Brax in Frica

One Last Post

2009-12-02T03:47:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure if many of you know, or if anyone is still reading this, but I have been back from my African adventure for about 2 months now. I thought I’d write one more post on this thing and sort of bring the whole thing to an end.

I get a lot of questions when I see people out and about. The most common one has to be “How was it?” I’m not sure why people ask this and I never know how to answer it. It was great. It was terrible. I made friends. I lost friends. I met people and got to know them over two years and became closer with them than I am with people I’ve known 15 years. I’ve seen people at their absolute best and at their absolute worst. I lived in a place that in no way compares to anything I knew before I left. So it’s kind of hard to sum all this up into a compact 30 second answer. Any longer than that and I see people start to lose interest. It’s frustrating.

Another common one is “Was it hard coming back?” Or “Was it hard to readjust to America?” It was harder leaving Africa than it was coming back to America. I was gone two years, but America hasn’t changed THAT much. Honestly it wasn’t that hard getting back into the swing of things. In fact I could probably jump right back in where I left off if I wanted to. And I kind of notice people expect me to do that on some levels. I had a phone conversation with a friend of mine and she told me that it would’ve been very easy for her to just forget about the two years of her service and pick up life in America, but she didn’t want to do that. And I don’t think any of us really do. So I guess the hard part is finding the balance between your life in America and the life you had in Africa. Those two years happened. But you have to figure out where the balance is between where you are now and where and who you were there. And for me it feels like I have to let go of something in a way. I can tell you that leaving Mali was a lot harder than leaving the U.S. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why this is. My friend Natalie summed it up well in her blog. I hope she doesn’t mind if I steal a bit from her.

How many times in your life do you leave a place you love behind? I don’t mean places like a beautiful beach you visited on vacation or an overlook that you passed on a trip somewhere that you took out your camera and took lots of pictures of. I don’t even mean a city that you fell in love with on a trip, an exotic place unlike any you’d visited before and became one of your favorite places. I’m talking about the places that have hurt you, where you’ve fallen and almost couldn’t get up, but when you did you came to like yourself and the place that much more for challenging you; or a place where you have memories of joy and sadness, where you’ve cried your eyes out and also laughed with abandon until you almost cried as well.

I guess the thing I miss a lot about Mali is the feeling that your really living life. The highs are super high and the lows are super low. Here in America people get so caught up in mundane things like bills and work and errands and all the things that go into daily life here. It can become mundane if you’re not paying attention. There you work your ass off to make sure your family has enough to eat and if you live through each day and wake up the next morning you chalk that one up in the win column. And that’s about all there is to it. There’s not much worry about clothing for the Fall season, or celebrity gossip, or even the economy, but there is happiness in the village that I have yet to find here. It’s peaceful.

I also miss the volunteers I served with. We were a pretty close group and we made excuses TO see each other. Over here people have excuses NOT to see each other. “I have the kids” or “Got work tomorrow” are my two favorites. Americans get too busy living life that they forget to LIVE life.

So I guess will about wrap it up. I could go on longer, but e-mails and Facebook are probably calling your attention away. If you want to hear more I’m always ready to chat about Mali. It’s been a great two years. I’ve enjoyed reading your comments on this thing and they helped get me through during some bad times.

I still have trouble accepting things with my left hand and for some reason a sense of dread still comes over me when my cell phone dies. I still have to fight back the urge to bargain with cabbies and I’m trying to shower every day. I’ll get there, but I guess some habits stick with you.

I ni ce

K’an ben

High Five!!!

2009-08-24T10:31:00.003-04:00

Views of My Home for the Last 2 Years

2009-08-23T12:14:00.002-04:00

Saying Goodbye

2009-08-22T07:38:00.007-04:00

2009-06-06T04:57:00.002-04:00

I was sitting at site and thought of another funny story about Ghanaian English.

We were sitting at the bus station waiting for our car to eave and this little girl came up to us. Hand to God the cutest girl in all of Ghana. She was selling bags of water. I know that probably sounds weird but that is how they sell water here. Not in plastic bottles but in little plastic bags. You bite the corner off and suck on this sack of water until it’s all gone. Its fun.
Anyway she came and was trying to get us to buy her water so I asked her
"I'm not very thirsty, is your water good?"
She replied"I have the best wat-ter."

So I said
"The best! Wow you must have good water"

She answered
"My wat-ter is beautiful."

Good answer.

Ghana

2009-06-03T05:47:00.005-04:00

I'm not sure if I ever explained "joking cousins" here, but if I have then this'll be a refresher course in Malian culture. In Mali, your last name is everything. And people know certain things about you by the last name you have. So if your last name is Coulibaly then you joke with everyone whose last names are different then yours. And this joking can get pretty intense. It isn't uncommon to here people call other people donkeys or a common one is "ah Diallo, your my slave." Back in the day the Fulani people used to capture other ethnicities and make them their slaves. So now when people joke with Peuhls they always say "Now your my slave!" I think I have talked about bean jokes in one of my first posts, and this joking cousins thing is where the bean jokes come in. So anyway...

Last year I spent all of hot season at my site and ever since I swore that this year I would get out of Mali and away from the heat. So, after 60 hours on buses, sleeping overnight on cement floors in bus stations like bums, broken down buses in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, and probably the worst case of B.O. I have ever had, myself and 3 other volunteers made it to Ghana.
And it was good.
Good food, great weather, the beach. All my maladies that have been pestering me in Mali cleared up almost immediately after the border. I think I saw Jesus there too.
Oh and they have good beer and more than 2 kinds.
Most of the trip was just hanging out by the beach and thats exactly what we wanted. No schedule or itinerary of things to see or dates we had to reach certain places. Which really, when travelling in Africa is the way you have to do it. If you come to this continent with a set plan and try and make it work on public transport then...
But we did make it to a few sites. In a town called Cape Coast there is a giant castle that was built in 1482 (I think. I forgot to write it down) and for long time it was a main hub for the slave trade.

