Things I learned at Site Visit

I spent four or five days at my permanent site last week, and it was really great - will give me some incentive not to starve to death during the rest of homestay. Which brings me to the first (and potentially most important) thing I learned at site visit. Malian food, it turns out, is not entirely terrible; it can actually be quite delicious. I guess my homestay family just has different taste than I do.
My village of Behon is 50 km but three hours by Bashi from Kita, on a red dirt road that comes off of a nicely paved road going to Manantali, which has a hydroelectric dam (second thing I learned at site visit). I am going to go visit that dam someday. So my village wants help building a dam, but I'm not convinced their river can be dammed. Third thing I learned (but I think this one isn't true): you don't really get schisto from running rivers. I'm going to go ahead an assume that's false - but during the rainy season, at least, I can't get to the other side of town without walking through it, so I'm just going to run really fast on my tiptoes.
My village is really, really cute. Lots of corn, lots of little round mud huts with thatched roofs and ONLY ONE DONKEY! Fourth thing I learned: Every time I see a donkey without a name I think about Shrek, which means that I think about Shrek in Mali approximately 300 times a day. Which is a lot more than I even thought about Shrek in the United States. There are a lot of trees, which is a blessing, and the most gigantic baobabs I've ever seen. I heard bees and I ate some honey, and my homologue said that the honey came from the baobab, but I didn't see any bees - but I think there might be boabab honey in village. It's delicious. Fifth thing I learned: Sagasaga doesn't come from baobab. It comes from ku.
Kita is a wonderful city. I got to spend some time there after we got done with our site visit. It is small enough to not be as overwhelming at Bamako, but big enough to have some things like a Tubab market that sells cookies and tuna fish (packed in water, because the PCVs requested it). I also hear that there is a bakery in town that sells real baked goods, but I have not yet experienced that. We have a PC stage house in Kita, so when I go to town I'll have someplace I can stay. Which is good, because it is going to be a come to town one day and leave the next kind of situation. We are kind of a ways from Kita, but the transport in and out is kind of inconvenient, so Meg and I are going to bike it. Like I said, there are a lot of trees, so there'll be plenty of shade to rest along the way. And coming in it'll be mostly downhill. (Which means, going back, it'll be mostly uphill.) And during mango season, there'll be snacks along the way, too. Which brings me to another thing I've learned in Mali, though not this last week. I love mangoes. Even if they don't taste good, I love them anyway. I still don't love papaya. But I may someday.
I have no cell service until I get to Kita, so I can't really be contacted very easily, but we'll figure that one out sometime.

I didn't think to bring my camera up today, but we'll have an extra day in Tubaniso before everybody leaves, so maybe I'll try again tomorrow to get it to download. Right now I have to go drink some water. Oh, by the way, I posted my new address on the edge of the blog over there. Anything that is in the mail now will get sent through the PC to my site eventually, but I won't be installed for another month, anyway. Today I got two letters, two envelopes, and a package slip - it was better than Christmas! Thanks, I love you guys.