12 days in the 3rd world

Greetings Friends,

 

So I had my first real taste of life in Mali over the last 12 days. I'm not going to count the first 5 days in the country since they were spent with the luxuries of native English speakers, running water, electricity, and the inter-web machine. Anyways, things are going quite well.  I spent nearly 2 weeks with my host family in a little village called Soundougouba Coura.  It was certainly stressful at times, especially considering my family doesn't speak English, but my Bambara is getting better everyday and although we struggle to communicate at times, my host family is great. 

My host father's name is Madou  Diarra and my host mother is Animata. They have 8 kids, ages ranging from 21 to 7 months old.  In case you're interested their names are Sita (female 21), Moma (female 18), Alieu (Male 16), Fatima (Female 15), Bafe (Male 13), Jemene (Female 10), Prinze(Male 4), Brahme (male 7months).  Moma has a child as well. Her name is Fanta (yes, like the soda) and she is 4 months. And yes, that means Fanta's uncle is Brahme and he is 3 months older than his niece.  As you might imagine the compound is rather lively. They also have 2 cows, a bunch of chickens, a dog and a cat.  The compound is roughly 40 yards by 30 yards enclosed on all sides by a mud brick wall. There are 3 mud brick structures on the compound and I have my own room. 

 

My average day goes as such... I'll wake up around 7am and they'll feed me breakfast which is usually bread with mayonnaise (amazingly it never goes bad), a rice based porridge called siri which is quite good, and hot tea. I walk to language class for 8am where I study Bambara, or Bamanankan as Malians call it. We (me and the 6 other volunteer trainees in this village) have class from 8 till 12 then return home for lunch.  I go back for class at 2:30 and it'll last until 5:30. I then return home and enjoy a nice cool bucket bath... no running water here. We usually eat dinner around 7 or 7:30.  Malian food isn't bad but they don't have much in the way of variety. they also love salt and MSG which has already started to get old, but oh well. I usually eat all my meals with my host brother, Alieu. After dinner, I'll sit with the family and try to work on my Bambara.  From time to time we have technical training sessions, but for the most part we're focused on the language during this stage. 

 

So my days are full but the routine is pretty simple. I've never had a language immersion like this and it's amazing how quickly I'm picking up an entirely foreign language with no ties to English. I'd say I learned more in 2 weeks here than I would have in an entire college semester, at the very least.  I did have my first bout with intestinal parasites which made for a couple interesting days, but I'm fully recovered and my system is that much more acclimated to Africa.

I returned to the training compound, Tubani So (which means house of doves by the way) yesterday and I'll be here till Wednesday morning. Then it will be another 12 days with my host family.  I'm still taking things one day at a time and looking forward to improving my Bambara as I'll be placed in my permanent village in early April... then the real fun begins.  Hope all is well in your lives.  Keep me posted on what's going on back home.

 

K'an ben kofe

 

Rege

I ni sogoma! I ka kene?

Greetings,

 

I ni sogoma! I ka kene? or Good morning and how are you? in Bambara. Today is already my fourth day in Mali and I've been kept very busy. We usually wake up around 7am and wash up a bit then go down for breakfast.  Breakfast here usually consists of tea, bread, peanut butter sauce and jam. At 8 we start our sessions and aside from an hour and a half lunch break we go till 5:30.  Some of the sessions we've had so far are Bambara lessons, cross cultural training, diversity training, safety and security, malaria training, bike repair training, and food and water preparation/diarrhea training... oh yeah, it's gonna happen.  I'm not gonna lie, training is definitely stressful at times but I'm loving the challenge. Tomorrow, we find out where are homestay (host family) will be and then Tuesday morning I'll get to meet them and pretty much get adopted by them. Odds are I'll be living with a big family including some extended family members like grandmothers. Malian men often take 2 or 3 wives so there will most likely be a lot of children as well.  It's still fairly cool here but I understand that hot season comes on strong in late February so I'm trying to prepare myself for that. While we stay with our host families for the next 2 and a half months we'll still have classes 8 hours out of the day. I'll be concentrated on learning bambara, environmental sector training, and cultural training. After about 9 weeks (and assuming the Peace Corps is satisfied with my cultural, technical, and language skills) My days of being a PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) will end and I'll be sworn in as a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer). Tomorrow will be the last day I have regular internet access for pretty much the next 27 months.  I do return here to Tubani So every 2 weeks throughout the 9 weeks of pre-service training. Once I'm a volunteer I'll get about 3 days a month where I can go to a regional Peace Corps house and have internet, real showers and some other western accommodations.  Point being, if you want to communicate anything with me you should try to do so by late Monday afternoon.