One time a Mali volunteer went to this castle and actually ended up running into a Malian who had been living in Ghana. So they go on the tour together and find out they are joking cousins. The whole tour they are going back and forth raggin on each other until the Volunteer yells out "You're my slave!" to a Malian, in a slave castle. I think the joking stopped after that.

There is also a rain forest preserve in Ghana. These crazy Canadians built these little platforms around the trunks a some of the trees and then built bridges to connect them and now tourist can come and walk these bridges that zigzag through the canopy of the forest.

So I guess those were the highlights of the trip. After we headed back to Mali. Right after the border my sinuses clogged back up, my stomach hurt, wounds that had healed and were long gone came back. I think I saw Lucifer. Maybe I exaggerate, but there is a huge difference between Mali and Ghana. You forget just how poor Mali is until you see a plce like Ghana and what could be.
So after Ghana I had my COS (close of service) conference. This is where they tell you that you time is almost over and you need to start thinking about wrapping up projects, moving your stuff out, and they tell you all the paperwork you have to have filled before they will release you. Most of it was unnecessary, but it was fun and good to see people that I haven't seen in a long time. Some of the people there I hadn't seen since April of 2008. I also didn't realize how many people had gone home. We came in with 82 I think and are now down to 51.
At this conference most volunteers pick their dates to go home. They hung paper on the wall with all the dates and then just kind of set us loose. I was expecting fist fights and broken faces over those early dates, but surprisingly people were very well behaved and I think everyone got pretty much what they wanted.
And before i knew it, it was over. That is the last time my whole group will be together in the same place in Mali.
So (if anyone is reading this) you might be asking "When are you coming home Braxton?" And the answer is, I'm not. At least not yet. I asked for and was given a 6 month extension so I will be here through March 2010 and we'll go from there. The extension is open so if I want more than 6 months then I can stay longer, but I thought lets start at 6 and go from there.
I think you are all up to date now.
Hope life is good in Ameriki.
Take Care
BraxP.S. Ghanaian English is hilarious. My buddy Antony was on public transport and a Ghanaian opened up the window on the bus. As the window slid back it clipped the man's hand who was sitting behind him. The man raised his hand up and full of outrage he exclaimed "ah! You have wounded me."

Hard Times

2008-12-20T10:19:00.010-05:00

I'll keep this short but I wanted to tell people back home whats been going on since I got back from America. On December 2nd there was a tragic accident here in the Mopti region and we lost one of our best. Cristina Nardone was a RPCV who had taken a job as the coordinator of the Global System Tourism Alliance (GSTA). She was visiting a village where she had helped fund the building of a water tower to help irrigate a medicinal garden. Cristina asked that the village fill it and as they were walking away it collapsed and killed her. Another woman, Brenda, suffered a broken leg and we later found out that after surgery infection set in and they had to amputate.

I'm at a loss at what else to say. It is especially tragic because she had finally made up her mind that it was time to go home and be with her family, but she agreed to stay until March so a replacement could be found. She had gone home for about a month as she transitioned from PC to her new job, but really her family had not seen her for the last 3 years. But she loved her work and believed what she was doing was making a real difference in peoples lives. It wasn't just a job for her and I think her project had the success it had because of her. She very easily could have done a lot of her work from behind a desk and sent others to do her field work like most NGO workers, but she loved going to these small villages and working with the people to help improve their lives.

I'll wrap it up before I get too sentimental. It has been a hard few weeks for us all here. Peace Corps is an enigma to me in that I've only known the people here for maybe 15 months, but some of my teammates have become closer to me than people I have known my whole life. Cristina was one of those people and I miss her.

She was the best of us all and you won't find anyone here who will argue that.

Farming

2008-10-25T05:46:00.004-04:00

ToH

2008-10-25T05:07:00.003-04:00

This is Dege. This is what I eat (drink) for lunch most days. Mmmmm...

This is Toh. This is what I eat every day at least once a day, but sometimes more.

Out With the Old, In With the New

2008-09-08T13:48:00.006-04:00

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.

There's a storm a comin!!!

2008-06-28T12:43:00.005-04:00

Elephants and Big Rocks

2008-06-27T07:35:00.005-04:00

So I guess I haven't talked about my projects for awhile and some people have ben curious about whats going on with that. For my garden the village has given me a space thats About 50 by 50 meters with plans to expand if we ned more land. Now I have to talk to the well diggers so I can get a well dug inside the garden. This way they won't half to haul water from 1 KM away to water their veggies. I'm also doing a lot of work with trees and reforestation. I would like to help them plant more trees because they play a very important part in the lives of the villagers, but they are disappearing. So right now I am interested in finding tree species that can be planted in and around the farm ground, but wil be beneficial for the farmers even though it takes field space. I'm looking at trees that are nitrogen fixers and trees that have fruits and leaves that can be used in sauces or as medicine. Its fun, but my access to resources here is limited so its also slow and frustrating at times. So thats my "work."

Now for some fun stuff. I came into Sevare about a week ago to get out of the heat because I had developed heat rash all over my back and upper chest and down my arms. And I also wanted to pick up a few things that I needed. It wasn't really suppose to be a long trip and I had every intention or getting in and getting out and back to site. But after a few days a fellow volunteer came in and said he was meeting up with a bunch of people in Hombori to go rock climbing and said I was more than welcome. So I ended up spending 3 days climbing all over rocks. I have to admit its a fun hobby. Illinois needs rocks.

