasn't enough space for all of us on the one bus so my homologue and I actually got split up. I didn't find this out until later though, so I spent the entire ride to the bus station panicked because my homologue wasn't on the bus. When I finally reunited with my homologue at the bus station it was a great relief, but then I found out that he didn't actually have my ticket and earlier he had told me to go get my own ticket in Bambara. So this news made me panic even more because I thought there might be a chance that they wouldn't let me on the bus, but thanks to my amazing homologue everthing was smoothed out and I had no problems getting on the bus. My bus ride was a very very long 6 hours, although at some point along the trip I found out that my homologue lied when he said he only speaks a little French, because really he speaks beacoup! I was super relieved to find this out because now we can actually communicate, when before I could only tell him about my basic needs in Bambara. On the bus there was a driver and three attendants (they collected the money and helped people with luggage), and after my bus ride when we got off at our stop, all three of the attendants got off the bus and I could see them whispering to eachother. I knew they were talking about me, but I didn't know what about until one came over to me and asked me for my number! lol, I gave him an 'are you kidding me!?' look and then told them all off by saying that they didn't know me, so why should they want my number (all in french). They all cracked up and got back on the bus. My 8k (which is about 5 miles) bike ride to my actual village wasn't at all as bad as I thought it was going to be. I did get covered in mud though because it had just rained. Once I got to the village I found out that I'm living in the same concession with my homologue and his family, not with the chief of the village as I was told. The 2 rooms that they have for me are attatched to their house, and my negen isn't even built yet (everything was supposed to be finished before I got here). I also don't have a hangar in front of my house that can be like a gated area for privacy. What they have provided for me doesn't follow the Peace Corps guidlines, so once I get back to Tubaniso I'm going to have to make sure someone finds out what is going on. Besides my house not being in order, everything else was great! I really like my homologue and his family and everyone that I have met so far in my village, even though hardly any of them speak Bambara (they all speak Senufo, so yay for me having to learn another language when I really don't like language learning!) All in all I'd say that it was an awesome first night, and I think I'm gonna like this place (especially if they get my housing issues situated).

*cool fact: I'm the first American ever in my village, and my homologue said he was going to write "Elizabeth Coomber, the first American in our village" in their history books. Insanely awesome!

Day 2 (August 9)

I feel like I live in Busch Gardens. I know that sounds weird, and I think I'm going to have some trouble explaining this, but I'll give it a shot. So I always felt that amusment parks like Busch Gardens exaggerated the huts and vegetation for what Africa is supposed to look like. I felt this way because I lived in Nigeria for 2 years and never once saw a mud hut with a thatched roof. Well in my village they're everywhere! Almost every household has a round hut with a thatch roof! It looks so fake, just like Busch Gardens, but they're real!

Anyway I did quite a bit today with my homologue. He basically gave me a tour of my entire village. My village has a primary and a secondary school, so I got to visit both of those, as well as the health clinic and a bunch of little random graineries and gardens. I also met the Chief of the village today, he's this cute little old man with coke bottle glasses and a huge smile. He was super excited to meet me, and I also found out that I'm actually the 2nd American to come to my village because the Chief said that when he was a small boy he met an American man and this man gave him 5 francs. I can't believe he can remember something as small as that! Today was another great day!

P.S. there are mango trees everywhere in my village!! I can't wait for mango season!!

Day 3 (August 10)

Today was another great day! It started out pretty slow because after I ate breakfast my homologue and I went to the Secondary school to meet the headmaster there. I also got to sit in on a CGS meeting which is Communite de Gestion Scolaire, which is kind of like a school board meeting. They were talking about the schools budget which I found to be very boring and hard to follow because it was in French, but at just the right time I saw my site buddy walk up. She's a 1 year PCV who lives in a village 12k from me. She basically came to check in on me and see how my site visit was going. She's super cool and very nice. She's staying the night at my place so that she can be here tomorrow for when a Peace Corps official comes to see how I'm doing and to introduce me to the Mayor.

