Ni i ma seneke, I tena dumunike

It's hard to decide what to write a blog entry about this time around. A lot has happened during this last month at site – both good and not so good. In short, I have received terrific visits from both my good family friend Jean and a couple of other Peace Corps Volunteers, I have interviewed some people in village, made some new friends, attended a training workshop given to the cotton growers association in my village (which I didn't understand because it was in Bambara, but was happy to attend), attended my first funeral in Mali, started a garden (and have some serious callouses), gotten better at Bambara (and worse at English), made it out to the fields multiple times to help with the harvest, started playing soccer, practicied my stitching skills, and the list goes on.

The title for this blog entry, “Ni I ma seneke, I tena dumunike,” was given to me by a neighbor's daughter who was helping me shell peanuts one night. We were talking about what crops people in the United States grow, and I explained that very few people grow their own food in America. She replied, “Here, if you don't grow crops, you won't eat.” This is certainly true in my village. With the rainy season over, the harvest has begun. Each day people go out to their fields to harvest tiga (peanuts), woso (kind of like sweet potato), nyo (millet and/or sorghum), sho (beans), kaba (corn), and even zeere (watermelon!!!). Every day donkey carts full of produce is brought in from the fields to be processed for storage. Processing generally means drying, shelling, removing chaff, etc. This food will feed their families throughout the next year, ni ala sonna (If God wills it).

People work incredibly hard during this time of the year, so that they can eat the rest of the year and into the next rainy (hungry) season. I can't help but notice that many women are awake at 5 AM pounding millet (they are my third wake up call after the call to prayer from the Mosque, followed by donkeys braying and roosters crowing). Women spend their days fetching water from the well, preparing breakfast, taking care of their kids, pounding more millet, and preparing lunch. Maybe they'll sit for 5 minutes to eat lunch, then they're off to their peanut fields in the heat of the day (that's the only time they have to go out to the fields), then they return to cook dinner, followed by shelling peanuts or preparing other foods for the following day's meals, then maybe they get to sit for a few minutes to watch TV (though their husbands get the front seats...don't get me wrong though, their husbands have often been working hard in the fields all day too). We work hard and constantly in the US as well, but it's not the same back-breaking, tiring work that the Malian women have to do each day. We're so lucky that we can buy food processed to such a point that we don't have to spend 2 hours each day pounding grains. Here are some pictures from the fields, first sorghum:

Here is a picture of peanuts freshly pulled from the ground. A lot of people don't know that peanuts actually grow underground.


Some of the women from my host family, on their way home after working in the fields for part of the afternoon:


And, here is a picture of me with a bunch of peanuts:


Since you won't eat if you don't grow your own food, I've finally started my garden! I've been given two large plots in the women's garden, for the price of 200 CFA each month. I have been working one plot for the last week and a half, and haven't made a lot of progress just yet. I don't think I'll get to the second plot until after training in Bamako during December. I spent 3 days using a daba to clear grass from my garden area, which was quite hard work. Luckily I had some help from a couple of random kids who's teacher hadn't shown up for school one day, and my friend Morimakan helped me finish up on the 3rd night...he's much quicker at this kind of work than I am. Here are a before and after picture from my garden clearing extravaganza:

Once the ground was cleared, I had to break up the ground before I could plant any seeds. I've decided to go little by little, breaking up each bed as I go. It took me a good 2 days and asking at least 20 people to find out that there are some cow pens just outside of town in which over 200 cows sleep each night. Perfect. I loaded up my bike with cow manure, rode to my garden, and have been amending the soil in the my garden with the poop as I go. I've also started a very wimpy compost pile for future plantings. So far, I have planted tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and cabbage. We'll see how it goes. Here's a picture of the current garden and the well that I get water from to water my garden (here's to hoping it lasts through at least a little of the dry season):

In other news, I still have the ability to scare the living hell out of little kids...Last week I was walking by a kid who was playing with a strange looking hole in the ground; I stood over him to look at it, and asked him what it was. When he looked up, terror took him, and he was screaming bloody murder for at least five minutes; I'm not sure what happened after I walked away. Whoops. I guess it would be scary to see a blindingly white person for the first time in your life, especially looking over your shoulder like I was doing to this poor five year-old.