After climbing I went with another PCV and his brothers to a place called Boni

to see elephants. We hired a vehicle and went driving around in the bush for about 2 hours until we finally found them. Once we found them we had toget out of the car and kinda stalk up to him. It was good though, he was very cooperative and we got some good pictures of him. After awhile though he had enoughof us and started to flare his ears and stomp the ground. When they do that its time to go. So thats my most recent adventures. I had spent a lot of time at site so it was good to get away for awhile. Speak some English. In just a few weeks I will be a year into my service.

2008-05-30T13:25:00.004-04:00

2008-05-30T13:02:00.002-04:00

2008-05-30T11:52:00.003-04:00

This should be a video of some women in my village pounding millet. They do this every day and it is kinda fun to watch. I'm not sure what I did, but I can't get it o play here. Hopefully you will have more luck. If not I'm sorry, but its not that long or interesting so its not a big loss.

God damn its hot.

2008-05-16T12:15:00.007-04:00

So on Wednesdays there is a market in Koporona which is the next town over from me about 2 km away. I was all set to go and it was a really nice day out, the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky. It was hot out but this time of year its always hot out so I was ready for it. My homologue came over and we were going to walk to the market together. He noticed my solar charger was out and said I might want to put it inside because if it rains it will break. Now normally this time of year it doesn't rain, but they do come on occasion, they call them mango rains because they come when the mangoes are ripe. I guess. Thats what makes sense to me but most of the time I just make stuff up to sound cool. But anyway I was really impressed by my homologue because here it is, a beautiful day in Mali during the dry season with no indication that rain could possibly come and he just knows, he can feel something is coming. I was just so in awe that these Malians are so in touch with nature and they just know what the environment around them is doing. So I ask him "oh its going to rain?" and he looked at my and gave me a shrug that said "How the should I know."

The Hot Season

2008-03-18T12:42:00.005-04:00

For those of you who didn't know I just spent some time in Senegal. a group of us went over to Dakar for what is known as W.A.I.S.T. That stands for the West Africa International Softball Tournament. Any expat, Government, Peace Corps, or NGO group working in West Africa can put a team together and compete, but mostly its just to have fun and hang out and meet people. It was good though. Dakar is a real city...with paved streets, and garbage collection, and good food. Its busy though, especially in certain parts of town. You can't walk 5 feet without someone trying to get you to buy some "authentic" Ray Bans or Dolce & Gabbana clothes. Makes it tough to really enjoy walking around those parts of the city. It was kinda nice to get outta there after a few days. We ended up renting a beach house a few hours outside of the city and that was really nice. Very sleepy little town where we all could just relax and shake off our crushing defeat by a team of high schoolers who looked liked they belonged on the chess team. But those kids could play.
It was a nice vacation.
On the way home we had typical Africa troubles. We rented this little minibus to take from the beach all the way to Kayes which is about 2 hours over the border. So we spend over 24 hours on this thing just to get to the border and they try and drop us off there. We make a bunch of noise and yell at them that they still have to take us another 2 hours. Well this draws a crowd and luckily they are on our side. So we end up at the police station and the police make them give us money back and we get new transport to Kaye. Well there are already 14 of us in a van built for 12, but being Africa they cram another 3 people in. So that was a fun 2 hours.
From Kayes we took a bus to Bamako and I have never been so glad to see that city. It felt familiar and felt like I was back on my own turf.
But the next morning I was outta Bamako by 8:00 on PC transport to head back to Sevare then on to Bandiagara and finally my site. So it was a lot of traveling in a few days.
It was good to get back to site. It feels like between holiday traveling, training in Bamako, and W.A.S.T. I hadn't been spending much time there.
But coming back to site I found out what this hot season is all about. I had been back there 2 weeks and every day topped out at about 120 degrees. And this isn't the worst of it. We're just getting started.
But aside from the heat, village was good. I met a guy who lives in the next own over. He's an English teacher down in Korro and he would like me to ride down with him soon and talk to his class in English about America. He said he'd be more than willing to help me learn French and Dogon too so that is very exciting. Learning those two languages will be a lot easier if I have someone who speaks English teaching me. So that's been about it.
I was originally headed into Bandiagara and what I usually do is sit by the road until transport comes, I ask if they are going to Bandiagara, we work out the price and I'm on my way. This time a car came I asked we worked out a price and I was on my way, but 3 hours later we were somewhere way out in the bush. There are only a few ways to get to Bandiagara from my site and I know them all pretty well and this was not one of them. So we reach a main road and I ask what town it is. They tell me Somodugu and I get kinda pissed. Thats about 50 k on the wrong side of Sevare. So I tell the driver I'm gonna get off here and he asks me,"oh you're not going to Bandiagara anymore." To which I reply, "M%$#@& F%$#@$ You're not going to Bandiagara! Where the hell are you taking me? Bamako?"
So I caught a bus and here I am in Sevare and not Bandiagara. But it all worked because people had come up for another volunteers birthday so we had fun. And I got to see the new restaurant in town that sells BURGERS. that's right. I now have access to genuine delicious hamburgers among other things.

So that's about it for now. I think I have Amoebas, but that's pretty gross so I won't go into details.
I'm not sure if this is the most interesting post, but I'm kinda passed the honeymoon stage and so things are just day to day stuff for me now and things that seemed really different and interesting 7 months ago are pretty tame. Mostly I'm just hanging out getting some work started on a few projects and chit chattin with the guys in village or reading or something. Nothin too exciting. And the stuf that is exciting I can't put on here because if they read it they will send me home ;) Big Brother is everywhere.

