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.