-Tried to upload pictures and its just not happening. Bummer-
Today, our final day at Tubaniso before back to homesite, was quite a day. In the morning, we had technical training (the health volunteers got to practice the baby weighing process with real live squirming babies) and the afternoon couldn't come soon enough as everyone was anxious about site announcement.
So here is mine! In September, I will be opening up a new post (no previous Peace Corps volunteer has been there) in the town of Dombila. Dombila is a 3,000 person town which is- get this- only 37k outside of Bamako (Mali's capital)! This is really nice because I can easily get into Bamako for shopping, internet, mail, banking, a Christian church, any medical problems, and best of all, to see lots of PCVs who regularly congregate there. This also means that I will be keeping my Bamako mailing address for the whole time (the one you all have already). I still won't have running water or electricity, but I'll have a mountain bike so I can easily get to public transportation. I will be working in a community health center (called a CSCOM) and my counterpart is a matron (like a midwife) by the name of Sangare Irene. (Irene- runs in the family huh?) I will mainly be speaking Bambara but Sangare also speaks French, which will be nice. They have requested a volunteer to work on maternal/child health and nutrition education, hygiene/water sanitation and various other activities in the health center. It sounds absolutely amazing.
The other cool thing about my post is my potential secondary project. I had my personal interview with the country director today who told me that he just got a huge government grant to improve HIV/AIDS training for Peace Corps and for outreach events in Mali. He said he kind of wrote the proposal at the last minute, so currently does not have any specific plans as to what to do with the funding. He was very interested in my experience with HIV/AIDS outreach and suggested that I help him develop and improve HIV programs for Peace Corps Mali. Being so close to Bamako, I would be able to get to the Peace Corps office every once in a while and maybe be a part of that!
With what I know about my site, I'm very excited about it. I'm the only one at a new site but I'm fairly close to a lot of other cool volunteers. In 12 days I will be packing my bags to do a week site visit, where I'll basically shadow my counterpart and do some baseline assessment of community needs. In the meantime, it's back to sleepy old Satinebougu for some more dancing, language training, and oily food.
Side Story: Last night we walked two miles to get to a bar. By bar I mean basically someone's backyard with a refrigerator full of beer running on a generator. But it was freakin hysterical. There were about 40 of us there, dancing the night away in the craziest fashion we knew how- doing the limbo with the Malians and then trying to imitate some of their bizarre yet impressive moves.
Side Note: I didn't read any of the comments you all left me until after I posted my blog and I just want to say how much they mean to me. Not only is it nice to have some cheerleaders, I also love just hearing about your lives. So never hesitate to drop me a little what's going on. That way I won't feel out of touch. And thanks to you, no matter how long it will be until I get internet again, I'll never truly be out of touch.
I love the personal emails, comments and facebook messages and I truly, truly want to reply to all of them. But it might have to wait until I get faster internet. Right now, just pasting this blog and posting it is a major chore so sending and receiving emails is extremely tedious and unreliable at the moment. But it doesn't mean I don't love you all and miss running with you girls, chatting with family, and seeing you all. XOXOX
God Bless-
Emily
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Doni doni
"Doni Doni" is Bambara for "Little by little". It is our motto- we use it when the native people get frustrated with our lack of understanding, when we get frusterated with ourselves when the way we have known the world lacks the viscosity for everyday functioning. But "doni doni" also means progress. And of course, we are making progress, however slow it may be.
So here it goes, more than you ever wanted to know about the first 12 days of homestay...
I arrived at the small village of Satinebougu about two weeks ago. There was a gathering of people in the center of town and some villagers singing, dancing, and playing their indigenous idiophones. Nothing spectacular, though, this was hicksville Africa- but it was incredibly charming. The two other trainees, our Language/Cultural facilitars (Malians who tutor us in langugage and act as liasons to our family and community) and I sat through the ceremony and offered the traditional gift of cola nuts to the village dugutiki (chief).
