Its been a whirlwind of a few days. It is incredibly humid and hot here, I don’t think I’ve ever sweat so much in my life and its only the beginning! Life here is so incredibly different I am not even sure how to describe it all. We are currently ‘Tubabs’ or foreigners so we can get away with lots of faux pas for now. These early days feel more like intense wilderness summer camp than what the coming days will most certainly feel like. Time is spent in trainings and laughing over meals with the rest of the trainees about dropping soap down the hole we go to the bathroom in –since we shower and defecate in the same small mud room – or that as women we cannot whistle or we will be seen as ‘women of the night’.
We started language training today in Bambara and it is VERY difficult. It doesn’t translate well so it makes it difficult to visualize (i.e. the title of this blog translates to ‘you and night’) but it’s going to be really cool to learn. Beyond that we are getting training on how to treat our water at site, ensure our food is safe to eat, how to culturally engage, and how to fix our brand spankin’ new Trek bikes – so father I will be fully capable of maintaining my mountain bike when I return to the states so don’t ruin while I’m gone ;).
Us trainees are starting to form bonds with each other which is fantastic, but its also hard knowing we just are starting these relationships and we will be splitting up so soon! They are dividing us into 2 groups for the next 9 weeks so after Friday I won’t be seeing half the people until Volunteer Swear In :( I am definitely one of the older volunteers, but there are a group of us bonding over having some experience in the real world after college. It will certainly be good to know I have people to call here to keep me in it through the rough patches.
Its looking like its going to be much harder to connect to the internet etc than I thought it would be when I first got here so Skype etc is going to be hard to pull off for a while. We move to home stays on Friday where we will be living with Malian families and adjusting to their customs while we still have the sounding board of our Language and Culture Facilitators and the other volunteers. The food is going to be a challenge for me, as expected. The food is pretty good for now – lots of rice and beans (carb overload) but I haven’t eaten much of any meat yet, but lots o bananas :)
Okay I will update when I can!
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