So Hope everyone made it through the winter o.k. I heard it was a rough one.
Peace (Corps)
Brax

Dogon Hike

2008-01-24T11:31:00.001-05:00

Dogon Hike

2008-01-24T11:05:00.000-05:00

Back To Where It All Began

2008-01-14T07:04:00.000-05:00

If Mali was OZ then Bamako would be the Emerald City... with garbage and donkeys. Although I don't really like the city, you can buy amazing things here. Things like a cheeseburger from McCroakman's (not McDonalds but they still call it a Big Mac) or fried chicken that tastes like KFC.
I'm down here because after 3 months at site they call the new volunteers back for their IST (In Service Training). We're basically learning the technical skills we will need to get our projects going. I kinda thought it would be a waste of time, but I am learning things that can be implemented in my village. Whats even better though is seeing all the people I haven't seen in 3 months and exchange stories from site. The girls all look about the same as I remember, but most of the guys have long hair and are rockin some sort of facial hair. You can kinda tell which of us live in cities and which of us live in the bush by our appearance. I have gotten back most of the weight I lost too, which is good.
Now is definitely the time to be in Mali. The days stay coolish and the nights I have to wear long sleeves and a sweatshirt. There are very few mosquitoes and the flies aren't even too bad.

Its very surreal to be back at Tubani So. 3 months ago we were are just nervous trainees about to go out on some kind of adventure with really no idea what to expect. I remember Chris and I got installed on the same day. Chris is the closest volunteer to me. Its about 50K to his village, but we installed him first and then went on to my site. I just remember all his things were unloaded and we were about ready to take off and it finally really hit him and he got this look on his face like, "HOLY SH@$!!! This is it. You guys are really just going to leave me here!!!" I imagine a lot of us had that look. But 3 months later we're ll back (most of us) with so many stories and experiences. 3 months went by so fast, but at the same time it feels like its been 10 years since I left here.

There's really not too much to report right now, but I have a lot of pictures from dogon country so I will try to get those up by the end of the week.

I can't remember if I ever explained how money works here. So if I did just ignre this part, but if not its an interesting system. As it was explained to me, when the french came their lowest denomination was the 5 Franc. Of course the Malians did really know what was going on so they just called the 5 franc 1. So now whenever you get a price in Bambara you have to multiply by 5. For example if you are in the market and someone wants CFA 100 for something then you pay him CFA 500.
If they say transport somewhere cost CFA 500 then you pay CFA 2500. So when I get home and anyone needs something divided by or multiplied by 5, you just come find me and I got ya covered.

Peace.

AHHH The Holidays!!

2007-12-30T12:17:00.000-05:00

So I need to start this blog by amending my previous post. Right after I posted that tourist are terrible and I hate them I went to dinner and actually sat with a couple who were touring West Africa. We started talking about their trip and where they wrer going and the next morning they were heading out to go down to Burkina. Since my village is on the road to Burkina I managed to snag a free ride in a nice SUV with air conditioning. So Some tourists can be ok.

The Holidays.

Since this is a very Muslim country Tobasci is celebrated instead of Christmas, but there are some interesting similarities. For example, on the first morning of "le fete" everyone puts on their nice clothes, the lady folk are busy preparing the big days feast, the kids are running around playing and getting yelled at because their good clothes are getting dirty, nobody wants to go to the mosque but they have to, Dad kills a goat... just like the States right? One very big difference is that there is very little gift giving. It is a very un-materialistic (is that a word, I can't tell anymore) society since nobody has money to buy gifts, but somehow they still have a great holiday. It reminded me of the Grinch:

It came without ribbons, it came without tags
It came without packages, boxes, or bags

He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore
Then the PCV though of something he hadn't before

Maybe Christmas/Tobasci, he thought, doesn't come from a store
Maybe Christmas/Tobasci means a little bit more

We killed a goat on Thursday so from breakfast Thursday morning to the time I left Saturday afternoon all I ate was goat meat. Goat meat for breakfast followed by a healthy portion of goat stomach/intestines/other organs for lunch, a good mixture of meat and organs for an afternoon snack and then goat meat dinner. In a country with no refrideration meat gets a little chewey after a day or two.

Before Tobasci hundreds of people went to Bamako with their goats because they can sell them there a get a lot of money. I couldn't believe how many goats I saw crammed into semi trailers. On the morning of Tobasci there must have been a mass goat genocide in Mali and probably across most of West Africa.
It cause bad problems though too. There was a wreck around Segou because a driver fell asleep and hit another car. 20 some people died and all the goats the thing was carrying. There has been a few of those.

Anyway

Christmas was good. I did a 2 1/2 day hike through Dogon Country. We would start out at the bottom and hike up to the top of the Falaise and walk across then hike back down stopping in villages along the way. It really is a beautiful country. A lot of the villages are tucked away in little pockets in thze cliff. You have to do some climbing to get to them, so here's 9 PCV's huffin and puffin, sweating like crazy, takin their time because you put a hand or a foot in a wrong place and you'll fall and die and then right beside us are Malian women walking up these things with 20 gallons of water on their head and babies on their backs, not using their hands for anything. Made even the most fit of us feel a little meek. It was good though.

Thats about it for now. If anyone is still reading this and has questions feel free to post them on the comments or e-mail me. I would this thing to be interactive. But my hour is up so I guess until next time.

