Bess on the rope at Tubaniso.
On the way to swear-in.
Roomies Lindsey and Stephanie at the embassy.
Jared gives his Tamasheq speech.
Sinsina kow.
"Swearing in."
Sikasso kow.
Dinner in Sikasso.
Blurry volunteers in the kitchen: Michele and Trinh.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
So I know I said I wouldn't have internet anymore . . .
But apparently access is available here at the missionary in Koutiala, at least if you have a computer, which I do via fellow PCV Amanda. Thought I'd take advantage to post some pictures.
Bess on the rope at Tubaniso.
On the way to swear-in.
Roomies Lindsey and Stephanie at the embassy.
Jared gives his Tamasheq speech.
Sinsina kow.
"Swearing in."
Sikasso kow.
Dinner in Sikasso.
Blurry volunteers in the kitchen: Michele and Trinh.
Bess on the rope at Tubaniso.
On the way to swear-in.
Roomies Lindsey and Stephanie at the embassy.
Jared gives his Tamasheq speech.
Sinsina kow.
"Swearing in."
Sikasso kow.
Dinner in Sikasso.
Blurry volunteers in the kitchen: Michele and Trinh.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sikasso
Right now, I'm hanging out at an internet café in Sikasso ville. I arrived here yesterday in the company of eight other volunteers. Tomorrow I'll be going to Koutiala with fellow volunteers Ben and Amanda, where we'll hang out for a day or to to buy stuff for our houses before being installed on Thursday. I'm looking forward to installation, since it means the beginning of my actual service and the end of being shepherded around by the PC. On the other hand, it might end up being a bit anti climatic, after the past week or so.
I've pretty much been hanging out with other PCVs since swear-in on Friday. Friday evening, we had a party at the Pirates club, which went on until the wee hours of the morning. It was really a lot of fun; I haven't really had a chance to let loose since I got to Mali, and spending the night dancing was just what I needed. The day after, we entertained ourselves by swimming in the hotel pool (we spent the night in Bamako in a hotel) and eating as much 'toubab' food as possible (lots of ice cream, chocolate, and burgers- my vegetarianism seems to have gone down the tube for now).
Yesterday morning we left for Sikasso around 6 am, arriving just around 2 in the afternoon. We met up with some of the resident volunteers, Trinh, Michelle, and Jack, and spent the evening walking around, eating, and watching a few movies. Sikasso is the second largest city in Mali, followed by Segou, and then Koutiala. Although I'm not sure how often I'll be coming here, since Segou and Koutiala are both significantly closer, it is nice to have gotten the lay of the land and to have met some more Sikasso volunteers.
Anyway, think that's all I'll write for now. Wish me luck with installation. I'll hopefully be able to update again in a few weeks.
I've pretty much been hanging out with other PCVs since swear-in on Friday. Friday evening, we had a party at the Pirates club, which went on until the wee hours of the morning. It was really a lot of fun; I haven't really had a chance to let loose since I got to Mali, and spending the night dancing was just what I needed. The day after, we entertained ourselves by swimming in the hotel pool (we spent the night in Bamako in a hotel) and eating as much 'toubab' food as possible (lots of ice cream, chocolate, and burgers- my vegetarianism seems to have gone down the tube for now).
Yesterday morning we left for Sikasso around 6 am, arriving just around 2 in the afternoon. We met up with some of the resident volunteers, Trinh, Michelle, and Jack, and spent the evening walking around, eating, and watching a few movies. Sikasso is the second largest city in Mali, followed by Segou, and then Koutiala. Although I'm not sure how often I'll be coming here, since Segou and Koutiala are both significantly closer, it is nice to have gotten the lay of the land and to have met some more Sikasso volunteers.
Anyway, think that's all I'll write for now. Wish me luck with installation. I'll hopefully be able to update again in a few weeks.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
This evening I watched Singing in the Rain in the refectoire with Emily (a current PCV) and some of my fellow trainees. I used to watch Singing in the Rain my freshman year of college whenever I was feeling homesick. Somehow, seeing Gene Kelly do his rain dance inspires a certain kind of joy in me. Seeing him lose himself to childish leaps and twirls and stomps is a little like losing the part of myself that is so grounded in my worries and fears.
Some of my homesickness has faded in the past week or so. The first few days back at Sinsina were hard again, but sometime in the middle of the week, my bad mood broke and somewhere in there I reached a tentative inner peace about being here, resolving to think about what is at hand instead of how long I've committed to being here or what else I could be doing.
Some of my homesickness has faded in the past week or so. The first few days back at Sinsina were hard again, but sometime in the middle of the week, my bad mood broke and somewhere in there I reached a tentative inner peace about being here, resolving to think about what is at hand instead of how long I've committed to being here or what else I could be doing.
