I Made It!

I made it to Africa!! Most of you know I left on the 17th for Philly for a few short days of orientation. It was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. I got to know a good portion of the volunteers going to Mali, but there were a lot of new names and faces and I still don't have them all down. We attended classes and orientation sessions during the day and then went out and enjoyed Philly into the wee small hours of the morning. On the 19th we packed up and left for Paris and then on to Africa. We arrived in Mali pretty late and all my doubts absolutely disappeared once I took my first step off that plane. PC was waiting for us right there and it is a good thing too because the airport was SO crowded and congested and you had to keep such a close eye on everything at all times. There were so many of us (80 all in all) that this was a very difficult task in such tight quarters. Outside there were PC volunteers and PC vehicles to take us to Tubaniso. This is where we are trained for the first 10 weeks. They welcomed us and showed us our quarters. I'm staying in the F bunks, or as we call it F-Troop. All the dudes in F-Troop are really cool and I hung with most of them in Philly so we already knew each other pretty well. Yes I am shitting in a hole in the ground. But we do have power. The days are very hot and this isn't even the hot season!. Most of our time is spent in training sessions. We eat bewteen 7:00 and 8:00 and at 8:00 start class and go until about 6:00 or 7:00 every night with a lunch break at noon. We keep busy. The food here is very good which I was worried about. Although it will happen to 90% of the trainees, none of us want a visit from "Mr. D" as the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) calls it. We all know its coming. "You are not a good PC trainee unless you make poop in your pants." So says the PCMO.

One funny thing I learned here is that apparently Euchre is a Midwest game. If a trainee is not from the Midwest they do not know how to play. REPRESENT!

I had my interview today that determines were in country I will be posted if and when I am sworn in as a volunteer. I told them I don't have any preference so they'll probably stick me way up in Dogon country which is 2 days travel from Bamako. But actually that would be pretty wild so eh I'll go where they need me. I also had my French test today. That took all of about 5 minutes because I don't know French. But even though French is the official language only maybe 20% of the country can speak it. Most likely I'll end up learning Bambara which is a tribal language that a good percetage of the country uses. I had a lesson in it yesterday and it will be tricky.
We are here at Tubaniso until Wednesday and then we head out to our homestay families. We live in these peoples houses with them for 2 weeks at a time for the next 9 weeks with sessions at Tubaniso every two weeks for 2 or 3 days. With our homestay families we eat meals with them and hang out like we are one of the family. This will be very interesting at first because none of us speak any of the language we will need to know in order to communicate with them. A lot of funny PC stories come from this part of their training. During the day we are with our LCF's and this is were we really get into the training. By the end of this time I SHOULD have the language and technical skills I will need to get started at my job as an official volunteer. So This might be the last entry on this for the next few weeks. There is a limited number of computers here and then when people hook up their laptops it can overload and crash and then nobody can get online. I will try to post during one of our breaks at Tubaniso, and maybe I will get a homestay family that is close to a computer lab. I don't know.
Hopefully pictures will come soon, but its kinda tricky to get them uploaded. I'll do what I can.
That's about it for now, its late here and I'm tired and have a lot to do tomorrow so I don't feel like proofreading this, I justed wanted to get something on here so that people knew I made it and am really really enjoying myself.

Adios from Tubaniso!!!
Brax

P.S.

I really appreciate the comments people leave on this thing. It really means a lot to me to know that people are reading this, but if you don't sign your name I can't tell who you are. So unless you want to be anonymous please remember to tell me who it is who is writing.

P.S.S.

We have a pet Gazelle and a pet Tortoise who just roam the grounds.