Whoopsies!

In addition to all the challenges I just wrote about, my days are constantly full of small hilarious things.  When 2 such different cultures/languages come together, there are bound to be some “whoopsies” as I’ve started to call them.  If you can take it with a sense of humor, it really helps to ease your way through the embarrassment.  So here are a few of my favorite “whoopsies!”

1. …You Do WHAT?!?

Remember I said Moussa and I were learning the terms for body parts?  We’d gone through all the normal ones (facial features, phalanges, etc) and I’d pretty much mastered them, so Moussa started teaching me trickier ones.  Once he was teaching me a word that he charaded by running his fingers up and down over his arm.  I thought he was trying to teach me the word for “tickle” so I confirmed it by making a tickling motion in the air with my fingers, and Moussa nodded his head.  Good student that I am, I tried to use it in a sentence.  “N bε Sumaylia kamagan don o don!” – “I tickle Sumaylia (my little brother) everyday!”  Moussa and Salif and the rest of the kids cracked up as Moussa shook his head at me.  After a bit more charading, I caught on – “kamagan” means “skin” not “tickle.”  So apparently I tried to say that I skin my little brother.  Whoopsies!

2. Awkward Silence…

We had just learned the terms for family members and related verbs in class, and since I had been trying to discuss family with Moussa for days, when I went home that night I got our my photo album (for the millionth time) to show off my new knowledge.  Now that I knew the words for “grandparents” and “aunt and uncle” and that sort of thing, my explanations were a lot clearer.  Since everything was going so well, I decided to get a bit fancier and explain that my parents are divorced.  I flipped to photos of my mom and dad and said “N bangebaw fatulen don.”  My aunt and uncle’s faces got really serious and sad looking and there was kind of an awkward silence as they tried to come up with something to say.  All of a sudden I looked down at my notes and realized I’d just told them my parents were dead.  I frantically shook my head and said “U te fatulen don! U furusalen don!!!”  Malians have a hard time understanding divorce (I’ll talk more about that later) so they were still confused, but at least I got the message across that my parents aren’t dead.  Whoopsies!

3. No Singing At The Dinner Table.

No singing at the dinner table was always in rule in my house while I was growing up.  I don’t know why all of those years of training suddenly flew out the window.  Maybe because eating here is kind of quiet since I can’t say much yet, and I want to fill up the silence.  I’ve developed a habit of humming while eating, which I vaguely remember being told during the first week is very inappropriate.  At first I was just humming in my head, but one night we were eating dinner when the prayer call came over the loudspeaker.  (Muslims pray 5 times a day and in small villages like mine the mosque has a loudspeaker for the call to prayer to be blasted throughout the village.  The first one is at 5:30am.  I am not pleased about this.).  The prayer call has a pretty musical sound to it, so I started humming it out loud.  My brother looked up at me and sternly shook his finger at me.  I guess if it’s rude to sing or hum while eating, it’s even ruder to hum the prayer call while eating!  Whoopsies!  Now that I know I can’t do it, I really want to all the time and I have to force myself not to so I don’t get in trouble again.

4. Hey Mom, This Is Really Good!

This one is by far my favorite.  Most of the time we’re all pretty quiet while eating.  In the beginning, Moussa would point out various ingredients in the meal so I could learn the terms, and now he’ll quiz me, but since I know everything by now (our meals aren’t very varied) the quizzing is fast and we’re silent again.  At lunch during one of the first few days, we were eating rice with sauce and Moussa was teaching me all of the vegetable names: eggplant, onion, cabbage, etc.  My mom was standing nearby and I wanted to show my appreciation for her hard work, so I asked Moussa how to say “c’est bon” in Bambara and he told me “zame.”  I looked at my mom and said, “Zame!”  She kind of laughed at me.  And from then on, everytime I genuinely liked something, I would say “zame!”  I really like the special tea that my dad drinks several times a day, so once I told him zame after drinking a glass, and he got kind of a funny look on his face but I passed it off. 

Then maybe like 5 days later we were in class talking about food terms, and I learned that rice has 3 different names.  “Malo” is raw rice.  “Kini” is steamed rice.  And “zame” is fried rice.  What!?!  Apparently Moussa had thought I was asking how to say the word for fried rice, the base of our meal that day.  And for the past 5 days, I’d been randomly saying “fried rice” everytime I liked something: tea, a banana, my morning porridge.  I was so embarrassed!  I went home and our next meal was fried rice, so I tried to explain my mistake.  It came out something along the lines of, “Zame, ayi ‘c’est bon!”  (“Fried rice, no ‘it’s good.’”) so then my mom and grandma got really worried (and probably offended) that I was saying loudly and in the middle of eating that I don’t like fried rice.  And then I had to try and fix that blunder as well.  Whoopsies!!!

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love...Part 1

It’s quite simple: life here is hard.  Living in a place where no one understands you (literally) is really, really hard. Learning Bambara is hard. Peace Corps’ new slogan is “Life is calling you. How far will you go?” But for a long time it was “The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love.”  Lots of RPCVs (Retuned Peace Corps Volunteers) wish that was still the slogan, because it really is very true.  This job/life is not easy.  It’s frustrating and depressing and sometimes you can get really really down.  And on top of the normal challenges, our training group of 64 is now down to 62.  Two people have already gone home for medical reasons.  Whether each of us were close to them or not, part of our little family is missing now, and it’s disheartening to hear that kind of news.

I mentioned in another post how tired I get everyday.  I’m used to having an insanely busy life, with every moment scheduled, and falling into bed at the end of the day, passing out in 1 or 2 minutes.  This is a different kind of exhaustion.  It’s utterly draining.  In Mountougula I do have a schedule, but I also have tons of unscheduled time, so the pace is a lot easier than what I’m used to.  Not to mention it’s Africa, so the pace is a lot easier just by the very nature of life here.  Even with all of that down time, I’m constantly battling to understand and to be understood.  To make sense of the culture.  To eat another mouthful of toh while dreaming of cereal and milk and cheesy pizza.  All of that combined with the heat, and it just knocks the energy out of you and I fall asleep early almost every night.  At some point I’d like to stay up to see what happens on a regular night after 9pm.  There’s always so much noise and music and laughter – I want to be a part of it!