I have been in Kita this week for some more language tutoring, and will be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow with some other volunteers. Last night we attended the annual Roman Catholic Pilgrimage. I couldn't find any information about it easily on the internet (though others with more computer time might be able to), but I am told that the Virgin Mary was once seen on the face of Mount Kita, so people come each year from all over West Africa and the world to worship the Virgin Mary. It was quite incredible, and I would guess 2,000-3,000 people were there.

I tried to bake a pumpkin pie in the solar oven today, and it is a complete failure so far. Darn, I had imagined having pumpkin pies as good as Mom's here in Mali, but that's hard to do without a real oven. So, Happy Thanksgiving to all, especially the Eugene crowd, have a great time and I hope you have a huge soccer game.

To end the entry, please send positive thoughts to my homologue's son, who cut his ankle badly with a daba (a hoe, basically) while harvesting peanuts. He was fine for a couple of days, but then the cut became terribly infected, and he hasn't been out of bed for more than a few minutes during the last week. Luckily we have a CSCOM (health facility) in my village, so he was able to obtain antibiotics relatively quickly. Still, it's bad news to get hurt during the harvest time, and I am guessing it will be at least another 2-3 weeks before he is back to himself.

And, some more pictures...We have a huge banana orchard in my village, which I just discovered last week:

There is a small river that runs through town in the wet season, and there were a ton of ducks in it the other day, this one is for you, Mom:


A pretty sunset:


Me and my homologue's daughter, Tierno. She has been my lifesaver on more than one occasion:

Happy Halloween from Mali

No real post this time, just some pictures. We celebrated Halloween in Kita this Saturday, we had a big party with people from other regions coming in to celebrate. Good times! Here is my family in Kita, all dressed up:


I was a millet stalk. You kind of have to use your imagination, like last year when I dressed up as a salmon. Here I am standing in the millet stalks outside our house, I fit right in.


I have found that I have some really annoying neighbors, they try to get in my house sometimes. At least this one is cute:


And, just to prove that Ecuador isn't the only place in the world with beautiful frogs, this guy was hanging out in my nyegen the other night:


I am headed back to site in a couple of hours, I'll post more closer to Thanksgiving.

Yup

The first days are getting harder, and I am pretty sure they are going to get really hard before they start getting better! It's certainly been a rough couple of weeks at site, and from talking to my friends here in Kita, they are all experiencing similar things. Here is a short list of things to imagine: what if 5 people laughed at you every time you did anything, what if people were constantly telling you that you “can't” do something (cook rice or do laundry for instance), what if you were constantly being stared at, what if you were being called “Hey, tubaboo (Hey, white person!)” constantly, what if you were told you don't understand anything, what if you have had marriage suggested to you by 10 men in a single day – none of whom you have said more than 5 words to in your life, what if a wife offers you her husband (you can be the second wife!), what if you have nearly burned your house down twice, dumped a cup of salt on your dinner, and ruined your first attempt at cooking Malian beans (after at least 4 women have told you that same day that you can't cook Malian beans), what if you are “lonely, but never alone”, what if your language tutor (who you are paying) just sits there waiting for you to instigate any and all conversations/language learning, what if rain is still coming through your roof and mice are eating your food, what if you've been told multiple times “you should give me X” (X = headlamp, necklace, clothes, you name it), what if you have a terrible cold compounding all of these things?

Yeah, it's been rough.

