Arrival in Banankoro

Hi everyone! I have so much to write about since it's been two weeks since my last post and I hardly know where to begin. Wednesday, July 25th, seven other trainees and I were assigned to Banankoro for our pre-service training. PST lasts until September 15th and focuses on language. We've already had 10 days of very intensive Bambara. Banankoro is a small village of about 2000 people, 25 km south of Bamako. Our arrival there was completely surreal. We pulled up to the chief's house and there was a group of 30 or so women and children in a cluster dancing and singing for us. We got out and danced with them for a few minutes and then went into the courtyard of the chief where he formally welcomed us to the village. While we were there a little girl crawled into my lap and it turned out that she's my 5 year old sister, Salimata. Next, we were divided into our host families. I live at the home of Abdoulaye Samake. He has two wives, Nianaba and Woulamatu. I would guess that Abdoulaye and Nianaba are in there 60's and Woulamatu's in her 30's. Nianaba has 6 children, the oldest being 30, and Woulamatu has 5. In the compound where I live, the houses form a square with a central courtyard. Abdoulaye, my mothers and the kids who still live at home live in one house. Abdoulaye's brother, his wife and their 5 kids live in the second house. Abdoulaye's 27 year old son Sidou and his 16 year old wife live in the 3rd house, and the fourth side is composed of my little room, a cooking area, and the shower/bathroom (negen). Needless to say, it's always busy at the Samake house! And they gave me an official Mali name: Awa Samake. All the kids on the street have learned my name, so they yell it at me a thousand times a day as I'm walking to or from the house. I definitely prefer that to "Toubabou" or "white person", which I also hear a thousand times a day from kids who live elsewhere.

I eat all my meals at home, with Aminatta or Dje'naba, two of the sisters (they go to school starting in September but during the summer they work around the house cooking, pounding millet or corn, etc). We eat together out of a big bowl using our hands (I've gotten pretty good!). I like the food but am on starch overload and am always craving fruits and veggies. For breakfast, I eat by myself and have bread (sometimes with fried eggs) and then drink coffee which is actually composed of a ton of powdered milk, a ton of sugar, and a tiny bit of coffee. It's delicious though, probably from all the sugar. For lunch and dinner, it's always either rice, macaroni, black-eyed peas, or potatoes with some kind of meat and sauce. The meat's been the only problem. Fish is okay but we usually eat beef, and each piece literally takes about 5 minutes to chew and I often end up swallowing most of it whole. Last week there was a piece in my bowl that honestly looked like it had teeth attached to it. I'm still trying to figure out what it could have been.

Every morning I fill a bucket with cold water from the well and carry it to a little roofless area attached to the negen, in order to bathe. While running water would definitely be nice, I don't mind bathing this way. Using the negen has so far been the hardest part for me, apart from the language. The one at my house is disgusting. I try to avoid using it at night because there are roaches that crawl out from the hole and run all over the place. I try to avoid using it during the day too because there are hundreds of maggots that I can see at the bottom of the hole, and there are tons of flies coming out of it. I feel like all of the trainees try to out-disgust one another with our negen stories and I think that mine's toward the top of the list!

My host family's really nice and I've started to help more with random chores, such as pounding different things for the sauce to sorting through rice. Salimata's the youngest and she's spoiled rotten. One daughter, Fatoumatta, is married now and lives in a neighboring compound. She has an adorable son, Sory, who is about 2. He was terrified of me at first but actually let me hold him the other day (and then proceeded to get down and pee within two inches of my feet, right in the middle of the courtyard). The younger kids always run out in the road to greet me and are always fighting to carry my bag or help walk my bike. The girls love to dance and have taught me some Malian moves. I gave a bunch of the kids "American" names and they loved it. Several family members speak French, so a lot of times I'll cheat and speak that if I don't understand something (which is pretty much all the time).

So for Bambara - we have about 7 hours of class a day, seven days a week except on Sunday's when we get the afternoons off. Without that American support system I seriously would have gone crazy by now. We usually hang out for about an hour or two after class each day because none of us want to go home and be bombarded by Bambara. A couple of times we've biked to Sanankoroba, a neighboring village, to visit other trainees. There's a bar in Sanankoroba so we met there for a trainee's birthday last week and that one dollar cold Castel beer was the best beer I've ever had.

Nighttime in Banankoro is the worst. I'm always exhausted by the end of the day and usually study, read my novel, write in my journal and then am in bed by 9:30 or so. In my compound, apart from the kids, there's a donkey, a dog and puppy, a bunch of chickens, a rooster, and about a zillion crickets. At least one of these animals is making a noise at every hour of the night, the donkey being the worst. Nighttime's also sometimes incredibly hot and I'll fan myself, stop in order to fall asleep, and then start sweating bullets and have to start fanning again. The weather overall hasn't been bad at all. There have been some super hot days and nights but it also rains about every other day. The rain was so heavy the other night on my tin roof, I was seriously terrified that my room was going to collapse on me.

Okay, I've definitely written enough for now and will try to write more specific stories later. Overall, Mali's still great - there are good days and bad days, which is to be expected. Learning the language will make a world of difference. Several people have asked about what to send in packages. Here's my list: DRIED FRUIT, hand sanitizing wipes, candy bars or m&m's (i'd put those in plastic bags to avoid a mess), face wash wipes (like Oil of Olay or something like that), drawing paper, stationary, magazines (news or celebrity). The address is: Corps de la Paix Mali, BP 85, Bamako, Mali. Oh, and I received letters yesterday from Mom and Dad and Iris Morphew - they only took about two weeks to get here which was comforting! Alright, love you all, miss you all, and please let me know what's going on with you! Keep writing comments, I love reading them. Ka tile here cya (may the peace of your day be multiplied).

Anna (Awa)