Aw Bisimilla

2007-11-23T13:26:00.000-05:00

2007-11-23T12:55:00.000-05:00

Tourists Suck

2007-11-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

Its November now and the weather is starting to cool off (finally) and the nights are actually almost chilly. That also means that its tourists season in Dogon Country. Every week more and more toubobs flood the streets of Bandiagara Mopti and Sevare. They load up their big SUV's and take tours of the cliff dwelling and Dogon villages. I'm slightly torn on tourism. It brings a lot of money to the area, but I also feel like a culture that has been around hundreds of years longer than the United States is selling out for a cheap buck and in a way dying out. And MAYBE it should. How long CAN you live in houses made of rocks in places that don' t always have adequate sources of drinking water and food supplies. But they have made it this far and I tend to think if we left them alone they would make it another 1,000 years without problem. But the modern world closes in and people want crap they can take home so they can say Mali is "fascinating." So Pays Dogon becomes Disneyworld for 3 months and every kid I meet says "Toubob, Don wa cadeau" or "white man give me present!" But it seems Mali is on my side because they decided to close the airport for a week so the could do some contruction. Take that Toubobs!
Aside from my complaints Mali does have sites that really are incredible. I got the chance to see some because there were these US AID guys in town who are actually working or starting I should say a project to develop tourism here . I hopped in their car only because at the end of the day they were going to Sevare and I wanted to go to Sevare and their nice SUV is better than an overcrowded station wagon, but that doesn't necessarily mean I endorse their project. I guess I really know how to stand by my convictions. I was however able to see some of the cliff dwellings that the Dogon carved out in the 11th and 12th centuries. Very cool and I do have pictures. I think I will go to Sevare for Thanksgiving because there is an American there named Mac who owns a small hotel PCV's stay at and he is cooking an authentic Turkey Day dinner. Complete with Pumkin Pie! Maybe ice cream. But anyway Sevare has fast internet and I will get photos of my house and the cliffs and my village up.

Care packages have started coming in and you would think it was Christmas around here. I think about every PCV in the area has gotten one this week. Those are a BIG moral booster. Village life gets rough and knowing there are people back home who haven't forgotten you and are good enough to send you chocolate and Playboys can help you get through those patches.
I'll admit it has been a rough 2 weeks for me. Harvest has been going full swing which leaves very few people in the village during the day. Some days I go out and help where I can and try and get an idea of how harvest works, but a lot of the time I not in the fields. Since all the men are working and the women don't speak Bambara... I'll just say it is hard and leave it at that. I know it doesn't sound like it would be difficult, but it gets to you.

Pretty soon harvest will be over and I'm not sure what the village will be like after that. I know a lot of times once the work is done the younger men move down to Bamako and other bigger cities to find jobs and make some money. There is kinda a mass migration sometime around now. I'm not sure when exactly it will happen.

So tomorrow I'll head back to my site. The way I usuually go is right at about 100 kilometers from Bandiagara. I usually bike the first 50 and take a car the next 35 and bike/car it the last 15. Today I got 25K out of Bandiagara and got a flat tire in the middle of the bush. Since being here I have become a pro at fixing flat bike tires, but my tire had 2 wholes and I had 1 patch. So here I am. Try again tomorrow. Thats that. I'm out of time.

Take Care.
Brax

AKA
Amasagou Togo

Malian Food

2007-10-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

So while I'm at site I have a lot of thinking time and this is what I came up with as far as Malian food is concerned. I compare it to a teenage kid whose is discovering beer for the first time. It tastes awful and you are going to puke, but you keep coming back for more and more and you keep shoving it down. After awhile you are puking less and wouldn't you know it you kinda like the way it tastes. That's Malian food.

Volunteer Life

2007-10-11T13:05:00.000-04:00

We were on our way out of Bamako headed up to Mopti. Some of us were excited alot of us were sleeping and the majority of us were probably fighting hang overs. And then our bus wrecked. It wasn't a bad wreck and no one was hurt, but it definitely wasn't the best way to start our 2 years here.

The Mopti area is fun. My site is good. Life is very slow there though and usually after about 4 days I need to get out and go somewhere to speak english and get some good food. I have but brand new mud brick house with a brand new ngegen which I am very excited about. I don't spend much time in the house though, mainly because its hot... and there are scorpions... in my house.

I sleep outside too and probably will most of the year. The cold season is coming so I might get to sleep inside when that comes, but I really like sleeping outside and waking up at 5:30 with sun. My village is very cool at that time of the day because its still very quiet and calm and peaceful. All those summers when dad refused to turn on the air conditioner and I would suffer the heat and cuss him out because I couldn't sleep and it never occurred to me to just go sleep outside. I guess in America there is some kind of unspoken rule that if your not actually camping you can't sleep outside? But i have to go cause my hour is up at the internet cafe.

Take care.

Can You Believe It, They Let Me In!!

2007-10-05T13:18:00.000-04:00

I have to be quick but I just qanted to update. Im in, passed my tests and sqore in at the US Embassy. Im now at my site in the Mopti Area. Life is hot and slow but good. I think Ill be in Sevare next week so Ill write more then if i can!

Braxton Bragg
Corps de la paix
B.P. 19
Bandiagara
Mali West Africa

Some of you asked for that.

More soon I hope.

Almost There

2007-09-17T21:26:00.000-04:00

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)

2007-09-08T07:56:00.000-04:00

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.

This Was Only A Test...

2007-08-29T07:20:00.001-04:00

First I want to tell a funny language story. In Bambara to show possession over things you add ka to the front. So if I say "N ka Biki" I'm saying "its my pen." N ka wulu would mean that's my dog. Now when talking about body parts you don't need the ka you can just say n kungolo which means my head. So every morning for two weeks a certain volunteer would greet every male in village and go through the normal routine of "how are you, hows your family, did you sleep well, etc etc..., but just for fun she thought she would ask "how's your dog." Unfortunetly she forgot the ka SO instead of asking "how is your dog" she was asking every male in the village everyday for 2 weeks "how's your penis."