Here's another list of things to consider: what if your homologue seems to be the most awesome, hardworking woman in the village; what if her kids are also awesome and make sure that you have food to eat and a place to dance if you want it; what if you can hardly understand her parents-in-law because they have no teeth, but they smile at you every time you come into the compound and ask how you are doing; what if the mayor comes to your house and asks for a chair, then sets down a plastic bag that holds a delicious cooked chicken, which you then share for lunch; what if you've been able to watch the Malian national soccer team beat Sudan 1-0 with friends (they should have won 5-0), what if you've been told that your language has improved a lot in two weeks by someone who is willing to chat with you and help you practice Bambara; what if you made a huge, amazing salad with a friend who likes to call himself “Cheick Obama”; what if you've read two really good books (in English); what if you received a letter from a good friend back in the US; what if you've figured out how to get BBC reception in your hut on the shortwave radio; what if everyone greets you wherever you go (because that's what Malians do); what if you have huge plans for a garden in your head, but haven't started yet (this could go in either list); what if you had a really nice “complet” (outfit – long skirt and top) made by the tailor in your village; what if you've made friends with a 15 year old who really wants to learn English and is willing to have a bit of a language exchange – and who takes you out to see his family's fields, my first real trip to the fields; what if you have a loving family back home who is going through rough times too, but is still able to call you at midnight to chat for an hour. All of that is when you have to say thank you, life is good.

With all that said, here are some pictures. Tierno (my homologue's daughter) did jabi on my hand for fun, she did a really great job. Here's the tape beforehand:


And, here's the after picture. Those are my Malian and American initials on my hand:


Here are a couple of pictures from my friend's corn field. The first is a pile of corn laid out in the middle of the field while the corn dries. In a couple of weeks he will pick all of the corn and it will be turned into any number of different foods. The second picture is a pretty tree.




Here's my homologue's granddaughter, unsure quite what to do with the stickers I gave her:


Here is my beautiful neigbor and her baby sister:


Here are the two huts, with the sweet new mud wall and shaded area that were built between homestay and when I arrived.



My nyegen has a door now!


And walls!



Here's another view of my compound:


That's all until next time, take it easy until then.

The first day are the hardest days

I just returned to Kita from a short, surprise trip to Bamako to go to an initial meeting on food security. One of the Malian government's top priorities is ensuring food security for their population, and USAID and Peace Corps Mali have recently signed an agreement to work together on the issue. I am excited about this agreement, as working on food security was one of the reasons I wanted to join the Peace Corps, specifically in West Africa. This meeting in Bamako was with the Peace Corps and 10-15 NGOs, government organizations, and private sector organization partners, in an effort to share ideas on combating food insecurity and to teach our partners more about what the Peace Corps does. While the meeting was in French (which I don't speak), I still found it very interesting to (partly) understand what some of the Peace Corps partners' approaches to food security are. Straight from the PowerPoint presentation that was given, here are the objectives of the “USAID and Peace Corps/Mali Global Food Security Response Partnership:”

-Increase Community capacity to respond to food insecurity

-Improve organization, planning and coordination

-Improve natural resource management

-Enhance accessibility of local resources

-Improve agricultural techniques

-Improve health and hygiene through better nutrition and education

-Increase incomes

Peace Corps/Mali already works towards these objectives, but hopefully the partnership with USAID and other organizations will increase our capacity to achieve these goals.

The best part of my trip to Bamako was being able to stay with Jean, a member of our close Thanksgiving family. It was great to spend some time with her, especially since I hadn't seen her for more than half an hour since arriving in Mali! Thanks Jean.

Okay, now onto the juicy stuff. This last week was my first week at site, and it was full of entertaining stories, most of which I don't have the room to share here. Here are a few anecdotes:

-My first day at site was Seli, or the celebration of the end of Ramadan. For those of you who don't know, Ramadan is the month of fasting from food, drink, sex, etc. during the daytime hours for Muslim people. I was told by one person that even your eyes have to fast during the month of Ramadan. It is a also a time to develop an "increased compassion for those in need of the necessities of life, a sense of self-purification and reflection and a renewed focus on spirituality" (More on Ramadan and Islam here). Ramadan is also the month that the Prophet Mohammed first received revelations of the Qur'an.

Each night during my homestay, my family would break their fast at sunset after the call from the Mosque. Usually they broke their fast with moni, which is a delicious porridge made of tiny balls of millet flour, loads of sugar, and usually some lemon flavoring.

On the day of Seli in my new village, we got dressed up and spent the day greeting everyone, giving millions of blessings. I san be san be (Have a good feast), sitigiyala (May you have a long life), fatigiyala (May your father have a long life), batigiyala (May your mother have a long life), cetigiyala (May your husband have a long life), dentigiyala (May your children have a long life), and on and on, beyond the limit of my undertanding. Seli was a lot of fun, especially since it was my first full day in village, and I got to meet a lot of people.

