Hello!
Hopefully this will be a one-part series, if I am careful from now on...Let me set the scene: It’s midnight. Pitch black in Fangasso. Quiet night all around. I’m sleeping outside on my mattress (with my mosquito net, like al good PCVs and literally every person in Fangasso), and am awoken by something crawling on my arm. This happens sometimes, during sleep time and otherwise. You just brush them off. So I brushed this one off in my half-asleep stupor, and I can feel that it’s quite a large something based on the weight against my hand. And immediately my hand starts to hurt. Whatever this bug was just bit me…I find my headlight next to me, turn it on, and my suspicions are confirmed: A SCORPION GOT INTO MY BED. He had the nerve to just sit there as I flashed my light on him, knowing I was too scared to kill him. I called our PC doctor to find out approximately how long it would be before I died from the poison.
As it turns out, Malian scorpions are only slightly (and not fatally) poisonous, to my relief. So I moved inside to finish the night in peace, and when I woke up in the morning it was like nothing had happened, not a mark. I went outside to put away my outside sleeping stuff, and the little guy was still inside my net. I felt that his brazen presence merited death by flip flop. Then I threw him in the latrine just in case he wasn’t all the way dead. I wasn’t taking any chances. Then I found another one inside my house that afternoon…Is nothing off limits? Guess I’ll be dealing with those for a while.
In other news, Tabaski was last Wednesday. Tabaski is kind of like Malian Thanksgiving, since we’re probably all still in the Thanksgiving mood. Tabaski is a celebration 70 days from the end of Ramadan in which many Muslims gorge on sheep (it us called the féte de moutons—festival of the sheep—in French) in honor of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. I spent three days going from house to house eating delicious food. The first day I spent with the chef de poste (main doctor at the CSCOM, who, as it turns out, isn’t actually a doctor) and the vaccinator. There is also a Mauritanian family in Fangasso who brought us some of the most delicious rice and sauce I’ve had in Mali. I had been having really bad food cravings for American food the last few weeks, but Tabaski kind of helped to squash those for the time being. During the last few weeks, I have had dreams about Oreos, frosting-covered Oreos (which don’t even exist, to my knowledge—my brain is now just inventing foods that I can’t have in order to torture me even more), walking around a grocery store and looking for ice cream and dried fruit, hitting a buffet, and eating dinner at Chipotle. But those have been gone for now.
We also ate a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. The San PCVs met at the house and ate what was pretty close to an American dinner: guinea fowl (aka Malian turkey; not really, but it was as close as we could get), stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed pumpkin, salad, cornbread, pumpkin pie and cake. All homemade, organic, and fresh. Yummy. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Hope you all enjoyed spending time with their families and friends and ate as well as we did.
Other than that, site work has been going well. I’ve been working, not so diligently, at my baseline surveys, going around asking as many villagers as possible a series of health-related questions. We’re encouraged to do about 30-50, according to our materials, but I’ve done 5 so far. The results are “due” on the 6th. But Maimouna told me she was no longer interested in doing baselines with me, so I’ve kind of been working on my own for the last two weeks. It’s hard to do it without her, because she knows everyone in village whereas I know so few people, and she also served as my translator. I can do some of the surveys in French, but even then it’s still hard to ask a near-perfect stranger to talk to you about their health habits. I’ve tried doing them in Bomu, and people have a hard time understanding me without Maimouna there to clarify. All volunteers are also supposed to do food security surveys, but those are long and complicated; I’ve been doing them in conjunction with the health baselines, and I’m afraid people will start to get sick of my questions. We also have to do assets surveys, interviewing people like the CSCOM workers, mayors, sous-prefets, teachers and school directors, etc. Those I have enjoyed because I can do them all in French and they have been proving a good way to meet the so-called “important people” in village and see what their opinions are on the state of health in Fangasso.
These surveys have led me to an idea for my first project. Fangasso has a small water tower that provides clean drinking water to the village from a series of pumps. World Vision funded the tower, but it is not, predictably, in working order. They are not interested in funding a repair of the well (which is fair, but still angers me when I consider the amount of money they have spent on projects recently that have, from what I observe, have had very little effect on Fangasso). It’s nearly impossible to regulate the usage of a public utility like a water source, but the village has hopes of setting up some sort of payment or savings system for all people who use the water so that the next time it breaks there will be adequate money to fund any repairs. I obviously want to get the tower fixed as soon as possible, but I have no idea how to start. I want to make sure that whatever system is set up will last and will not be subject to the corruption that is also unfortunately present in Fangasso (long story). I had a meeting with the mayor that was canceled when I called him the day we had agreed upon just to confirm, and he had left town). So hopefully next tie we agree to meet both parties will be interested. I stopped by once to say hi, and said that I hoped I wasn’t bothering him, to which his response was, “You’re not bothering me at all. Don’t forget that I’m the one who requested you to be here in Fangasso.” That seemed nice at the time, but now rings a little false. But meetings get cancelled all the time here because people with means to travel do so often, so I’m trying not to take it personally.
Interesting facts about Fangasso:
Our school: grades 1-9, more than 700 students…and 6 teachers.
Our CSCOM serves 29 villages and only has a staff of 3 for illnesses and three for maternity-related work. (I’m staring my work with the maternity next week, updates about that soon!) The Malian government pays for all vaccines for children and adults, but does not pay for the paper that that records are kept on, so each woman with a child has to pay 400 cfa (about 80 cents) for the paper and the rest is taken care of. To give birth at the maternity, a women pays $2.
There was also what can maybe only be described as a tribal war in a neighboring village last week. The Fulani people of West Africa are oftentimes nomads but have settled in many places in Mali. They tend to have a lot of sheep and goats (still herders at heart) and also tend not to tie them up…So they get into neighboring fields and eat crops. Apparently some Fulani sheep ate a large amount of another villager’s crops, and somehow resulted in 4 serious head injuries inflicted by farming tools, and a series of village meetings on how to solve the feud. This didn’t happen in Fangasso, but the injured parties came into our CSCOM for treatment so we got to see some of the aftermath. They mayor had to get involved. Bad news!
This is all for now. Back to village for a week before heading to Bamako for more training. Love to all! Happy holidays!!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Can We Still Be Friends?
Dear people who may or may not still be willing to be my friends due to the fact that I have been keeping horrible contact, and who are only reading this because it came up on their Google Readers,
Haketo! Afere! (Sorry! in Bambara and Bomu) I don’t really have an excuse, just a proclivity for laziness. I am sorry that I haven’t been around much lately. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I am not fulfilling the PC goal of sharing my experience with others. But enough of this, let’s get to the good stuff. Since we last spoke, a lot has happened. A quick rundown:
All the PCTs visited their future sites (which are now our current and permanent sites). Mine was a blast and was very indicative of my life now. More soon.
We came back from site visit and finished up homestay. Halleluia. Language classes ended, and somehow by the grace of God or Allah or whatever higher power you may happen to believe in, I passed my final test in Bomu!!! I think we were all a little surprised. AND I am happy to report that all the Banankoro PCTs passed their tests, too! Leaving homestay was nothing special; a white van pulled up to my house, we packed my things, I exchanged handshakes with my family members but they were busy being confused about why I was leaving a mat behind (it had termite damage). No tearful goodbyes but I remember the Traores fondly.
We went back to Tubaniso for a few more days of training and preparation for our site installation. More on site later. Promise I’m not avoiding it.
SWEAR IN!!!! September 3rd, 2010. Ceremony at the US Embassy in Bamako. We were on TV! I gave a speech in Bomu. One PCT-turned-PCV-during-the-ceremony from each language studied gave a speech in their language. We had French, Bambara, Tomokan, Bomu, and Fulfulde. I didn’t expect anyone to understand what I was saying but when I greeted the audience at the beginning of the speech, a bunch of people greeted me back! I got confused and flustered for a second but then continued on. A few weeks later my boss, Daniel (which I will again explain) told me that he watched the ceremony on TV (we were on TV!) and when I gave my speech he tried to call me to congratulate me. But I was on a podium and my phone had been turned off, so needless to say I did not get the call.