Language lessons are the most stressful part of my life right now.  I studied Spanish for 6 years, and while I’ve retained a lot of the vocabulary, I never really learned to speak it or understand when other people were speaking to me.  My biggest problem was I was embarrassed to speak, so I rarely ever did.  That was not a good way to try and learn a new language.  With this in mind I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to speak Bambara, but I’m still finding myself with the same problem: I have a large vocabulary, but I’m not very good at using it.

To start, American students very rarely learn English grammar.  Sure, we learn when to use “well” vs. “good” and that sort of thing.  But to be honest, I think I’ve learned more about English grammar from my Spanish classes than from my English classes.  So when my Bambara teacher is explaining that this is “in the passive voice” or that is “passé compose” I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about, which just makes the lesson that much more frustrating. 

French is Mali’s national language, so many Malians also speak French in addition to their Malian language.  For instance, even my barely-literate uncle speaks fluent Bambara and French.  Because of this, many Malians speak what we call “Frambara,” kind of like “Spanglish.”  It’s mostly Bambara but a lot of words come from French, or French words are just randomly thrown into the conversation.  I, however, speak no French.  I mean, I can say hello and ask you how are you are tell you my name and that the restaurant is on St. Jacques St.  But that’s not very helpful.  Even more frustrating, a lot of the Malians in my community expect me to speak French since I’m white.  I actually know much more Bambara than French, so it gets me even more frustrated when they revert to French to explain something I didn’t understand in Bambara – that’s not helpful!!!  I suppose in some ways you could say it’s good I don’t know French – I won’t be using it as a crutch as I struggle to learn Bambara.  But that’s looking really, really hard for the silver lining.  Life would be way easier if I knew French.  Which I don’t.

Sometimes I get really frustrated in my language classes when we’re presented with yet another exception to the rule, or we learn yet another word that has not 1, not 2, but 3 or 4 different meanings depending on the context.  The sentence structure is not the same as English (or Spanish for that matter), so I have to get used to that, but then sometimes that changes, too.  One day I was so frustrated with something that I just couldn’t focus anymore.  My LCF realized I needed a break, so he started talking about how difficult it was for him to learn English.  He said, “The first time I heard the expression ‘My car is running out of gas’ I just couldn’t understand!”  I started laughing, and it actually really made me feel better!  It’s true, English has tons of crazy expressions like that, and at least in Bambara letters always make the same sounds.

It’s the little things like that that often get us through the day.  Like my multicolor pedicure and taking care of my feet every night.  Or funny things that happen at home.  Sometimes I tell Moussa English words in exchange for Bambara words for a certain object.  For awhile, we were working on body parts.  I was trying to explain to him the connection between the words “ring,” “earring,” and “toe ring.”  Which meant I also taught him the words “ear” and “toe.”  And then for good measure, we learned “neck” and “necklace.”  The next night we were sitting out at the butiki under the tree, surrounded by other kids, and Moussa and I started quizzing each other on the words we’d learned.  For some reason Malians really have trouble pronouncing the word “toe,” which I’ll never understand, considering that we eat “toh” every day!  So “toe” was Moussa’s tricky word, and although he correctly said “earring” and “ring,” he was stumped when I pointed to my toe ring.  He thought for a while and finally guessed, “Neck ring?”  I started cracking up, and all the other kids around me started laughing too until all of us (including Moussa) were howling with laughter.  Malians love to joke so there really isn’t any embarrassment for a mistake like that.  And again, that little mistake made me feel better!  So every day I try to find the little things to make me feel better.  And believe it or not, hanging out with my Malian family always makes me feel better, even though it’s then that I’m in the midst of confusion and misunderstanding.  They’re so good to me, and I know they really want to help and to talk to me.  It’s a good incentive for me to keep trying, so that I can talk to them, too.  And I always remind myself, you’ve only been here for 2 weeks!  Crazy, right? 

Creepy Crawlies

Remember that lizard in the ɲεgεn back at the Training Center?  I only wish that was the worst of my creepy crawlies!!

As far as ɲεgεns go, I’m pretty happy with mine.  It’s big, it locks from both sides (this is a huge deal), there’s a cover over the hole, and there’s a bucket with soap right outside the door, so I’m pretty sure that means my family washes their hands post-ɲεgεn (also a huge deal – Go Family!).  ɲεgεns at night can be a totally different story.  Again, mine isn’t too bad, but of course nothing is perfect.

The Story:

1. The Spider. 

There’s a big brown and white spider that comes out every night and sits in the same spot on the inside ɲεgεn wall.  Not a big deal.  I’ve noticed he’s not there during the day, so I’ve started looking for him at night, and I’ve decided to name him Phinneas.  I am definitely my father’s daughter regarding my relationships with spiders: I’m not afraid of them and I actually think they’re pretty cool.  I’ll never kill one.  So Phinneas is not a problem, but he is there.

2. The Roaches. 

Let’s face it, nobody likes roaches.  They’re big.  They’re fast.  They have long, twitchy antennae.  They live in undesirable places.  And they’re slimy when you squish them.  *Shudder*  I’d heard “horror stories” from the other PCTs in my village about cockroaches all over their ɲεgεns at night, and I was like, “No roaches in mine, mine is clean!”

Famous last words. 

My ɲεgεn does indeed have roaches.  I’m sure they’re down there somewhere during the day, but I only ever see them at night, so I tell myself they’re not there during the day.  At night I can see anywhere from 1-4 hovering about 3-5 inches below the ɲεgεn rim when I remove the cover.  Usually shining my light on them sends them scurrying out of the light, and this is an excellent time to employ “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” something I’m already pretty good at.  And if the light trick doesn’t work, I can always splash some water onto them.  So again, not the ideal situation, but manageable.