My new family showed me to my hut on their compound. I finally have my own space, however small- a bed, a bucket, a lantern... They then gave me the name "Aminata Samake" which though I was named after my host grandmother, it is fitting that "Ami" is short for "Aminata" which kind of sounds like "Emy," a name my parents used to call me as a child in the U.S. We are the first volunteers in the village, and the community members were genuinely excited.
My host family is wonderful. Samba Sako is the grandfather. He is really old, walks with a cane, and prays to Mecca five times a day from his house. He still works in the fields everyday and coughs a lot. But he doesn't hang around much so I don't know too much about him, except that his grandchildren claim he is 100 years old. Could be.
His wife, Aminata, is old and just loves life. Despite being a little hard of hearing, she is my main conversation partner because she is so patient. She gets really excited when I say something that makes sense and laughs and claps all the time. She always gives me all these blessings. I don't understand them, but I know they are blessings because they always start with "Allah". So I simply answer "Amiina" (Amen) and she is pleased. She listens to the radio a lot, and the other day was listening to an English lessson (it was a French- English lesson so I doubt she understood any of it because only a couple people can speak French here) and told me she wanted to come visit America. I can just picture it- her traditional garb, her strong but aging figure, her stick cane, hailing a taxi and cracking up on the streets of New York.
Their son, Moribu, lives on the compound with his wife Rokia. Moribu is a hard-working farmer, and is kind to me, but often gives me that pitying smile and laugh, trying to cover up the fact that he thinks I'm totally clueless, which I am. Rokia, I discovered, is only 20 years old. She works really hard cooking and washing all day, but I don't feel like I have too much of a relationship with her yet. She brings me my water and my food and talks to me intermittenly. But I get the feeling like she is very tired all the time, often not feeling well, and a little weary of life. Doni, doni, maybe I can help relieve some of her duties. The other day, I went to the well to draw my own water- and felt like I was gonna fall over carrying it on my head back to the compound. (The women in the village really got a kick out of it). Rokia has two children- a 2-year-old, Jenabu, who likes me well enough. She's cute but always filthy and cries quite a bit. Then there is Kajatu- 4 years old and absolutely edible. She is always smiling, laughing, running, dancing, looking over my shoulder when I'm doing my homework. She's the little tag along with the older girls but really does do her share of work with the farming and cleaning. Quite amazing.
Then there's the other Aminata and the other Kajatu- two cousins who also live on the compound. Why, I haven't quite figured out. I didn't want to ask in case something tragic happened to their parents. They are 10 and 13 and they work out in the fields and pound millet like nobody's buisness. I think I'm in good shape and I try to help them. After 5 minutes, I'm wiped. And they do this all day- hours upon hours. Just in general, there are seven year old girls who carry their two year old siblings on their backs all day. Children work hard, but they always seem to be happy and to be doing alright. It's their life.
Speaking of being wiped, the first 5 days of homestay were among the hardest I've ever experienced. After eating "Toh"- a millet mush- with oily green sauce with my hands out of the communal bowl the first night, I woke up to violent vomitting- all over the floor of my hut. With some soapy water and a wicker broom, I was able to get the Toh that my body rejected out of my door. Our donkeys noticed, hobbled over, and enjoyed a midnight snack. I lost count of how many times I threw up after that (into my bucket this time) but it got to the point where all I had left to give was air.
Trying to get my family to understand why I couldn't eat breakfast, lunch, or even dinner the next day was no easy task. And thus started the beginning of the biggest cultural misunderstanding that is still a struggle for us now- food. Night #2 was alright, because I had nothing in my system. But after eating a little on day 3, I again spent the night with my bucket. The Peace Corps brought me some medicines and gatorade, but I only made it two more days in the village before I had to go to Bamako and spend some time recouperating in the Peace Corps Medical Center. That 5th night, my family thought they would make me oiled cassava roots instead of Toh, which was a nice thought, but my intense nausea and dehydration was enough to keep me from even being able to sit up. The other trainees came to my aid, called the med truck, and I spend the next 24 hours on strong antinausea medication, gatorade, and food from a real live Toubab-(white person)-style grocery store.
