First Week in Mali

Bonjour Everyone! Finally I made it to Africa, and have been here for a few days now-although it seems like way longer! My days have been packed chalk full of things to do, sessions to go to, people to meet, acronyms to figure out, and TONS to learn!

Currently I am staying at Tubaniso with 79 other PC trainees, which is comparable to Peace Corps summer camp! Tubaniso is and enclosed area surrounded by three wall and a river. We are split up into huts there are two other girls which sounds really nice but let me describe the hut… think of the smallest room in your house and then shove in three beds with mosquito nets, three girls who just packed their lives away for two years, three boxes with water filters, a waste basket, and a hand broom! There is not a lot of space and it fills up very quickly! There are four huts that share four neygens-bathrooms.. two of the neygens have a shower the other two are just holes in the ground. Here ate Tubaniso we have access to the internet, electric lights, and ceiling fans and spotty running water. So far so good!
It is currently the rainy season here in Mali and the whether is considerably cooler than the hot season! It hasn’t rained yet really, but last night we thought there was a huge storm brewing outside! We heard rain on our tin roof, and the wind was blowing like crazy! A tree outside of our hut was scraping against out roof making a horrible sound! We seriously thought HOLY COW! But when I went outside the ground was dry, not even damp! The air was nice and cool and breezy it felt very nice actually! The wind must have blown the storm to another town down the road!…but if that wasn’t a storm I’m a little scared to actually experience one.
Thursday I am going to met and move in with my host family! I’m getting really excited and anxious! My host family is expecting me, and will have prepared a single room for me to stay in. In my host village there will be 7 or 8 other volunteers and the 8 of us meet with 2 Language and Culture Coordinators daily for the two weeks we will be there. During these two weeks we are given tasks we have to perform, like conducting interview dialogues with 3 Malians, shopping at the market, and learning what ever we can! After our first two weeks we then come back to Tubaniso and recap everything we’ve learned and learn lots more and attend more sessions for a few days then we head back to our host family for two more weeks and this continues until September.

Yesterday was a very very busy day! We finally were devivded into our sectors and had a session giving an overview of what it is that we will be doing and working on over the next 27 months! These sessions left everyone so pumped and excited to be here! Then we had a panel of current PC Volunteers here to answer any questions we had and they stayed to help us with lunch. Malian’s eat sitting on mats on the floor, they do not use sliver wear and they eat from a communal bowl. Thus far we have been eating with plates and sliver wear sitting at tables so this was a totally new experience for me! We had a fried rice with bits of meat (beef? No one really tells us what we are eating) and chucks of potatoes (can you say HELLO carb-overload! That’s all Malins eat!) We can only eat with our right hand because our left hand is considered dirty. We had to scoop up some rice and squeeze it together so it is like a little patty and eat it that way. It was really messy and could have the potential to make us very sick if other don’t wash their hands..but all in all was pretty fun and not as bad as it sounds! Also yesterday we had our first Bamabra lesson! All we learned was how to greet people and I’m already feeling a little overwhelmed…but I’m not the only feeling this way so it must be normal?!
Today was our first really experience to be around Malians, Malians that don’t work for the Peace Corps or Tubaniso. We had a Cultural Fair! It was pretty cool! Malians were here to sell fabric, a tailor was here to make things for us, musicians were here playing drums, ladies here were cooking us good food and it was so great!! Older Volunteers were also here and they really helped calm all of our worries about leaving for Home Stay Tomorrow.
Well that’s all for now..

Peace and Love