Day 4 (August 11)

So I'm positive that I'm going to love living here. I have the best homologue ever! He literally treats me like his daughter and makes sure everything is perfect for me. I have a couple of issues with my house (I am supposed to have my own negen, but right now there's just a giant hole in the ground, my door is wood when it's supposed to be metal. and it opens with a skeleton key which doesn't fit Peace Corps standards) and my homologue says that there's going to be no problem having those things fixed before I'm installed here at the beginning of September. I also explained to him that I would really like my own concession, even though living with him and his family is great, I just want my own space, and he understood completely, and said that after the rainy season is over he will see to it that a new concession for me gets built! He's so accomodating and hospitable! Today I also got to meet the Mayor, and he seems like a really nice guy that I will be able to work with well. Today was also market day in my village!! It was great! It's not the biggest market, but I was able to buy some pretty cool cloth and some orange and blue (go gators) bracelets. The only thing I don't like about my village is that they speak Senufo here, and I've come to realize that it's going to be very difficult to learn this language because it is spoken with the throat, it sounds very similar to Chinese, and it's almost impossible for me to get my mouth in the right position to pronounce words and phrases correctly.

Day 5 (August 12)

Today was my last full day in village because tomorrow I am going to Sikasso with my site buddy so she can show me around. I need to know where my bank is and where I'll be receiving mail, as well as where the Bureau is so I can get internet access. Today was a really chill day. After my bucket bath and breakfast this morning my homolgue took me to a meeting of the village elders (all men of course) and heads of families. They gathered to talk about me and also about the past school year and any issues dealing with the primary and secondary schools in the village. Earlier in the week I had asked the village chief to give me a Senufo name (really I just wanted a new name because I didn't like Sali at all), so now my name is Gnire (pronounced Near-y) and this means first daughter in Senufo. I got this name because I am their first American daughter, so I'm really happy to have gotten this name! Today I wasn't feeling so well so I told my homologue that I didn't want to go with him to a meeting at the Mayor's office, but that I wanted to go back home and read. So I pretty much spent the whole day reading (I also watched a couple episodes of the Office) except for when I ended up having to go to the meeting anyways just to show my face to those who hadn't met me yet. Overall it has been a really good week, and as much as I really like this village, I'm ready to go back to Tubaniso.

So I'm leaving for my actual site at 5 am tomorrow morning. I'm not too happy about this. I'm already super nervous about going to my site, having to bike 8k, and actually liking my site, and now I'm barely gonna get any sleep. Tomorrow will also be the first time I've ever taken public transport here in Mali. I'm beyond nervous about that! The buses here don't look that great... Oh well, it has to happen, so there's no use complaining about it over and over again. Anyway, right now my biggest dilemna is whether or not to listen to my ipod on the trip to Sikasso. A reason to listen to it on the way is that it'll make my 4 to 5 hour trip faster, and a reason not to is that I should save the battery for the week that i'm going to be in village. Oh and I can't even charge my ipod with my solar charger anymore because it got stolen... One day last week I was charging the solar panel by the school, and when I left to go home I forgot to pick it up. I realized as soon as I got home (literally 5 minutes later) that I left it. I ran back to the school and it was gone. I assume one of the children took it. I told my LCFs what happened and they said that they would ask around for its whereabouts, so hopefully it turns up. I'm not too angry about it because it didn't work too well and I think it was only like $15. Oh well. Anyway, Sikasso Region, here I come!

So site announcement is something that all of us PCTs have been eagerly anticipating for the past month! It's we finally found out where we will all be going once we swear in. The way that they did site announcement was really cool but also really nerve-wrecking. They made the announcements by region, so that meant that they called out a region and then one-by-one listed all of the PCTs from each sector who will be going there. The whole process and the assignments themselves were kept a big secret, but a few things slipped out. For example beforehand I was told that nobody wants to go to Kayes region because it's the hottest place on Earth. I also didn't want to be in the Koulikoro region because that meant Bamako (the capital city) wpould be my regional capital, and because of that it would lose all of it's novelty and no longer be a big deal to go to. So because of those impressions I had of those 2 regions, my whole body was incredibley tense when the PCTs in those regions were being called out. The one region I REEEEAAALLLY wanted to be in was Sikasso because I heard that it is the most lush region where most of the fruits and vegetables come from (I miss produce sooooo much), and also where they always have a big Thanksgiving party (the reason this is so special is that our first 3 months as sworn in volunteers has to be spent at site, meaning that if you aren't in the Sikasso region you can't come to the big Thanksgiving dinner in Sikasso).