3. The Ants.

I may not be afraid of spiders, but I HATE ants with a burning, fiery passion.  I detest any ants indoors.  The little ones, when outside, are fine, but I LOATHE any big ants, particularly inside.  My ɲεgεn doesn’t technically count as “inside,” so the little ants running around are fine, but every now and then there’s a big one, and that is just not ok.

4. The Night of Friday the 11^th.

I walk into my ɲεgεn and lo and behold, there’s a big, fat cockroach sitting smack dab in the middle of the piece of metal that covers the hole.  The roaches are evolving, they can escape the hole!!!  I have no choice.  If I want to pee (and believe me, I really do) I need to move that roachy metal piece, only to have to scare away even more roaches.  Blegh.  So I bravely shine my light on Roach and he thankfully scuttles off to the corner of the ɲεgεn.  I check on Phinneas, in his normal spot as usual, remove the metal cover, and scare away the other roaches.  So now I’m squatting over a hole to do my business, several cockroaches are merely inches from my butt, and my back is turned away from the Spider on the wall and Roach in the corner watching me.  I can think of SO MANY places I’d rather be at this moment (although maybe not my bathroom from Rich Hall last year.  Given a choice, I’d choose the creature-infested pit latrine.  Seriously.).  I finish as quickly as humanly possible, wash my hands, and move onto teeth brushing.  I’m getting everything ready when wouldn’t you know it, a Giant Ant comes hustling over, heading straight for my toothbrush!  I am very picky about toothbrushes (and loofahs), even in the States.  Nothing that isn’t absolutely unavoidable should EVER touch my toothbrush, and now my Worst Enemy of the bug world is coming right at it!  This was the last straw.  The spider is fine; I even named him.  Roach and his buddies are tolerable.  But there is no way in hell I’m letting a big juicy ant get anywhere NEAR my toothbrush, and I squashed that little bugger faster than you could say, “slime!” 

These were all of the things on my mind as I headed off to bed.  I sleep under a mosquito net, which hangs from my ceiling/walls over my bed like a canopy.  Aside from protecting against malaria (and lymphatic filariasis!! J) breeders, it gives me a nice sense of privacy.  My bed is my sacred space.  I don’t go on it until I’m completely ready to sleep or rest.  My feet need to be clean to enter and it’s my own private world.

So this night I’m lying in the little private world of my bed, lights off, glasses off, listening to my iPod.  Next thing I know, I’ve just seen a big, red spider on the INSIDE “wall” of my mosquito net!  INVASION!!  I bolt upright and start to panic.  Like I said, spiders are cool, but NEVER in my bed!  I scramble for the flashlight I keep under my pillow and panic when I can’t find it.  I’m really getting worked up until I realize: 1) I have no light.  It’s pitch dark.  How could I have seen anything?  And 2) I’m not wearing my glasses.  How could I have seen anything?  So fairly quickly I realize the spider must have been a dream, and I start to calm down.  However, I was not about to go back to sleep without confirming the dream hypothesis.  I find my light and of course, there’s no spider.  Not fully convinced, I triple-check my entire sleeping area just to be sure, and thankfully, no spider is found.  So I curl up way over on the other side of my twin bed, and drift off to a sleep full of buggy dreams.  :)

A Day in the Life

A rundown of my typical day: I get up at 7 and give my bucket to my mom or my aunt for hot water for my bucket bath.  In the Muslim tradition, you can’t greet anyone before washing your face, so it’s an awkward few minutes as I silently stand there wrapped in my pagne waiting for someone to get me bath water with all the other family members long awake and going about their business.  At the same time, I like that I don’t have to be nice to anyone first thing in the morning!  I take my bucket bath in the ɲεgεn, which is an interesting experience.  At first it was really awkward to be crouched naked in a rather large area that's walled but not roofed, trying to bathe myself using a bucket and a cup.  But now I find there’s something kind of liberating about it.  My biggest complaints are the mid-60s temperature for my morning bath, which is quite freezing with no running hot water! And also that the floor is slanted, so it really becomes a challenge to crouch in my wet flip flops and not fall over.

After my bath I can greet the family.  Breakfast is usually porridge which is actually pretty good, but only when my dad or my brother comes over and puts in a baggie of sugar.  I guess it’s the Malian version of Wheaties – pretty healthy but not so good, but tasty with sugar!  Sometimes I also have fruit or yams or bread and hard boiled eggs.  After breakfast I go to school.  The 8 of us are divided into 2 language classes of 4 people each from 8-12 with one 25-ish minute break.  At noon we go home for lunch with our families, which usually makes me feel a lot better after a stressful class.  I eat lunch, drink tea with my dad, and go to my room to lay down or just relax.  Class starts again at 2:30 and goes till 5, and after that I either hang out for a while with my friends or go home to spend time with my family.  I’m always home by dark, which is around 7pm, and I take another bucket bath, mostly because my mom and aunt seem to want me to and I don’t know how to tell them it’s no big deal if I don’t.  

Dinner is around 7:30pm.  After dinner usually I go sit under the tree in front of our concession because Moussa runs a small butiki (small store: tea, sugar, cigarettes, gum, candy) out there at night.  Tons of kids and young adults crowd around as I struggle to talk to them, or as Moussa explains my photo album for the millionth time.  I don’t even bother commentating on it anymore, I just pass it off to him!  He’ll ask me for confirmation if he needs it, but he and Salif pretty much have the whole thing down by now.  One of the photos shows me wearing jeans, and the kids pointed it out and everyone crowed, "Oooh, Damadje's wearing pants!"  So the next day I wore pants so they could get used to it.  Women rarely wear pants in Mali, although it's becoming relatively more common now, especially in the cities.  It's ok for us to wear pants, but I try to limit how much I do, and usually I'll only wear them one day a week.  Several of the photos show my lip ring (which I don't wear here for cultural reasons, although my nose ring is fine) and they were lightning-quick to point it out.  So I suck in on my lower lip to show them the hole and once I stuck my earring through the hole so they could really see it.  They think it's hilarious.  

