Out With the Old, In With the New

I can't believe I haven't put anything on this since June. Sorry about that, but really nothing too exciting has happened in the past few months. I was able to get about 180 trees donated to my village so I spent a few weeks giving those out and helping people plant and protect them. I will head back down to site tomorrow and see how many are still alive. Finger crossed they were well protected and if rains didn't come then people remembered to water them. We should have a healthy number of survivors.

I am pretty much 1 year in. I can honestly say I can feel it. I think from talking with volunteers that around the 1 year mark you definitely don't have that skip in your step that you had in the beginning. I can say that the past few months have not been the easiest for me. Its been the rainy season which also means its time to go to the fields. Village life is fun during this time. They ask you why you aren't going to the fields to farm so you go. Then they don't think you are able to do anything so you try. Then they tell you you are doing it wrong and they make you sit down. Then they tell you you are tired and should go home, so you go home. Then they yell at you for not going to the fields. Fun.

Its also COS (Close of Service) time for the group that came in the year before me. Its really reallt weird watching these guys go. Some of them I got to know really well and others not so much, but it officially means that my grouped are the veterans now and in no way do I feel like I deserve that title.
The new volunteers will finish their training in about 1 week and then they will be installed in their sites. We get 8 newbs up here in the Mopti region. I guess the only thing that really makes me feel like I have been here for a year is watching them and their struggles. Its kinda funny, but you have to help them out where you can cause you were where they are a year ago and Mali is a tough place to call home. And we all want them to stick around.

So my hour is about up at the computer lab and I think I have you all up to date. I had my midservice medical and found that I have ameobas. So all those stomach issues and dysentary that I've been dealing with since last March, we finally found the cause. They gave me medicine for them, but its potent stuff, and I will probably just get them again, so for now I am going to try and make friends with them and let them hang out for awhile.
Hopefully everyone is doing well at home. I'm missin it in a bad way right now.