The views and comments contained in this blog are mine and only mine and in no way represent those of the Peace Corps or any 0ther agency.
Hi all! Sorry it has taken me a few days to get this out to you, but I have officially arrived in Mali! We arrived via Airfrance (great flight food with out the extra charges) on Friday July 10. We were transported to Tubani So (Bambara for dove house) which is about a half hour outside of Bamako. Since arriving I have been in multiple trainings on health topics (my health as well as Malian health), language, cross culture, language, safety and security, language and Mr. D! (aka #3) The language I am learning is Bambara which is spoken in almost every part of Mali.
Four days after arriving, we split off into our home stay villages. I am in a village called Buguineda Camp (I am told you can find us on google earth) that is about a hour from Tubani So. There are 11 volunteers training in my village; 6 health education volunteers (HED), 3 small enterprise development volunteers (SED), one environment (ENV) and one water sanitation (WatSan). We all live in separate families, but we all come together every day for small language classes. My language class consists of three volunteers and one language/cultural facilitator (LCF). It is in these groups (11 volunteers and 4 LCF's) that we have x-cultural exchanges, learning about traditional ceremonies, customs, foods, and feux pas.
There are two other villages near us that house other volunteers, Buguineda Village and Sounduguba (my spelling is prob way off, but the Bambarain language is all phonetic) and we travel between those villages to hang out with the other volunteers on days off, like last Sunday. Each village is about 2 KM from ours, with our village between them. In the mornings when I run, I can make it them and back in less than 20 minutes. We have travelled to B.Village for trainings on gardening and composting with the ENV volunteers.
It is very very very hot and we get some relief when it rains. The Malians think we are crazy because we welcome the storms, some times even standing outside in the downpour. The children call us Tubabu or Tubabs (white people) while every one else is very curious about us. The Malian culture puts great emphasis on greetings and departures so my conversation skills are tested over and over again on my 7 minute walk between home and school. Their abbreviated greeting lasts at least 5-7 lines each, requiring very precise responses.
The wildlife so far has consisted of farm animals on the loose, cows (misi), sheep (saga), goats (ba), and donkeys (fali). There are also lots of chickens (ce), cats (jacuma) and dogs (wulu). The family I am living with doesn't have goats, cows, chicken or donkeys, but they have everything else. I also found out the other night that they have a scorpion! I went to the negen (the pit toilet, sounds like nyaygen) in the evening after the sun had gone down for a bucket bath (which feels amazing, by the way) with my head lamp. While i was scanning the wall, I came across the usual termites and cockroaches. I passed him right over before realizing what I was looking at. A small scorpion, the size of a Ritz cracker (which sounds so good right now!) was cowered in the corner of the wall about two feet up from the ground. I was thinking I should squash him before he got away, but unsure how best to kill him, I called one of my host sisters. Aissata (she's 18, one of my twin sisters, who speaks awesome french and a little English) came to find me and saw what I was looking at. "OOOOOOOOOO!" She called Samata, my other host sister, her twin, who came in and had the same reaction. They both called my host brother, Fassirima (who is 15) who came in and cut it in half with the edge of the dust pan. Needless to say, I have not taken a bucket bath after dark again.
We have been with our families for about 12 days, back here at the training facility for 4 and are heading back out to out host villages tomorrow for another 12 days. Time is flying by now; when we come back next time, it will be to prep for our week long site visits! I still do not know yet where I will be, although some people seem to.
So far, my health has been great. I cannot say the same for many of the other volunteers as a lot of people have gotten Mr D or are sick with colds. I am crossing my fingers to be one of the 15% of volunteers who make it through training with no sickness.
I hope you are all doing well! I do not have as many of the email addresses as I thought I did, so please feel free to forward this to whom ever asks. I will not be able to check it again right away, but I will write as soon as I can. There are other volunteers that are doing blogs and some are really good at keeping up with them.
Missing you lots!
Hugs, kisses, and love,
Holly (aka Awa Sacko) <<< its my Malian name....
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