There's a lot going on right now. On Sunday morning I said goodbye to my family in Sinsina. It was the end of a series of goodbyes, first on Wednesday when we had a party with the villagers. The party was attended by a lot of children, and some of the adults who were associated with our families. At the party, we presented some gifts to our families and Bocar, the language coordiator at Tubani So, came by to help with this and to give our families certificates of thanks for hosting us. Afterwards, we had a dance party. My "little girls," as I think of them- my host sisters Nayima, Batama, Ajara, Konimba, and our two neighbor Fatimis- were all very excited about dancing, as was Jeneba. They were especially excited to see me dance, and informed me afterward that I knew how to dance kosebe kosebe (very well).
Friday I took my language test, passing with a score of Intermediate Mid. Saturday, I said goodbye to my host father, Sine Doumbia, since he had to go to Bamako to work for a few days. I gave him a few small gifts- a pack of cards and a drawing book for the kids as well as a snow globe I had bought in the Milwaukee airport before leaving. Satuday evening was pretty low-key, but in a really nice way. After dinner I made tea for the family, which was exciting, since I've watched Malians make tea many times now but haven't gotten a chance to do it myself. Making tea in Mali is something of an art, involving pouring tea from the pot to the cup and back to the pot many times, reheating the tea in-between to mix the tea and the sugar in just the right quantities. The result is a very sweet green tea that is served in small glasses.
Sunday morning goodbyes flew by quickly. I woke up in the morning to my usual routine, going to Kajatu's kitchen hut to get hot water for my bath, eating my bread and peanut butter with tea for breakfast, and cleaning up my room a bit before taking a number of pictures and heading to the school to catch the Peace Corps vehicle back to Tubani So.
At the moment, I'm back at Tubani So, eating copious amounts of chocolate, doing some last-minute training on everything from sex education to chicken raising and waiting for our swear-in ceremony on Friday. We've had a bit more time off lately. Monday afternoon, there was nothing to do so I went off with Jared and Bess, two of the other trainees (soon to be volunteers) on a bike ride to some cliffs that aren't too far from Tubani So. We climbed up to the top to take some pictures and enjoy the view. Speaking of pictures, I put some more up online. You can check them out at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016383&l=be921&id=10301328.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Homesickness
They continued across the desert. With every day that passed, the boy's heart became more and more silent. It no longer wanted to know about things of the past or future; it was content simply to contemplate the desert, to drink with the boy from the soul of the world. The boy and his heart had become friends, and neither was capable of betraying the other.
When his heart spoke to him, it was to provide a stimulus to the boy, and to give him strength, because the days of silence there in the desert were wearisome. His heart told the boy what his strongest qualities were: his courage in having given up his sheep and trying to live out his Personal Legend, and his enthusiasm during the time he had worked in the crystal shop.
I wrote this quotation from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho in my journal a couple of weeks ago. My fellow PCT, Rachel, had lent it to me, and it seemed very topical for what I was experiencing. Ever since I got here, my emotional state has been majorly fluctuating. There's been so much stuff to take in- new language, new food, endless training sessions, all new people, etc. A lot of this stuff has been good, but it has also been quite a shock- l'expérience m'a boulversée. The first week or so in Sinsina was really hard because this shock sort of took over, and all I could think about most of the time was how cool the weather was at home or some such thing. Since then, things have been up or down- one moment I'll be giddy and excited, the next moment planning my escape.
This past week in Sinsina, I was feeling pretty negative most of the time. There was a lot of good stuff about the week- I hung out with my host family a fair amount, reread a good book, worked (kind of) on my Bambara. But at the same time, I couldn't help myself from conjuring up images of my life as it might be right now if I were at home.
Hm, I'm not sure exactly how to articulate this, but whenever I read that quote from the Alchemist in my journal, I feel like someone out there must understand how I'm feeling about being in Mali- it's like this basic conflict between knowing what I want for myself in my life right now and what will make me happier and more self-actualized in the long run and wanting at the same time the safety, security, and familiarity of home.
On the one hand, I've basically gotten everything I wanted in being here. Already, this experience has been unlike any other experience I've ever had and I can only think that completing two years of service will continue to expand my understanding of some issues I feel are really important to me (understanding and respecting other cultures, learning about poverty, working with nutrition issues).
This morning the agricultural volunteers took a trip to the International Crop Research Insitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which conveniently has a center right next door to Tubaniso. We got a tour and some explanation of what the center works on as well as a similar presentation of two other organizations, ICRAFT and the Asian Vegetable and Somethingoranother Research Center, that are situated on the grounds. Er, sorry I can't remember the names of the last two there, but at any rate . . . The first part of the tour was with the people from ICRAFT, which is a research institute that does stuff with agroforestry. We learned about tree grafting, which is really cool and seems like a great way of getting fruitful trees to communities faster. By grafting the branch of a tree that's already making fruit onto a younger tree, you can greatly decrease the amount of time before that tree begins flowering- for example, they showed us a baobab tree (sira in Bambara)- which normally takes 18 years of growing before it begins to produce fruit- if grafted, it only takes 5-10 years (may have these figures mixed up a bit, but you get the basic idea). In the case of the baobab, what's also cool is that a grafted tree is much shorter than a regularly-grown tree, which is good because it means villagers can more easily reach the fruit and there's less chance of accidents.