I try to say goodnight to everyone and go to my room somewhere between 9 and 10 pm.  It’s nice to have some alone time at night before bedtime, and I get really tired everyday, even though I often take a nap in the middle of the day.  At night I light my kerosene lamp and turn on my flashlight and do homework, write in my journal, or read a little bit.  I’ve started something new where I soak my feet every night in a bucket of water.  Since I wear sandals and there are no paved roads in Mountougula my feet are never ever clean.  It’s really nice to wash all the dust off at night, rub lotion on my feet, put on my aloe socks, and crawl into bed all nice and clean!  One night I’d had a rough day so I came home, cleaned my feet, and gave myself a pedicure with multicolor, bright, happy colors.  I guess happy feet mean a happy Michelle these days!

A quick note on food: it’s…different. Most meals are rice with a sauce or toh (I’ll explain in a moment).  The first 2 days we had fish in our sauce, which would be bad enough in the US (I am NOT a fish person) but was even worse Malian style, all slimy and fishy. I hardly ate any of it, so they would put the food in my room after dinner in case I was embarrassed to eat in front of them (it’s a cultural thing) and then my room would smell like fish.  So after 2 days I had my LCFs (Language and Cultural Facilitators, basically my Bambara teachers who live in my village and also guide me through adjusting culturally) come tell my family I don’t like fish, and they never gave it to me again.  Typically everyone eats with their hands around a big communal bowl.  As a toubab (white person) guest, I eat with only one other person, my brother Moussa, and sometimes I even get a spoon!  Challenge: imagine sitting in a chair (only my dad and I get chairs, everyone else squats) leaning over a bowl that’s sitting on the ground.  Now imagine rice in that bowl, covered in a sauce that includes large pieces of vegetables.  Now, eat that meal using only your hands.  Scoop up that saucy rice in your bare hands and navigate it all the way up to your elevated mouth and eat the whole handful without making a mess…it’s not easy!!!  I eat so differently now.  Once I had meat in my sauce and I would eat a piece, not knowing what animal it came from or what part of the animal, and then suck the rest of the meat and flavor off the bone before throwing it onto the ground next to me.  (That’s where the trash goes.  On the ground).  

Toh is really hard to describe.  I’ve been trying for a week and a half to fit a description to it.  The best I can come up with is that it’s kind of like eating a thick flour and water paste.  It’s gooey-ish and comes in a big bowl and you pull pieces off with your hands and dip it in a sauce before eating.  The sauce is made of okra, and is green and has the consistency of snot.  My friend Jeff calls it booger sauce.  The taste of the toh is pretty nonexistent and the sauce taste isn’t bad, but if you look at, or think about the consistency, it kind of kills the flavor.  Even many Malians don’t like toh, but I guess it’s a pretty common dish in the villages.  Most of my friends only have it every now and then, if at all, because they told their families they don’t like it, but since my stomach didn’t complain, I haven’t either, so I usually eat it once a day now.  I’m pretty used to it, and last time I ate almost my entire half of the bowl.  It’s just kind of a bummer when you realize dinner is toh again, especially knowing my friends are often getting french fries and fried plantains.  Twice now my aunt has made me fried potatoes for an after-dinner snack and both times it was glorious!!!

Also, my dad and uncle have apparently decided that I don’t eat enough (they tell me every meal to eat more so I can get fat), because they are constantly buying me fruit.  I get sooo many bananas and oranges.  Sometimes they go bad because I can’t eat them fast enough, and no one in my family will take food from me, the guest.  Also, I can’t really peel the oranges (they’re WAY harder to peel than our oranges), so unless someone in my family does it for me (which often happens), they’re kind of a lost cause.  (Useless Americans, lol).  I'm really glad they're over-fruiting me rather than under-fruiting me, though.  It's a nice break from rice and toh.

I guess that’s about it for my daily life and family.  Hopefully you have a general idea how my life is working so the rest of my stories-to-come will have some context.  More to come soon!

N Ka Denbaya (My Family)

I made it through my first 2 weeks of homestay!!  This is definitely cause for celebration.  I have lots of stories and experiences to share, so I’ll get through as many as I can before we leave again.  I figure the best way to start is to describe my family and a day in my life in the village!

I’m living in a small village called Mountougula, about an hour car trip from our training center.  My friend Ashley says it’s like Cheers: everyone knows your name!  It’s true, news spreads there like wildfire.  I think I in particular stand out because I wear my big purple sunhat everywhere, so often I’ll be walking somewhere and from way across the field someone will yell, Damadje!!!  Oh yeah, Damadje Doumbia is my Malian name.  I’m named after a deceased grandmother who had very light skin.  :) 

My host family is great.  At first I had no idea who was in my family, or who lived in my concession, or who anyone was.  It was all very complicated.  It took me a good week and a half, and 4 sit-downs with a family member to figure out who all lives in my concession and how they are related.  First of all, a concession is a living space with individual room-buildings that open into a courtyard.  So in entering my courtyard from the street, there are maybe 7 or more small buildings that each have one door that goes to the courtyard.  Including me, 20 people live in my concession (and that’s on the smaller scale!)  My dad, Sirafa, is head of the concession.  He has one wife, Bintu, and they have two children: Lemin (11) and Ma (3).  My dad has 2 brothers who live in the concession: Madu and Moussa.  Madu is 33 and his wife is Badini.  Their kids are Sumaylia (4) and Mama (7 months).  Bintu’s younger brother Salif (12), and Awa, who is Sirafa, Madu, and Moussa’s mom, live on Madu’s side of the concession.  The youngest brother is Moussa, and my main sidekick.  He’s only 15 and for the first 3 days I thought he was my brother, so normally I just call him my brother.  He speaks French and is learning English in school, so between the 3 languages, we can usually understand each other enough to get by.  Also in my concession live the family of my dad’s cousin Siriki.  Siriki and Setu have 3 kids: Papis (6), Barbere (5), and Le (2).  Siriki’s mom Mamine lives with them, and Setu also looks after her younger sister, Sata, and an adopted daughter, Bi.  And that’s everyone! 

