First 19 Days in Africa

I've been in Africa for just about 3 weeks now, the first week of which I spent in a place called Tubaniso which is the Peace Corps training center in Mali and has showers and Americanized cuisine. It's been the base camp for budding friendships which have started on our common interests and gastrointestinal issues. I've found the the glue that keeps the Peace Corps together is poo jokes and it's really thing that keeps you going when you realize that you're spending a significant amount of your day running to the bathroom.

My group of 66 departed from Tubaniso and went to our home-stay villages for 12 days where we began the intense language training. I'm learning Bambara, the native language in Mali. My home-stay village is named Soundougouba and is about 30 kilometers north of Bamako, the capital. The village has a population somewhere in the vicinity of 1000 people and has a farm based community. I'm there with 6 other trainees.

When we first arrived, the villagers set up a welcoming ceremony centered on native music and dancing. It was quite nice but quickly turned awkward when they made all of the toubobs (their version of gringo) dance with them. After dancing, or attempting to dance with the villagers we gave the Dugutigi (who is the chief of the village) kola nuts which in Mali is a sign of gratitude. We were then introduced to our host families.

My host father's name is N'tji Diara and he was very excited to meet me when I arried. All of the trainees were given traditional Malian names, mine is Mari Diara after my host father's father. N'tji speaks French and Bambara but our level of communication has been low due to my lack of understanding in both. However, I'm beginning to get the hang of it and gain an understanding of the sentence structure which is quite different from English. Everything seems backwards, but there is very little verb conjugation so it makes it a bit easier. It really makes me realize how hard it must be to learn English.

I live in the same concession as my host father and his family. It's one of the largest in the village. There is a pump right outside the entrance which is where I get my water for drinking and bucket baths. The villagers start pumping on it around 5 in the morning and don't stop until about 9 at night. This ends up dictating my sleeping schedule because it's really loud. I live in a small one room hut on the corner of the concession that unfortunately is very poorly ventilated. Usually it's about 95 degrees in my room and unbelievably humid. Sleeping has been the roughest part of my stay because the lack of moving air causes it to stay blazing hot into the night even when it's cool outside. The weather as a whole hasn't been that bad. It gets hot during the day and the humidity is a bit of a pain, but the nights are cool and enjoyable.

The surrounding area of Soundougouba is punctuated by large red and purple rock formations that I frequently climb around on with some of the other trainees. The views from the top are outstanding and it's a good way to escape after spending eight hours struggling to learn Bambara and another two or three sitting with my host family trying to understand what my host mom or sisters are saying to me...which usually ends in them laughing at my attempts to respond. Everyone is incredibly patient though and very helpful with my language learning, but they let me hear it when I butcher a sentence. That's all for now, I hope everyone is well back home.

Also, I'll post pictures in another 12 days when I get back, I forgot to bring my camera this morning.