I returned to the village with a Malian nurse who had lunch with my family, talked to my mother about properly cleaning off the rice so it didn't have rocks and sand in it, and giving some more variety in my diet. My family tries, they really do. They make me eggs sometimes, and oily spagetti. My host dad brought me some bananas at the market town one day and if they see that I don't eat, they send one of the girls to buy me some bread. But it was the tubab groceries and some protien bars and peanut butter from the US really got me through.
I feel great now, I've gained back the weight I lost, and I'm able to stomach the food a little better- my family is doing their best, and the Peace Corps gives them a daily food allowance so that they can do so. It's just difficult because we are a half hour walk from the next town which is the only place I could buy food (besides bread at the town butiki). And even that is just a market town, so most of what is sold is not yet sanitary enough for our consumption (except for the mangos :)).
So excuse my "war stories" (you knew they were coming) and if you're still with me, I'm on to the more romantic side of village life. In between our language classes (6 hours a day), I enjoy drinking strong Malian tea with the villagers, going for 5-7 mile runs through the dirt roads, watching the crazy thunderstorms and amazing starry sky. But most of all, we dance. Children from the little town of Satinebougu area always at my door begging "guitari! guitari!" And I bring out my guitar and we all dance the night away. We've taught them the macareana, and they've taught us some of their dances, which we are terrible at. These little girls can really move their bodies! Everything everyone has ever told me about the peace corps is true- one minute you want to die because you're puking your guts out- the next minute you're on top of the world because you're a local rock star and the whole village has put on their best outfits so they can gather around you and dance to your music. And they clap and cheer, and it is humbling.
And the villagers are so welcoming- they get a kick out of us, when we try to greet them with our terrible accents, when we wear our pagnes wrong, or when I go for my nightly run. It's quite a strange thing- people sit out and watch me, kids follow me, and once I get to the edge of town, that's when I have it, some time to myself.
What else? I take bucket baths twice a day. I can now sort of talk to my family about America- they were shocked to learn that yes, there are actually black people in America. My family has a small TV (battery operated, black and white) that a handful of villages (mostly teenage boys) come over to watch this cheezy Brazilian soap opera dubbed in French. I get quite a kick out of it. The first day when I was showing my sisters pictures of friends and family back at home, they kept pointing to Meghan Nolan saying "Tina! Tina!" After failing to find Tina in my English-Bambara dictionary, I realized later that night that Tina was a character from the soap opera. "There's your friend!" they told me "Tina!"
Back at the training center for a few days, I've eaten more than I've ever eaten in my life, talked to 75 AMERICANS in ENGLISH! (2 trainees have already terminated and went back to the states), and even played some sand volleyball (not quite like Hickory lane, but it was fun). The internet was down yesterday, but I got to talk to my family on the phone. I realize how much I really do miss home, friends, and family and how that is going to be really hard for me. I have the best support network and think about you guys all the time. I read your letters for inspiration, I pray for you, I feel terrible that I'm missing out on your lives. But in all sincerity, I think a lot of the hard part has passed. Though more is to come, at this point I'm still sincerely excited about my work, I'm still in love with this culture, and I still feel like this is what I have been called to do. Doni doni :)
Pictures take forever to upload, but I'll give it a try tomorrow.
-Emily aka Aminata
So here it goes, more than you ever wanted to know about the first 12 days of homestay...
I arrived at the small village of Satinebougu about two weeks ago. There was a gathering of people in the center of town and some villagers singing, dancing, and playing their indigenous idiophones. Nothing spectacular, though, this was hicksville Africa- but it was incredibly charming. The two other trainees, our Language/Cultural facilitars (Malians who tutor us in langugage and act as liasons to our family and community) and I sat through the ceremony and offered the traditional gift of cola nuts to the village dugutiki (chief).
