Almost There

I just finished my last week at Home stay. It was kind of bittersweet leaving Banankoro. I really liked my family and the town was pretty cool despite the kids yelling Toubobu at you everywhere you went. I have lived with this family for the past 8 weeks and now I'm heading off to actually start doing what I came here to do. I think they were kinda sad to see me go too. They kept asking when I would be back and I told them I didn't know. Once I leave for site I won't be back in Bamako until January so I definitely won't see them before then. They told me they would call me and keep in touch. It will be fun though to come back and see them from time to time. Hopefully next year they host a trainee. We had a big dance for the village and cooked dinner for all our host families. We made fries and actually scrounged up some ketchup. My brother really liked the ketchup.
So now I'm just hanging out at Tubani So until Friday. I passed my language test and as far as I can tell I'm all set to swear in. Swear in will be at the Embassy. Very Formal event. Probably the one time I will wear a tie in Mali.
No big adventures to write about. At least none I can put up here without risking Admin Sep. I spent a good deal of today in the library watching movies and really bad Malian music videos.

So I thought maybe some of you might want to know how we're structured here in Mali. Basically all the trainees come in under one of five sectors. I'm here under Ag. The others are Water Sanitation, Natural Resource Management, Health, and Small Enterprise Development. What's really fun is having tech exchanges between 2 or more sectors. Say, for instance, I build a community garden and need a well dug I'll call a buddy in Water San and have him come down and help build a well. But that's how we're structured. Also USAID is big here and works with Peace Corps a lot.

Sidenote: Through my small network of people who read my blog, if anyone knows anyone who wants to do Agricultural research or development in West Africa, especially with potatoes, let me know.

Now for the Cross Cultural part of the program.
Malians have something called Joking Cousins. Basically it goes by what your last name is and what group you come from. I was a Coulibaly in Banankoro. There are a lot of Coulibalys so they are joking cousins with everyone. Here's a typical conversation.

Malian: I Togo?
Me: Coulibaly
Malian: Ah Coulibaly! Coulibaly A min! I be sho dun!
Me: N te sho dun. I be sho dun oko i bena boci cosebe cosebe.

English

Malian: Your name
Me: Coulibaly
Malian: Ah Coulibaly! Coulibalys are bad. You eat beans.
Me: I don't eat beans. You eat beans then you're going to fart a lot

I apologize to any fluent Bambara readers out there if my Bambara is a little off.

Saying someone eats beans is a hilarious insult to Malians, but you can call someone who is your joking cousin a donkey or even your slave. "Oh he's Traore, he's my slave" is not an uncommon expression. I stay away from that one. One might that think that after a few hundred years the eating beans joke would get old and tired. Nope! It still just as funny as it was when the pilgrims were settling America. At least to them. It took me about a week before I was like "oh yeah I eat beans. Great. Super." Smile on the outside, die a little bit on the inside.

I want to be careful though, of painting a negative picture on this thing. Malians are a very nice accommodating welcoming people. They love to joke and have fun and they really have been great. Even though they eat to. But seriously a lot of times blogs can turn into a place for PCV's to vent frustration which means they write about the bad stuff a lot and not enough about the good. Just keep that in mind if I ever go off on a nasty tangent.

So this is it. After Friday the official countdown will begin. T-minus 2 years and counting. Its going to be sad leaving for site. I probably won't see a lot of my fellow trainees for a very long time. But it will also be exciting to get going and get myself setup and be an actual volunteer.

Hope everything is going well in Ameriki.
Signing off from Mali, West Africa

TO (Pronounced Toe)

So this last week has been fairly uneventful. I say that with full knowledge that my definition of "normal" has drastically changed. I never thought that donkey cries at 3:00 a.m. or constantly trying to avoid donkey poop while walking or hearing a call to prayer every day or having to avoid a herd of cattle while walking down the main road in town would fit into my definition of normal. They get more of a reaction out of me now by serving beans with a meal than they do when I come home from class and my host mom is pounding millet topless. I guess I'm integrating well.
The other day we were riding into Bamako and we looked over at the car next to us and this lady was picking her nose. I mean she was really going to town on it and Brandon, a fellow trainee in Banankoro commented sarcastically, "at least she wasn't using her left hand because THAT would just be disgusting." I don't know, you probably had to be there to really find that funny, but it hit me just right and I laughed so hard I cried.
We were in class the other day talking about what a beautiful language Bambara is and how it sounds just like long fingenails on a chalkboard sometimes. Especially when mothers are yelling at kids. A little later we were at Becky's family's house and her mother was yelling at the kids and the comment was made, "Mm, hits your ear like a feather. Such a beautiful language. Hey is my ear bleeding?"

So I thought that since my week had been pretty boring as far as fun stuff to report on went, I would write about some other stuff that maybe got cut from previous posts. Which brings me to TO. I hate to. To is pounded millet (usually, but it can be made out of sorghum and corn sometimes) that is cooked and served in these grey balls of gooey evil. Also it is normally served with an okra sauce that looks and feels exactly like snot. Delicious.
Sidenote: There was a volunteer who used to call hooking up with Malian women "eating to for fun."

We're coming into the holiday season soon so keep your eyes out in Hallmark stores for handbags from Mali. There is a women's group who makes them and they got in touch with Hallmark (via Peace Corps) and Hallmark ordered maybe 100,000 of the bags.

Swear in is coming soon. I leave to go back to homestay this afternoon, but I'm only there for about a week at the most. Then Tubaniso for about another week and then swear in on the 21st. Then Dogon country for 2 years (where they eat to everyday for every meal). I am very ready to be a volunteer and no longer a trainee. My language test has me a little nervous, but I think I am ready for it.

So that's about all the news that's fit to print from West Africa. Some people wanted my mailing address. If you guys are sending things you might as well start sending them to


B.P. 15
Bandiagara, Mali
West Africa

Next time I promise pictures.