It’s not so complicated when you’re living there.  Sirafa’s family and Madu’s family are extremely close, and in fact, in the Malian culture both men will say they have 4 children each, including each other’s children in their count.  Siriki’s family stays to themselves a bit more, although all of the kids play with each other all the time.  Basically if someone is younger than me and unmarried, I call them my younger brother/sister.  It’s easier that way!

Like I said, I spend most of my time and eat most of my meals with Moussa.  I start to feel lost when I’m home and Moussa isn’t there.  He knows everything about me that you can get possibly know from my photo album: he knows I’m from Sandusky, Ohio and he can pick it out on a map.  He knows my sister’s name and age and that she lives in New York.  He knows my parents’ names and can point out their respective houses on a map of Sandusky.  He’s so smart!  He also knows my vocabulary and language skills pretty well so we’re able to keep up somewhat of a conversation together.

I really like spending “alone” time with Salif.  (You’re never, ever alone until you go in the latrine or into your room and shut the door. Kids are always surrounding you, but if they’re younger, I can talk to Salif alone).  He’s quiet, so he’s normally overshadowed by Moussa or other older kids.  But he’s extremely patient with me, and more than everyone else he understands that I need people to speak slowly to me.  He’s also one of the only people who actively corrects my grammar.  If I say something wrong, Salif says it the correct way (slowly!) and has me repeat it until I say it right.  So although I don’t spend much alone time with him, I really value it when I do. 

Sumayila is my other favorite.  When I first arrived, all of the other kids were shy and backed off, but Sumayila sat on the ground outside of my door and just howled with laughter.  And he hasn’t stopped!  That boy laughs all day long, and not even always at me.  He sounds like a little baby doll, and he is just ridiculously adorable.  He’s definitely my comic relief, and seeing him can make my day get a lot brighter.  One of the first “extra” Bambara words I asked to learn was the word for “funny guy” so I can call Sumayila a “yεrεmɔgoɔ.”  He’s always covered in dirt, as he literally rolls around on the ground all day.  He’s definitely his father’s son in both looks and personality!

Le plays peek-a-boo with me from afar, but runs away when I try to approach, and will occasionally cry.  Mama pretty much always cries when she sees me, which everyone thinks is really funny, and I think is really cruel since I can’t even hold the only actual baby in my family!

Regarding the adults, I’m closer to my aunt and uncle than to my parents.  My dad intimidates me.  Not because that’s his personality, but because I know he’s the head of the concession and because I want to make him proud of me.  He’s not as charismatic as Madu, so talking to him doesn’t come as naturally.  But we sit together while he makes tea (it's a special tea that the men spend a lot of time making a drinking several times a day) and I can tell he’s really proud of me when I remember how to say something correctly.  My goal has become to get to a point where I can hold a conversation with my dad.  My mom had a death in her side of the family so she was gone for a week, which is why I’m not as close with her.  She took her kids with her, so again, that’s why I’m not as close with them.  While she was gone my aunt took care of everything around the concession, so I spent a lot of time with that part of the family.  My uncle Madu is super charismatic and he likes to talk to me, so he'll sit down with me and since I don't understand much he gets really animated and uses lot of hand gestures.  He told me he was going to cry when I was leaving for the training center for a few days!  :)  He also has told me several times that I'm learning Bambara quickly, and I really appreciate his encouragement, especially when I'm feeling down and frustrated.  I think my aunt Badini is close in age to me, and although she’s usually really busy, she’ll often come hang out with me and my brothers at night.  Siriki and Setu I rarely ever interact with.  In fact, I’d been living there for almost a week and knew that Siriki existed but I’d never met him.  I finally asked Moussa why I’d never seen him and Moussa took me over right away to introduce us.  I’m still not sure why I hadn’t met him, but at least now I now who they are!  As for the grandmothers, Mamine comes around every now and then and takes pleasure in greeting me since I can do the whole process properly.  Awa seems to think that I should be able to understand everything she says and seems confused when I get confused, but she’s really sweet and last time she went to Bamako she brought me back popcorn and cookies.  :)

And that's my family!

Movin' On Out

Things just keep right on moving here in Bamako!  In fact, I will be moving out of Bamako tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the 64 of us are splitting into 9 different villages where we will be living with different host families while we continue our language, culture, and technical classes.  The point of “CBT,” or Community Based Training, is for us to be as fully immersed as possible so we can acquire the language and integrate into the culture as soon as possible.  Today was the day we found out our Homestay village…and let me tell you, it’s a big deal!!  Tensions were high as we all waited on pins and needles for our name to be called.  You see, finding out our Homestay village also tells us which language we’ll be learning, and gives us a clue to our permanent site!  For instance, those who learn a minority language know their permanent site will be somewhere in that minority region. 

We were interviewed earlier this week regarding our placement preferences.  I thought I would say I wanted to be close to other Volunteers, and I thought I would say I wanted to learn Bambara (the most widely spoken Malian language).  But when it came down to it, I couldn’t.  My placement isn’t my choice, and as such, I didn’t want to limit the possibilities for future opportunities.  Especially as an Anthropology student, I didn’t want to stop myself from having the chance to live among a minority culture.  So when my interviewer asked, I merely said I wanted to be close enough to at least one other Volunteer that I could have some contact every now and then.  And luckily my interviewer remembered that I needed to have fairly regular access to Internet, since I am completing my Master’s degree here and will need to submit work and receive feedback.