We spent the day in the pool at the American Club in Bamako, celebrating and eating free food. Then we went to the hotel that had been rented out for us, and we ate dinner in the city then went out to Pirate’s Club, then later on to Zen. Fun was had by all that night! Definitely worth the two months of training to be sworn in as an official volunteer and celebrate with all 80 original members of our staging group present and happy.
Then we moved to our site. Here’s where things get good. I love my site! Some things and people you should know:
Maimouna: my homologue. PC sets up each volunteer with a Malian work counterpart, and she is mine. But she’s my mother first and foremost. Sometimes I forget that we actually have to start working together soon! She is a relais at the CSCOM (health center—see below), in which her job is to travel to neighboring villages doing informal health education.
Do (pronounced ‘dough’): Maimouna’s husband. Works as the pharmacist at the CSCOM. He’s a big guy who’s always smiling, and I can never understand him regardless of what language he’s speaking, which includes some English.
Dugutigi: Bambara word for ‘village chief’. The dugutigi of Fangasso is named Baba Kamate, but everyone calls him ‘dugutigi’. I refer to him as dugutigi when I’m speaking English because it’s been engrained in me thus far.
Daniel: the chef de poste (head doctor) at the CSCOM. He lives adjacent to the center within the walls of the health compound. He is so nice!!!! He doesn’t speak Bomu, but rather Bambara and French. I enjoy this arrangement because I get a free pass to speak in French without having to worry about not wanting to speak Bomu.
Adaman: vaccinator at the CSCSOM. I work with him from 8-2 on Wednesdays.
Modibo: worth mentioning if for no other reason than that he has an awesome name. He also works at the CSCOM.
CSCOM (pronounced ‘SESS-comm’): I honestly have no idea what this stands for, but allow for a quick explanation of the Malian health care system (perhaps what some of you have been most interested in). I live in the village of Fangasso, which is within the commune of the same name. A commune is an administrative district that determines things like where one may go for healthcare, etc. The commune is made up of a total of 29 villages, and is within the ‘circle’ of Tominian. The CSCOM in the village of Fangasso serves the 29 villages within the commune as well as a few others from other communes within the circle of Tominian. Confusing enough? Each CSCOM reports to a CSREF (SESS-ref), which serves as a health center as well as an administrative body for the CSCOMs within the circle. My nearests CSREF is in the city of Tominian. I may or may not have to report there depending on what types of work I want to do at my CSCSOM.
This brings me to my work. I moved to Fangasso the first week of September, and things have been going really well since. I’ve started (and will hopefully finish soon, with pictures!) a mural at the school in Fangasso. I work at the CSCOM every Wednesday as a way to fill my time, get to know the staff members, and familiarize myself with the group’s inner workings. I admist I don’t do much, I assist the vaccinator with his work (charting baby measurements, consulting mothers and expecting mothers, etc). My work there must change, though, because I although I feel needed, I don’t feel that I am contributing anything extraordinary or creating any change. Granted volunteers are not ‘allowed’ to start any official projects during our first three months of service, I still feel like I’m doing little. Soon I have to start what we call the baseline survey, which is essentially an observation and interview survey that we use to gauge the needs of our communities. I’ve been avoiding it but have to start soon because volunteers are required to report their findings in December during our in-service training at Tubaniso (Dec. 6-17).
Other than that, I spend a lot of time with Maimouna. Most of my time outside my house is spent with her. I’m starting to feel stir-crazy though, and plan on visiting and getting to know more people once I get back to site. (Right now everyone in our staging group is having language training in our respective regional capitals.)
So here’s the deal with my region: I am in the region of San, which is within the larger region of Segou. San is also the city, and is the administrative capital of the region of the same name. (Segou’s capital is Segou, if you catch the drift. So if I refer to San or Segou, I mean the cities unless otherwise noted.) PC has a house in San for all the volunteers in the region to use whenever we are in town (for banking, to use the post office, for training, etc.). Our house is awesome! It has two bedrooms with one bed in each (but there are a total of 13 of us reporting to San, so we’ve essentially established a tent colony in the yard), two bathrooms, a kitchen and library/TV room (with no TV) and a living room. We have electricity and running water (that functions for the most part). No toilet seats, but we do have a cistern that we use as a pool. There isn’t much happening in San, but here I can get good (well, better) food like chicken, yogurt, vegetables all day (any day), Nutella (I mad a Nutella cake!). San kaw (means ‘people of San’ in Bambara) loves to cook and eat, so we always have fun dinners whenever we’re together. We’ve spent an entire week together at the house for training and haven’t tried to kill each other yet, so I’d say the week was a success.
To get to San, I have to walk or bike 5k from Fangasso to the main (ie paved) road. Once you get to the road, you literally have to stand on the side of the road until a bus comes by that is willing to take you to your destination. Most times the buses are full and you’ll end up waiting for several hours until a suitable ride comes by. Coming back from San is even harder, though—you have to wait at a station until a bus or bush taxi going your way is ready to leave. When you ask what time the bus is leaving, the answer is “soon”. Once I was told one company’s bus would be leaving at 4. I waited at the station until 5 only to find out that it was not actually leaving until “7 or 8”. I left and went to get a bush taxi and waited at that station for a few hours until it was too dark to safely travel. Came back the next morning at 8 and did not find a ride until almost 1—and it happened to be a friend of a friend who was able to take me to a village called Tene (about 25k from Fangasso, where another health PCV lives) and I was able to get a bus from there. But it took me more than 24 hours to get home that weekend! I was not pleased and am now not really looking forward to traveling back to site when I leave tomorrow.
Some funny things that have happened to me recently:
1. I was getting henna on my feet, which was a frustrating and long process involving black and orange foot paint, essentially. The women who did my henna did it in a ncie pattern that involved stripes. I looked at my feet and said, “Maimouna, I look like a tiger.” Her response: “What’s a tiger?” Sad.
2. Maimouna pulled her pants down to pee under a tree where her neighbors keep their pigs. There is no further explanation, here, though; it really was as random as is sounds.
3. Maimouna’s son and his wife had a baby recently. Every few days, we have the following conversation (it doesn’t matter who says what):
This baby is cute.
This baby is good!
This baby is not good! She is lazy.
Yes, she is lazy. She does nothing. She eats and sleeps.
Yes, she is bad. She does not work.
She is good.
Yes, she is good.
This really is a direct translation. Bomu is not a very nuanced language. I still can’t speak, though. I’ve got the greetings down cold, but only because I do them 100 times per day. I have a ‘tutor’ in village that I work with sometimes, but the problem is that I just don’t want to study. I know I have to start, though, especially since work is starting soon. I just find it a lot easier to speak French when I can (which is often—not because a lot of people in village speak French, but because I spend most of my time with a family the majority of whose members speak).
4. Google guinea worm. Now. I watched a guinea room removal the other day at the CSCOM and had to leave the room because I almost fainted. Vision went white and tunnel-y, got dizzy, started sweating profusely, etc. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want to stay in the room. Everyone else was fascinated, snapping cell phone photos while the little patient winced in pain.
