Hello Friends!
Greetings from Africa! I hope this finds you well and healthy in the states!
I am well and healthy here in Mali. Currently I am at my friend Mary’s house enjoying a little break from village life to do some banking and shopping in a bigger town and enjoy the amenities with which Mary has been provided by the NGO she works with.
Today marks 3 months since my stagemates and I stepped on the plane to begin our Peace Corps journey. It seems like that time has flown by, and at the same time some days have felt like they crawled slowly. After swearing in as volunteers on August 5th, we went off to our sites. I arrived at my site on August 10th, so next week Saturday (MARNI’S WEDDING DAY!!!) will mark one month at site. The first month is supposed to be pretty hard at site for everyone, and I proved to be no exception. The first two weeks were difficult to adjust to this new way of living without the comfort and support of the other people I had grown so close to during training. There were some rough days, but this past week I feel as though I reached a milestone in my comfort level and community integration. My language level is improving slightly, and I feel less awkward in social interactions of day to day living.
The people of my village are all super friendly and welcoming, but part of the difficulties of the first two weeks came inadvertently from comparisons to the previous volunteer whom they adored, and their expectations from me. I don’t speak a lot of Bambara yet, but I do understand more than I can speak, and hearing “Oh, she doesn’t understand Bambara… She doesn’t understand French either? Oh, well the previous volunteer could speak French” started to grate at my confidence. I told myself and was reminded by friends and family that you just have to take it a day at a time and that the language and cultural knowledge will come bit by bit. It has, and every day is better than the day before. Now people say “Oh she can understand a little bit of Bambara, oh she’ll learn little by little”, and even a few people have said “You’ve arrived” when I’ve made a funny joke in Bambara or understood a lot. That boosts my confidence a lot.
This past week has been really great in village. The end of Ramadan fasting was celebrated on Tuesday with what is called Selifitini, or a big feast and celebration. My villagers normally never eat meat except for holidays because it is too expensive, so they had meat with their meals and ate pasta and rice instead of the usual toh (mushy millet dish), which was a treat for all. The kids all got a new outfit, and the women and girls all put new braids in their hair and put on their best tailored complets. There was music, dancing, chatting and a lot of tea drinking. The kids went around giving blessings in response to which adults gave them small change and the kids bought little candies and gum from my host father who owns a small butiki out of one of the rooms of his house. In the morning, my host grandmother took me out to the field where many men and older women placed their prayer mats toward Mecca and prayed together for the holiday. They allowed me to pray with them which I was thankful to have the opportunity to do. They allowed some younger boys to pray with them too but they were making too much noise so the women would throw little pebbles at them while they prayed to keep them quiet.
The day before Selifitini was supposed to be a market day in a town 5k away. I was going to attend with my host mothers and host grandmother, but there was a death in one of the groups of houses near us, so we went over to give blessings instead of going to the market. Apparently there was a death of a child in a concession near ours the morning of Selifitini that my language tutor told me about, but I didn’t hear about it from anyone else and I am hesitant to bring it up for fear of not being able to communicate about such a sensitive matter in a language that I am not completely comfortable speaking.
In general things are great here and getting better all the time. I LOVE my kids in my village and all of the wives in my compound are really great. Malian women are so incredibly hard-working it impresses me every day. The men in my compound are great too and very helpful with any problems I have like helping to try and fix my bike, or patching my roof.
I have fallen in love with a baby goat whose mother died shortly after it was born. The kids know I love this goat so they bring it to me and they make sure I know when they feed it (they have to hold down a lactating female goat while the orphaned baby goat drinks its milk). I know that eventually this baby goat will grow up and become a part of some celebratory meal, but I can’t help but get attached to it. We call it Badenni (baby goat).
I am returning to my site tomorrow morning after banking with Mary, but I will have access to internet again the following week when I go into Bamako with some friends. Hopefully the letters and packages that have been sent will be waiting for me in Bamako too. Thank you so much for all of your support and love. I appreciate every bit! If you have time, shoot an email my way with what’s been going on in your life!
Take care!
