I’m getting more and more into village life every day. Each day that I am there, my language improves and the villagers become more a part of my life. When I first got to village, I was determined to cook for myself each day. After getting sick a couple of times, I’d decided it was the best way to ensure that I stayed healthy and also the best way to ensure that I knew what I was eating.

Of course, after getting into village, I discovered that cooking for myself was not as easy as it is at home and definitely not as fun, since I cooked and then ate by myself. In the last week, after spending more time at the CSCOM, I've gotten to know more of the CSCOM employees better. Everyone is so very friendly and patient with me and my language. We have three male employees, the pharmacist, the records keeper, and the assistant to the Chef de Poste. Our Chef de Poste, our Matrone, and our relais, my homologue, are all female. I have been taken in by them all, especially by the two Alima’s, my homologue and my matrone.

The matrone lives in a house behind the CSCOM. She has a husband who works in San and 7 children, all of whom are polite and sweet and very funny. Lately I have taken to having lunch with Matrone Alima, who is a fantastic cook. Lunch for a lot of Malians is to, which is ground millet made into a play dough type substance that is dipped in sauce. Some volunteers like it, but I am not a fan. And luckily, neither is Alima. Lunch with her is always rice and sauce, which I admit may not sound as good as it really is. But it is very tasty.

After lunch, we have tea and then on most days I walk her younger children back to school, which is right near my house. On our walk, I stop at the teacher’s house, which is right near the school, while we watch the children run off to school. I get to visit with the teacher’s wife, and sometimes with the teacher, who are both very friendly and also patient with my language. She reads the paper and we giggle over the funny photos and talk about the few things that we can both understand.

In the evenings, I go to my host family’s house and visit them, say hi, talk about the day and talk about the coming day. As the sun begins to set, I go to homologue Alima’s house and we have dinner together. A few nights ago we made dinner together. We made siiri, which is a sweet rice porridge. The one night I was not sure about going there, she ended up coming to my host family’s house to feed me. Its become a great routine.

In addition to being at the CSCOM each day, I am still running in the mornings, and am starting to run through town instead of out of town. People love to watch me run by, the crazy tubab. The kids sometimes even run with me for spurts of time. All of these things combined, I am starting to feel more at home and more connected, which is exactly what I am aiming for.