So back to me being super tense. The first region to be called was Kayes. When it came time for the Education volunteers to be announced I was crossing my fingers and praying that my name wouldn't be called, and it wasn't! The next region was Koulikoro, and I again crossed my fingers and said a prayer, and again my name wasn't called out!! The next region to be called was Sikasso. I had pretty much convinced myself that I wasn't going to get what I most wanted because I had basically exhausted all of my luck by not getting Kayes or Koulikoro. They made it through all of the Sikasso announcements and they saved the Education names for last. The Education head got through his 3 or 4 names and got to his very last name, and guess what, it was me!!! I jumped up and threw my arm in the air and yelled out "yes!" and then proceeded to high-five a few people. lol. I was super excited. I got my dream region, but unfortunately I didn't get my dream site. It turns out that I have to bring my mountain bike with me because my village is several kilometers from the main road. I love biking in the US, but biking in Mali is a different story. Besides the fact that it is super hot here and I am constantly sweating during my bike rider, the roads and paths are super terrible, and I often have to bike through nasty puddles and over donkey poop. I also found out that my site doesn't have reliable cell service, so I'm not too sure how I will be making my phone calls. Another thing I got but didn't want was a male Homologue. I really wanted the person I work the most close with to be a woman. i just felt that a woman would be able to help me more, and would be more comfortable around me because a male homologue could feel like he might not want to tell me something because it could be a touchy subject. I don't know. Anyway I actually just got to meet my homologue and he seems like a super nice older man. He speaks Bambara and a little French (or so my info sheet says, but I haven't actually tried to speak to him in French yet so we'll see if this is actually true). I'm glad he looks nice because on Sunday I will have to ride with him on public transport to Sikasso, a 4 to 5 hour drive from Bamako, and him being nice means that the ride will of course be awkward seeing as we've only just met, but not super awkward because he's not a weirdo!

written 8-5-10 (sorry if there's any spelling or grammar issues)

So I have a HUGE amount of info to blog about, so get ready.

Okay, so since my last blog a lot has happened. Seeing as it would take forever to describe everything, I will be giving you all a cliffnotes version of all that has happened in the last (almost) 2 weeks. I don't bring my computer to my homestay site, so in order to prep for my blog updates I fill a page from my notebook with a list of all the things I want to talk about. Here is said list, note that here it can be used as a table of context, if you will:

1.Wedding

2.Soiree

3.Malian men/wedding proposals

4.Sick PCTs

5.Field trips/ restaurants!

6.Museum/American Club

7.Sleeping (so hot, fan)

8.Food (likes and dislikes)

9.My Negen

10.Pokemon

11.Mice (Milk and Sugar)

12.Underwear

...(I told you I had a lot to write about)

1. Okay so I think I mentioned in my last blog that I was going to get to attend my host sister's wedding, and that I was super excited about that. Well... the wedding sucked. It was soooo boring. I spent the entire day sitting on a bench in the hot sun with my fellow tubabs (white people) while the bride spent the entire day inside her little room. I later found out that a common tradition in Mali is for the bride to stay inside all day because once her head has been washed she is not allowed to greet anyone except her husband. So while my host sister was in the room the whole day, all the wedding guests sat around and talked with eachother. There was some dancing to a random beat by some random dude who was playing this teeny drum. The dancing was only done by women and all they do is shuffle their feet and go around in a circle. I've heard that weddings are supposed to be super fun, but I definitely didn't experience any fun at all (maybe my host fam doesn't know how to throw a raging party). One cool thing about the wedding was that my host sister got a TON of gifts. She got all kinds of cloths, buckets, bowls, an armoire, and a bunch of other random stuff! Another cool thing was that everyone had on really cool clothes. I loved all of the bright and beautifully patterned fabrics!