Jamie (Assetou)
Greetings from Africa! I hope this finds you well and healthy in the states!
I am well and healthy here in Mali. Currently I am at my friend Mary’s house enjoying a little break from village life to do some banking and shopping in a bigger town and enjoy the amenities with which Mary has been provided by the NGO she works with.
Today marks 3 months since my stagemates and I stepped on the plane to begin our Peace Corps journey. It seems like that time has flown by, and at the same time some days have felt like they crawled slowly. After swearing in as volunteers on August 5th, we went off to our sites. I arrived at my site on August 10th, so next week Saturday (MARNI’S WEDDING DAY!!!) will mark one month at site. The first month is supposed to be pretty hard at site for everyone, and I proved to be no exception. The first two weeks were difficult to adjust to this new way of living without the comfort and support of the other people I had grown so close to during training. There were some rough days, but this past week I feel as though I reached a milestone in my comfort level and community integration. My language level is improving slightly, and I feel less awkward in social interactions of day to day living.
The people of my village are all super friendly and welcoming, but part of the difficulties of the first two weeks came inadvertently from comparisons to the previous volunteer whom they adored, and their expectations from me. I don’t speak a lot of Bambara yet, but I do understand more than I can speak, and hearing “Oh, she doesn’t understand Bambara… She doesn’t understand French either? Oh, well the previous volunteer could speak French” started to grate at my confidence. I told myself and was reminded by friends and family that you just have to take it a day at a time and that the language and cultural knowledge will come bit by bit. It has, and every day is better than the day before. Now people say “Oh she can understand a little bit of Bambara, oh she’ll learn little by little”, and even a few people have said “You’ve arrived” when I’ve made a funny joke in Bambara or understood a lot. That boosts my confidence a lot.
This past week has been really great in village. The end of Ramadan fasting was celebrated on Tuesday with what is called Selifitini, or a big feast and celebration. My villagers normally never eat meat except for holidays because it is too expensive, so they had meat with their meals and ate pasta and rice instead of the usual toh (mushy millet dish), which was a treat for all. The kids all got a new outfit, and the women and girls all put new braids in their hair and put on their best tailored complets. There was music, dancing, chatting and a lot of tea drinking. The kids went around giving blessings in response to which adults gave them small change and the kids bought little candies and gum from my host father who owns a small butiki out of one of the rooms of his house. In the morning, my host grandmother took me out to the field where many men and older women placed their prayer mats toward Mecca and prayed together for the holiday. They allowed me to pray with them which I was thankful to have the opportunity to do. They allowed some younger boys to pray with them too but they were making too much noise so the women would throw little pebbles at them while they prayed to keep them quiet.
The day before Selifitini was supposed to be a market day in a town 5k away. I was going to attend with my host mothers and host grandmother, but there was a death in one of the groups of houses near us, so we went over to give blessings instead of going to the market. Apparently there was a death of a child in a concession near ours the morning of Selifitini that my language tutor told me about, but I didn’t hear about it from anyone else and I am hesitant to bring it up for fear of not being able to communicate about such a sensitive matter in a language that I am not completely comfortable speaking.
In general things are great here and getting better all the time. I LOVE my kids in my village and all of the wives in my compound are really great. Malian women are so incredibly hard-working it impresses me every day. The men in my compound are great too and very helpful with any problems I have like helping to try and fix my bike, or patching my roof.
I have fallen in love with a baby goat whose mother died shortly after it was born. The kids know I love this goat so they bring it to me and they make sure I know when they feed it (they have to hold down a lactating female goat while the orphaned baby goat drinks its milk). I know that eventually this baby goat will grow up and become a part of some celebratory meal, but I can’t help but get attached to it. We call it Badenni (baby goat).
I am returning to my site tomorrow morning after banking with Mary, but I will have access to internet again the following week when I go into Bamako with some friends. Hopefully the letters and packages that have been sent will be waiting for me in Bamako too. Thank you so much for all of your support and love. I appreciate every bit! If you have time, shoot an email my way with what’s been going on in your life!
Take care!
Jamie (Assetou)
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