Almost a Real Volunteer!

Hello Friends!

I am back at Tubaniso, our training center near Bamako, Mali with the rest of my stage mates for a bit before we swear in this week and become real volunteers. We've been trainees for the past two months and will take an oath to swear in as volunteers on August 5th, then we will spend the day at "The American Club", a nice little oasis with a pool to hang out and enjoy our last moments together as a stage before we ship our to our permanent sites on Sunday. I am getting sad to be leaving all of these people I have grown so close to in the past two months, but I am excited for all of their potential and looking forward to hearing about the work they will do in their villages.

We are not allowed to travel for the first three months at site except to go into our banking towns twice during that time. Ultimately this will be helpful in our integration process, but it is going to be a hard three months adjusting to a new way of life and being thrown in the deep end when it comes to language. We can coordinate with other people who share our banking towns to see each other, but we won't have a chance to see any other volunteers in other regions. This is going to be a big change after spending every day with at least 7 other Americans in Baguineda Camp, my homestay village, or with 22 other Americans when we are here at Tubaniso.

The previous volunteer at my site before me had a blog which my parents told me about and which I started reading yesterday. It is beneficial to get some inside scoop on the village and the volunteers previous projects, but I want to make sure not to compare my service to hers too much.

That is all I will say for now... I will have a lot more to say once I go into Bamako for banking after being at site for a while! I hope you are all doing well in America!

P.S. for now, my mailing address is the same as before except that now you can write "PCV" next to my name instead of "Trainee"!

Jamie Casterton - PCV

B.P. 85

Bamako, Mali

West Africa

Thank you for all of your support and love!

~Jamie (Assetou)