Homestay... part 1

Whew. A whirlwind 12 days at homestay.  Let me see how I can explain it properly.

All 62 (we've lost two trainees already) or us are split into 9 different villages off the road to Segou. Basically the country has the worst roads everrrrr. Which is cool. There's one two lane road going northeast from Bamako and then whenever you turn off it it's all dirt roads of varying smoothness. When I was reading about Mali they said we'd be getting a mountain bike and mountain bike training in country. Little did I know that biking from my homestay family to school would be more like training for mountain biking. Pot holes, rocks, cow pies.... helmets are a must and I have NO intention of breaking that rule. 'cause that'd just be stupid.

My Village:
I'm in Niamana, the first village of the nine, with 7 other PCT (Peace Corps Trainees). Five of us are learning Fulfulde and three are studying Bambara. We have three LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator - Peace Corps is accronym happy) two who are teaching us fulfulde and one for the Bambara students.
The villages itself... is not super picturesque. It's pretty gigantic and every other house (at least) is incomplete. Most of the time it looks like peple starting building a house and got the fuondation and about 10 feet of the outside wall and then called it quits.I talked to Cisse, one of my fulfulde LCFs and he said people come to Bamako to work and they live with other people, make some money and come out to the village, in this case Niamana, start building themselves a house, run out of money, go back to Bamako to get some more, then back to Nimana to work on the house more, etc. I don't think I have nearly enough patience for that... Malians definitely school me in the patience department.

My Family:
WHOA BIRTH CONTROL. I should probably figure out how to put the disclaimer on my blog that it's not Peace Corps approved before writing this but.... I'll do it later ;) So... we got to the village, went to see the dugu tiki (village chief) and give him the colonuts (super bitter nuts that you give people for certain occasions, like asking a father for his daughter, as an apology, or welcoming in 8 toubabs into the village for a couple months) for accepting us into the village. My host mom was there and we walked from the dugu tiki's to their house. Unfortunately no one spoke French so they gave me a chair and I sat... for two hours. Anyways, since then I have my room (all to myself with a door :) and my language classes so I'm slowly starting to figure them out. not completely mind you; my language is still pathetic.My host dad is ancient. I'm terrible at guessing people's ages in general and then in Africa where they spend most of their lives outside... well, I'm going to stop there but let's just say my ability to estimate the ages has not improved. Regardless, my host father has only a couple teeth, is a rail and hobbles on crutches. I'd put him at 75. Funny thing though, his wife is probably in her 40s (confirmed by my LCF - promise) and they have eight or nine kids between the ages of 12 months and probably 23 years. WHOA. Birth control.

The first week was not super exciting. A lot of class (8am-12pm, home for lunch then class from 2:30pm-5pm) and I'd come home to sit and study and just listen to the family talk. There are at least four nuclear families within my compound and I still don't understand who is who so I have been hanging out on my family's pourch with them. One thing at a time. Last week I was getting pretty frustrated though, sitting all day ni class and sitting all night with the family so I asked to help make dinner. Well. I helped for the subsequent 3 meals as well. I don't mind at all and they always ask if I'm tired but if my 16 year old host sister can cook and pound and stir and everything, I can too. And it definitely beats sitting. A lot. Saturday night I asked one of the other old men in my compound (no clue what his relation is) to teach me how to make the rope he was making. Fulanis are herders so I think once they get too old for herding they make the ropes. The man was super nice and showed me breifly then let me twist away. They take these plastic woven rice sacks, cut them apart to get individual plastic strips and twist is into rope. The resulting rope is crazy strong. So, I sat there twisting and twisting while the moon rose and the other men came home. I think I had the same conversation 5 times ... Fulani man: "can you do it?" Me:"Yeah! I'm learning to make rope!" Funlani Man: "do they do this in America?" Me: "No... we buy it, we're too lazy" And then it has to end because, like I mentioned... my language is pretty very extremely limited. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

Food
In a place that a third of children are chronically undernourished and food security is a major issue, there's not a huge food culture.You eat with your hand (RIGHT ONLY) and scoop the food from the communal bowl into your mouth. It's a lot of rice and salty sauce, or toh and slimey okra sauce. Toh... there's a whole different thing. I think the closest thing I can think of is polenta but take away any flavor and add a little slime and that's probably right. It's made by pounding millet into a very fine power, mixing it with a little water to dissolve, pouring it into boiling water and then cok and stir away and it thickens into a clay-like consistany. (This was one of my duties as assistant cook) I actually really liked it when I first got it but I think this is the fastest I have ever gotten sick of eating something. It's usually for dinner. Ah well. I look forward to cooking for myself... Or attempting...

Game plan from here:
Tomorrow we're heading back to the villages for another two weeks of language and living, then we'll come back to Tubaniso for a day of two to find out our sites for the next two years. Every volunteer has a Malian homologue or counterpart who will all be at Tubaniso when we come back in two weeks. Once we meet them, we'll travel via public transportation to our sites to see them for the first time. Because I'm learning a minority language I'll be up in Mopti region, chillin with the camels and probably sweating buckets. The Bambara learners don't have any idea where they'll go... I guess there are some nice mountins up there which I'm really excited about and I guess the Fulani people are really nice too which I think will be really important for my sanity ;)

I'll be back online in a couple of weeks! Probably ;)

Orientation days at Tubaniso!

Alriiiight! So...after a 24 hour stint in DC complete with Yellow Fever vaccine and met a lot of people we flew a charming 7 hour flight to Charles de Gaulle, 4 hours in Paris and another 5 to Bamako, Mali! We got off the plane at 8:55pm to 80 degree weather; not the suffocating type that I've heard about (Annie ;) but good, warm air. The Peace Corps staff met us with water and bug spray, and through a series of buses and cars we arrived at Tubaniso, a training camp that has been on loan from the Dept of Ag (maybe) of Mali. It's amazing, just like summer camp... with a dress code. and more formal. I'm in a hut iwith two roommates. There's a really charming hole in the floor not too too far away and a super sweet clay room for our bucket baths. So far we've been doing a lot of trainings, culture, malaria and health concerns, safety... etc. 

Yesterday we had a cultural festival complete with fabric vendors and drummers. All the girls got panyes, those super sweet wrap around skirts that nearly all Malian women wear. We bought the fabric (about 2 meters long, one meter wide) and there were two tailors there that for 500 CFA (a bit more than a dollar) finished the piece and attached strings for easy tying, something I was told Malian women generally don't even bother with, their tucking skills are so advanced. (Think a towel wrapped around your waste after you shower.) 

Today we got our assignments for homestay! We'll be staying with a family for about two months and this first stint will be for 12 days. I'll be in Niamana with 7 other volunteers. Four or five of us will be learning Fulani! It's a minority language in the Mopti region so that's where I'll be placed! I don't know too much about the region yet... except they generally wear traditional clothes and drink milk. I'll know more soon though! Niamana is a small village only maybe 10 miles or so from Bamako but as Bamako is so ... little ... it's still very much rural. The other volunteers are placed in homestays around the region and we'll all meet up again after the initial 12 days. So everyday we're going to have about 8 hours of language and technical training which I'm really looking forward to. It's the downtime I've heard so much about, after training is over and we swear in that I am nervous for. 

I'll write again in a couple of weeks when I come back to Tubaniso and internet!