Site Visit...
I don't really know where to begin. Every PCV has what is called a homologue in their village so PC brought them down to Tubaniso so we could meet them here and then head to site with them. Mine seems pretty cool, but it was awkward because I don't have much language yet and so our conversations were pretty short.
So my homologue, me and maybe 4 or 5 other volunteers and their homologous all headed up to Severe last Tuesday. It was over 12 hours on a bus that had no air and it was packed and had to be over 90 degrees that day. So that was fun. We pulled into Severe and spent the night at a place called Mac's Refuge. Mac gives PCV's a discount so we can stay there when we are in town for pretty cheap. Pretty cool place. We got settled and went to a "restaurant." Again its a place PCV's go and have been going for a long time and so they know the lady very well and are treated well. It was some of the best food too. I had a steak and some fries and green beans! It was so good. That was Severe. I got in a fight with my mosquito net at Mac's and ended up getting my hand caught in a ceiling fan. Gashed it pretty good.
The next morning my homologue and I found a bush taxi to take us the rest of the way to site.
It took about 2 or maybe 3 more hours to get there. The road is dirt and can be tricky to navigate.

Side note: I think its funny how Americans all think they need SUV's when we have paved smooth roads, but Africans have some the worst roads with giant rock piles and mudslides and the whole nine and they navigate them using tiny Toyotas or French station wagons.

Arriving at my village was a weird experience. There was none of the pomp that surrounded our arrival in Banakoro with the singing and dancing and speeches by the dugutiki. It was almost like they didn't even expect me to come. There was a lot of staring and looks of who are on peoples faces. I sat down outside my homologue's house while I guess they were getting my house ready. I knew going in that Bambara wasn't spoken much in my area, but I very quickly realized how little it is spoken. So that made for an interesting site visit. I think there are 3 people in my village whom I am sure speak Bambara the rest speak a Dogon dialect. That was a very sobering realization and it really made me reevaluate my picture of how the next 2 years are going to go.
My house is nice. Brand new built for me. Its mud brick with 2 rooms, a nice brand new negen, and a big concessions. Right now there is okra planted in it, but in October they said the okra would be done and I can do whatever I want with it. I think I will set up a vegetable garden and maybe plant some fast growing trees so I can get some shade. Shade in Africa is priceless real estate. So now I have a garden to make and a house to furnish. If anyone feels like sending some seeds or some posters for my walls that would be SWEET!
My visit was pretty laid back. There is a slightly bigger town just down the road and I went to the Market and met the mayor and Commandant and people I might be working with or need help from.
The guys in my village like to hang out in my concession. It was pretty cool. I would eat and then we would drink tea and they would talk and every now and then someone would ask me something in Bambara and I would answer.

I did have a big adventure on Friday. PC told us that we had to get to Bandiagara in order to open a bank account. So Friday morning I got up and told my homologue that I had to go. He and about 7 others all walked down the road to flag down transport, but there was none. The only people who drove by were Toubob tourists and I couldn't get them to stop. I tried calling my Regional Coordinator, but cell phone service is sketchy in my village and then my battery died. So about 11:30 I decided to ride my bike into Bankass and try and get transport from there. Its about a 20 Km ride, but it is very nice country and very easy on the eyes. I was biking West and a Toubob car was coming East so I waved and was just saying hello and the bastards hit a puddle and sprayed me with mud. I hate tourists.
I got to Bankass and asked around for transport to Bandiagara. One guy said a car would come and offered me a spot under his hangar in the shade. I sat there for about 45 minutes and nothing came. So the guy hopped on his moto and drove down, came back about 10 minutes later and said he had found me something. I follow him down the road and there is a big dump truck waiting for me. They said they can get me half way and I'll have to bike the rest, but it isn't far. I said cool and hopped in. To get to Bandiagara you have to cross over a range of cliffs and it was very very beautiful landscape. I had no idea the cliffs were so close to my site. It was awesome. We got to the top and they let me out. I hopped on my bike and sailed down the other side into Bandiagara. Of course the bank was closed and PC was gone. I found a cheap hotel and a phone and called my RC again, told him I was in town and that I was staying the night. Fortunately he was in town too and came and picked me up. Chris, another PCT, and Heather, a PCV, were there too. Heather is a volunteer who extended for an extra 6 months and will COS when we swear in. COS means Close of Service which means the volunteers time is up and they are going home, if I haven't told you that before.
I ended up staying the night at Chris's sight and I have to say I have site envy. His site is up in the cliffs and looks a lot like Utah. There is a natural spring where the village gets it water and its hard to explain, but trust me its cool. I hope pictures will come. I know I say that a lot, but they will eventually I promise.
Also since Heather is leaving, Chris is getting set up with a fully furnished house.

So that site is cool and I will spend a lot of time there because Chris is the closest volunteer to me and also Heather has done a community vegetable garden which is my project and so I want to see how she set it up and talk with the people she worked with. It will be good experience for me. My mom wants me to mention that when I talk about a community vegetable garden I don't mean a small jag in someones back yard. These things are pretty big pieces of land and can get complex when you consider wells that need to be dug and storage to be built. So from finding the land to finding the funding from various sources can be a challenge. Especially when you've been learning the wrong language and can't talk to the people you'll be working with. Thanks Peace Corps! *WINK*
But it will all work out and Chris is in the same boat with the language and the Dialects of Dogon in his village and my village are similar so we can help each other with language.

So where was I...
I think Saturday morning? We woke up and Heather wanted to see my site. We walked to the road and hitched a ride in the back of a pickup. It was good to have Heather come to my site because she can communicate and we got a lot of details sorted out like who will get my water and wash my clothes and will I eat with a family or cook for myself and all the details that would take awhile to sort out on my own.

That was pretty much my visit. I think my village will work out really well. They seem really organized and hard working. The language is making me nervous and I know I have a lot of work in front of me, but I also have a lot of time.
Homesickness has been getting to me a little bit lately. I'm not sure why. The hot nights that make it hard to sleep or 12 hour bus rides to and from Mopti, or maybe I'm just on that part of an emotional curve and here soon I'll pick up again. Either way, home has been on my mind a lot lately. I miss it.