My new family showed me to my hut on their compound. I finally have my own space, however small- a bed, a bucket, a lantern... They then gave me the name "Aminata Samake" which though I was named after my host grandmother, it is fitting that "Ami" is short for "Aminata" which kind of sounds like "Emy," a name my parents used to call me as a child in the U.S. We are the first volunteers in the village, and the community members were genuinely excited.
My host family is wonderful. Samba Sako is the grandfather. He is really old, walks with a cane, and prays to Mecca five times a day from his house. He still works in the fields everyday and coughs a lot. But he doesn't hang around much so I don't know too much about him, except that his grandchildren claim he is 100 years old. Could be.
His wife, Aminata, is old and just loves life. Despite being a little hard of hearing, she is my main conversation partner because she is so patient. She gets really excited when I say something that makes sense and laughs and claps all the time. She always gives me all these blessings. I don't understand them, but I know they are blessings because they always start with "Allah". So I simply answer "Amiina" (Amen) and she is pleased. She listens to the radio a lot, and the other day was listening to an English lessson (it was a French- English lesson so I doubt she understood any of it because only a couple people can speak French here) and told me she wanted to come visit America. I can just picture it- her traditional garb, her strong but aging figure, her stick cane, hailing a taxi and cracking up on the streets of New York.
Their son, Moribu, lives on the compound with his wife Rokia. Moribu is a hard-working farmer, and is kind to me, but often gives me that pitying smile and laugh, trying to cover up the fact that he thinks I'm totally clueless, which I am. Rokia, I discovered, is only 20 years old. She works really hard cooking and washing all day, but I don't feel like I have too much of a relationship with her yet. She brings me my water and my food and talks to me intermittenly. But I get the feeling like she is very tired all the time, often not feeling well, and a little weary of life. Doni, doni, maybe I can help relieve some of her duties. The other day, I went to the well to draw my own water- and felt like I was gonna fall over carrying it on my head back to the compound. (The women in the village really got a kick out of it). Rokia has two children- a 2-year-old, Jenabu, who likes me well enough. She's cute but always filthy and cries quite a bit. Then there is Kajatu- 4 years old and absolutely edible. She is always smiling, laughing, running, dancing, looking over my shoulder when I'm doing my homework. She's the little tag along with the older girls but really does do her share of work with the farming and cleaning. Quite amazing.
Then there's the other Aminata and the other Kajatu- two cousins who also live on the compound. Why, I haven't quite figured out. I didn't want to ask in case something tragic happened to their parents. They are 10 and 13 and they work out in the fields and pound millet like nobody's buisness. I think I'm in good shape and I try to help them. After 5 minutes, I'm wiped. And they do this all day- hours upon hours. Just in general, there are seven year old girls who carry their two year old siblings on their backs all day. Children work hard, but they always seem to be happy and to be doing alright. It's their life.
Speaking of being wiped, the first 5 days of homestay were among the hardest I've ever experienced. After eating "Toh"- a millet mush- with oily green sauce with my hands out of the communal bowl the first night, I woke up to violent vomitting- all over the floor of my hut. With some soapy water and a wicker broom, I was able to get the Toh that my body rejected out of my door. Our donkeys noticed, hobbled over, and enjoyed a midnight snack. I lost count of how many times I threw up after that (into my bucket this time) but it got to the point where all I had left to give was air.
Trying to get my family to understand why I couldn't eat breakfast, lunch, or even dinner the next day was no easy task. And thus started the beginning of the biggest cultural misunderstanding that is still a struggle for us now- food. Night #2 was alright, because I had nothing in my system. But after eating a little on day 3, I again spent the night with my bucket. The Peace Corps brought me some medicines and gatorade, but I only made it two more days in the village before I had to go to Bamako and spend some time recouperating in the Peace Corps Medical Center. That 5th night, my family thought they would make me oiled cassava roots instead of Toh, which was a nice thought, but my intense nausea and dehydration was enough to keep me from even being able to sit up. The other trainees came to my aid, called the med truck, and I spend the next 24 hours on strong antinausea medication, gatorade, and food from a real live Toubab-(white person)-style grocery store.
