First break from homestay!

The first few days of homestay have been rough. I’ve basically had at least one emotional breakdown a day for the first 4 days haha. And I even have an awesome host family. I have no idea how some of the other volunteers have handled it. It’s been culture shock to the extreme. We were basically thrown into a village without any skills other than the ability to say hello in their language. I’m with 7 other health volunteers in a town called Mountougoula. It’s about an hour outside of the capitol city Bamako. My host family is Diarra and my Malian name is Mase; after my host mom. Typically volunteers stay in a compound with a family ranging anywhere from 10-40 people living there. It’s pretty common for plural marriages to occur so having multiple wives and multiple kids really adds up. However with me, I live with what I like to call my “American Mali” family. My dad, Adama Diarra, is a French teacher at the local school who speaks a little English. I live with him and his wife and their 2 little boys, Booba (5 years old) and Amala (7 years old). There is also a girl named Sali who also lives with us but she’s a relative who helps cook, clean, take care of the boys, etc. Girls tend to marry young so it’s not uncommon for girls as young as 8 to take care of infants. I’m pretty sure Sali knows more about raising children, cooking, cleaning, etc than I ever will. She also finds it highly amusing that I’m basically a helpless 2 year old here. I can’t speak the language worth crap, I can’t cook for myself, I can’t clean my own clothes, and I rely on my host mom for everything. She’s basically my security blanket here. She peels and cuts my oranges, she deshells my peanuts, she cools off my tea, she makes sure I close my door and window each night, she makes sure I wear my sunscreen and a hat if I’m outside too long, she cleans my clothes, she answers questions for me if I don’t understand someone, she knows what I’m saying 90% of the time no matter how stupid I sound, and gets water for me to bathe in. Malians are super friendly and nice and we’re their guests so they really like to do everything for us. I think my mom is just used to having 2 little boys to take care of so one more girl doesn’t matter. haha When I’m with her I feel ok because she cares for me so well, but as soon as she leaves me alone with people I start to freak out. It’s like my interpreter leaves haha My host dad on the other hand probably thinks I’m the biggest idiot in the world. He tries talking to me but I have no idea what he says 90% of the time unless he speaks English. Even then it’s a little iffy with his heavy accent. Also, all they hear is mostly European English which is different from American English…obviously.

Mon-Saturdays mostly consist of my mom waking me up around 6:45am. She then gets me a bucket of warm water for me to bucket bathe with….which I’ve known gotten pretty good at! After bathing I eat breakfast with my mom which usually consists of bread and lipton tea. Before Mali, I was never a huge tea drinker except for really sweet tea. Not so anymore. You never really see Malians drink water. But you sure do see them drinking tea!! The Lipton tea in the morning is my favorite because of the amount of sugar put in it. It never actually tastes like tea…just sugar and a little bit of orange she squeezes into it. The other tea they drink throughout the day is a REALLY strong, bitter green tea. They brew the leaves 3 times so by the 3^rd time it’s usually sweet enough for me to be able to handle it. Which everyone finds hilarious that the 1^st batch is too strong for me. That’s another thing, Malian humor is completely different than American. In Mali there’s this system called “Joking Cousins”. It started a long time ago to keep peace between families in Mali and is actually really effective from what I can tell. Basically everyone has a certain family name that they joke with. My last name is Diarra so when I come across a Coulibali I would call him or her a donkey, dog, etc or say that he/she eats beans. They would retaliate with something similar and everyone laughs and has a great time. I mean, literally all I have to say is Coulibali be sho dun kosobe and I’ll have like 5 Malians on the ground laughing. I’ve learned to just laugh even when I don’t find it funny. They would never understand dry humor so I might as well learn to laugh with them.

Anyway, so because of this strong tie to family names, people don’t fight among themselves. I feel like America should try this out. One of my language instructors said he got into a 3 car accident but no one owed anyone money because they joked it off. Imagine how much nicer America would be! Haha

So yea, after breakfast I go to class for 4 hours where I either learn language (Bambara) or health training. Then we all go home for lunch and then have more class in the afternoon. Dinner is usually at 7 or 8 and then bed at 9 or 9:30. Being surrounded by a new language 24/7 really wears you out.