In other news: My house is the best! Shelby Gale (the volunteer I replaced—as if any volunteer could ever really be replaced) left me a house full of wonderful things, like real people furniture! And lots of art supplies. I spent a solid month getting the house just how I wanted it, and now it’s pretty much perfect. I have three large rooms but only use two because the third one is dark and dirty, and I will never need the space. The front room serves as a living room and kitchen, and the back room is my bedroom. I have a yard and a gate and my outdoor bathroom, and I share a compound with one of the village chief’s sons (Yaya), his two wives (Sata and Fatuma), and their three kids. Sometimes we have issues…Once I left a bar of soap in a dish outside on a windowsill; I left for a while and when I came back half the bar was gone and there were three distinct finger marks where the middle of the bar used to be. Then another time I left an empty peanut butter jar outside that disappeared. When I came back from wherever I was, the jar was gone. My neighbor, Sata, came up to me with the jar that she had already taken, asking if she could have it. Then once I left a bucket outside that disappeared. I told one of the chief’s wives about it and a few days later the bucket reappeared. Whenever I leave dirty dishes or clothes outside (when I’m cleaning), the neighbor wives come up to me asking if they can have them. Then once I was getting ready to burn my paper trash and Fatuma came up and started digging through it looking for…well, I don’t know what she was looking for. I don’t know why, but it really bugs me to have them in my yard because whenever they come in, things start disappearing. It’s funny when you think about it, but frustrating at the same time. Call me crazy, but I don’t like people digging through my stuff.
This is too long. And not proofread. But this is all for now. Love to everyone. I love Mali and Peace Corps! And I miss you all. I'll be better about posting, starting now. : )
Haketo! Afere! (Sorry! in Bambara and Bomu) I don’t really have an excuse, just a proclivity for laziness. I am sorry that I haven’t been around much lately. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I am not fulfilling the PC goal of sharing my experience with others. But enough of this, let’s get to the good stuff. Since we last spoke, a lot has happened. A quick rundown:
All the PCTs visited their future sites (which are now our current and permanent sites). Mine was a blast and was very indicative of my life now. More soon.
We came back from site visit and finished up homestay. Halleluia. Language classes ended, and somehow by the grace of God or Allah or whatever higher power you may happen to believe in, I passed my final test in Bomu!!! I think we were all a little surprised. AND I am happy to report that all the Banankoro PCTs passed their tests, too! Leaving homestay was nothing special; a white van pulled up to my house, we packed my things, I exchanged handshakes with my family members but they were busy being confused about why I was leaving a mat behind (it had termite damage). No tearful goodbyes but I remember the Traores fondly.
We went back to Tubaniso for a few more days of training and preparation for our site installation. More on site later. Promise I’m not avoiding it.
SWEAR IN!!!! September 3rd, 2010. Ceremony at the US Embassy in Bamako. We were on TV! I gave a speech in Bomu. One PCT-turned-PCV-during-the-ceremony from each language studied gave a speech in their language. We had French, Bambara, Tomokan, Bomu, and Fulfulde. I didn’t expect anyone to understand what I was saying but when I greeted the audience at the beginning of the speech, a bunch of people greeted me back! I got confused and flustered for a second but then continued on. A few weeks later my boss, Daniel (which I will again explain) told me that he watched the ceremony on TV (we were on TV!) and when I gave my speech he tried to call me to congratulate me. But I was on a podium and my phone had been turned off, so needless to say I did not get the call.
We spent the day in the pool at the American Club in Bamako, celebrating and eating free food. Then we went to the hotel that had been rented out for us, and we ate dinner in the city then went out to Pirate’s Club, then later on to Zen. Fun was had by all that night! Definitely worth the two months of training to be sworn in as an official volunteer and celebrate with all 80 original members of our staging group present and happy.
Then we moved to our site. Here’s where things get good. I love my site! Some things and people you should know:
Maimouna: my homologue. PC sets up each volunteer with a Malian work counterpart, and she is mine. But she’s my mother first and foremost. Sometimes I forget that we actually have to start working together soon! She is a relais at the CSCOM (health center—see below), in which her job is to travel to neighboring villages doing informal health education.
Do (pronounced ‘dough’): Maimouna’s husband. Works as the pharmacist at the CSCOM. He’s a big guy who’s always smiling, and I can never understand him regardless of what language he’s speaking, which includes some English.
Dugutigi: Bambara word for ‘village chief’. The dugutigi of Fangasso is named Baba Kamate, but everyone calls him ‘dugutigi’. I refer to him as dugutigi when I’m speaking English because it’s been engrained in me thus far.
Daniel: the chef de poste (head doctor) at the CSCOM. He lives adjacent to the center within the walls of the health compound. He is so nice!!!! He doesn’t speak Bomu, but rather Bambara and French. I enjoy this arrangement because I get a free pass to speak in French without having to worry about not wanting to speak Bomu.
Adaman: vaccinator at the CSCSOM. I work with him from 8-2 on Wednesdays.
Modibo: worth mentioning if for no other reason than that he has an awesome name. He also works at the CSCOM.
CSCOM (pronounced ‘SESS-comm’): I honestly have no idea what this stands for, but allow for a quick explanation of the Malian health care system (perhaps what some of you have been most interested in). I live in the village of Fangasso, which is within the commune of the same name. A commune is an administrative district that determines things like where one may go for healthcare, etc. The commune is made up of a total of 29 villages, and is within the ‘circle’ of Tominian. The CSCOM in the village of Fangasso serves the 29 villages within the commune as well as a few others from other communes within the circle of Tominian. Confusing enough? Each CSCOM reports to a CSREF (SESS-ref), which serves as a health center as well as an administrative body for the CSCOMs within the circle. My nearests CSREF is in the city of Tominian. I may or may not have to report there depending on what types of work I want to do at my CSCSOM.
This brings me to my work. I moved to Fangasso the first week of September, and things have been going really well since. I’ve started (and will hopefully finish soon, with pictures!) a mural at the school in Fangasso. I work at the CSCOM every Wednesday as a way to fill my time, get to know the staff members, and familiarize myself with the group’s inner workings. I admist I don’t do much, I assist the vaccinator with his work (charting baby measurements, consulting mothers and expecting mothers, etc). My work there must change, though, because I although I feel needed, I don’t feel that I am contributing anything extraordinary or creating any change. Granted volunteers are not ‘allowed’ to start any official projects during our first three months of service, I still feel like I’m doing little. Soon I have to start what we call the baseline survey, which is essentially an observation and interview survey that we use to gauge the needs of our communities. I’ve been avoiding it but have to start soon because volunteers are required to report their findings in December during our in-service training at Tubaniso (Dec. 6-17).
Other than that, I spend a lot of time with Maimouna. Most of my time outside my house is spent with her. I’m starting to feel stir-crazy though, and plan on visiting and getting to know more people once I get back to site. (Right now everyone in our staging group is having language training in our respective regional capitals.)
So here’s the deal with my region: I am in the region of San, which is within the larger region of Segou. San is also the city, and is the administrative capital of the region of the same name. (Segou’s capital is Segou, if you catch the drift. So if I refer to San or Segou, I mean the cities unless otherwise noted.) PC has a house in San for all the volunteers in the region to use whenever we are in town (for banking, to use the post office, for training, etc.). Our house is awesome! It has two bedrooms with one bed in each (but there are a total of 13 of us reporting to San, so we’ve essentially established a tent colony in the yard), two bathrooms, a kitchen and library/TV room (with no TV) and a living room. We have electricity and running water (that functions for the most part). No toilet seats, but we do have a cistern that we use as a pool. There isn’t much happening in San, but here I can get good (well, better) food like chicken, yogurt, vegetables all day (any day), Nutella (I mad a Nutella cake!). San kaw (means ‘people of San’ in Bambara) loves to cook and eat, so we always have fun dinners whenever we’re together. We’ve spent an entire week together at the house for training and haven’t tried to kill each other yet, so I’d say the week was a success.