2. A few days ago I got to go to my first Malian soiree (basically a block party at night with lots of dancing that they charge money for entry, and it is usually for a cause). This was super cool because I got special permission to stay at my friend's homestay village just to attend this party because nothing ever happens in my quiet little homestay village. Anyway, we got to the soiree, which was being held at a local restaurant, around 10:30 pm. This was super difficult for me because I'm so use to going to sleep at 8:30 now. My friends and I didnt have to pay to get in because the friend that I was staying with's brother either paid for us or was able to convince the guards to let us in for free. Once we got in we noticed that no one was there except for maybe like 10 people. The reason for this is because parties dont start until like 12:30 here, just like in the US! Once the party finally did get started I noticed a ton of differences between a Malian soiree and a US party. The first is that Malians dance like theyre having seizures. There was no rhythm at all to their dance moves. They were literally flailing their arms in random motion while jerking their bodies every which way. It was hilarious. My friends and I couldn't stop laughing! (I'm sure the Malians thought we danced weird too and I'm sure they were also laughing at us). Another difference is that they leave the lights on. I think this may be because this is a very conservative country and if the lights were to go out, then who knows what kind of hanky panky could occur! Another kind of weird thing is that dudes dance in groups together and girls dance in groups together. It seems that there is gender segregation in every facet of life here, even partying!

3. Malian men are not my favorite men in the world. It seems that almost every other day I get wedding proposals. One of my guy friends in my homestay village with me has several times pretended to be my husband to get the guys to leave me alone. He will be like "no she is my wife, you can't have her!" It can be pretty funny, but also really annoying. Groups of guys will yell at me to come over and talk with them whenever they see that I'm alone, and I always just tell them that maybe I'll come talk with them later... maybe. And then I never do.

4. It seems as if a ton of my fellow PCTs are getting sick! I have yet to get sick *knock on wood*, but others have had some pretty crazy ailments! One of my fellow education trainees got *Gasp* MALARIA! I also know of 2 trainees who have gotten Giardia (disgusting. This one has symptoms like explosive fouler than usual smelling diarrhea and burps that smell like sulfur). Another trainee cut her toe and it got badly infected and she hasn't been able to return to her homestay village in the past 2 weeks. A huge amount of people have had diarrhea and fevers, and I know of one girl who has a parasite. I reeeallllly hope I don't get sick!

5. As Education trainees we get to go on a lot of field trips to NGOs offices and random organizations in Bamako that we will be working with, unlike other sectors who basically just stay at their homestay villages and do language classes for the full 2 weeks. We've been able to visit the USAID office at the Embassy, as well as some other organizations that are aiding in improving literacy and numeracy in Mali. My favorite thing about our field trips is that we get to go to restaurants in Bamako for lunch, and Peace Corps pays! My favorite place so far is this place called Broadway Cafe. It's super nice inside and the food is sooooo good and the ice cream is even better! I got a cheeseburger and fries and then a scoop of both vannilla and strawberry.

6. This past Sunday was what they called a "fun day" for us PCTs. We got to meet up with our entire stage (all 80 of us) in Bamako, where we were split up into 2 groups with one group going to the American Club and the other going to The National Museum. My group went to the American Club first, and there I ordered a cheesburger and fries and then after eating just relaxed in their TV room on a comfy recliner and we watched the first half of The Breakup (a movie I'd already seen). We spent about 2 hours at the American Club and then switched with the other group to go to the Museum. I didn't like the museum at all, but that's just because I don't like art museums. The exhibits were of things like figurines, wood carvings and textiles. The museum was super tiny, but it took the full 2 hours to go through it because our tour guide gave us the most comprehensive descriptions of every last item. I was bored out of my mind, and very sleepy after just relaxing at the American Club.