-On the day of Seli, the commandant in my village gave me a chicken to welcome me to the village. I had quite an adventure figuring out how to get help gutting it, then cooking it on my new gas stove. I won't go into it here, but it took me all morning to cook the chicken, with a lot of questions from the women: “Are you sure you know how to cook?”

-When I visited my village in August, my site buddy told me that soon there would be more corn available than I would know what to do with. He was right. During the last week, I have eaten more corn than the past two years combined. It's not like the sweet corn from home: it's tougher, and we eat it after it has been burned to a crisp over coals. It's delicious. And, everyone kept handing me cobs of corn, so I ate a lot of them. Yum.

-Just so you know I have people looking out for me here: One day last week, I was spending time with my homologue's family grilling and eating corn on the cob. I had already eaten 1 ear of corn, and they were trying to give me a 2^nd ear, even though not everyone had eaten their first. I protested, saying everyone should get one before I receive my 2^nd. My homologue's daughter (my lifesaver last week, who I hung out with quite a bit, and seems to be the best at understanding my limited Bambara/Malinke. Unfortunately (for me only), she will be heading to Kita this coming week to start school, so I will not see her very often anymore. She is 17 now, and hopes to go to University, I hope she does.) turned to me and said “Your father is not here. Your mother is not here. Your brother and his wife are not here. Your friends are not here. We must give you what we can, and make sure that you have what you need.” I was quite touched, and am happy that my homologue's family is amazing.

-My homologue has been sick most of this week, saying she had malaria. People generally assume that any ailment is malaria, but she had some pretty serious fevers going on and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what she had. She seemed to be back on her feet when I left on Saturday, so hopefully she will be back to herself when I return in the next few days. Ala ka nogoyake (May you return to yourself).

-My most frequent conversation over the last week concerned my lack of a ce (husband). “You're 24 and you DON'T have a ce? No kids? What is wrong with you?” I spent a lot of time explaining the fact that some women in America get married around 18-20, but most wait a little longer, many don't get married until 26 or 30, and some never get married. Also, a man can only marry one woman in America. To ease the confusion I assured the women in my village that I would find a ce when I got back to America... : )

-Most of what was wrong with my house when I came to visit has been fixed, I have a brand new cement nyegen, some shade, and a small wall around my compound to provide a little privacy. I'll try to post pictures of my area next time.

-I had quite an adventure when I tried to do my laundry the other day. I've been doing my laundry for the last two months by hand, but suddenly I had an audience of 10 women laughing and yelling at me when I tried to do laundry the other day. They kept saying I was doing it wrong and that I should just give my clothes to them to wash. I became very frustrated, as they were just taking clothes from my hands as I tried to wash them. Hopefully my next laundry day won't bring quite the same level of interest for anyone within a 50 m radius from the well.

-One problem: I woke up on my second night at site soaking wet. As I came out of my dreams, all I could think was: Why am I wet? That's when I realized that my thatch roof had not quite held up to the rainstorm raging outside. My new mattress, tent, floor, clothes, etc. were quite wet, and I spent some time setting out buckets to try to catch the biggest drips, until I realized that there were huge drips everywhere. Sweet. I dried everything out the next day, and moved most of my things to the smaller hut. The mayor brought plastic by a few days later to put on my roof, and then another couple days later I was walking home with the mayor, and saw a lot of lightning in the distance. “So, do you think it will rain tonight?” I asked. The Mayor replied something along the lines of “Yes probably, I'll bring dinner over to your house and then we can hang the plastic up.” After I had unwittingly eaten a chicken's head and liver for dinner with the mayor, we were discussing how to put the plastic up on my roof in the dark. Just then, an old man walked by and said the rain was not going to come. So, the mayor and my host dad decided we would put the plastic up in the morning. About an hour later it started to rain, and I evacuated to my cooking hut, which had just a few small drips. I no longer place any weight in anyone's predictions of the weather.