To get to San, I have to walk or bike 5k from Fangasso to the main (ie paved) road. Once you get to the road, you literally have to stand on the side of the road until a bus comes by that is willing to take you to your destination. Most times the buses are full and you’ll end up waiting for several hours until a suitable ride comes by. Coming back from San is even harder, though—you have to wait at a station until a bus or bush taxi going your way is ready to leave. When you ask what time the bus is leaving, the answer is “soon”. Once I was told one company’s bus would be leaving at 4. I waited at the station until 5 only to find out that it was not actually leaving until “7 or 8”. I left and went to get a bush taxi and waited at that station for a few hours until it was too dark to safely travel. Came back the next morning at 8 and did not find a ride until almost 1—and it happened to be a friend of a friend who was able to take me to a village called Tene (about 25k from Fangasso, where another health PCV lives) and I was able to get a bus from there. But it took me more than 24 hours to get home that weekend! I was not pleased and am now not really looking forward to traveling back to site when I leave tomorrow.
Some funny things that have happened to me recently:
1. I was getting henna on my feet, which was a frustrating and long process involving black and orange foot paint, essentially. The women who did my henna did it in a ncie pattern that involved stripes. I looked at my feet and said, “Maimouna, I look like a tiger.” Her response: “What’s a tiger?” Sad.
2. Maimouna pulled her pants down to pee under a tree where her neighbors keep their pigs. There is no further explanation, here, though; it really was as random as is sounds.
3. Maimouna’s son and his wife had a baby recently. Every few days, we have the following conversation (it doesn’t matter who says what):
This baby is cute.
This baby is good!
This baby is not good! She is lazy.
Yes, she is lazy. She does nothing. She eats and sleeps.
Yes, she is bad. She does not work.
She is good.
Yes, she is good.
This really is a direct translation. Bomu is not a very nuanced language. I still can’t speak, though. I’ve got the greetings down cold, but only because I do them 100 times per day. I have a ‘tutor’ in village that I work with sometimes, but the problem is that I just don’t want to study. I know I have to start, though, especially since work is starting soon. I just find it a lot easier to speak French when I can (which is often—not because a lot of people in village speak French, but because I spend most of my time with a family the majority of whose members speak).
4. Google guinea worm. Now. I watched a guinea room removal the other day at the CSCOM and had to leave the room because I almost fainted. Vision went white and tunnel-y, got dizzy, started sweating profusely, etc. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want to stay in the room. Everyone else was fascinated, snapping cell phone photos while the little patient winced in pain.
In other news: My house is the best! Shelby Gale (the volunteer I replaced—as if any volunteer could ever really be replaced) left me a house full of wonderful things, like real people furniture! And lots of art supplies. I spent a solid month getting the house just how I wanted it, and now it’s pretty much perfect. I have three large rooms but only use two because the third one is dark and dirty, and I will never need the space. The front room serves as a living room and kitchen, and the back room is my bedroom. I have a yard and a gate and my outdoor bathroom, and I share a compound with one of the village chief’s sons (Yaya), his two wives (Sata and Fatuma), and their three kids. Sometimes we have issues…Once I left a bar of soap in a dish outside on a windowsill; I left for a while and when I came back half the bar was gone and there were three distinct finger marks where the middle of the bar used to be. Then another time I left an empty peanut butter jar outside that disappeared. When I came back from wherever I was, the jar was gone. My neighbor, Sata, came up to me with the jar that she had already taken, asking if she could have it. Then once I left a bucket outside that disappeared. I told one of the chief’s wives about it and a few days later the bucket reappeared. Whenever I leave dirty dishes or clothes outside (when I’m cleaning), the neighbor wives come up to me asking if they can have them. Then once I was getting ready to burn my paper trash and Fatuma came up and started digging through it looking for…well, I don’t know what she was looking for. I don’t know why, but it really bugs me to have them in my yard because whenever they come in, things start disappearing. It’s funny when you think about it, but frustrating at the same time. Call me crazy, but I don’t like people digging through my stuff.
This is too long. And not proofread. But this is all for now. Love to everyone. I love Mali and Peace Corps! And I miss you all. I'll be better about posting, starting now. : )
Saturday, September 4, 2010
New Address
Thank you to everyone for the letters you've sent so far! They keep me alive. Responses have gone out and will reach you...someday. This is the (now) volunteers' last night together at our training site before we all leave forever, so we're relaxing and I can'r sit on the computer forever. So, long post short, this is the address I'll have for the rest of my service:
Virginia Burger, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 75
San, Mali
West Africa
But more updates soon! Love to everyone.
Virginia Burger, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 75
San, Mali
West Africa
But more updates soon! Love to everyone.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Sorry My Blog is Boring
So, after what is rumored to be the longest homestay stint in PC history (19 days), we are back at Tubaniso (out training center) for a few days before we all leave to spend a week at our sites. We found out our sites at a really informal session yesterday night. I’ve known for a while where I am going, but it was still really exciting to see where everyone else is going and to discover who my regional friends will be for the next two years. As I mentioned last time, I will be going to a region called San…But as it turns out, I will be living nowhere near the actual city of San and am technically in the Segou region of Mali. I’d explain more but it’s really not that interesting. Segou region is in the eastern part of the southern, more lush area of Mali. My site is 8-10 hours away from Bamako by public transport, and I am visiting my new village on Wednesday and staying there for a week. The closest PC Volunteer (PCV) will be 20k away, and the next nearest person is 27k away and is actually one of my current homestay site mates. The PCV whose site I am taking came out to our homestay village twice, once to paint a mural and another time to teach us how to lead discussions with Malians once we become Volunteers. Very excited!!!
This stretch of homestay was very difficult to say the least. Good days and bad days persist, but the rollercoaster is much less tumultuous than before. One day our village six biked 9k to the nearest market town for a cultural assignment where we had to buy things using only Bambara. Needless to say I let my market partner do all of the work because I really only know how to say hello, goodbye, and how is your family? But we biked the 9k back and I’m pretty sure that’s the most exercise I’ve gotten than in the last six years combined. It felt good, though, and I was riding high for the next two days and was feeling really proud of our accomplishment. Then I got complacent and proceeded to fall of my bike on the way home from school one day, getting a huge bruise on my leg along with a few other small bruises and a hole in my skirt from the rock that I fell on. No big deal, but just an example of the rollercoaster of PC.
Another week, it rained for and entire day and by the time I went home in the evening, there were literally rivers in place of roads (which aren’t even really roads to begin with) and when I was walking home not only did I get soaking wet, but I lost my shoe in one of these makeshift rivers. I ran down the river to get my shoe back and I stepped in the river and lost the other shoe. I got them both back eventually, paranoid of all the diseases I might have contracted from talking around barefoot (really, there aren’t many; we are just told never to walk around barefoot). When I got home there was water all over my floor because there were holes in my roof, so my family came in to clean up the mess. (And rest assured, I told PC about this and the next day a white land Cruiser showed up at my door to patch the holes. PC is awesome in that way.) So my family proceeded to try to close my window (even though it was not letting rain in, but because I think they felt badly about the mess) and we discovered that it was covered in termites. So they proceeded to knock down all the little tunnels they had built on the walls and window onto the floor, making a huge mess, then trying to clean it up with the fan that I use on my face and I just started freaking out and all I could do was sit there in silence while the finished. But this is literally the worst experience I’ve had here, so I’d say things are going pretty well. There’s definitely an adjustment process, but life in Mali is really pretty great. Class is still far and away the most difficult part of my day and continues to be the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, but things are moving along.
I am REALLY excited to be moving to Boboland (the land where the highest concentration of Bomu speakers live—aka San region—and fabled in my life until now). I love the way native speakers of Bomu pronounce my name. (Which is, by the way: Munnunsin Traore. My first name is pronounced moon-YOON-si because the last N is silent and the second N technically has a tail on it that turns it into a Y sound. My last name is pronounced Trah-or-AY and is pretty common around Mali.) I am excited to be able to greet people on the street in my own language without them looking at me like I’m crazy. And to be able to actually do things instead of just standing there awkwardly and having my trainee friends translate for me whenever someone asks me a question. And no Bambara speakers can correctly pronounce my name unless I repeat it for them a few times. The catch with moving to Boboland is that I will actually have to start walking the walk and practicing, instead of creating the excuse of “I can’t do anything because no one in Banankoro (my current village) speaks Bomu”. We shall see how this goes.