I returned to the village with a Malian nurse who had lunch with my family, talked to my mother about properly cleaning off the rice so it didn't have rocks and sand in it, and giving some more variety in my diet. My family tries, they really do. They make me eggs sometimes, and oily spagetti. My host dad brought me some bananas at the market town one day and if they see that I don't eat, they send one of the girls to buy me some bread. But it was the tubab groceries and some protien bars and peanut butter from the US really got me through.
I feel great now, I've gained back the weight I lost, and I'm able to stomach the food a little better- my family is doing their best, and the Peace Corps gives them a daily food allowance so that they can do so. It's just difficult because we are a half hour walk from the next town which is the only place I could buy food (besides bread at the town butiki). And even that is just a market town, so most of what is sold is not yet sanitary enough for our consumption (except for the mangos :)).
So excuse my "war stories" (you knew they were coming) and if you're still with me, I'm on to the more romantic side of village life. In between our language classes (6 hours a day), I enjoy drinking strong Malian tea with the villagers, going for 5-7 mile runs through the dirt roads, watching the crazy thunderstorms and amazing starry sky. But most of all, we dance. Children from the little town of Satinebougu area always at my door begging "guitari! guitari!" And I bring out my guitar and we all dance the night away. We've taught them the macareana, and they've taught us some of their dances, which we are terrible at. These little girls can really move their bodies! Everything everyone has ever told me about the peace corps is true- one minute you want to die because you're puking your guts out- the next minute you're on top of the world because you're a local rock star and the whole village has put on their best outfits so they can gather around you and dance to your music. And they clap and cheer, and it is humbling.
And the villagers are so welcoming- they get a kick out of us, when we try to greet them with our terrible accents, when we wear our pagnes wrong, or when I go for my nightly run. It's quite a strange thing- people sit out and watch me, kids follow me, and once I get to the edge of town, that's when I have it, some time to myself.
What else? I take bucket baths twice a day. I can now sort of talk to my family about America- they were shocked to learn that yes, there are actually black people in America. My family has a small TV (battery operated, black and white) that a handful of villages (mostly teenage boys) come over to watch this cheezy Brazilian soap opera dubbed in French. I get quite a kick out of it. The first day when I was showing my sisters pictures of friends and family back at home, they kept pointing to Meghan Nolan saying "Tina! Tina!" After failing to find Tina in my English-Bambara dictionary, I realized later that night that Tina was a character from the soap opera. "There's your friend!" they told me "Tina!"
Back at the training center for a few days, I've eaten more than I've ever eaten in my life, talked to 75 AMERICANS in ENGLISH! (2 trainees have already terminated and went back to the states), and even played some sand volleyball (not quite like Hickory lane, but it was fun). The internet was down yesterday, but I got to talk to my family on the phone. I realize how much I really do miss home, friends, and family and how that is going to be really hard for me. I have the best support network and think about you guys all the time. I read your letters for inspiration, I pray for you, I feel terrible that I'm missing out on your lives. But in all sincerity, I think a lot of the hard part has passed. Though more is to come, at this point I'm still sincerely excited about my work, I'm still in love with this culture, and I still feel like this is what I have been called to do. Doni doni :)
Pictures take forever to upload, but I'll give it a try tomorrow.
-Emily aka Aminata
Monday, July 14, 2008
Homestay begins tomorrow
So lots of exciting things are happening!
I got my assignment for homestay- beginning tomorrow I will be living with the family of Samba Sako in the tiny village of Satinebougou (2k outside of Banankoro). The village has only 400 people in it and the only other thing I know is that most people there are gardeners and fruit sellers. There are only 2 other PCTs in my homestay village but there are about 8 in Banakoro that we will see when we do are shopping etc. Bambara lessons everyday, meals with the family, and experiencing a lot of people pointing and laughing at the "toubab" (white person). It should be exciting though. So far we haven't been outside the gates of Tubaniso, but we've been eased in to the culture so slowly that apparently now we are ready. Representatives from our village came to have lunch with us today, which is another interesting topic. We learned how to eat in the traditional Malian fashion yesterday so as not to make a fool out of ourselves today. We sit on the ground, eat from a communal bowl, don't talk to each other, and hope to burp so as to compliment the chef.