-Between Seli and all the weddings that took place this week in my village, there was plenty of partying. I spent 3 of my nights during the first week dancing until late into the night, to pretty terrible Malian club music and American songs like “California” (you know...California, knows how to party...in the city, the city of Compton...etc.), and “We're gonna party like it's your birthday...”

-The other morning, I was studying in my compound, and my next door neighbor came over and told me I needed to come for a picture. It turns out she had brought the photographer to take a picture of me and her daughter, here's the result (sorry, no names available):

-The other day, the mayor came up to me and asked if I had done any work that day. I really hadn't done anything besides sitting and eating corn on the cob and trying to understand what people were talking about, so I said no. He told me to meet him at his office. When I arrived, there were tons of people standing outside, amid hundreds of new backpacks, notebooks, pens, pencils, chalkboards, etc. that had been given to my commune from Spain. How cool! I spent the evening and all of the next morning sorting through all of the new things, working with some of the students from my town. We had a lot of fun, as they know a tiny bit of English (they are pretty clever with what they put together). Here are the guys I worked with, surrounded by all of the packaging that the bags came in:

Here is a stack of completed backpacks, ready to go to the students:

And, even though it's not a great picture, here is the view from my hut. Why am I posting it? Well, because it's the Moon over Mali, obviously.

That's all for now, plenty more to come after another couple weeks at site. Hope you are all doing well and finding some relaxation at the beginning of fall.

PS: I apologize for linking to wikipedia, I know some people will be disappointed that I would use such a source...but my internet time is limited and I didn't have much time to find a better reference. Sorry. I also apologize for the black font, I can't figure out why it won't let me change the font color back to normal, and I've got a 1.5 hour bike ride to go do before it gets too hot!

Ala k'aw sara, Ala k'a to N kono aw ye

Homestay is now over, and I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)! As a way to say thank you to my homestay family, I gave about 10 blessings while failing in my attempts not to cry. Two of the blessings that I gave make up the title of this entry: May God pay you all, and may I not forget what you did for me. The response to each blessing is generally “Amina” (amen).

I really enjoyed my homestay experience: living with the Traore family, learning Bambara, and getting to know the other PCVs in my village and the surrounding villages. I loved hanging out with my family each night, playing with my sisters, learning how to cook a few Malian things, drinking tea, and having many understanding resources while I was trying to learn Bambara. And, the more Bambara I learned, the more fun I had. I will miss my family a lot, and hope that I can go back to see them in the future when I can actually say more than simple sentences in Bambara.

The day before I left, my friend Matthew came by to take pictures of me and my family. Unfortunately I didn't get all of the pictures before he headed to site, but here is one picture of my whole family (minus my 4 Dads):


Also, the day before I left, Monique and Adja did “Jabi” on my feet. It's a little bit like henna, and takes several hours to finish. Here is Monique and Adja, Monique is taping the design on my feet, while Adja is applying the Jabi:


Here's a taped foot:


Unfortunately, the Jabi didn't turn black like it's supposed to, so my feet turned into a kind of crazy black and orange Halloween tie dye. Here's the finished product:


Here's a picture of three of my favorite homestay sisters, Tenen, Alima and Tia:


Homestay is over, and we spent another week at Tubaniso before officially swearing-in as Peace Corps Volunteers! As part of our celebration of the end of training, we had a talent show. There were a lot of acts, and some friends and I decided to hoola-hoop. Yes, that's right: hoola-hoop. My friend Kat is really good at hoola-hooping, and found some old pipes in the garbage which we converted into hoola-hoops. So, Kat, Sara and I hoola-hooped to the String Cheese Incident while Eric, Jeremy and Owen juggled. It was pretty ridiculous. Here is a picture of Kat, Sara and I following the talent show:


The morning after the talent show, all of the Trainees and I were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers at the United States Embassy in Bamako. The ceremony was fun, most of us dressed up in Malian outfits for the occasion, and someone who had learned each language (Bambara, Fulfulde, French, 3 Dogon dialects) gave a short speech. My homestay decided to get matching outfits for the swear-in, which was kind of a hectic process. We ended up with Basin (a type of really nice fabric, I may not have spelled it correctly) outfits, and here is the result (from left to right: Kristin, Diatrou, Matthew, Jeremy, Souleymane, John, Ali, Nick):


