The end of Home Stay

Well, I'm finished with homestay!  I'll become a real live Peace Corps Volunteer on Friday.  We're swearing in at the American Embassy and then having a rockin party at the Deputy Ambassador's house.  Should be a lot of fun!  In the meantime I'm at Tubaniso and have internet, email me!

The last few days at homestay were good.  I shared some American food with my family every night (Oreos, starburst, tootsie rolls, etc.)  And I really tried to enjoy my time with my fam.  They were really good to me and I'll miss hanging out with them.  Ramadan also started the first of the month, but my family didn't really fast.  We did however have huge dinners every night.  The food was really really good!  We had Pate one night, which is basically like a hot pocket.  It's fried dough with delicious meat inside....not the sketchy meat the good stuff.  

My last full day at home my fam gave me one last present-- Henna tattoos on my feet and hands.  It's pretty cool and I'll try and get some pictures up soon.

Check out the blog I wrote this week at homestay in the mean time:

September 3, 2008

Mark and Jackie….you guys rule.  Thanks for the sweet package.  The Mickey Mouse shortbread cookies were truly amazing.  I really don't think words can express the yumminess experienced...it was sublime.  Thanks so much! :)   Thomas your package made it too, but the freak shows in the Malian mail system stole your note from the box.  How weird….but at least they left the candy.

Thanks to everyone who is sending me things.  I appreciate it so much and feel very loved and supported.  I must say that I'm pretty sure I have enough peanut butter to last me a good 6 months.  I'm also up to my ears in tootsie pops and jolly ranchers.  In fact you all have done so well I think I've gained back a couple of the 10 pounds I lost on arrival, but I can't be sure until I weigh myself Sunday at Tubaniso.  If I come home from Africa fatter than when I left, I'll have you wonderful people to thank for the cases of Oreos and Starbursts that have been sent my way J  Now if anyone can figure out how to send me some Taco Bell and a Papa Murphy's pizza….you will win my heart forever. 

I really really love all you guys (not just cause you send me nice cards/letters/packages) and I feel truly blessed to have all you good people in my life.

Actually, I'll be moving into my own house soon and I'll be able to cook my own food.  I'm pretty excited about this, but I'll miss the plethora of goat meat I'm served here in Sanankoroba.  Okay, that's sort of a lie, there is a lot of goat meat, but I don't actually eat the goat meat.  My family is under the impression that I don't eat meat, except for chicken and fish.  This has worked to my advantage several times and may keep me from having to eat goat head at the end of the week.  They think I'm strange for steering clear of all their sketch-tacular, fatty, grisly meat, but lucky for me, they think white people are weird anyway and just chalk it up to another facet of our bizarratude (ya I made that word up, take that Spell Check).

I heard a story the other day and I don't' think I've recounted it yet, but I can't be sure cause I have no memory of any blogs I write.  I write them and immediately forget what I said.  I chalk this up to my mother's genes.  Anyway, at the beginning of the war with Iraq, Malians were discussing whether they should go help Iraq since America was fighting what they termed a "religious" war.  (Lets, for the sake of our sanity, ignore any political implications of that for now).  It turns out many of the radio stations were asking Malians to call in and give their opinion on the topic.  A great many Malians did call in and there were a vast number of calls that went something along the lines of the following: 

"We should not help Iraq.  There is an American in our town who works for Peace Corps and he/she has always been very nice.  They live with us, work with us, eat with us, and talk to us in our National languages (national languages are Bambara and other tribal languages…not French).  Where are the Iraqis in Mali?  I have never met one in my village, but the American in my village is very good."

If that doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you're homesick, I don't know what will.

In health news….

I've seemingly developed several ticks while here in Mali.  I'm constantly swinging my arms around and slapping myself.  I've also been known to kick my feet in the air for what appears to be no reason.  It would seem I have Teret's (sp????) But if you look closer it's the damn flies.  I swear all of Mali is rotting.  It's like National Geographic over here…all these frickin flies trying to crawl all over you.  It's probably one of the most annoying side effects of living in Mali.  There are more flies here than I've ever seen in my whole life combined.  So, if I come home and accidentally smack you in what appears to be wild flailing, be kind, I'm probably seeing imaginary flies from a PTS type of psychosis.

The past two days I've been teaching 11 Malian students in a bit of a "mock classroom" type setting.  The students are 4^th years at the University and the guinea pigs for my first Malian teaching experience.  The two lessons went well, and I especially enjoyed teaching the subtle nuances of Ralph Waldo Emereson's essay "Self-Reliance" while explaining the finer points of Trancendentalism.  The students are bright but hard to control.  They are loud.  Much louder than American students.  And there were only 11 of them.  I will have 130 in December…..I may have a break down. ;)

I've been filling a lot of my time lately with reading.  So far I've plowed through:

• ·      Steinbeck's Once There Was a War Verdict: There is a reason Steinbeck is my favorite author – it's a collection of his war correspondence during WWII, and I found it to be really interesting. 
  
• ·      Allende's The Infinite Plan Verdict:  Allende is always Amazing.  Read her.
  
• ·      Gregory Maguire's Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Verdict: Decent, but not as good as I'd hoped.
  
• ·      Marian Keyes  Anybody Out There?  Verdict: GREAT CHICK BOOK J You'll laugh, you'll cry, and then you'll want to get married.
  
• ·      Robert Ludlum's Apocalypse Watch Verdict: Quite possibly the worst book I've ever read
  
• ·      Carl Hiaasen's Basket Case Verdict: eh I've seen worse….and much better
  
• ·      Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain Verdict: Great, absolutely fabulous. Read it.

That's it so far.  I'm going to be working my way through a small library by the end of two years.  If you have any good books and are willing package them up for me, I'd be grateful.  We have a lot of books collected here by other Peace Corps Volunteers over the years, but I can always use a new (or old) good book.  J  I'm about to start Catcher in the Rye, somehow after majoring in English I still haven't read it.....

That's all for now J 

Gypsy On.  

 

(PS Leave a comment or two if you're so inclined.  Don't be shy.  If you want a question answered or you're wondering about something or you wanna know random Malian trivia or maybe you just wanna say hi….well go ahead push the link for comments…..everyone is so quiet….it makes me think I'm talking  to myself