7.Sleeping is an interesting thing for me here. I barely get any of it. I go to bed super early, so technically I should always be well rested, but it's really hard for me to fall asleep here. There are all kinds of random noises, but the worst thing is the heat. My room basically bakes all day because it has a tin roof, so when I lay down on my bed at night it feels like I'm inside an oven. I usually fall asleeop dripping with sweat. It's pretty gross. As for the noises, I've got the Mosque's 4:30 am call to prayer everyday, donkeys that sound like they're being murdered and roosters that crow like every single hour. Eventually I hope to get use to and be able to sleep through all the noise!

8. Food here is not my fav. I'm basically on a 95% carb diet. In the morning I eat a half loaf of bread with a cup of super sweet milky tea and a teeny hard boiled egg. For lunch I usually get rice with eith a peanut sauce or leaf sauce that has a little tiny chuck of fish in it, and then for dinner I usually get either spaghetti that has been tossed in oil and some seasoning or boiled potatoes/yams with nothing on them and that's it. I am so tired of carbs!!!! My favorite food here is when I get my boiled potatoes covered in a tomatoe and onion based sauce, delicious! This unfortunately has become a rareity. I most often get the spaghetti oil thing.

9. Ahhh the Negen. except not really, because it's more like take a deep breath of fresh are before you go into that nasty thing. At first it was pretty hard for me to crouch over a hole to use the bathroom, but as of now I've gotten pretty good at it, and even find it to be somewhat comfortable. My aim isn't what it should be, but I have 2 years to work on that ;). I hate that I have to do all my normal bathroom activities in the Negen. It's so gross to have to shower and brush your teeth and change and wash yopur face where you and everyone else poops. vom, or should I say foono which is Bambara for to vomit.

10. Pokemon for Gameboy Color is my savior. Many a day when I had nothing to do but sit and stare at the ground was joyfully spent playing pokemon. Unfortunately I just beat the game 2 days ago so there won't be much for me to do now, but I guess I can always start over or just continue to battle my pokemon or catch more pokemon. Everyone laughs at me whenever they see me pull out my gameboy and start to play pokemon, I guess it is somewhat childish of me, but whatevs, Pokemon rock!

11. So one thing that is really starting to get on my nerves is that my room has a serious mouse problem. The mice chew through and eat everything! Earlier this morning my host dad gave me a bag of shelled peanuts and when I returned in the afternoon to get them 3/4ths of the bag was gone!! The mice have also chewed through the bags of sugar that I keep in my room for my morning tea as well as my powdered milk. What sucks is that I have t throw away everything they chew through because rodents carry some pretty nasty diseases here that I have no desire to acquire.

12. So a big taboo here in Mali is letting other people see your underwear, and because of this I can't include underwear in the laundry that I give to your host mom everyweek. Instead I have to wash them in private and make sure no one knows that that is what I am doing. This is super awkward because I am always being watched and I'm sure they know what I've been up to when I come out of my room with a bucket full of soapy water. Oh well.

Wow that took forever! So on top of everything I just wrote, I aactually found out my site assignment today! I'm going to go to bed now, but tomorrow I'll write all anout my soon-to-be site and my homologue!

Today is my last day at Tubaniso, I won't be back here until Thursday, August 5th ... sigh. Goodbye internet, goodbye electricity, goodbye delicious food (this is the only place where it is safe to eat salad!) goodbye reliable cell phone service, and goodbye fellow PCTs (except for my 3 village mates). I'm going back into the darkness... haha well not really. While being at Tubaniso I've actually kind of missed my homestay village, which I thought wwas impossible. I miss the little kids and my crappy room, but I think what I miss the most is all of the down time. Here at Tubaniso we're constantly in some training class, there's always something to do. Also the majority of the classes are super boring, just like any normal job training. Every so often we do something fun, like have a panel of PCVs talk to us, but that's pretty rare.