Here is a picture of all of the new environment volunteers in my stage (training group):


My LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator, ie: teacher) Diatrou was a huge help for Kristin, Matthew and I over the last couple of months. He has been incredibly patient with all of us, and I don't think we would have learned Bambara as well without him, or had such a good homestay experience. Here is Diatrou and I:


Yup, good times. Swear-in is over, we're real volunteers now, and our 24 months of service has begun. I have been hanging out in Kita all week while the other volunteers in this region get installed. It has been nice to have some free time, but I am excited to head out to site on Saturday morning. We have spent the week buying necessary items like stoves, bed mattresses, buckets to do laundry and haul water with, etc. If I have forgotten to buy anything, I will be back to Kita sometime soon to get the last things I need.

That's all for this incredibly long blog entry. I am moving into the time where I will only have internet access 1-2 times per month, and with that in mind I will try my best to keep this updated. Maybe I can split time intervals of internet access into two blog entries rather than one super-long blog entry like this one. I would happily accept any suggestions! I would also happily accept any letters or emails, and I will do my best to respond to you (eventually...).

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday to Mom, Ben, Margaret, Amelie, and anyone else I've forgotten.

Site Visit

Last week, I had a chance to visit the village that I will be living and working in for the next two years. The village is near Kita, Mali, which is a small city about 3-4 hours west of the capitol (if you take a bus that stops every five minutes to let vendors on board, you can buy things like fried dough balls, milk, apples, hard-boiled eggs, etc. etc.). I am not going to write too much about site visit, but I did take lots of pictures with my borrowed camera, so I will share some of those. But, first things first: please take note that my mailing address has changed! I can still get mail at the old address if you have already sent something, but this address will be best for future letters/packages:

Ali Paulson
Corps de la Paix
BP 25
Kita, Mali
West Africa

Be sure to add the West Africa bit so that the letters don't get sent to Malawi or Bali...I'm not kidding, that happened to a current volunteer, it took a year for a letter to get to her! Also, I've been told that if you send a package to be sure to put the package value as $0, which will decrease the chances of the box being explored somewhere along the shipping line.

Also, I have been checking out a few of my friend's blogs from out here in Mali, and I thought some of you might be interested in reading some other (and perhaps more frequent) perspectives on our service in Mali. I will post them in this blog entry, and will also start a side bar with links to the blogs:

http://thehottamali.blogspot.com/ This is my friend Billy's blog, he will also be out in the Kayes region of Mali, but it will take two days to get from my site to his. He has a great blog with much more informative posts. Enjoy!

http://kristinrichards.blogspot.com/ This is my friend Kristin's blog. Kristin and I live in the same homestay village, are in the same Bambara language class, and will both be living near Kita for the next couple of years.

http://thekohbearreport.wordpress.com/ This is my friend Dave's blog, he will also be living in the Kita area.

Okay, now for pictures! Here is a picture from the outskirts of my village, heading out to the fields. It's really green right now because it is the rainy season. That's also a "mountain" in the distance. It's more of a big rock, but I'll call it a mountain.


This is a picture of my homologue's (the woman who I will be working most closely with over the next two years is called my "homologue" by the Peace Corps) daugther. I can tell we are going to be good friends. She always seems to be causing trouble, and in this picture is wearing her Grandpa's hat and carrying his cane. You should have seen her take off running when her Grandpa came out of his room!


In case you were wondering what my living arrangements are like, here is a picture of my new house! It is an awesome mud hut with a straw roof, which has been heavily populated by termites. The termites create a constant sawdust snow, which will give me plenty of opportunity to sweep my room five times a day. I will have to figure out a way to keep the dust out of my bed, I am thinking a plastic sheet might work best.


And, here's my kitchen! It's a smaller version of the other hut. Both huts are brand new, and are really great. My home needs a lot of work as far as privacy and shade go, but I am very happy with the huts.


