N ka kan ka Bamanankan kalan (I must study Bambara)

Aw ni sogoma! Try saying the title five times in a row. I’m back at Tubaniso until Tuesday, when we have…site visits! We’ll spend about five days at our future sites, meeting people, being forced to speak and learn more of our respective languages, and seeing a piece of what the next two years will be like. I’ll have plenty to write about then.
The last week in Banankoro hasn’t been too incredibly exciting. We had language tests and I did well and am at the place I need to be at in order to swear in as a volunteer next month, which is a huge comfort. Although, even though I feel like I do pretty well in class, I go home and can hardly understand what my family’s saying because they do not slow down for me at all! Let’s see, I’ve been to two Malian dances in the last week! Last Saturday night, most of the trainees in Banankoro met up (we all had a sibling that accompanied us) and walked down the main road to a dance that was happening. It was the strangest thing. There were about 100 people there, ranging from 10 year olds to 50 year olds. Everyone had formed a circle with a space in the center. There was a DJ, and every song that he played (some US rap included; Malians also love “Gasolina”) about five girls and five guys would go out to the middle of the circle, stand across from one another, dance by themselves and then periodically each pair would switch sides. It was also about the same 10 people that danced the entire time (except when they got all us female Toubabs to go out and dance for one song). The other dance was pretty much the same. Hopefully they won’t all be like that, because for me, the point of a dance is for everyone to dance. We shall see! I went to a baby naming ceremony for one of the trainee’s sisters new baby. In the morning, the men gather to slaughter a goat and drink tea and in the afternoon, women gather to give gifts of clothes and soap, and sing and dance a little bit.
In other news, I definitely ate some piece of organ last week, maybe liver, maybe heart. My family had been tricky and cut the meat into small bits and dispersed it throughout the pasta. I took a handful of pasta and there was organ in it, but my sister was looking at me so I couldn’t put it back and had to eat it. It wasn’t good, to say the least. And I ended up accidentally eating more later on in the meal. As far as good food news, we discovered yogurt at a gas station in a town nearby Banankoro. It was cold and delicious and after site visit I’m probably going to bike there every day. That’s about it from here. I’m going to go because there’s a line of people waiting to use internet, but I haven’t forgotten about Malian names and I’ll give them to those that wanted them later!