So that's my story. Only a few more weeks until we swear in. After that I'll head back to Mopti for installation. I think that the first few weeks at my site are going to have a real "What the F@%$ do I do now" feeling to them. But this probably too long so I'll wrap it up. I have been getting a lot of comments on this and I really appreciate it because it always brightens my day to come back to Tubaniso and see that people are keeping up with it. Feel free to e-mail too if you have specific questions, my e-mail is up here. People sometimes leave questions on my blog, but no return e-mail so I can't answer them and I feel bad. And if you do ask be patient because computers and internet are hard to come by and my days are pretty busy as is. Also I learned Bandiagara's internet is crap. Its expensive and slower than dial up so I'll probably do internet in Severe, I just don't know how often I'll make that trek. The good news is that the internet is Severe is cheaper and faster so there is good potential for a lot of photos when I get there.

Ok I'm gonna go eat lunch.
Peace

Bamanakan Kalan

2007-08-18T08:26:00.000-04:00

I ni Sogoma! I ka Kane? Somogow be D'i?
I have successfully completed another jaunt in Banakoro. This one was exponetially better than the previous. I was never sick, I am getting used to the food and eating more, and I can communicate a lot more with my family. I know how quickly time passes in the States, but here a day is week and a week is a year so I can't remember what i wrote in my last blog so if I repeat myself please forgive. Being able to communicate with my family makes life so much better, but I imagine it is very humorous for my family. I'll paint a picture. Imagine a half naked white man walking to the negen and 6:00 in the morning with his goofy white man walk announcing to the world "I'M GOING TO CLEAN MYSELF!" or during dinner "WE ARE EATING. THIS FOOD IS GOOD. I DON'T LIKE EAT BONES!" There is a lot of that. Last night though I threw caution to the wind. I ate fruit washed in well water, I ate goat meat, and I petted the dog. I should explain though. Dogs here are not like dogs in the States...at all. They are here to bark when someone comes into the compound and something to beat on when the kids are bored. And when I say beat I MEAN beat. Oh and they bark all night every night and won't let the Toubob sleep.
We changed schools. We no longer have class under the Mango trees. It rained and dumped maybe 8 to 10 inches on us in a single night and the negen overflowed. Now we have class in the kindergarten. Its ok, but I liked it better out under the trees. We're still outside, but there are walls around the place and it feels more isolated.
My Bambara is coming along nicely, but I am a little slower than I should be. I tested out at Novice High when the most of my class is at Intermediate Low. N HAKILIMADI!
If you want to act smart at home then I'm actually learning Bamana, and if you want to act really smart at home tell people I'm learning Bamanakan. Bamana is what they call the language and every language has kan added to the end of it so...Bamana...kan
So now I am at Tubaniso until Tuesday, maybe Wednesday and then I head off for site visit. Dogon country! I get to see my house and my village and meet the Dugutiki and set up my bank account and all that fun stuff. I might even start learning some Dogonkan ;) Its hot up there, but there are fewer mosqitos so take the good with the bad. Most PCV's sleep outside especially during the hot season. Right now its the rainy season and then it will cool off through Aprilish. I am told I will see parents putting big winter coats, hats and mittens on their kids even though its like 50 degrees out. I'll try and get some pictures for you guys. I know they make these things more interesting.
I'm trying to keep this organized but I'm not having much luck. Every time I tell myself I will write these out the night before, but it never happens and so I just write as it comes out of my head.
I might have wrote in my last blog that i will be near Bankass and that bankass will have internet? If I wrote that I am a liar. Bankass does not have internet and so I will only be able to get to a computer once maybe twice a month when I go to Mopti or Severe for banking and post.
Lastly, enjoy America. I'm not going to stand on a soapbox or anything, but it is beyond mind boggling the things I took for granted. Also I would give my left hand for a Double Cheeseburger Fries and a Pepsi (Coke flows like water here).

K'an Ben

Assignment

2007-08-09T08:49:00.000-04:00

Real quick update. Today we recieved our assignments and placement for after we are sworn in as official PC volunteers. I will be posted in the Mopti region in a village about 20 km outside a town called Bankass. I will work with villagers (mostly women) working on small community gardens among other projects. Its a new site and has never had a PCV before so I will be starting fresh. Its in Dogon country so along with Bambara I might also pick up some Dogon and Fulfulde. I am super pumped about my location and there are some really cool volunteers that will be up there with me. Swear in will be Sept. 21 so about 6 more weeks of training. I feeling better, Mr. D is leaving me alone, I'm recharged and ready to go again. I'll be back at Tubaniso on the 17th I believe so I'll write more then.

Bankass has internet and electricty, but I hear the internet is expensive. Also I will have cell phone service at my site.