Today the Health Education volunteers had our first training session- it is all I expected and more. The job is going to be tough- working with sick babies, doing school presentations for preventative health, etc.... but it sounds so exciting and perfect for me.
I got to sypke with my family today- it was so awesome! I miss all of you guys so much. Everything here is great except for missing friends and family.
It will be 12 days until I am back in the Peace Corps Training village of Tubaniso, so I may not be able to write until then. Wish me luck! It's going to be one of the strangest experiences of my life.
PS- sorry for the lack of pictures... maybe next time!!
I got my assignment for homestay- beginning tomorrow I will be living with the family of Samba Sako in the tiny village of Satinebougou (2k outside of Banankoro). The village has only 400 people in it and the only other thing I know is that most people there are gardeners and fruit sellers. There are only 2 other PCTs in my homestay village but there are about 8 in Banakoro that we will see when we do are shopping etc. Bambara lessons everyday, meals with the family, and experiencing a lot of people pointing and laughing at the "toubab" (white person). It should be exciting though. So far we haven't been outside the gates of Tubaniso, but we've been eased in to the culture so slowly that apparently now we are ready. Representatives from our village came to have lunch with us today, which is another interesting topic. We learned how to eat in the traditional Malian fashion yesterday so as not to make a fool out of ourselves today. We sit on the ground, eat from a communal bowl, don't talk to each other, and hope to burp so as to compliment the chef.
Today the Health Education volunteers had our first training session- it is all I expected and more. The job is going to be tough- working with sick babies, doing school presentations for preventative health, etc.... but it sounds so exciting and perfect for me.
I got to sypke with my family today- it was so awesome! I miss all of you guys so much. Everything here is great except for missing friends and family.
It will be 12 days until I am back in the Peace Corps Training village of Tubaniso, so I may not be able to write until then. Wish me luck! It's going to be one of the strangest experiences of my life.
PS- sorry for the lack of pictures... maybe next time!!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Buckle your seatbelts...
...the rollercoaster has begun!
[Note- This blog took me like 5 tries to post because the internet is so spotty here. I wanted to upload a lot more pictures but it kept crashing so all you got is the huts and a lovely picture of the negeo]
So I'm here at Tubaniso, the Peace Corps training site just outside of Bamako, Mali. From my door of the hotel in Philly to my door in my Tubaniso hut was about 28 hours. Sorry it took me so long to post this blog, but the internet is super slow here and it took me like 3 different sessions to upload the pictures.
After sleeping the entire way to Paris, enjoying my last yogurts and toilets in Charles De Gualle, I got off in Mali to chaos. The airport is swarming with people- it is small- only one gate and baggage claim. Even if you see your bags you can't get to them because there are a zillion people who in between you and conveyor belt. There are also pestering men who try to grab your bags and expect you to pay them for carrying them for you. One man literally grabbed my bags right out of my hands and one of the Peace Corps staff got into a big argument with him. In the confusion, the message going through my head was "take your bags and get the out of here." Panicked and scared I successfully got out...
...but I didn't have all my bags. I realized at Tubaniso that I had left my computer (carry on) bag with all of my valuables on the security belt in the chaos and confusion. We arrived at the complex in pitch darkness. I could not get my bearing and was almost in tears thinking about my bags. One of the PCV (Peace Corps Volunteers) announced to us PCTs (trainees) that we would be doing a niego orientation. After a brief moment of thinking "What? An orientation at this hour?" I figured out that we would really be following the PCVs with flashlights to the 3/4 wall with a hole in the ground which was to be our bathroom/ bathing area. So apparently, this orientation was needed to get us through the night!