And, here's my nyegen! I haven't written anything yet about the bathrooms in Mali, but people use a nyegen to do their business. See that hole on the ground? Yup. My nyegen would be okay, except the walls don't quite reach my chest (I am guessing they were expecting a shorter volunteer?), the doorway looks straight in on the nyegen hole (that won't be good when the amoebas strike again), and one of the walls fell down in a rain storm shortly before I arrived. So, it could use some work, but a lot can be done in the month before I head back out to site again.


The Dugutigi (Chief) of the village is my Jatigi (Host Father), and he told me that he is 102 years old. I haven't decided whether or not I believe him yet. But, here are some of the kids from his family, I am guessing either grandkids or great-grands. It will take me another month to figure out how the family fits together, it seems like there are over 50 people hanging around the compound!


Here I am with one of my host sisters, unfortunately I can't remember her name.



Here is a picture of some of my other host sisters, I am pretty sure each of them is named Mama Suko. My first two days in the village, both of these girls would run away screaming when they saw me (yes, my white skin has that amazing effect on kids of a certain age). By my third day in the village we were able to play with each other, and I think they are starting to trust me. We'll see how it goes in September.


I was given the opportunity to borrow a bike to ride out to my village from Kita, instead of taking bus transport. I couldn't give up the opportunity to ride! While it meant getting lost on my way out to the village with my site buddy, Ryan, it was SO nice to ride a bike for a decent distance, even on a rough dirt road. Here's my bike all loaded up and ready to go for the ride back to Kita. It takes me a little over an hour to do the ride right now.


Today, the environmental and small enterprise development volunteers had a chance to visit a Shea butter processing place in Siby, which is about 45 minutes outside of Bamako. We learned a lot about Shea butter production and it's importance as a means for women to earn money to support their families. I will probably be working a TON with shea production over the next two years. At the end of the day, we were able to go on a short hike to a really cool rock arch. Here is the group at the top of the hike. A lot of other people hiked to a waterfall to go swimming, which also sounded fun, but I opted for what was described to me as a "really cool hike." And it was.

Okay, that's all for now. I head back to homestay tomorrow morning, where I will be trying my hardest to learn a lot of Bambara over the next week. We swear-in as official Peace Corps Volunteers in about two weeks!

Fotota

There's nothing like friends with pictures, and extra cameras for that matter! My roommate here at the training center brought her old camera with her, and is letting me borrow it for the next few weeks! Awesome. Also, thanks to Mom who has sent me my old camera. Hopefully my picture taking will be back in action soon!

In the meantime, I have some pictures to share from Kristin and Matt, who I live with at our homestay site. Enjoy! I should clarify: most of my two months of training has been spent at "homestay" where I live with a Malian family and have daily language lessons. It is basically total immersion into Malian culture and language, and has been a very good and difficult way to adapt to living in Mali.

About a week ago, my homestay buddies and teachers got together to make a "normal" dinner. We bought three chickens at the market, here is a picture of Kristin, myself and Diatrou (my language instructor) with our dinner:


Here is my host sister, Kiatou, helping to prepare the chicken. She helped us do a lot of the cooking, since we aren't really used to cooking with coals, and didn't have most of the "normal" kitchen utensils:

In addition to chicken, we made tortillas, an enormous salad, guacamole, beans and ate cheese and crackers. It was kind of like home. Here is a picture of Jeremy and I preparing the dough for the tortillas (pay no attention to my sunburn...I can't go 5 minutes without sunblock in Mali!):


Here is part of the group hanging out before dinner (left to right: Diatrou, Souleymane, Ali, Jeremy, Matthew, Nick). We also invited our friends from down the road to come over, so we had quite the party.


Here is a picture of Kristin and I at the National Museum in Bamako. We went there about a week ago before heading back to our training center from our homestay villages.


Here's another picture from the bar down the road. There are a lot of people in the picture, but the ones actually looking at the camera are from left to right: Justin, myself, John and Tyler:
Last but not least, here is the President of Mali, ATT, about to lay the first brick for construction across the street from my village:


Glad I could get some pictures up here, even if none of them are mine! I am off early tomorrow morning to visit the village that I will be living in for the next two years. Should be a good week!