So after all of that, my Homestay is in a village called Mountougoula and I will be learning Bambara!  (I won't find out anything about my permanent placement for about a month yet).  I think my group will be pretty amazing, and I’m excited that my DC roomie, Ashley, is in my group.  It helps to have a good, close, support network.  In less than 12 hours we’ll all be moving in with separate families.  Most of us probably won’t be able to communicate with our host family.  We’ll be doing 8 hours of training a day, most of it to learn a new language.  We eat 3 meals a day of unfamiliar foods with a family we can’t talk to.  We have no electricity or running water.  We have to learn how to filter our own water.  We have to try to fit in with the family and their customs without offending anyone.  And in the midst of all of this change, we’re closing out the cool season and moving into the hot season!

Lots of stress and excitement and new experiences to come…I’ll keep you posted as much as possible, but I won’t have internet out in my village, so I’ll try and post every few weeks when we come back to the training center for a few days. 

Me: K’an b’u fo. (Greet your family)

You: U n’a mεn. (They will hear you)

Me: Ka tile hεrε caya. (May we have a good day)

You: Amiina. (Amen)

ɲεgεns and Kalan

*Disclaimer: because of my limited access to computers and Internet, my entries will inevitably be long.  Feel free to read or not read at your own discretion.

A few things about Peace Corps and Peace Corps Mali:

·      Peace Corps began in 1961; this year marks PC’s 50^th Anniversary.

·      Peace Corps has been in Mali since 1971; this year marks PC’s 40^th Anniversary in Mali.

·      PC Mali’s history includes 3,000 volunteers in 1,000 villages and communities.

·      My group of Trainees is the first time a second group of trainees has come to Mali in the same year, which means we are expanding!

·      My Training group is made up of Volunteers in 3 sectors: Health Education (that’s me!), Small Economic Development, and Environment, with the idea that all of these are related to Food Security.

What an amazing time to be part of Peace Corps Mali! 

Upon arriving in Mali, somehow all 64 of us managed to get off of the plane (it was wonderfully warm outside!), get through customs, and find all of our bags – not a single one was lost!  Thankfully several Peace Corps staff were there to assist us.  I actually fell asleep on the way to our Training Center.  I know, you’re all shocked that I would fall asleep while something interesting was happening. 

Our Training Center, or “Tubaniso” (House of Doves) as it is called is only about a 25 minute ride from the airport.  We were all pretty exhausted by the time we arrived, but before we even picked up our luggage, we had our first Malian lesson: how to use the ɲεgεn, or pit latrine.  Believe me, there is definitely an art to it!  If you’re really that curious, I’ll be more than happy to describe the process on a one-on-one basis, but I’ll save the rest of you the details.  Let’s just say it’s a hole in the ground, at ground level, and while we PCVs have toilet paper provided for us and are more than welcome to buy ourselves some while at site, using toilet paper is not typical in Mali, and so there is an art to…cleaning yourself as well, involving a teapot of water called a salidaga.  (I haven’t ventured to this method yet.  I’m still perfecting the basics!)

Anyway!  Post-ɲεgεn lesson, we all retreated to the réfectoire (dining hall) for a snack.  I downed mine quickly and jetted off to bed for a much needed sleep under my mosquito net.  I was pretty hot trying to fall asleep, but I tried not to think about it, as this is still the end of the cold season and it’s only going to get hotter!

Turns out it was only going to get colder.  I was actually chilly when I woke up!  And while we’re talking about temperature, I’ll just give you a basic rundown of how the last few days have been.  Thursday morning, our first day, was chilly but tolerable, and by noon it had warmed up to a comfortable temperature.  It’s still getting pretty chilly and windy after sundown, so a sweatshirt is a must.  That night I found out how to turn the fan on high (sorry for the low setting that first night, roomies!) and slept much more comfortably, even waking in the middle of the night to cover myself with a blanket.  But the next morning, I woke up freeeezing!!!  I dug to the bottom of my bag for my “winter” clothes, and by the end of our first session, I had returned to my hut for extra clothes.  I wound up wearing a heavy pair of pants, 2 long sleeve shirts, a hoodie with a fur hood, and a scarf completely wrapped around my head and shoulders, for the rest of the morning and the early afternoon.  Who would’ve thought?!?  Thankfully today wasn’t as bad, and I was eventually able to strip down to the heavy pants and only one long sleeve shirt after noon!  Progress.  :)

Anyway, as far as training goes, we have a full Malian staff whose full-time jobs are to train us.  Everything from language instructors to cultural facilitators, and even current PCVs who are spending their time with us to show us the ropes.  The first Bambara word I learned (other than nyegen) was keneya: education.  That’s what we’re doing right now, learning the basics on how to function in a Malian community.  In the last 3 days we’ve spent a lot of time talking about Malian culture, tips to maintain our personal health and safety, how to maintain and fix our bikes, and some very basic Bambara, the most prevalent indigenous language in Mali.  (We’ve only had one lesson so far).  Allow me to greet you:

·      I ni Sɔgɔma!  (Good morning!)  I ka kεnε?  (How are you?) Somɔgɔw ka kεnε?  (How is your family?  K’an bεn!  (See you!)

* Note: greetings are much more complicated than that; I’m giving you the abbreviated version!

I have learned so far that: 1. My French is atrocious (my language test was pretty embarrassing).  And 2. I need to learn Bambara fast!  Our homework assignment for tomorrow’s class was to put the phrases we learned into a song, so last night my roommates and I coordinated our phrases to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat.  It worked quite while and I think this will be a very useful tool for me.  If only I remembered as much French as I do song lyrics!

We’ve also spent a lot of time talking about Malian culture.  One of the great things about our diverse instructors is that we get all kinds of viewpoints.  From the Malians, we learn what they believe and how/why they act the way they do from their own point of view.  From the current PCV Trainers, we learn about Malian culture from an outsider’s perspective, and how our own culture will initiate our reactions to what we will experience.  At Tubaniso, we have no topics that are off-limits.  It won’t do us newbies any good to feel uncomfortable or ignorant about what our lives will be like for the next 27 months.  So we talk about everything. 

