So…. I got into Mali Thursday November 3rd at around 10 PM (a little later than was scheduled). There was a representative from the Peace Corps office waiting for me and helping me get through customs and picking up my bags – which took about an hour itself! FINALLY we got both of my bags and made our way through the swarm of people to the car. The ride from the airport to the training center where all of the other volunteers were was about an hour away from the airport. The ride itself was pretty interesting – sometimes a dirt road, sometimes paved, motorcycles, donkeys, bikes, everything on the road! When we got to the training site, it was around midnight – a lot of the other volunteers were already sleeping because the next day we were all leaving for our homestay villages at 8am. I basically got to the training site and went to bed – woke up at 6am the next day, packed and headed off to my homestay site (after somehow squeezing in 3 shots I needed to get).
Homestay is where the language and technical training occurs. Basically, I am living in this village for about 9 weeks and spend my days learning language 6 days a week – if it’s not language it’s something related to my sector of small enterprise development. The family I stay with cooks all of my meals, brings me water from the well to bathe with (bucket bath of course) and heats it up for me too! Here is a picture of my family! My host parents have five kids, and then my host dad’s younger brother, his wife and their five kids live in the concession too! Also, my host sister, the one sitting in front of me that I am named after (Korotumu), braided my hair! The guy next to me is my host dad, next to him is my host mom, and next to her is my aunt. The rest are their kids and my grandma behind me.
In general, the past couple of weeks I have found people to be extremely friendly. When I try to do something, like get water from the well myself, they won’t let me do it! The language isn’t that hard so far, it just gets tiring studying it for 6 hours a day! Since I got thrown into the homestay after being in the country for only seven hours, I had no previous language training. My first day was extremely hard! I couldn’t even greet anyone, or say hi. The people in the village though were extremely nice and welcomed us with dancing and music. After that, we went to our respective homestays and met our families for the first time (where more charades occurred because of the lack of language skills).
Our classes are held outside, underneath a tree – you wouldn’t believe how much cooler it can be in the shade! Right now, since it’s cold season, the days are pretty hot, but nighttime and early morning time gets pretty cold. One of the funniest things I’ve seen is people walking around with winter jackets on and winter hats too in the morning time when it’s still cold! They are freezing! Even funnier is little kids with sweaters and hats on but no pants!!!! Hilarious!
The hardest part of the whole experience for me is getting used to the little animals everywhere – lizards, toads, frogs, mice, etc. I haven’t seen any big animals or anything, but the other day I moved something in my room and a mice ran out from behind it! I immediately screamed and went to find my host brother to chase it out. Thankfully, he wasn’t scared and chased it out for me – it ran to my other host brother’s room right next door, haha, but he wasn’t scared, just laughed at me, so it was all good! Also, here at the training site, I keep finding toads and lizards/geckos in my room – not cool.
At our homestay village, people have been used to foreigners because previous volunteers have lived in the area before. This, however, does not prevent people from staring, speaking French to me (because they think since I'm white I'm immediately from France). Little kids will also look at me and scream out Tubabu - which means foreigner. They also will wave and say bye-bye to me -- the extent of their English. Side note: the kids here are absolutely adorable!
Last week, we went to the American club – which is kind of like a country club – you need an American passport to get in. There, we had cheeseburgers, salads, cheese fries and steaks for the first time since we’ve been in the country! The food wasn’t the best quality but it tasted great to all of us! I’m really looking forward to exploring around the bigger cities and trying out the different restaurants! Generally, my breakfast consists of bread and peanut butter and nescafe – sometimes fried eggs. For lunch, I usually get rice with peanut sauce and sometimes fish, sometimes meat (lamb usually). For dinner, I sometimes get spaghetti; seasoned and cooked differently than what you think, or fried plantains, it varies. I don’t usually get a lot of vegetables or fruits but can buy them myself at the local market. As a treat for myself, I will sometimes bike to the village right next to mine and buy a cold soft drink – which tastes AMAZING after an extremely hot day!And yes, I do ride a bike - on the dirt desert roads and sometimes pass donkey carts too!
Next week, I will find out where my permanent site will be – the place where I will carry out my 2 year service. When I find out, I will let you know the region! The week after next, I will actually be staying at site for a week to kind of test it out. I don’t know how often I will get to update, but I will try whenever possible!
Thanks for reading :) Write me letters – I have nothing but time to respond!
Hope to hear from you,
Ajka