Meanwhile, the search for my bag was well underway. Luckily, the airport had called and had found it. So, in an old truck with a Malian driver and an experienced PCV, we drove the 45 minutes back to the Bamako airport, taking the backroads and seeing the impoverished outskirts of the city at night. We were at the airport forever, one person would send us to another person who would be clueless who would send us to another person who would put the responsibility on someone else to help us. So this is the developing world.
My heart finally settled when we saw my bag locked in the main office that night. Of course, nobody had the ability to open the office, but at least I saw my bag and it looked just as full as when it was last in my hands. The driver said he would return tomorrow to get it for me. Of course I expressed my thanks and how stupid and guilty I felt about the whole situation. "C'est mon travail". He needed to take a detour to pick up his overnight things so he could stay at Tubaniso. The PCV and I talked quite a bit about service as the driver proceeded to drive super fast as I observed donkeys in hanging out with the street with crowds of people hanging out outside broken buildings. Dozens of kids crowded around a single small TV, goats, sheep being shooed by couples on mopeds... When I returned with good news about my bag, the I was almost proud to make the other trainees jealous. They didn't get a night-time tour of underground Bamako by night. Sweet deal.
C'est chez moi!
So, I live in a hut, yes, with two other girls. With a tin roof that sounds like nails being hurled at it when the big rain came last night. But Tubaniso is still a very sheltered area. It is a mock-Malian village. We have our classes outside under grass hangers or in small huts, watching the toucans flying by or the freak giant centipedes crawling by your feet. We eat local food- beans, meats, fruits- (I think I've had a banana at every meal). All of our instructors and staff are Malian with some PCVs hanging around to help out. They are quite a fascinating people. Always so animated, and they love to laugh- at everything and very loudly.
The Peace Corps really has things under control though. We are busy every second of the day- culture classes, language, we even had a 2.5 hour class on diarrhea this morning. "Mr. D" as we call it, will be coming just around the corner, but then, I suppose, we will prepared.
I'm trying to work out but I'm so exhausted all of the time. There is a little running trail by the Niger river on our compound (quite beautiful- I'll bring my camera out there for you soon) and I've been running with some of the other PCTs. I just pray I can stay in good health while I'm here- we are all so run down that it is challenging to do so.
I'm enjoying my time here for the most part. The classes can be long and the frustration of not being able to communicate other than IM with my family one time since I've been here made me quite disappointed. Some of the PCTs are already questioning themselves, thinking of heading back to the States. As for me, I love you all and I miss you all terribly. Two years is along time. But the experience here is absolutely incredible- I'm so excited for what is to come. Next time I blog I will be out in a real Malian village living among the people, learning what to do. Wish me luck!
I wish you the best, wish you were here, wish I could fully explain everything about this place. Perfect weather, perfect sunsets, simple life.
I wish I could tell you all- describe in detail fun cultural nuances I am picking up on, the fun little conversations I have with the natives, all of the new friends I am making. And I apologize- my time is VERY limited right now, so I haven't been able to write any letters (which I will be doing soon, especially for those of you I haven't yet thanked for the touching parting words and gifts).
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Shots, Goodbyes, and 78 Amazing people
Greetings from Philly-
"Staging" or Peace Corps orientation began just yesterday and by tomorrow night I will be on a plane headed across the ocean to my new life. After an easy run yesterday morning, I headed to the "Greater" Rochester International Airport, and gazed at my increadible family for a few brief moments before I had to walk away, take off my shoes for security, and go off on my own. And sitting there in the airport, waiting for my delayed flight, I could do nothing but write. I wrote about my family and how much they mean to me. I got to reflect on this strange turning point in my life. And though I was teary-eyed as I walked away from the three most important people in my life, I couldn't help but embrace the sense of freshness, excitement, and independence I felt. For a moment, it was just me, God, and a very nice snow-plow salesman that I sat next to on the plane. He told me about his girls- 12 and 9, into gymnastics and theater (sound familiar?) and upon steping off the terminal declared that he will tell his daughters he met a real live hero.
