David's favorite place

Today we went on a field trip to David's favorite place in Mali. A gigantic waterfall. Pictures are forthcoming (within the year, I'd imagine). It was beautiful. Some parts of Mali, it turns out, are really nice. We also went to a women's association Shea butter production facility, which turned out a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. And the funny part is that we learned that all the pictures that softsoap puts on their shea hand washes aren't really shea nuts at all! Anyway, I'll be at homestay for the next twenty days, and then everybody will want to be online, so in about a month, expect another update. Until then, be safe, healthy, and happy. And try to stay out of trouble.

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.

Kelly in Kita

(Any or all of this may be corrected when the real Kelly gets a chance to write her own blog!)

I just spoke to Kelly. Actually, several times that I tried to call her I got someone else. I was very careful about the phone number, but it wasn't Kelly on the other end, and I don't think they were speaking English, or French for that matter. Kelly said others have commented on that problem. So she called me and we stuck with that again.

For the last week she has been in the village that she will be living in, Behon. She says it is beautiful. She will be living in two little round huts with thatch roofs. Unfortunately, there is a finished ceiling under the thatch roofs, so Kelly's huts are pretty hot. She may end up sleeping outside (under her mosquito netting) just to be cool. One is a sleeping hut and one is a cooking hut. She said there is a little passage way between the huts that she has to bend over to go through. She spent about 3 hours yesterday shoveling mud out of her bathroom. It has a cement floor, but the walls are mud. But, it is her own private bathroom.

She has a host family in Behon, but apparently only the father speaks French and he was gone for part of the week, so communication has been somewhat primitive. So, what's new?!? They are very nice and she is pleased.

Kelly's village is about 5 kilometers away from another village, maybe named Bagari Baya. A friend of hers lives there. Kita is about 50 kilometers away and another friend lives there.

Kelly is delighted with Kita. It seems to have a lot to offer and the people are very friendly and helpful. She hopes to get there pretty regularly, for grocery shopping and such.

She sounded very good - happy and laughing. Made my heart feel good!

Quick Round Two

First, I’d like to mention that I’m having a terrible time getting envelopes. I live in a VERY rural town where the people aren’t really literate and there isn’t a thriving interest in pen-pal relationships, and there isn’t a post office in village and since somewhere along the line someone messed up and we don’t have bikes yet, we’re kind of stuck here. Especially since I think the closest town is only a few miles away, but my host family laughed uproariously at the idea that I would walk there, so I decided to trust them over me. Of course, who knows what they were actaully laughing at – I could easily just have had rice on my face. Or even without that, just the way I look ordinarily is apparently pretty hilarious. Discussion lately has centered around my freckles. Which are growing. I am starting to look like Mr. Needham here. And which are somehow associated in the Malian mind with flies. I’m a little confused as to the connection.

Site Assignment

I actually made a post yesterday, and maybe it'll show up, too. If not I'll fill in later. We got our site assignments today. I am going to be near Kita, in the Kayes region. I am going to be 5k away from another PCV from my stage, and her town is my market town. She is actually from Boulder, so we are going to hook our parents up and send them out to lunch together. Then our banking town is, indeed, Kita, and another really great PCV is going to be there, so we'll see her often, too. And, she has a REFRIGERATOR! I'll have my own place, right next door to my host family. I'll be replacing somebody who was well liked and really liked her village and the work they did with her. And best of all, Sam and Mark are in my same region. They are kind of far away in my same region, but we'll be able to visit, and we'll get together for regional training things, too. Kita is considered the peanut capital of Mali (peanuts equal protein!!!) and apparently it is really pretty and lots of fun things to do. Well, back to homestay for a week - more later...

A little slice of heaven

We have had a couple days here in Tubaniso between stints at our homestays, and it has truly been a little slice of heaven. Homestay may in the end prove useful, but it does indeed make Field Camp seem like a luxury resort spa vacation at Disney World that I would enter multiple sweepstakes for the opportunity to go to. Every year for the rest of my life.

My homestay is in a little village called Kabe. There are 800 people there, and I would imagine twice that many donkeys. Some of the other trainees have things like bars and pools and internet cafes in their homestay sites; we are lucky when we have bread at the boutiki. But what that means for us is that we are going to be rich by the time we get done with homestay, because we cannot buy anything, because there is nothing to buy. And, unfortunately, PC was a little tardy with the bikes this year so we are stranded in our village - can't even make it to the next town over to visit or buy or do anything.

I almost called it for good about halfway through this first homestay stint, but things have gone much better since. The language is progressing just fine - Bambara is interesting - there are no conjugations and no declensions. But unfortunately for me, I tested as an intermediate-level French speaker, which equals that my Bambara classes are taught in French, which I don't actually speak at all, much less to an intermediate level. We have one woman in our class who, though she speaks French, is painfully slow, though, so it works out for me because by the time she has begun to figure anything out, I've pieced together what the French means.

I live in a family that I am now starting to think is less multiple wives and more lots of aunts, but I still am having some interesting times trying to figure out. And Malians aren't actually the least bit helpful when it comes to that, because they just claim all children as their own and such. We have recently had a lice outbreak in our concession, but so far I seem to be safe. Lucky for me I am the anti-toucher (which the children don't really like and I think is a sign of a bad PCV, but I'm just going to go ahead and be that way) so I haven't been in too much direct contact with those children. I had a friend, Awa, who I liked a lot (as much as you can like a nine year old you can't communicate who the only reason she is your friend is that you know her name and she doesn't shout directly into your face all the time) but she disappeared somewhere and every time I ask what happened to her they are so amazed that I constructed a complete sentence that they just run around repeating it to each other. Either that or I'm saying something else that doesn't make sense and they don't know that I am asking them a question.

The food is pretty truly atrocious. I would not have guessed that it would be possible for food to be so bad. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a real Malian restaurant, don't do it. Really. Just don't.

We're also doing some technical training with our entire sector, which is a blessing because we get to see some other people every once in a while. We have "prepared" and planted a little garden, which we completely abandoned for the last several days, and we will again for ten days in a week, and so we'll see how that works out.

That, though, brings me to an interesting point. The more I am here, the less I understand what I, and PC in general, am doing here. If I ever figure that out I'll be sure to let you know. Maybe things will become more clear when we get to our permanent sites.

A little bit of bad news here, and I think Jim will appreciate this more than most, but for the time being, Timbuktu is off-limits to PCVs, so unless things stabilize in that region, I may not even be able to go see it. And, really, what would be the sense in being in Mali for two years and not going to Timbuktu? I just don't know. But Mali is reportedly a pretty stable place, so hopefully things'll calm down.

We have our site assignments this afternoon, so it is potential that I can get back on here before I go back to homestay and let you know where I'll be spending the next two years, but don't hold your breath, for sure.

Have a great day, I'm thinking of all of you (probably a lot more than I do in the US!) and miss you all very much.

A Call from Kelly

Kelly called briefly this morning. She is in Tubaniso - the training center -for a couple of days, but their internet is down, so no e-mails or blog updates. And, her phone was short of power, so it shut down shortly after we started talking.

She sounds a little hungry. I think she has been subsisting on rice, and recently, peanuts. Sure hope she took some multi-vitamins with her!

Hopefully we'll hear more soon. the Mom