We also got a chance to talk to the people at ICRISAT. They told us a bit about some of the varieties of crops they are experimenting with- a variety of peanut that is resistent to two particular illnesses, a couple of varieties of sorghum, etc. There was also a woman who works on nutritional issues who was telling us about how she was working on developing new ways of food processing that would help fight anemia and other nutritional deficiencies in children. The Asiain Vegetable people showed us around their garden, pointing out some varieties of leafy vegetable that they were trying to encourage comsumption of for nutritional reasons, and over to their tomato crops- apparently there's a particular virus that attacks tomato plants in Mali- they were experimenting with different varieties of tomatos to see if any of them would be resistant to the virus (none of them seemed to be as far as I could tell).
Anyway, it was a really interesting morning, and I found myself feeling more enthusiasm for this undertaking than I've felt for a week anyway. There's so much to learn here, so much I could do, but it all seems so daunting, and being away from everything familiar makes it seemt that much more difficult. It's easy to be positive right now, somehow, at Tubaniso, but, well, I don't know. I hope it gets better.
Send me letters, anyway, and M&Ms.
When his heart spoke to him, it was to provide a stimulus to the boy, and to give him strength, because the days of silence there in the desert were wearisome. His heart told the boy what his strongest qualities were: his courage in having given up his sheep and trying to live out his Personal Legend, and his enthusiasm during the time he had worked in the crystal shop.
I wrote this quotation from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho in my journal a couple of weeks ago. My fellow PCT, Rachel, had lent it to me, and it seemed very topical for what I was experiencing. Ever since I got here, my emotional state has been majorly fluctuating. There's been so much stuff to take in- new language, new food, endless training sessions, all new people, etc. A lot of this stuff has been good, but it has also been quite a shock- l'expérience m'a boulversée. The first week or so in Sinsina was really hard because this shock sort of took over, and all I could think about most of the time was how cool the weather was at home or some such thing. Since then, things have been up or down- one moment I'll be giddy and excited, the next moment planning my escape.
This past week in Sinsina, I was feeling pretty negative most of the time. There was a lot of good stuff about the week- I hung out with my host family a fair amount, reread a good book, worked (kind of) on my Bambara. But at the same time, I couldn't help myself from conjuring up images of my life as it might be right now if I were at home.
Hm, I'm not sure exactly how to articulate this, but whenever I read that quote from the Alchemist in my journal, I feel like someone out there must understand how I'm feeling about being in Mali- it's like this basic conflict between knowing what I want for myself in my life right now and what will make me happier and more self-actualized in the long run and wanting at the same time the safety, security, and familiarity of home.
On the one hand, I've basically gotten everything I wanted in being here. Already, this experience has been unlike any other experience I've ever had and I can only think that completing two years of service will continue to expand my understanding of some issues I feel are really important to me (understanding and respecting other cultures, learning about poverty, working with nutrition issues).
This morning the agricultural volunteers took a trip to the International Crop Research Insitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which conveniently has a center right next door to Tubaniso. We got a tour and some explanation of what the center works on as well as a similar presentation of two other organizations, ICRAFT and the Asian Vegetable and Somethingoranother Research Center, that are situated on the grounds. Er, sorry I can't remember the names of the last two there, but at any rate . . . The first part of the tour was with the people from ICRAFT, which is a research institute that does stuff with agroforestry. We learned about tree grafting, which is really cool and seems like a great way of getting fruitful trees to communities faster. By grafting the branch of a tree that's already making fruit onto a younger tree, you can greatly decrease the amount of time before that tree begins flowering- for example, they showed us a baobab tree (sira in Bambara)- which normally takes 18 years of growing before it begins to produce fruit- if grafted, it only takes 5-10 years (may have these figures mixed up a bit, but you get the basic idea). In the case of the baobab, what's also cool is that a grafted tree is much shorter than a regularly-grown tree, which is good because it means villagers can more easily reach the fruit and there's less chance of accidents.
We also got a chance to talk to the people at ICRISAT. They told us a bit about some of the varieties of crops they are experimenting with- a variety of peanut that is resistent to two particular illnesses, a couple of varieties of sorghum, etc. There was also a woman who works on nutritional issues who was telling us about how she was working on developing new ways of food processing that would help fight anemia and other nutritional deficiencies in children. The Asiain Vegetable people showed us around their garden, pointing out some varieties of leafy vegetable that they were trying to encourage comsumption of for nutritional reasons, and over to their tomato crops- apparently there's a particular virus that attacks tomato plants in Mali- they were experimenting with different varieties of tomatos to see if any of them would be resistant to the virus (none of them seemed to be as far as I could tell).
Anyway, it was a really interesting morning, and I found myself feeling more enthusiasm for this undertaking than I've felt for a week anyway. There's so much to learn here, so much I could do, but it all seems so daunting, and being away from everything familiar makes it seemt that much more difficult. It's easy to be positive right now, somehow, at Tubaniso, but, well, I don't know. I hope it gets better.
Send me letters, anyway, and M&Ms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
