I live in Mali!!!!

I don't like work -- no man does, but i like what is in work, the chance to find oneself

-  Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

After a 5 hour flight to Philly, 3 days of training, another 5 hour flight to Pairs, and a final 6 hour flight to Bamako...i'm here.

First impressions:  Africa, well at least Mali, smells different.  Perhaps it's my lean towards the literary, but the aroma seems to excite the baser instincts.  It's a muddy, musty, wild smell.  Either that or jet fuel...perhaps I shouldn't have read so much Conrad before leaving.

After getting our bags admist a muggy swarm of bodies and hands, passing them through a rather ineffective customs x-ray machine and loading them on a peace corps truck in the middle of the night we climbed aboard the Peace Corps bus and were whisked away to the Tubaniso compound, affectionately called Camp Peace Corps.  

Here at Tubaniso we were immediately introduced to the Nyegen.  This is the Malian version of the bathroom.  The luxurious comode comes complete with cement walls and a small, barely adequate, hole in the ground.  Late afternoon it comes complete with a swarm of flies.  It's rather lovely.  So far I've navigated the Nyegen without any MAJOR mishaps and i've avoided using the saledegon, a tea kettle malians use in lieu of toilet paper.  I myself am sticking to a rather american version of the Nyegen and brought toilet paper in.  

The saledegon ritual leads Malians to avoid using their left hand in most polite situations.  No eating, shaking, or passing things to people with your left hand.  We tried eating with our right hands only (sans utensils of course) and i ended up with most of the rice in my lap and on my face.  It's rough.

I'm living in a small hut with 2 other girls.  It comes complete with mosquito nets and looks very much like what you are imagining, but it's made of cement not mud and has a tin roof (although some have a thatch roof).  Our second night it we had a rain storm (it is rainy season here, which means it's humid and around 80-100 each day depending).  The rainstorm woke me up and kept me awake for about 40 minutes because of the roar of the drops on our tin roof.  It was pretty spectacular.

I'm not really in Mali yet, I've spent all my time here at the compound and although I've had some Malian food, they are introducing it slowly so our bowels can adjust.  So far so good.  The traditional Malian food we've had so far includes porridge (not so good), rice (yum), assorted sketcy meats (i avoid meat altogether), beans, and plantains.  We also had a cultural fair in which they fried different doughs, they were delicious.

The majority of the day is spent in class.  I've been learning about diversity, security, Malian do's and don'ts (including the fact that women cannot whistle but men can but only during the day because it attracts demons). 

I've got very little to report, but tomorrow i leave to actually LIVE in Mali with a Malian family in a Malian village eating Malian food and speaking Malian languages (Bambara and French).  Stay tuned for more! I'm pretty excited, but very nervous for the next 2 months with a bunch of strangers in a strange land.  

Let it begin!

Gypsy on