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
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