 

Oh, and I have been issued my cell phone and you can contact me from the States if you'd like.  There are 2 main cell carriers in Mali, Malitel and Orange. As such, I have a phone number for both. So, if you're going to call, the first thing you want to do is get a calling card. I understand the best rate you can get is from callingcards.com  The website is very easy to use. There's a box that will prompt you to pick what country your calling from. obviously that's America, (unless your name is Finian) When you go to pick your calling destination, make sure you click Mali Cellular. Then you can buy the card online and they'll email you the pin number or whatever. The going rate is 0.17/minute. So you have to dial the numbers the phone card says, then  011 to dail out of the U.S. then 223 to dial Mali. then my number: 77286460(Orange) or 64654547 (Malitel). Different regions get better or worse coverage with either carrier. For the time being only use Orange. If I go to an area where malitel is better, I'll let you know So... to clarify, follow the directions on your calling card, then 011 223 77286460.  Like I said, I wont have regular internet access after tomorrow so it'll be hard to make prearranged calls so just try to remember that i'm 5 hours ahead of you. Between 4 and 5pm eastern standard time would probably be best for me. Well, i've been hogging this computer for awhile so I gotta run.

 

Ka tile here caya, May you have a good day

 

Rege

My 2nd (Full) Day in Mali

Greetings all,

I'm sure you're all wandering what it's like where I'm at and what I'm doing
so I'll try to give you a base description.  I'm staying at a training
compound called Tubani So. It's 7 hectares of land which is a little over 17
acres. All 60+ volunteers as well as a training staff of about 30 are
staying here. Most of the Training staff are Malian and they are incredibly
warm and welcoming hosts. We're all staying in huts while we're at this
compound. They are made of cement and have thatched roofs. I'd say they have
a diameter of 15 feet and the thatched roof goes up in a cone shape so there
is plenty of room to stand.  We sleep 3 to a hut and there's just about
enough room for 3 cots and a little table. The compound and the huts have
electricity. There's also a large brick building where we come for meals
(and internet) as well as numerous outdoor "hangars" where we have our
classes and training sessions. We will be here until Tuesday and then we
will go to our host families. All the host families will be concentrated in
9 different villages or neighborhoods in and around the Bamako area, so
there will be somewhere between 5 and 8 volunteers very near by. After
Tuesday we'll spend most of our time with the host families but we will come
back to Tubani So every week or 2. Yesterday, we did a lot of sessions on
basic safety, security, and personal health.  All in all it was pretty
easy.  Today, however, things start to kick into high gear. Most of the next
4 days will be spent learning Bambara, the most prevelant language spoken
here, as well as cultural training.  We do have running well water here and
you can take a shower. The toilets however, are... shall we say interesting,
haha. Imagine an outhouse with a hole in the middle of the floor and nothing
else save a bucket of water... I'll just leave it at that.  The weather has
been beautiful here the last couple days and I actually needed a blanket
last night. It's a fleeting luxury though as the cool dry season will soon
be ending and the hot season will soon begin.  I heard that last year they
had 40 straight days of 120+ degrees...so, that should be interesting to say
the least.  During the hot season, people generally work till 9 or 9:30 am
and then find a tree to sit under until 4 or 5.  I haven't seen too many
animals yet, just some birds and some frogs. You do hear exotic bird calls
constantly and they say there are monkeys that live in this area as well as
scorpions and snakes. I guess they live further in the bush and don't come
out too much. I haven't seen them yet anyways.  Well, breakfast is about to
begin and I have a long day ahead of me so I'll leave it there for now.


Peace and Love

Rege