Perhaps one of our most interesting exercises (at least for me, the Cultural Anthropology undergrad) was our session on Stereotypes, Misconceptions, and Values.  The Trainees split up into groups and the Malians got in one group, and we listed stereotypes about each other, and then discussed them as a big group.  Next, we got into groups again and listed the top 6 values of or own cultures.  The results (and not necessarily in order):

 Malians:

·      1. Family/Marriage

·      2. Solidarity/Hospitality

·      3. Respect

·      4. Joking Cousins (a Malian concept that is a bit difficult to explain but basically allows for escape from uncomfortable situations through joking)

·      5. Peace Makers/Tolerance

·      6. Ethical

       

 Americans:

·      1. Work Ethic/American Dream

·      2. Education

·      3. Democracy

·      4. Freedom/Independence

·      5. Money/Success

·      6. Diversity

·      7. Equality

·      8. Justice

·      9. Upward mobility/Opportunity/Competition

·      10. Individualism

·      11. Innovation/Creativity

* (The Malians were in one group and the Americans were in 6 groups, so this is a summary of our top and most-repeated responses).

It’s so interesting how our culture determines our values, and how our values determine how we act and react.  Following this thought, we got back into our groups and were presented with a hypothetical scenario involving PCVs and Malians.  Our goal was to decide who was to blame, and to rank in what order?  (Quite the “American” task in itself!)  Without going into a lot of detail, it resulted that while the Americans put the Malian as least to blame, and really didn’t blame him at all, the Malians blamed him first.  I wish I could explain it better to you all, but I suppose you’ll just have to believe me when I say it was definitely eye-opening.  There really are two sides to every story, two perspectives, two beliefs.  This will be extremely important for us newbies to keep in mind as we enter the Malian life 3 days from now.

Other interesting highlights:

·      We learned how to make Malian tea, which is unlike any other tea preparation you’ve ever done before in your life, guaranteed.  I bet your Lipton doesn’t take 2+ hours to make and drink!  Tea drinking is a huge social activity over here, and there is an art to making the tea correctly.  There is also a procedure for how it is made, how it is cooled, how it is distributed, how it is drunk, etc.

·      Today we learned how to eat a typical Malian meal.  This involved one giant bowl of food (usually rice with a sauce, meat and/or veggies on top) placed on a mat on the floor with several people sitting on the floor around it (but no shoes!).  And then you dig in, all at the same time, using your hands.  Needless to say, we all got pretty messy for our first attempt.  :)  But yet again, it’s a very communal way of life.  And this is how we’ll be eating with our host families, so it was good to get in the practice early!

Summary of my first 3 days of Training:

I learned that Malians are an exceptionally warm, welcoming, curious, and accepting people.  As long as you abide by certain cultural values and expectations (aka don’t wear ratty jeans to work), your village will accept you for who you are.  They will be curious and ask you questions, but in most cases there’s no need to hide who you really are, and in all cases it is simply a matter of feeling it out as you go.

Peace Corps is The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love. 

I can successfully perform any function that is required in a ɲεgεn.

I have so much more to tell you, but I’ll save it for another post! 

I’ll end with a ɲεgεn story: I went out to the ɲεgεnbefore bed last night, wearing my headlamp so I could see.  I turned the corner into the ɲεgεn and shone my light on the floor to make sure everything was ok.  As I moved my light up, I saw a shadow scurry across the wall!  It turned out to be a lizard, which isn’t that big of a deal…except that I’m used to seeing little bitty lizards out in Arizona.  This bad boy was at least 3 times as big!  There’s something very disconcerting about having a big fat lizard with bulging eyes watching you in such a vulnerable position…

The Beginning

My adventure has officially begun!  After a very long application process…clearance process…waiting for an assignment…waiting for departure… I am finally on my way to serving in the United States Peace Corps.  My assignment is Health Education Extension Agent in the country of Mali in West Africa.  Don’t know where Mali is?  Hint: think Timbuktu.  Yes, it actually exists, and it just so happens to be in Mali! 

As Peace Corps is kind of a culminating experience for me after 5 years of studying anthropology and public health, I thought it appropriate to start my blog with a quote from a famous female anthropologist.  I have long desired to make a difference in the world, and my education at BU taught me over and over that “making a difference” truly does happen on a personal level – by individuals, for individuals.  Here I go!

So what will I be doing in Mali?  Well, that’s pretty vague at this point.  My job title leaves my opportunities pretty open, which will give me the freedom to address the needs of my community, with respect to their situations and resources.  Generally speaking, from the words of Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams, “We work with local people to use local resources to solve their problems using their priorities.”  My 9 weeks of in-country training will provide me with training in language(s), technical, cultural, personal health, and safety and security.  For those of you who are worried about my safety, I hope to reassure you when I tell you Mali is one of the biggest and most successful Peace Corps programs in Africa, and I have heard nothing but wonderful things from both returned and current Mali PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers).  Peace Corps, both globally and locally, keeps a very close watch on potential threats (both natural and manmade) and takes care of us as the utmost priority.

