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
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