One cool thing that I have been able to do at Tubaniso is watch movies. They have a projector here, so we have been able to watch Up as well as Hot Tub Time Machine. I love Up, and I thought that HTTM was pretty funny but definitely stupid. Also at Tubaniso is this vender dude who sells random things like candy and soda. This has been the only place I've been able to buy Coca Light (aka Diet Coke)! I crave Diet Coke, I'm basically having withdrawls. Everywhere I go I ask them if they have Coca Light, but they never do, it's very sad. Although it was really cool because when we first got to Tubaniso, one of my village mates bought me a can of coca light and sang happy birthday to me. It was an awesome present! I also bought a snickers bar today. It tasted a little weird because I think it was pretty old but it was still a good taste from home.

This Sunday (tomorrow) my older host sister is having her wedding celebration. I get to wear an outfit that they had made for me. I have no idea what is going to happen at the celebration, but I assume a lot of food and dancing. I just found out today that our LCFs (language and culture facilitator, so basically our Malian tutors who live in the homestay village with us) won't be at the wedding. Every Saturday they leave the homestay village to go to their actual homes and families in Bamako (they only live with us during the week). So this means that I'm not gonna have any idea what is going on at the wedding because there will be no one there to translate stuff into English or French. Oh well.

So anyway, lots of reading, I'm reading Pillars of the Earth (I think that's the title?), and lots of playing of Pokemon on my Gameboy Color. Oh I also watch an episode of the Office on my iPod almost everyday. Thank god for technology!

(sorry for any grammatical errors, this was written in wordpad without any spell check)

So I'm gonna start this off by saying that Homestay has been a rollercoaster. There have been all kinds of ups and downs! Sometimes I was super angry and other times I was soooo happy. So anyway let me describe my situation. Right now I'm living in a concession with my host father (who I only see at night and in the morning because he works in the capital) and his 2nd wife (his 1st wife is living in the capital with one of their daughters, I assume for work reasons). My host dad and his 2 wives collectively have 4 daughters. 3 of these daughters are married with kids, and one of them is just 15 and not married yet. Only 2 of the daughters live in the concession right now (the eldest and the youngest), and the other 2 live in the capital. The eldest daughter has 3 kids and she is living with us right now until her wedding day (I know that must sound strange, so let me explain. In Mali, a lot of people have 2 wedding ceremonies, a religious one and a civil celebration. These 2 events can either be the same day, weeks apart, or even years apart. In my host sister's case, her religious ceremony was years ago because her oldest child is 6. Her wedding is going to be this Sunday, so after that she and 2 of her kids will be moving back in with her husband in some other village) Also living with us is one of the other daughter's sons and a friend of my host dad as well as a nephew of my host dad who is only living here for summer vacation. I have my own room with a living room attached, while the rest of the family shares 2 rooms. We have a big courtyard and an outdoor kitchen and two Negens (bathrooms), and that's about it. There is no running water (we have to go to the communal pump for water) and no electricity. The village that I live in is also super small, we only have 2 or 3 teeny vender stands called butigis and a single water pump, and there are only 3 other PCTs (3 other Americans) with me in village. Anyway... I'm just gonna go ahead and describe Homestay to the best of my ability as it has been 2 weeks, and a lot has happened!

I hate to start off with a negative, but the first night was miserable. We were dropped off in village, and all the Bambara I knew was how to greet and how to say goodbye. So that killed about 2 minutes... I was then handed a live chicken and was told that it was a gift, and that we would be eating it for dinner. The rest of the night was spent in silence, and if not silence than it was me saying "N M'a Faamu" which means "I don't understand." I was all alone because each PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) was assigned to their own family and when we were dropped off we said goodbye to eachother for the night (this was at about 4pm), and we weren't gonna be able to see eachother (i.e. speak english) until 8am the next morning. The whole night I was fighting back tears, and I desperately wanted to go home. I just kept telling myself that it was only gonna get better. To top all of that off, that night there was an INSANE storm. Seriously, I thought I was going to die. The little room I stay in is crudely built with these crappy bricks and a tin room that is just attached by hooks with a few heavy stones on top for extra security. I was convinced the roof was gonna blow off and I was gonna go with it. I literally spent the whole 2 hours of the storm praying "pleassssseeee God I don't wanna die. Please keep me safe! pleeaaaassseeee!!!!!"