So after several months of planning, packing, unpacking, and repacking, I finally made it to Washington, DC with all of my luggage (1 big hiking backpack, 1 “small” backpack, 1 duffel, and 1 carry on rolling suitcase) for Staging, or Orientation.  The 64 of us traveling to Mali all met at noon with several PC staff, and continued with Staging until shortly after 7pm, so it was a full day of introductions and information.  Highlight: for some awesome reason, my group was honored with the presence of both the Director of Peace Corps, Aaron Williams, and also H.E Mamadou Traor, the Mali Ambassador!  That’s definitely not the norm, so we felt pretty lucky.  Aaron Williams held a Q&A session with us and told us a few anecdotes about his own Peace Corps experience in the Dominican Republic.  I feel lucky that contacting my family and friends won’t be nearly as complicated as it was for him – write a letter home, say you’ll call in 2 months on this day at this time, please be home, and it’s super expensive to call so here are the talking points!  Nope, not for me.  I’ll be able to pick up my cell phone, call home, and then hang up so you can call me and I can save my pennies.  :) 

After our day of Orientation, I was able to go out for the night with friends both new and old (shoutout to you awesome people who met up with me for dinner/drinks!)  It was a pretty early night, as I’d only had an hour of sleep the night before!  The next day we didn’t meet till noon, so my lovely roomie/new best friend Ashley and I were able to grab breakfast and run a few errands, including sending my winter coat home.  I’m finally leaving behind “Snowmaggedon!”  The only real group goal we had that day (other than leaving) was going to the clinic to get a Yellow Fever shot.  We went to a fancy federal building and were instructed to leave all phones, cameras, Leatherman knives, etc in the bus and line up in alphabetical order to go through security and get our entry wristbands.  In the midst of all this rigid formality I made friends with a security guard when he asked me if I had a twin in the group and I thought he asked me if I had a twenty.  After that I decided that my new best friend Michaela is going to be my twin since she also has short hair, a nose piercing, and our names are kind of alike.  We figured we could have some fun with this!  Anyway, back to topic, I hate shots with a passion, but lucky for me the Yellow Fever shot lasts 10 years and I had one 4 ½ years ago when I went to Niger, so I was able to take a nap while most of everyone else got their shots.  Leaving the clinic officially ended our Staging!  Summary of Staging: I ceased to be a Peace Corps “Invitee” and am now a “Trainee!”

After arriving at the airport, we were greeted by awful news: the packing/luggage restrictions weren’t “guidelines” in any sense.  Air France is quite strict about their policies.  We were allowed to have 2 checked pieces of luggage, neither exceeding 50 lbs individually, and 1 carry-on and 1 personal item.  Unlike domestic flights, even a small backpack does not count as a personal item, and the carry-on can weigh no more than 24 pounds.  Remember the baggage I described myself packing?  My 2 checked bags were well within the restrictions, but unfortunately my 2 carry-on bags together clocked in at about 60lbs…whoops.  Oh, and did I mention the fees?  $100 for an overweight checked bag, and $200 for a third checked bag.  Needless to say, I about had a panic attack.  Believe it or not, my 2-month seasonal job at Target did not provide me with bags of money to blow on carting around 3 months of toiletries to Africa.  Luckily, I met my new best friend Andy who was only checking 1 bag and fantastically volunteered (after I begged him) to check one of my bags for me.  THANK YOU ANDY!!! 

It took forever and a day (actually about 2 hours), but eventually all 64 of us managed to get through security (some several times after realizing their required-for-entry immunization card was in their checked luggage) and finally were able to eat dinner, which we’d all been dreaming of for hours since our breakfast ran out.  I went all out for my last dinner, or at least as much as you can in an airport food court on a fairly reasonable budget: chicken sandwich with cheese (oh, how I’ll miss you!) and mayo, french fries, root beer, and my crowning glory: Yuengling.  Kudos to Dulles!  Oh, and a cookies and cream shake from Ben and Jerry’s.  I pretty much sloshed onto the plane.  Despite arriving at the airport almost 5 hours before departure, the time passed very quickly and soon we were boarding our flight to Paris!  I’ve definitely found my new favorite airline, despite their strict luggage restrictions: Air France, you are awesome.  It’s all the little things that make a difference, especially the free wine and the cup of chocolate pudding in my meal (yes, more food)!  One movie (Unstoppable, love you Denzel) later, I was happily passed out in my seat for most of the rest of the flight. 

Despite my trepidations for the Paris airport (which is basically a city and getting around is like taking a city bus) it actually only took about 20 minutes to get all of us through security and to our next gate, which was only a 5 minute walk from security – score!  Which leaves us here with 5 hours to kill.  We’re quite the motley crew, and have completely taken over the waiting area at our gate.  Sorry to the poor suckers leaving from anywhere near us over the next 5 hours.  Some of us are updating our people back home, some are reading, some are chatting, most have pulled up a lovely piece of airport floor for a nice nap.  I’m sure we’re a sight to see!  Unfortunately my carefully packed carry-on of fresh clothes and travel toiletries had to be checked (it was 32 lbs by itself and rather large…) but my new best friend Heather shared her toothpaste with me, and I did manage to keep my toothbrush and deodorant in my small backpack, so I’m relatively refreshed and ready for the next flight.  It’s funny, only a few trips of carrying all that luggage and my muscles are already way more sore than from anything I did (which in all fairness wasn’t much) in the 5 months since I left Boston.  I have sore shoulders and arms from carrying everything and even sore thigh muscles because in order to get my big backpack on I have to start sitting down, strap it on, and then struggle into a standing position.  But the moral of this story is that I can carry everything all by myself!  Of course I won’t complain if Andy offers to carry the duffel, which I think would be nice considering I let him check the blue bag and not the pink one.  ;) 

And so I will leave you here in Paris!  More updates to come as I can find the accessibility to provide them.  Our training center outside of Bamako has Internet access but we won’t be spending more than a few nights there before continuing on to our host families’ homes.  I’ll be sure to send out my contact information as I find out what it is.  I will have a cell phone at some point, and I can also receive mail at the training center.  (Will provide the mailing address soon).  Keep in mind that mailing packages to Mali is hella expesive, and in addition to the cost to you, I have to pay a customs tax to receive it, which varies by value and is determined by the person who opens the package for inspection before it gets to me.  Not that I’m trying to talk you out of sending me presents.  :)  If at any time you are interested in sending a package, send me an email and I’ll let you know all the fancy package-ing tips that I am learning/will learn.  Letters, of course, are pretty inexpensive and always welcome!!! 

I’ll end my first post with a great big “thank you” to all of you who helped get me here – particularly to my family who bent over backwards for months to get me ready, and also to everyone else for their contributions of presents, good wishes, love, support, and prayers.  Thank you!