New Address

Oooo Quick update on the address change... Now I am:

Susie Vulpas, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 104
Sevare, Mali, West Africa

(I guess the West Africa part is key for postal workers ;)

Naange ana wuli

“Naange ana wuli” translates to “the sun is hot.” Never a more accurate phrase.

I’ve been at site for 2 weeks now and am slowly starting to get used to life here… slowly. To summarize, I live in a mud house in my village which is about 12km from the road. I am, as they say here, “en Brousse,” or in the bush. The village is about 3,000 which is a pretty decent size, but for such a size we have no market or anything like that. I’m still figuring out where people get their food to eat. It seems that everyone has a stack of rice sacks, salt and dried onions and fish in their house that they cook from. Other than that, some people grow food but right now is the hot season which means sweat galore and nothing grows. Not until the rains (and subsequent floods) come!

I haven’t really figured out a daily schedule yet but so far I have been getting up around 6 with the sunrise and running every other day. I run through fields or along some paths which is both exciting and extremely frustrating when the path through the field suddenly ends. I get back, have a little bucket bath, and some breakfast and then mosey over to the bitiki where the men hang out, chat and drink tea. I started teaching one of them English. He’s super nice and gives me fruit and bread when he gets it from Mopti. I head home for lunch and go to my tutor around 2pm, hang out for a while and go around to say hi to various people. It’s a lot of sitting and listening right now. When the sun goes down I generally go back to my house to make dinner, write in my journal, read, sometimes do some yoga and then go to sleep. I generally go to sleep by 9pm and start over all over again in the morning.

Every Sunday is market day at the town at the road so last week I bought a bag of candy and gave it to one of my host brothers to distribute. It was a hit. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing here and I hope that I am able to do something helpful…. Inchallah!

PST (pre-service training) Homestretch

The last two weeks we spent at homestay were fun but this training is not too short. Although site is extremely daunting, some parts of homestay were getting pretty old. Although it was super nice that my host sister would bring me water in the morning to wash, and having all meals prepared for me is definitely appreciated, I look forward to having some more independence at site.

Last Sunday Peace Corps actually took all of us to the museum and the American Club in Bamako. We were picked up from our homestay village at 8am and taken to the natural history museum in Bamako. We had a guide who explained (in French) a bit about the artifacts there… there were a lot of wooden and clay masks and artifacts from all over the country and from all the ethnic groups that are found in Mali. There was another pretty extensive textile exhibit that was super interesting. Mali imports fabric from all over Africa and Europe, in addition to making some here in country. The fancy clothes they wear here are made with Bazan fabric which is super waxy and really stiff. Not really the most comfortable thing but, when in Mali!

We are going to be sworn in on Tuesday at the President of Mali’s house so I got an outfit made out of the super waxy fabric. It’s really stiff but I think after a couple of washes it should loosen up (I can only hope). After that, it’s off to site and then the challenge begins all over again.