So that was the first night. Every night/day since then has gotten progressively better. The first week was pretty silent, with everyday me being able to say a little more in Bambara. My host family treats me like a baby, in the sense that they literally do everything for me. They cook all my food, wash my clothes, get my water and talk to me in super simple sentences, also if I ever do something like make a mess, they won't let me clean it up, instead they make my 15 year old sister do it. For example, near the end of the first week my water filter fell off the cardboard box it was sitting on and spilled gallons of water all over my living room. I tried to clean it up as best as I could, but my host mom shooed me out and called my sister in. It took her about 20 minutes to clean it up... oops.

One thing that I've noticed during homestay is that I am constantly doing stupid things, and the bad thing about that is that I can't play it off because I constantly have eyes on me. Another example of this was when I lost the only key to my room. The entire family had this look on their face like "wooooowww, could you be anymore stupid?" (luckily I found the key, but the whole situation was super embarassing). Also in the stupid things category are all of the cultural taboos I keep breaking. There is this one rule that in the morning you can't talk to anyone until you have washed your face, so this means a super awkward walk to the negen past everyone while trying not to aknowledge them. A few times I have had to ask a question and have received weird looks because of it. There is also the no talking in the negen rule. I broke that one when I was in there and a fellow PCT shouted out a question to me and I answered, and my family burst out into laughter. Oh and then there was the time that I tried to pay the lady who braided my hair with my left hand. My host sister yelled out NOOOOOOOO! and I was so confused and then my PCT friend was like "right hand! right hand!" I immediately switched the money to my other hand and said sorry like 4 times.

My days in the homestay village are spent mainly doing intensive language study, which I'm not the biggest fan of. Bambara sounds like nothing I've ever heard before, and the structure isn't anything like Spanish, French or English, so I can't even use what I already know to help me figure things out. The craziest thing about Bambara is that there is no real way to say a quick hi or bye, instead you have to go into this whole elaborate good morning, how are you, how is your family, how is your dad, how is your mom, and so on, and then to say good bye you say that you are leaving and the response is 'tell them that I say hi' and then you say 'they will hear it.' God I miss the word bye, but more than that I miss hi because greetings are soooooooooo long, and you have to say them to EVERYONE. Our language lessons are 4 hours at a time and we have 2 of them a day. Our lessons are held at the village school which is empty now because of summer vacation, and at every single lesson we have had an audience of children (I've posted pictures of this on facebook). I have no idea why they would ever want to sit there for hours just staring at us, but for some reason they do.

So as you all know, my Birthday occured while I was away at homestay. I could easily describe it as my worst birthday yet, however it was only my worst birthday because I was without family and friends and in a place where I don't really understand anything and can't say much. The day wasn't terrible, but it was definitely a typical day in Mali. I started the day off by going to the butigi and buying hair extensions because I planned on getting my hair braided later on in the morning. The walk to the butigi with my host sister was just like every other walk that I've had through my village, filled with children screaming out Sali! Sali! Sali! (my Malian name btw. it's short for Salimatu and it was picked out by my host mom) and Tubaboo!Tubaboo! (this means white person/foreigner/french person). All 4 of us PCTs are basically village celebrities. Everyone knows our names and they always know where we are and what we are doing. Privacy and alone time doesn't exist here. Anyway after I bought the hair, we went back to the concession, and a little while later a friend of the family started working on my braids. They took about nine hours, and after those 9 hours I could no longer feel my butt. Also for my birthday a chicken was killed, and this time it was killed right in front of me. My family made me invite the other PCTs to eat with me, and we were served the whole chicken cut up into pieces in one bowl, head, feet, organs and all. I basically lost my appetite with one look into the bowl. One of my PCT friends took the feet and made them crawl up the side of the bowl while screeching 'help me help me.' So yea... that was how I turned 22.