Greetings from Mali!
After leaving WV with very little sleep last Thursday morning I made it to my staging in Philadelphia! We stayed in the historic district and about 20 of us were able to take carriage rides around the city since many of us had never been in Philly before.
There are 80 trainees that are here at Tubaniso (training center in Mali). So, as you can guess we're constantly split and ice breakers are tricky, so for the first few days we went around meeting new people at every turn. The excitement and anxiety had not hit me before leaving home. It was the items I had neglected packing or the luggage I chose that were my first concerns. Everyone else had packed large hiking packs, while all my luggage is on wheels (but, I have made it all the way so far--in fact, I was the first female to have all my luggage arrive on the carosel in Bamako!). Items like body wash, manuals and chargers for techie stuff were forgotten as well. Even when landing in Paris CDG I did not really believe that we had left the country. It was just like, "Why is everyone speaking French?". Of course, for the first time since Mike has been CD, we were two hrs. behind our arrival time. This put us arriving at our site around 12 AM to stumble around in the dark with our bags and discovering the nygdins and sallygagas (cement houses with shower heads and holes in the floor to squat over & watering cans to splash ourselves clean). The huts are tight, but we have cots with mosquito nets, fan, outlet and light (all luxories).
Basically, it truly reminds me of any of the summer camps I have attended. The heat of day, classes, assemblies (scheduled sunrise to set) and an exhausting amount of highs and lows with 79 other people packed into 4 or 5 days. Our sessions have ranged from topics, such as, bike instruction to malaria talks (presented with an rendition of "Disturbia"-Rihanna to "Malaria"). We have discussed culture, stereotypes, overviews of our sectors and many other concerns for health physically and mentally.
It has been so jam packed that we all feel that we have been here much longer than just 3 days. But, we did leave our camp for an afternoon in Bamako's own American Club to celebrate the 4th with volleyball, swimming, burgers and beer. We hardly needed any of this since it was just our first full day, however, I did appreciate the swimming pool! However, tomorrow we get our first real look at Mali as we are leaving for our homestays for about the next 2 weeks taking classes and beginning our first attempts to integrate into the culture. This is really exciting because I feel being here that we have not really been able to see much besides what our trainers and facilitators have described and explained to us.
Right now, we are having a cultural festival. This has been our first chance to see dancing and music, try food and buy clothes. The ambassador kicked it off with a visit. And, though we are leaving tomorrow with even less bags than we brought; between the water filter, med kit and loads of reading material for our work we have a lot more to pack.
Please, feel free once you find this blog to spread the word to everyone who wants to follow my journey (I will try to update regularly). Feel free to ask questions about any issue and I will answer as quickly as I can. Also, if anyone can let me know how to connect these updates with facebook/email addresses that I have please post how to do that too : ) I ni ce (Thank you!)
Allah ka tile here caya! ( May God give peace to your day! )
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