I met my homologue (closest work partner) yesterday. I already forgot her name but the initial greeting was super awkward. She seems really sweet and I am sure we will get along well because I have gotten a rave review of her from the PCV I’m replacing, but I still cannot speak much Bomu. Every PCV has a homologue who lives in the village who helps them learn about the area, integrate, and do their work. Mine is a relais, who works for the local clinic (heretofore referred to as a CSCOM), and relays its messages to local communities, telling villagers when babywieghings are, teaching about health practices, etc. Can’t wait to hop on that boat!
The village that I am moving to (which we’re apparently not allowed to name on blogs, sorry) is a town of about 1,000 people, 5k from the nearest paved road but with perfect cell phone reception. My house will have three rooms and apparently I will have a car battery that I can use to power a light after nightfall. This is more electricity that I have at my home in Banankoro My bathroom (called negen (NYAY-gen) and also known as a hole in the ground) will have a lock on it so strangers can’t sneak in and use it when I’m not around. Very sophisticated technology here. BUT I AM SO EXCITED!!! This next week in San is going to be a slice of life for the next two years. All PCTs admit that training is the hardest part of service, and I am definitely ready to move on to bigger and better things.
So, a day in my current life at Banakoro: I wake up around 6:30 (sometimes earlier if I am not sleeping well, but if I’m still asleep one of my sisters will come in and wake me to get my bucket so I can take my morning bath. I go take my bath and then by the time I’m done, my breakfast is in my room. Breakfast is usually bread with peanut butter. Sometimes eggs. Once, beans. Another time, unshelled peanuts and an ear of corn. I bike to school at 8 and have class until 10, when we get a 30 minute break to decompress…The PCTs talk to the PCTs, and our teachers talk to each other. Lately these breaks have been almost an hour long because I think we are all getting more and more drained each day. We then have class from 10:30 to 12:30, then we go home. I bike the (roughly) 2k back home with the fellow PCT who lives in my neighborhood (the furthest from school). At home I eat lunch with my sister Jeanne d’Arc (aka Bébé), and then sleep until it’s time to go back to school. School for two hours in the afternoon (3-5pm), the Toubab Time. “Toubab” is the Bambara/Malian word for ‘French person’ but pretty much applies to all white people. So Toubab time is when the Banankoro six all hang out after school instead of going home and spending time with our families. We all really like our families, but sometimes it’s nice to just spend time relaxing after our brains have been fried by language before we go home and can only speak in said language.
We got back to Tubaniso last night for site placement, and sat in (boring) sessions all day today. I always love being back at Tubaniso, but definitely not for the sessions. Moreso because it’s an opportunity to see the PCTs from other villages. But because our stage group is so big, we are split into two groups of around 40. Since we left Tubaniso the first time almost a month ago, I have only seen the people from the other group (including Ashley, my roommate from Niger) once. But I see the people in my half of the group about once every 2-3 weeks. Last Sunday we had a day off in Bamako where we all got together, mixed up, and then split up again. But it was nice to see these people while we could. All the health volunteers also spent Wednesday morning with the environment volunteers (who are in the opposite half and who we never see) to learn about gardening and fertilizing. I think I’ll be working on gardens at my site because the previous volunteer started a few agriculture-related projects that can be continued.
So, the mural. Our first PC project!!! We painted a mural on the side of our school! It is a very inspirational and life-changing mural promoting handwashing before eating. It has a picture of two hands washing with a bar of soap, a man sitting with a bowl of food, and a woman washing her hands before cooking. It seems like no one in Banankoro washes their hands, before eating or otherwise. But it makes me feel legitimate and like we are contributing to our community. A woman came up to us during Toubab time one night and asked us what to do about handwashing when she was out working in the fields all day. I didn’t understand what she was saying until afterwards, but it made me feel happy. Right now we’re coming up on harvest season so more and more people are working in the fields every day. Yay!
Ok. This is the longest blog post in history and there’s always a lot more to tell, but I’m done for now. Please excuse any typos and the disorganization, because I did not proofread this.
One last note. If you made it this far into my rants, it means you are interested in my boring PC life. So send me a letter!!!!! I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. And will have lots of free time to write letters back very soon (training is just unusually busy compared to the rest of service). Love, me. And thank you for reading!!!!! You are a part of the PC process now.
This stretch of homestay was very difficult to say the least. Good days and bad days persist, but the rollercoaster is much less tumultuous than before. One day our village six biked 9k to the nearest market town for a cultural assignment where we had to buy things using only Bambara. Needless to say I let my market partner do all of the work because I really only know how to say hello, goodbye, and how is your family? But we biked the 9k back and I’m pretty sure that’s the most exercise I’ve gotten than in the last six years combined. It felt good, though, and I was riding high for the next two days and was feeling really proud of our accomplishment. Then I got complacent and proceeded to fall of my bike on the way home from school one day, getting a huge bruise on my leg along with a few other small bruises and a hole in my skirt from the rock that I fell on. No big deal, but just an example of the rollercoaster of PC.
Another week, it rained for and entire day and by the time I went home in the evening, there were literally rivers in place of roads (which aren’t even really roads to begin with) and when I was walking home not only did I get soaking wet, but I lost my shoe in one of these makeshift rivers. I ran down the river to get my shoe back and I stepped in the river and lost the other shoe. I got them both back eventually, paranoid of all the diseases I might have contracted from talking around barefoot (really, there aren’t many; we are just told never to walk around barefoot). When I got home there was water all over my floor because there were holes in my roof, so my family came in to clean up the mess. (And rest assured, I told PC about this and the next day a white land Cruiser showed up at my door to patch the holes. PC is awesome in that way.) So my family proceeded to try to close my window (even though it was not letting rain in, but because I think they felt badly about the mess) and we discovered that it was covered in termites. So they proceeded to knock down all the little tunnels they had built on the walls and window onto the floor, making a huge mess, then trying to clean it up with the fan that I use on my face and I just started freaking out and all I could do was sit there in silence while the finished. But this is literally the worst experience I’ve had here, so I’d say things are going pretty well. There’s definitely an adjustment process, but life in Mali is really pretty great. Class is still far and away the most difficult part of my day and continues to be the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, but things are moving along.
I am REALLY excited to be moving to Boboland (the land where the highest concentration of Bomu speakers live—aka San region—and fabled in my life until now). I love the way native speakers of Bomu pronounce my name. (Which is, by the way: Munnunsin Traore. My first name is pronounced moon-YOON-si because the last N is silent and the second N technically has a tail on it that turns it into a Y sound. My last name is pronounced Trah-or-AY and is pretty common around Mali.) I am excited to be able to greet people on the street in my own language without them looking at me like I’m crazy. And to be able to actually do things instead of just standing there awkwardly and having my trainee friends translate for me whenever someone asks me a question. And no Bambara speakers can correctly pronounce my name unless I repeat it for them a few times. The catch with moving to Boboland is that I will actually have to start walking the walk and practicing, instead of creating the excuse of “I can’t do anything because no one in Banankoro (my current village) speaks Bomu”. We shall see how this goes.
I met my homologue (closest work partner) yesterday. I already forgot her name but the initial greeting was super awkward. She seems really sweet and I am sure we will get along well because I have gotten a rave review of her from the PCV I’m replacing, but I still cannot speak much Bomu. Every PCV has a homologue who lives in the village who helps them learn about the area, integrate, and do their work. Mine is a relais, who works for the local clinic (heretofore referred to as a CSCOM), and relays its messages to local communities, telling villagers when babywieghings are, teaching about health practices, etc. Can’t wait to hop on that boat!