I am no longer Braxton Bragg

2007-08-07T09:03:00.000-04:00

One of the first things that happens to you when you arrive at your homestay village is you are given a Malian name. I am now known throughout Banakoro as Djigi (the d is silent) Coulibaly!
But anyway I am now back at Tubaniso after spending two weeks in village. I can honestly say it was probably the most intense two weeks I can remember. We arrived and there were women dancing and playing the drumbs and man children all gathered around us. After the music stopped we were taken into the square to meet the Chief of the Village. There was a lot of talking, but none of us knew what was going on and we just sat and smiled. Also we were introduced to our host families whom we would be living with during the duration of our training. I'm with the Coulibaly family, but Coulibaly is a very common name and there are I think 3 other volunteers with that last name.
My family has a nice house with mango trees growing in the concession (but the mango season is over). I have a small room which is usually hot so I don't spen much time in there. We have a decent sized training group 8 of us (started at 9, but one ET'd). Our days are very long and usually pretty exhausting. I get up about 6:20 and have myself a splash bath. Nobody talks to you until you are clean. After my bath my sister makes me breakfast usually consisting of eggs and bread and powdered milk. I head to school at 8:00 and we have language class under the mango trees until noon. I'm learning Bambara which is not the most difficult language, but still frustrates me. At noon I go home and have rice and some kind of sauce with maybe some fish or beef. Eating here...I could write a whole blog on eating, and maybe I will someday, but the short version is the food is in a big metal bowl and everyone sits around and eats out of the same bowl. With their hands, but only the right hand because the left hand is used in the jegen(bathroom) in conjuction with the salii daaga (which is a teapot basically that holds water). They don't use toilet paper. Do the math on your own. If you need help consult with your neighbor. DO NOT EAT WITH YOUR LEFT HAND!
After lunchmore lanuage and cross cultural. My LCF's are the best. They are teaching us well. I think I will be speaking Bamabara in no time. After school we hang out in the village or go to the butiki for a coke. I'm usually home by 6:30 and I get another splash bath. I usually eat dinner around 7:30 or 8:00. Sometimes I get macoroni or potatos or fish. after dinner I study or read or try to talk with my family, but am not having much success there.
In bed by 9:00 usually.
Now for the fun part
I seem to have picked up a bacterial intestinal infection and have had severe "Mr. D" for 6 dys now. It was pretty hard to eat and choke down rice and fish everyday. I tried to just let it run its course, but after 5 days I thought this is no longer just me getting used to the new food. So I'm on Cipro now and I think I'm close to better now. In 5 days though I lost 7 pounds. The good thing about Tubaniso though is that the food is really good and I can try and beef back up. It really wasn't that bad, and I'm fine now so nobody worry.

But I need to get going. I'll be around computers until thursday then its back out to homestay.
I'll update again if I can before I leave Tubaniso.

Sorry no pictures my camera battery died, but I'll get some up soon

I Made It!

2007-07-23T20:27:00.000-04:00

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.

How I Role

2007-07-12T16:13:00.000-04:00

Shoes:
chacos
flip flops
sneakers
dress shoes

Clothes:
5 pairs underwear
3 pairs khakis
3 long sleeve collared shirts
2 short sleeve collared shirts
Patagonia sweat whisking thing shirt. Its suppose to keep me cool
1 dress shirt
1 tie
1 pair shorts
1 pullover fleece
1 pair athletic shorts
1 pair swimming trunks
1 pair ADIDAS track pants
2 tank tops so i can ask random Malians if they have their tickets to THE GUN SHOW!
5 plain white Fruit of the Loom t-shirts
6 pairs white socks
2 pairs dress socks
2 belts

1 Carhartt thermal
1 jacket
4 bandanas so I can rock like Axl Rose
wide brimmed hat so I can pretend I'm Indiana Jones
baseball hat

Toiletries
2 sticks deodorant
toothpaste
2 toothbrushes
2 bars soap
2 travel towels
hand sanitizer
small shaving mirror
disposable razors
dental floss
extra pair of eyeglasses
sunglasses
tissues
finger nail clippers
hair trimmers so i can keep my head nice and buzzed
Non-Aspirin pain pills

Books:
The Tipping Point
Freakonomics
Address Book
French/English Dictionary
West Africa Travel Guide
World Map
Journal
Peace Corps Paperwork and Welcome Guide
SCUBA dive log and license so I can SCUBA dive in a landlocked country?
pack of ball point pens

Electronics;
Zen MP3 player
2 flashlights
headlamp
2 battery powered speakers
digital camera
3 Stick N Click lights
1 Solio Solar Charger
universal outlet adapter
2 USB connector cables
A couple of AC power adapters because Lord knows nobody can make 1 power adapter that is a universal fit for all electronics. I won't even have power at my site so I don't even know why I'm bothering bringing these!
4 Gig jump drive

Gifts:
Candy so the kids will like me
crayons
deflated soccer/volleyballs. I hope they have air pumps over there otherwise this is a crappy gift. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR DEFLATED BALLS KIDS! YOU SUCK AND AMERICA HATES YOU!
various other little things that if I gave to you here you'd laugh at me, but over there it will mean the world

Misc.
8 inch non-stick pot
3 wooden spoons
1 spatula
3 boxes Ziploc bags
32 AAA batteries
duct tape
knife
SOG utility knife
knife sharpener
scissors
ear plugs
bike helmet
moquito net/tent
pair work gloves
Nalgene water bottle
lock
harmonica
bug repellant/sunscreen
pictures of friends, family, the farm, the Diamond Tap, and Tut the cat.
The Perfect Pushup workout equipment. People think this is a rip off cause essentially your just doing a pushup, but they work dammit!
playing cards

And that's how I role in West Africa.

Mali Blog

2007-05-17T12:28:00.000-04:00

So after all this time it appears I'm finally making my way to Africa. Somewhere around the beginning of May I received my invitation to join the Peace Corps to serve a tour in Tanzania in the Environmental Education and Sustainable Agriculture program. I was very excited and ready to go, but unfortunetly it didn't work out. Due to staffing problems half my group was cut and I was among them. However, they offered me a new assignment in Mali. The job will be along the same lines as the Tanzania job, just in a whole new part of Africa. So that's where I'm headed. My departure date is July 17th and it can't come quick enough even though there is so much to do before I go.
One thing I really want to do while I'm there is keep my friends and family informed on my experiences during my time in the Peace Corps. Hopefully through this thing I can do just that. Those who are interested can come and read and hopefully leave me some notes on what they think. My goal is to write on here on a somewhat regular basis, depending on how hard it is to access the Internet. So please bare with me through spelling errors and run on sentences. July 17th my adventure begins!