Update

I made it to site visit and spent a few days meeting everyone and seeing where I’d be working and what I’d be doing. I also did a lot of thinking about my time here and Peace Corps. And I’ve decided to come home to America. It’s not that site visit wasn’t good or people weren’t nice; the opposite actually. Everyone was super nice and welcoming to me. It’s just that I wasn’t happy and I couldn’t see myself being here for two years. I’ve been unhappy for most of my time here but mostly out of culture shock. However, while I was at site visit I realized I was no longer “in shock”. I was simply unhappy and with no reason to be unhappy. I’ve had only great experiences so far. An awesome host family, a good counterpart, a good site, I’m picking up the language quickly, I’ve made good friendships with the other trainees, yet I’m still unhappy. Peace Corps is hard, especially in a place like Africa. Some people love it and can handle it, others can’t. I never really thought I’d ever be a part of the “others” category; but I am.

I could stick it out and continue on, but it wouldn’t be fair to anyone. My community deserves a volunteer who’s going to be excited about the work and look forward to sharing cultures and above all, be happy to be there. Those are all things I am not. Peace Corps deserves a volunteer who represents America well and who will be worth all the money and time spent on them. It’s hard for a community to replace a volunteer once they’ve been installed so I’m leaving to go back to America now where hopefully I can find a job I’m excited and happy to work at and my community will hopefully be able to get a replacement volunteer. I could’ve probably stayed longer and stuck it out but I want to make it as easy as possible for my community to get another volunteer. I at least owe them that. Also, with me being unhappy, I wouldn’t be the best representation of America that they need to see.

So tomorrow morning I’ll go into Bamako and then they’ll let me know when I’ll be leaving. They’re hoping to get a flight out for me by tomorrow evening. So I’ll be back in America in 2-3 days.

I want to thank everyone for the support they’ve given me over the past few months (before I left and while I was here) and I just hope you all can understand why I’m leaving and that you don’t judge me too much. Thanks again for everything.

Love,

Jasmin

Farafina

I'm back from our second round at homestay. Here are random stories that happened while at homestay!

On the way back to homestay we stopped at a Tubab store (white person store) and I bought Nutella. It was sort of expensive but it's worth it. I eat it on basically everything for a snack haha
Homestay is getting easier each day I'm here. Partly because I'm slowly starting to understand people more and partly because I'm simply getting used to everything and overcoming culture shock. Now I understand like 50% of what they say opposed to the 10% from last time. haha But that all depends on how fast people talk and whether they have all their teeth. Some of the older people only have like 5 teeth (exaggeration) and so when they talk I understand about 5% of what they say. But usually they're just greeting me or giving me a blessing so I just answer with "Nse" or "Amiina" and hope that covers it all. :) My family has starting asking me what word are in English and it's really funny to hear them pronounce English words. It makes me wonder what I sound like to them when I speak Bambara....haha

Side note: we found out that the word "Africa" in Bambara is "Farafina" which literally translated means "black skin place". I found it highly amusing. :) Also, some of the children like to call us "Tubabo" which means white person which gets really annoying at times. Also, if you think about it, it's sort of rude. I mean, in America if I went around yelling "black person!" I'd get shot. Not so here. So I've started yelling "black children!" back at them. It makes me feel better and they have no idea what I'm saying so I feel like it's a win win solution..haha ;)

My family has two donkeys and one was super fat...or so I thought it was fat. Which I thought was weird because animals in Africa aren't really fat; they tend to always look like they could keel over and die at any moment but this donkey looked like it had alot of meat on its bones. Until one morning I woke up and found a new born baby donkey walking around. It was so cute and fluffy I took a million pictures of it which made everyone laugh. Baby animals aren't a new exciting thing for them. I felt like such a city girl...

Exciting note! We finally got our bikes! We've been hitchhiking/walking to go visit people in other villages so we're stoked to have bike to be able to get there faster! Although we still do hitch hike because riding your bike over bumpy, dirty, sandy, gravely, unpaved roads does a toll on your body. My bike seat isn't so comfortable and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have bruises on my butt for the next 2 years. haha Also, Malians have no concept for personal space so they literally will ride their motorcylces or big trucks like 2 inches from where your riding your bike. I've already had like 7 minor heartattackes from trucks flying past me. But we have bikes!!

I'm slowly becoming accustomed to having people stare 24/7 at us. Children love to just come stand around and stare at us for hours on end. After class sometimes a few of us will go sit under a tree and hang out and after about 10 minutes there'll be like 7 kids just standing around watching us speak English. Personally I'd be bored listening to someone I don't understand but apparently it's enterntainment for them.

We've done alot of technical health training this past homestay visit. We learned how to make this porridge that is used for children who have dangerously low birth weights as well as learning how to do baby weighings. We also did a mural painting at the local health clinic. Since alot of people are illiterate paintings help teach them without using words. We drew a painting about the 3 food groups (we only teach 3 in Mali) and washing your hands before eating.

I taught my little brothers how to high five and now that's all they want to do. Over and over and over and over. I've gotten to the point where all I am required to do is hold up my hands and they'll do the slapping. In the future I'll rethink trying to teach them anything that could potentially be annoying in the future. haha

I've found out my family isn't afraid of spiders. There was one on the wall the other night that was literally the size of my palm and I pointed it out and they simply shooed it outside. Pretty sure my face showed clearly my shock and disbelief that they didn't kill it. It's just going to come back inside!! And now it'll have a vengence against me...

My host mom sews for a living (along with selling beauty supplies imported from Europe) and has a little "shop" beside the house. Once the other volunteers in the village found that out they've started having her make them traditional clothing. I finally found some cool fabric I like so hopefully she'll be able to make me an outfit soon. The sewing machine she uses looks like one of those old ones you see in musuems. You have to manually push the foot pedal up and down to turn the wheel which makes the machine work. Pretty sure I'm not coordinated enough to be able to do that haha But I'm sure my mom (in America) would have no problem. :)

Sunday March 6, 2011. 3:23AM.
I'm woken up by a strange sound. It sounds like someone is throwing something on my tin roof. I take out my earplugs and it gets louder. It sort of sounds like rain....but it's not rainy season so I don't think it's supposed to rain yet. I finally get out of bed and open my door and it takes me a few seconds to realize that it really is rain!! There was a cool breeze along with it so I stood out in it for a little while enjoying the relief from the heat we've had.
Downside of rain...humidity. It's been relatively cloudy for a few days but it's felt so thick it's hard to breathe. I feel like I'm sitting in my own pool of sweat 24/7. Fantastic.

Yesterday was national women's day (or something to that affect) so they had a big celebration in town and had singing and dancing and important people speaking. Lauren, Hannah and I showed up together and as soon as they spotted us white people they immediately chased us down and made us dance. It was rather embarrassing to dance in front of 200 people. And then my family made fun of me the rest of the night and mimicked my moves. haha

We find out about site placements later today so I'll finally know where I'll be living for the next 2 years after training! I'll be sure to update you all on it as soon as I find out.