The village that I am moving to (which we’re apparently not allowed to name on blogs, sorry) is a town of about 1,000 people, 5k from the nearest paved road but with perfect cell phone reception. My house will have three rooms and apparently I will have a car battery that I can use to power a light after nightfall. This is more electricity that I have at my home in Banankoro My bathroom (called negen (NYAY-gen) and also known as a hole in the ground) will have a lock on it so strangers can’t sneak in and use it when I’m not around. Very sophisticated technology here. BUT I AM SO EXCITED!!! This next week in San is going to be a slice of life for the next two years. All PCTs admit that training is the hardest part of service, and I am definitely ready to move on to bigger and better things.
So, a day in my current life at Banakoro: I wake up around 6:30 (sometimes earlier if I am not sleeping well, but if I’m still asleep one of my sisters will come in and wake me to get my bucket so I can take my morning bath. I go take my bath and then by the time I’m done, my breakfast is in my room. Breakfast is usually bread with peanut butter. Sometimes eggs. Once, beans. Another time, unshelled peanuts and an ear of corn. I bike to school at 8 and have class until 10, when we get a 30 minute break to decompress…The PCTs talk to the PCTs, and our teachers talk to each other. Lately these breaks have been almost an hour long because I think we are all getting more and more drained each day. We then have class from 10:30 to 12:30, then we go home. I bike the (roughly) 2k back home with the fellow PCT who lives in my neighborhood (the furthest from school). At home I eat lunch with my sister Jeanne d’Arc (aka Bébé), and then sleep until it’s time to go back to school. School for two hours in the afternoon (3-5pm), the Toubab Time. “Toubab” is the Bambara/Malian word for ‘French person’ but pretty much applies to all white people. So Toubab time is when the Banankoro six all hang out after school instead of going home and spending time with our families. We all really like our families, but sometimes it’s nice to just spend time relaxing after our brains have been fried by language before we go home and can only speak in said language.
We got back to Tubaniso last night for site placement, and sat in (boring) sessions all day today. I always love being back at Tubaniso, but definitely not for the sessions. Moreso because it’s an opportunity to see the PCTs from other villages. But because our stage group is so big, we are split into two groups of around 40. Since we left Tubaniso the first time almost a month ago, I have only seen the people from the other group (including Ashley, my roommate from Niger) once. But I see the people in my half of the group about once every 2-3 weeks. Last Sunday we had a day off in Bamako where we all got together, mixed up, and then split up again. But it was nice to see these people while we could. All the health volunteers also spent Wednesday morning with the environment volunteers (who are in the opposite half and who we never see) to learn about gardening and fertilizing. I think I’ll be working on gardens at my site because the previous volunteer started a few agriculture-related projects that can be continued.
So, the mural. Our first PC project!!! We painted a mural on the side of our school! It is a very inspirational and life-changing mural promoting handwashing before eating. It has a picture of two hands washing with a bar of soap, a man sitting with a bowl of food, and a woman washing her hands before cooking. It seems like no one in Banankoro washes their hands, before eating or otherwise. But it makes me feel legitimate and like we are contributing to our community. A woman came up to us during Toubab time one night and asked us what to do about handwashing when she was out working in the fields all day. I didn’t understand what she was saying until afterwards, but it made me feel happy. Right now we’re coming up on harvest season so more and more people are working in the fields every day. Yay!
Ok. This is the longest blog post in history and there’s always a lot more to tell, but I’m done for now. Please excuse any typos and the disorganization, because I did not proofread this.
One last note. If you made it this far into my rants, it means you are interested in my boring PC life. So send me a letter!!!!! I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. And will have lots of free time to write letters back very soon (training is just unusually busy compared to the rest of service). Love, me. And thank you for reading!!!!! You are a part of the PC process now.
Monday, July 19, 2010
It Was All a Mefloquine Dream
I'm sensing a theme here. Infrequent but very long blog posts. Here goes my attempt to explain what I've been doing the last two and a half weeks. Sorry for the delay, but the internet connection here is not so good, and almost non-existent when everyone is trying to check their email at the same time.
So. We were in Philadelphia for two days for staging, where we officially became Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) and got our introduction to Peace Corps Mali. We took a bus up to New York to fly from JFK to Paris to Mali. We finally got to our training center two weeks ago yesterday, and started our pre-service training, which lasts until September 3rd when we get sworn in a Volunteers. There are 79 of us, and we are split up into five sectors: Health (maybe the best group, but I might be biased), Water Sanitation, Education, Small Enterprise Development, and Environment. We spent five days here at the training center (Tubaniso, which means "house of the dove" in Bambara) in sessions learning about Peace Corps, Mali, and our sectors. Those days were a good introduction to PC Mali, and everyone was a little nervous when we moved to homestays two Thursdays ago. (We stayed there for nine says and are now back at the training center for two days for additional training before we all go back to homestays for another two and a half weeks.)
To put it simply, homestay is a rollercoaster. All the volunteers are in villages near Bamako, split up into groups of 4-6 per village. I live in a village called Banankoro with five other health PCTs. The purpose of homestay is to help us learn how to integrate into Malian culture and to learn a language. Of the 79 of us, 74 are learning Bambara. Two are learning Bomu, one Fulfulfde, and two French. I'm 50% of the group that is learning a minority language called Bomu, which is spoken by about 100,000 people in Mali, most living in the Segou region. The people who speak Bomu are called the Bwa (and Bobo, singular); they're jokingly referred to as drunks by other Malians. Since the Bwa are for the most part centrally located, I'm one of the few who has any sort of inclination as to where I'll be living for my service. I'll be in the Segou region of San, which is slightly east of where we're living now.
The Bomu language isn't exactly difficult to learn in the sense that there is no verb conjugation, but learning this language is probably the hardest thing I've ever done--not only in Pc but also in life. It's tough for a few reasons, but mostly because I have to be in class by myself for six hours a day learning a language that almost no one in Banankoro speaks. There are only three families in Banankoro that speak Bomu, so I can't practice it on the street the way everyone else can practice their Bambara. One day last week I actually left class an hour early because I couldn't stand to be sitting in the classroom any more. The other five PCTs in Banankoro with me are all learning Bambara and have class in the room next to mine, but it's still hard to be learning all by myself.
My house is also kind of far away from the school because Bomu speakers in this region are few and far between. (I bike about a mile each way to and from school, twice a day. I'm not a big on exercise but it feels really good to get out and do something physical after sitting in a classroom for so long.) My family is really nice, however. They are Christian and therefore not polygamist like many of the other homestay families, which means that they have fewer children than most. (I have seven siblings, which is the average number of children per woman in Mali. The oldest daughter 9jeanne d'Arc--literally, Joan of Arc) is 19, and she does most of the work that pertains to my stay in their home--cooking my meals, drawing my baths (not as strange/bourgeoisie as it sounds, I swear), doing my laundry, etc. It sounds like I have a maid, but the families are actually instructed by PC to do most of the work for us so we can focus on school, which takes up almost all of the daylight hours.
The first night we got to Banankoro, my family served me French fries and everything seemed to be going well. But then the next day I got a fish head for lunch and things have continued suit ever since (just another example of the PC rollercoaster). My family makes this sauce made of leaves and fish that kind of tastes like vomit and makes me sad, but for the most part, the food is good. I was able to communicate to them that I like things other than millet and rice (Malian dietary staples), and since then I've gotten mangos (my homestay dad went out in the dark the other night and bought me five, seemingly for no reason), more french fries, sweet potatoes, and other delicious things. It's nice to know that I can go home and people will take care of me--literally, not let me lift a finger except to wash my hands before eating. Sometimes the children get on my nerves, but for the most part they're adorable and curious. Getting used to living in someone else's home while also trying to get comfortable has been an adjustment, but a good challenge that's really encouraging me to think about what I need from others. Overall, a great experience. Just tough at times. And it will stay that way for the next two years, according to every PC manual and current and past volunteer. Excited for the next step, and glad to be getting recharged at Tubaniso before diving back into language training on Wednesday. Maybe another update before then with other details from the last two weeks...because after that, we won't have internet access for 19 days!