But of course, I do not feel like a hero. For the past few days I have been filling out my paperwork all wrong, listening intently as I am told how to deal with harassment and illness, sifting through all of my fears to bring the core reasons I joined the Peace Corps into the forefront of my mind. We've had to be professional, but toward the end of the day some of the activities provided me with the opprotunities to both attempt a headstand and strum out the chord to "Born in the USA" on my new little 3/4 guitar. The biggest thing I learned through all of staging is this: I am in good hands. The Peace Corps is an incredible organization. They know what they're doing. And perhaps one day, I will too.
There are 78 of us that will get on the plane tomorrow- after a morning of yellow fever and malaria vaccinations and a 2.5 hour ride to New York. Of course, I can't say I've truly met all of the trainees yet, but the ones I have are absolutely incredible. Right at the baggage claim, I met two guys- one with a striking resemblence to Chad Day- and together we figured out where the heck we were supposed to be (well, two of us. The other guy was going to a different country than us and realized after we checked in that he was at the complete wrong hotel). There are married couples, older people, younger people (I am the youngest here that I know of)- each one fascinating. I can't wait to get to know them better.
This morning was my goodbye America run- 12 miles around the beautiful and historic Philly. What a blessing I have for this opprotunity- and I am out of my mind with excitement about arriving in Bamako.
So my apologies for being lengthy and a bit over-reflective. I promise there will be humorous cultural faux pas and other type things to write about from here on end. I miss you all already, and send my love back home.
Emily
PS- Because of safety reasons, I have taken my address off of the site. Please email me or call my family if you would like my mailing address (remember, I will be getting a new one mid-september)
"Staging" or Peace Corps orientation began just yesterday and by tomorrow night I will be on a plane headed across the ocean to my new life. After an easy run yesterday morning, I headed to the "Greater" Rochester International Airport, and gazed at my increadible family for a few brief moments before I had to walk away, take off my shoes for security, and go off on my own. And sitting there in the airport, waiting for my delayed flight, I could do nothing but write. I wrote about my family and how much they mean to me. I got to reflect on this strange turning point in my life. And though I was teary-eyed as I walked away from the three most important people in my life, I couldn't help but embrace the sense of freshness, excitement, and independence I felt. For a moment, it was just me, God, and a very nice snow-plow salesman that I sat next to on the plane. He told me about his girls- 12 and 9, into gymnastics and theater (sound familiar?) and upon steping off the terminal declared that he will tell his daughters he met a real live hero.
But of course, I do not feel like a hero. For the past few days I have been filling out my paperwork all wrong, listening intently as I am told how to deal with harassment and illness, sifting through all of my fears to bring the core reasons I joined the Peace Corps into the forefront of my mind. We've had to be professional, but toward the end of the day some of the activities provided me with the opprotunities to both attempt a headstand and strum out the chord to "Born in the USA" on my new little 3/4 guitar. The biggest thing I learned through all of staging is this: I am in good hands. The Peace Corps is an incredible organization. They know what they're doing. And perhaps one day, I will too.
There are 78 of us that will get on the plane tomorrow- after a morning of yellow fever and malaria vaccinations and a 2.5 hour ride to New York. Of course, I can't say I've truly met all of the trainees yet, but the ones I have are absolutely incredible. Right at the baggage claim, I met two guys- one with a striking resemblence to Chad Day- and together we figured out where the heck we were supposed to be (well, two of us. The other guy was going to a different country than us and realized after we checked in that he was at the complete wrong hotel). There are married couples, older people, younger people (I am the youngest here that I know of)- each one fascinating. I can't wait to get to know them better.
This morning was my goodbye America run- 12 miles around the beautiful and historic Philly. What a blessing I have for this opprotunity- and I am out of my mind with excitement about arriving in Bamako.
So my apologies for being lengthy and a bit over-reflective. I promise there will be humorous cultural faux pas and other type things to write about from here on end. I miss you all already, and send my love back home.
Emily
PS- Because of safety reasons, I have taken my address off of the site. Please email me or call my family if you would like my mailing address (remember, I will be getting a new one mid-september)
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