My food has actually been pretty decent compared to other volunteers. Usually I’ll have rice with sauce and meat for lunch and then either macaroni noodles, or potatoes with meat for dinner. Since I’m the guest and hold a position of honor, I eat with my host dad for lunch and dinner. Traditionally women eat with women and men with men. Also they eat communal style meaning one big bowl everyone sits around and uses their RIGHT hand to eat with. The left hand is reserved for special tasks such as picking your nose or wiping your butt (not joking). Needless to say, whatever concerns I had about germs went away super fast. Haha

But I really do have it easy because my parents make sure everyone washes their hands and makes sure to keep things as clean as possible. Oh yea, and did I mention we eat dinner in front of cable TV everynight? Yea, that’s right, I’m in the middle of Africa with electricity and TV. Haha They use a generator so reception is kinda sketchy and it’s all in French so I understand like nothing but still. While other volunteers sit around in the dark trying to communicate I’m plopped down on my butt on a couch watching tv. J

On the more negative side of things or things I’ve had to adjust to is the amount of trash everywhere. I have yet to see a trashcan and if there is one I’m pretty sure they just dump it on the ground when it’s full. Malians don’t use a lot of paper products like TP or Kleenex but there’s still plastic bags, and other things all over the place. And what’s worse is that all that garbage is what the kids play with! You’ll see little 5 year olds playing with sharp aluminum lids to cans or sticking pieces of plastic in their mouths. A lot run around barefoot so I can only imagine how many germs they’ve picked up. It’s also not uncommon to see children running around half naked. And it’s always the bottom half that’s exposed. You’d think that that would at least be somewhat of an important area to keep clean but apparently not. Once again though, my family is really good at keeping Amala and Booba clean, clothed and trash free. I feel like my parents should teach classes on how to raise clean, healthy children…

Also, animals walk around everywhere so there’s always poop everywhere. And the donkeys make this horrible noise that sounds like their dying all day long. It’s not a great way to be woken up all the time. And besides the animal noises, there’s the call to prayer 5 million times a day. Literally it goes off anywhere from 2-5 times staring at 5AM in 15-30 minute intervals. Then around noon they have another 1-2 calls. Then another 3-4 around 7-8pm. Then I think periodically they feel the need to throw random ones in throughout the day/night just to make sure people really are praying. Although the only time I’ve ever seen/heard anyone pray is on Friday when my host dad goes to the mosque to pray. Otherwise I think people just ignore it. If only I was able to do that!

Before coming here in my mind I pictured Africa as this cool exotic place I’ve always wanted to go and now I can’t help thinking “why did I ever want to come here???” And I mean that in the best way possible. I think it would be better if I felt like I was doing something but right now all I’m doing is sitting in language classes 6 hours a day 6 days a week. I’m just hoping I can make it through this homestay part and then start feeling useful once I make it to site and am working.

I’ll try to post some pictures from homestay on Facebook later if internet lets me. I’ll be here at the training camp until Wednesday morning when we go back for another 12 days to homestay. I’m picking up the language faster than I thought so hopefully by the next time I’ll have a lot more positive mood! Haha also I typed this really fast so sorry if there’s any mistakes. My hands are cramping from typing so much so fast…

First Two Days!!

So this is a post from the first two days in Mali!!

The first night in Africa!! We've spent the last 36 hours traveling to get here. We arrived at 8:50pm and got to exit the plane using stairs that lead directly to the ground. The air was warm and had a dirt smell to it (which apparently is a burnt wood smell). By the time I reached pavement I was ready to do a happy dance! haha We're staying for the next 6 days just outside the capitol inside the Peace Corps compound while we get orientated and separated for training. We're separated into hut groups to stay in and I'm in a hut with 2 other girls. We sleep in beds that have mosquito nets on them which is slightly disturbing to be 'closed' into your bed. Besides the beds, there is nothing else in the room. We have toilets outside called "negens" pronounced sort of like nyagens which are just holes in the ground that you squat over. There's cement walls around them and doors with locks with I guess is better than out in the middle of nowhere. We have a pump outside for water, however we don't drink that water since it's not filtered. The drinking water is in the cafeteria. We have showers, but they're a little iffy on pressure so I showered from a bucket. It wasn't so bad. haha I'll have to do that at my site so I might as well get used to it. There's electricity in our huts so we have a light and a fan, so I sort of feel like we're being pampered before being sent out into the wilderness. Although some volunteers will have electricity and water because they'll be in the larger city. I found out we'll be getting cell phones which will enable us to text and call anyone in Mali as well as anyone in the world. It'll cost a little bit of money, but it is reassuring that even if I don't have electricity or water, I'll still be able to communicate.
After these 5 days we'll be sent into a village with around 6 other volunteers to go through the 3 month training program. We'll all be learning the same language in that village but won't necessarily be in the same sectors. With my group, there are 3 different sectors here; small enterprise development, health education, and environment. After the 3 months we'll be placed at our official sites which most likely won't be with other volunteers.
The food so far is pretty normal. Potatoes with green beans, spaghetti, and bread. They say alot of what we'll eat is millet. They also say girls tend to gain weight while guys tend to lose weight. Fantastic.
It's all pretty exciting still right now although some of what they say make us really nervous still. The rest of this week will mostly be for vaccinations, language placement, and more orientation stuff.
I'll try to take pictures to post sometime in the next few days!

Oh, and we have to post a disclaimer on all our blogs. So here's mine:
Anything I post on here does not reflect Peace Corps ideas or opinions. They are simply my own and you should not take them seriously and judge Peace Corps by them or Mali. :)