PS. Send me letters!!!!!!!!!!! They will be returned with MUCH LOVE. And will be of better quality than emails due to the limited internet availability. : )
So. We were in Philadelphia for two days for staging, where we officially became Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) and got our introduction to Peace Corps Mali. We took a bus up to New York to fly from JFK to Paris to Mali. We finally got to our training center two weeks ago yesterday, and started our pre-service training, which lasts until September 3rd when we get sworn in a Volunteers. There are 79 of us, and we are split up into five sectors: Health (maybe the best group, but I might be biased), Water Sanitation, Education, Small Enterprise Development, and Environment. We spent five days here at the training center (Tubaniso, which means "house of the dove" in Bambara) in sessions learning about Peace Corps, Mali, and our sectors. Those days were a good introduction to PC Mali, and everyone was a little nervous when we moved to homestays two Thursdays ago. (We stayed there for nine says and are now back at the training center for two days for additional training before we all go back to homestays for another two and a half weeks.)
To put it simply, homestay is a rollercoaster. All the volunteers are in villages near Bamako, split up into groups of 4-6 per village. I live in a village called Banankoro with five other health PCTs. The purpose of homestay is to help us learn how to integrate into Malian culture and to learn a language. Of the 79 of us, 74 are learning Bambara. Two are learning Bomu, one Fulfulfde, and two French. I'm 50% of the group that is learning a minority language called Bomu, which is spoken by about 100,000 people in Mali, most living in the Segou region. The people who speak Bomu are called the Bwa (and Bobo, singular); they're jokingly referred to as drunks by other Malians. Since the Bwa are for the most part centrally located, I'm one of the few who has any sort of inclination as to where I'll be living for my service. I'll be in the Segou region of San, which is slightly east of where we're living now.
The Bomu language isn't exactly difficult to learn in the sense that there is no verb conjugation, but learning this language is probably the hardest thing I've ever done--not only in Pc but also in life. It's tough for a few reasons, but mostly because I have to be in class by myself for six hours a day learning a language that almost no one in Banankoro speaks. There are only three families in Banankoro that speak Bomu, so I can't practice it on the street the way everyone else can practice their Bambara. One day last week I actually left class an hour early because I couldn't stand to be sitting in the classroom any more. The other five PCTs in Banankoro with me are all learning Bambara and have class in the room next to mine, but it's still hard to be learning all by myself.
My house is also kind of far away from the school because Bomu speakers in this region are few and far between. (I bike about a mile each way to and from school, twice a day. I'm not a big on exercise but it feels really good to get out and do something physical after sitting in a classroom for so long.) My family is really nice, however. They are Christian and therefore not polygamist like many of the other homestay families, which means that they have fewer children than most. (I have seven siblings, which is the average number of children per woman in Mali. The oldest daughter 9jeanne d'Arc--literally, Joan of Arc) is 19, and she does most of the work that pertains to my stay in their home--cooking my meals, drawing my baths (not as strange/bourgeoisie as it sounds, I swear), doing my laundry, etc. It sounds like I have a maid, but the families are actually instructed by PC to do most of the work for us so we can focus on school, which takes up almost all of the daylight hours.
The first night we got to Banankoro, my family served me French fries and everything seemed to be going well. But then the next day I got a fish head for lunch and things have continued suit ever since (just another example of the PC rollercoaster). My family makes this sauce made of leaves and fish that kind of tastes like vomit and makes me sad, but for the most part, the food is good. I was able to communicate to them that I like things other than millet and rice (Malian dietary staples), and since then I've gotten mangos (my homestay dad went out in the dark the other night and bought me five, seemingly for no reason), more french fries, sweet potatoes, and other delicious things. It's nice to know that I can go home and people will take care of me--literally, not let me lift a finger except to wash my hands before eating. Sometimes the children get on my nerves, but for the most part they're adorable and curious. Getting used to living in someone else's home while also trying to get comfortable has been an adjustment, but a good challenge that's really encouraging me to think about what I need from others. Overall, a great experience. Just tough at times. And it will stay that way for the next two years, according to every PC manual and current and past volunteer. Excited for the next step, and glad to be getting recharged at Tubaniso before diving back into language training on Wednesday. Maybe another update before then with other details from the last two weeks...because after that, we won't have internet access for 19 days!
PS. Send me letters!!!!!!!!!!! They will be returned with MUCH LOVE. And will be of better quality than emails due to the limited internet availability. : )
Friday, June 25, 2010
Who Am I Kidding, This is a Peace Corps Blog
I thought I'd take a break from doing nothing to write something of consequence here. I started this blog mostly to avoid writing my thesis, because I really didn't know anything about what I was getting myself into at the time I wrote my first "post". All I knew was that I was getting back to West Africa where there are cute babies and cute clothes. But now, I know more, and I'm excited to share my experience. Hopefully it's interesting.
I'm in my room in Minnesota right now, listening to Amadou et Mariam for inspiration. And it's working. (They are a husband-wife duo from Mali whose music could not make me more excited to get myself over there in a week. Oh, and they're blind. Which isn't very relevant here but is just interesting to think about.) I write now because, well, it's official: a week from today I will be leaving for Mali.
A word on that: next Thursday (July 1st), I'll be boarding a 7:05am flight from Minneapolis to Philadelphia to make it to the pre-service staging that starts at noon that day. All the volunteers going to Mali are meeting at the same time to go over the logistics of the life of a Volunteer, and then we'll all fly over to Mali together. (It's nice to know that there's a small transition time/buffer zone in catching flights there, because the last time I missed an international flight, I was two days late to Niger. Oops.) Our flight's at 11:30 pm next Friday so I think I'll be safe this time...Let's do this thing!
I hadn't written anything until now because 1) I am lazy and 2) I didn't think anything interesting had really happened yet. I was under the impression that the adventure didn't start until I landed in Bamako, but after answering all the questions I've been asked in the last couple weeks, I've gathered that this is not the case at all. So, starting from the beginning (and hold on to your hats, folks, because this is about to get really interesting):
On November 10th of last year I was nominated for a Health Extension assignment in Sub-Saharan West Africa leaving July 2010. I wasn't exactly thrilled about doing Health work because I didn't think I was at all qualified, but I took it seriously and learned as much as I could about international health to make sure I would be qualified for an invitation. Not only did I end up with an invitation to Mali on April 13th of this year, but I also found my newest life's passion: public health. The Health and Development class I took at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs last semester turned out to be not only informative but also inspiring, and will hopefully be a solid foundation to my work as a Health Education Volunteer with Peace Corps.
Since I got home from school, I've spent more time than I care to think about getting ready to leave. Most of it is unremarkable, making phone calls to my bank, phone company, credit card company, lenders, and Peace Corps offices. But I've done some fun things, too. Like shopping for my trekking pack (whose features seems to multiply each time I look at it), my Leatherman (that one could literally kill someone with), my Bug Hut (which is like a tent but without protection from the elements), my Tevas (which fortunately, thanks to some bad fashion decisions in middle school, aren't the ugliest shoes I've ever owned and are definitely perfect for this trip), and other less interesting things. I've filled out, printed, and mailed out too many documents to count from Peace Corps and made sure that every duck I had ever made acquaintance with was in its row. There's really not that much for me to do now, in that sense, before I leave. I need to make another trip to Target and then I think I'll be good to go. Finally. Now I just need to get started on my Bambara lessons.
