The last several weeks have been quite eventful, and I am not sure which highlights to share! First of all, I would like to give a shout out to my beautiful Aunt Paula, who is an incredibly brave woman. I wish you all the best in your treatments this week and over the next month, and I hope that everything goes smoothly. Please know that I love you and am thinking of you often.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share with you all, as my camera is as good as gone. I will try to get some pictures from the other people in my homestay to share sometime soon!
The most exciting news from the last few weeks is that we got our site announcements. I will be spending the next two years in a village outside of Kita, Mali! Kita is West of the capitol, Bamako, and is supposed to be a very beautiful area. I have even been told there are mountains, sweet! I met the woman who I will be working most closely with over the next two years, and I think we will get along well. We can only say a few words to each other right now, but my Bambara is coming along day by day.
Now back in time: Shortly after leaving the Peace Corps training center 3 weeks ago, the President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT) came to my homestay village. There was a huge ceremony to celebrate the start of construction of factories and a small "strip mall" across the street from my village. People from all of the surrounding villages came by to see ATT, which led to plenty of dancing and celebration. There were several people dressed up in masks and elaborate costumes, and a man running around the crowd with a megaphone encouraging people to cheer for ATT. Many speeches were made that I didn't understand, ATT laid the first brick for the new factories, and then it was over. That may be the only opportunity in two years that I will have to see the President of Mali, so it was pretty cool.
The day after ATT visited, my next door neighboor got married! I think my homestay family is related to our next door neighbors, but I can't quite figure out the connection. At any rate, the wedding was a big deal. My whole family dressed in their finest clothes, and my Moms took me over the the wedding. At first there were two celebrations going on, one at the groom's home (where we were), and another at the bride's home. At the groom's home, three women were playing traditional music on kalabashes while the rest of the women danced. I have learned several new dances between this wedding and the baptism last month, and I love the opportunity to dance with my family. One of the elders of the village even gave me her scarf so that I could have something to wave around while we were all dancing. After a short while, my sister Alima (who I think is 10 years old) took me over to the bride's party. They had a full on DJ over there, with lots of not-so-good music to go along with great dancing. In my experiences thus far, Malians seem to enjoy having just a couple people dance in the middle of a huge circle of people, and they especially like to shove the Americans into the middle of that circle. When my turn came, I dragged Alima into the middle with me. I still can't quite get used to one hundred people watching me dance!
At sunset that night, there was a huge commotion with motorcycles and vans bringing the bride to the groom's home. My Dad, Secouba, took me over to the groom's house to watch as five men went crazy with their motorcycles: driving around in circles, revving their engines, popping wheelies, and generally destroying their motos. Every once in a while a van would drive into the compound with 30 people inside and on the roof screaming and pounding the sides of the van. It was one of the craziest spectacles I have ever seen.
I went home for dinner (which was to, okra sauce, and fish - the meal I eat every night at homestay). Following dinner, the DJ from earlier in the day had set up shop next to my friend Matthew's house. The next several hours were full of dancing (again, they love getting the 6 Americans in the village to dance in the middle of the circle!), and watching some amazing dancers. Ever since the night of this wedding, random people in our village have come up to me and said "I be se ka donke!" (You know how to dance!). Yup, that's right.
We will be leaving Sunday to visit the villages that we will be living and working in for the next two years, which I am sure will be an exciting and slightly awkward experience. Hopefully my Bambara will improve enough so that I can do more than just greet people. I will try to post some pictures soon to add some excitement to the blog! Hope all is well on the other side of the world, peace!
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