Here in Africa

I’m here!  It was perhaps the longest day of travel imaginable, but we made it – all 80 of us, minus 2 bags (thankfully not mine) – and are trying to get settled. Thankfully I was able to sleep on both planes and watched Invictus and Men Who Stare at Goats.  We got assigned to huts when we got here at 12:30am on Saturday.  They have us three to a hut/cement block which is a bit scrunched but we are making it work.  The compound is in Tubaniso (Tube-ahn-E-soh) which is about 40 minutes by car/bus outside of Bamako (Bomb-ah-koh) which is the capital of Mali.

I’m in the cafeteria area which has internet access but it is slow because we are all trying to get on at the same exact time!  We started training but have mainly been given the policies and rules and I think we are all anxious to get started with the cultural and especially language training.  It sounds like the majority of volunteers will be using Bambara but I will more than likely be getting French since I will be working with the school systems here.  I will keep updates flowing when I can though :)  We have 3 more days at Tubaniso and then they will be moving us into home stays around the area (no more than 30-45 minutes away).  

We got to celebrate the fourth a bit today with other American’s from Bamako, so that was nice.  I am most excited for tomorrow though because we get to start the real training, have our interviews about site and health, and get our bikes :)  We started our Malaria meds today so hopefully I don’t wake up with crazy vivid dreams!  I got the one that I have to take weekly so I am glad about that – I won’t have to take it every day like some of the other volunteers.  My computer is going to run out of steam here since I have yet to find my converter in all the craziness!  I’ll update more again soon.