A few days ago, Peace Corps sent us our "Welcome to Mali: Bridge to Pre-Service Training" packet. There's a lot of information in it, but hopefully I can clear up some confusion here. Pre-service training is roughly the first three months of our time in Mali, and includes training in language, cultural sensitivity, health and safety, community development, and specialized sector training (mine being health). The first few days are as such:
We arrive in Bamako on the evening of July 3rd, where staff and some current Volunteers will be meeting us. From there we go to the training center, which is called Tubaniso. It's 13 miles west of Bamako and is reportedly a very secluded place conducive to learning. We will be there for orientation from the 4th through the 7th, and on the 7th we move in with our individual homestay families. We'll live in villages outside Tubaniso most of the time, and report back to the center as a group for two or three days every couple weeks during training. (We also report back there every once in a while during our service to check in with staff, including a few months into our service to bulk up on technical training.) Our homestay villages are within 22-33 miles of Tubaniso. Trainers will be living in our villages with us to conduct sessions, and we'll officially move to our own villages on September 4th. (The ones where we'll be serving and living for the next two years.)
I hope this quick and dirty breakdown is helpful. Peace Corps has sent us a lot of reading material, but this is the basic idea. I wish I could share everything, but seeing as how this post is already a novel, I'll spare us all the trouble.
And with that, welcome to my life as of late. Pretty much everything I've done in the last month has been to prepare for my departure, and now it's time to actually do it. I've been to three family baseball games in the last week, trying to soak up as much Minnesota summer as I can before I leave.
And lastly, on a more personal note...Ever since I got back from Niger (and even before I left), I knew I wanted and needed to get back to West Africa. I spent almost a year figuring out how to make that happen and what to do once I got there; and once I figured that out, I spent some more months making it happen. I am so excited to be getting back to a place I love, but I know I have to be careful not to compare every experience I have in Mali to something I did during my time in Niger. Because while it might help make me feel more comfortable in a new environment, I think it will devalue not only my time in Niger but also my time in Mali. I am excited for a new adventure in a new place, and I am glad to come in with a passion that I hope others will share with me. I've learned a lot since I left Niger, not only about Francophone and African Studies, but also about what I want for myself and what I hope to get out of this experience. In a lot of ways, I feel that I found much of what I believe in thanks to my time in Niger and how I've kept my experience alive since I left, but the Peace Corps is offering me an experience that BU and a semester studying abroad never could. I am so eager to get started. Bring it on.
I'm in my room in Minnesota right now, listening to Amadou et Mariam for inspiration. And it's working. (They are a husband-wife duo from Mali whose music could not make me more excited to get myself over there in a week. Oh, and they're blind. Which isn't very relevant here but is just interesting to think about.) I write now because, well, it's official: a week from today I will be leaving for Mali.
A word on that: next Thursday (July 1st), I'll be boarding a 7:05am flight from Minneapolis to Philadelphia to make it to the pre-service staging that starts at noon that day. All the volunteers going to Mali are meeting at the same time to go over the logistics of the life of a Volunteer, and then we'll all fly over to Mali together. (It's nice to know that there's a small transition time/buffer zone in catching flights there, because the last time I missed an international flight, I was two days late to Niger. Oops.) Our flight's at 11:30 pm next Friday so I think I'll be safe this time...Let's do this thing!
I hadn't written anything until now because 1) I am lazy and 2) I didn't think anything interesting had really happened yet. I was under the impression that the adventure didn't start until I landed in Bamako, but after answering all the questions I've been asked in the last couple weeks, I've gathered that this is not the case at all. So, starting from the beginning (and hold on to your hats, folks, because this is about to get really interesting):
On November 10th of last year I was nominated for a Health Extension assignment in Sub-Saharan West Africa leaving July 2010. I wasn't exactly thrilled about doing Health work because I didn't think I was at all qualified, but I took it seriously and learned as much as I could about international health to make sure I would be qualified for an invitation. Not only did I end up with an invitation to Mali on April 13th of this year, but I also found my newest life's passion: public health. The Health and Development class I took at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs last semester turned out to be not only informative but also inspiring, and will hopefully be a solid foundation to my work as a Health Education Volunteer with Peace Corps.
Since I got home from school, I've spent more time than I care to think about getting ready to leave. Most of it is unremarkable, making phone calls to my bank, phone company, credit card company, lenders, and Peace Corps offices. But I've done some fun things, too. Like shopping for my trekking pack (whose features seems to multiply each time I look at it), my Leatherman (that one could literally kill someone with), my Bug Hut (which is like a tent but without protection from the elements), my Tevas (which fortunately, thanks to some bad fashion decisions in middle school, aren't the ugliest shoes I've ever owned and are definitely perfect for this trip), and other less interesting things. I've filled out, printed, and mailed out too many documents to count from Peace Corps and made sure that every duck I had ever made acquaintance with was in its row. There's really not that much for me to do now, in that sense, before I leave. I need to make another trip to Target and then I think I'll be good to go. Finally. Now I just need to get started on my Bambara lessons.
A few days ago, Peace Corps sent us our "Welcome to Mali: Bridge to Pre-Service Training" packet. There's a lot of information in it, but hopefully I can clear up some confusion here. Pre-service training is roughly the first three months of our time in Mali, and includes training in language, cultural sensitivity, health and safety, community development, and specialized sector training (mine being health). The first few days are as such:
We arrive in Bamako on the evening of July 3rd, where staff and some current Volunteers will be meeting us. From there we go to the training center, which is called Tubaniso. It's 13 miles west of Bamako and is reportedly a very secluded place conducive to learning. We will be there for orientation from the 4th through the 7th, and on the 7th we move in with our individual homestay families. We'll live in villages outside Tubaniso most of the time, and report back to the center as a group for two or three days every couple weeks during training. (We also report back there every once in a while during our service to check in with staff, including a few months into our service to bulk up on technical training.) Our homestay villages are within 22-33 miles of Tubaniso. Trainers will be living in our villages with us to conduct sessions, and we'll officially move to our own villages on September 4th. (The ones where we'll be serving and living for the next two years.)
I hope this quick and dirty breakdown is helpful. Peace Corps has sent us a lot of reading material, but this is the basic idea. I wish I could share everything, but seeing as how this post is already a novel, I'll spare us all the trouble.
And with that, welcome to my life as of late. Pretty much everything I've done in the last month has been to prepare for my departure, and now it's time to actually do it. I've been to three family baseball games in the last week, trying to soak up as much Minnesota summer as I can before I leave.
And lastly, on a more personal note...Ever since I got back from Niger (and even before I left), I knew I wanted and needed to get back to West Africa. I spent almost a year figuring out how to make that happen and what to do once I got there; and once I figured that out, I spent some more months making it happen. I am so excited to be getting back to a place I love, but I know I have to be careful not to compare every experience I have in Mali to something I did during my time in Niger. Because while it might help make me feel more comfortable in a new environment, I think it will devalue not only my time in Niger but also my time in Mali. I am excited for a new adventure in a new place, and I am glad to come in with a passion that I hope others will share with me. I've learned a lot since I left Niger, not only about Francophone and African Studies, but also about what I want for myself and what I hope to get out of this experience. In a lot of ways, I feel that I found much of what I believe in thanks to my time in Niger and how I've kept my experience alive since I left, but the Peace Corps is offering me an experience that BU and a semester studying abroad never could. I am so eager to get started. Bring it on.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
this is not just a peace corps blog
but since it's all i think about these days...
things i am not worried about:
1. lack of cute babies to play with
2. lack of beautiful outfits to be made
that's a start, i guess.
things i am not worried about:
1. lack of cute babies to play with
2. lack of beautiful outfits to be made
that's a start, i guess.
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