Candy-Palooza

Cockadooooodledoooo! Greetings from Mali (where the roosters begin their day at 4:00AM)!

Currently my friends Kat, Mary, and I are in Bamako, Mali’s capital city where Peace Corps ‘ office is. We are going to do a little shopping in places where we can get things we can’t get in our villages, and check in at the office to exchange some books in the library, pick up packages, and resupply on medical items.

I am WAY excited to get the letters and packages some of you have sent. My mom and Dad sent a package with a Frisbee that I know my kids will get a kick out of. Speaking of my kids, I will try to upload some pictures on here but if they don’t load, check out my facebook page to see some of them. I tried to get them to smile for the pictures, since they are always smiling in real life and I want you all to see them looking happy, but a lot of Malians don’t smile for pictures, so most of them aren’t smiling. They LOVED seeing the pictures though on the camera screen when I took them and burst into laughter and smiles when I showed them their images. It was the first time I took photos of my family here but I have a feeling they are going to want to take a lot more when I get back since they enjoyed it so much.

Life at site has been going very well.  Every day I become more comfortable and my language improves. I even surprised myself with what I was able to squeak out when my host father was asking me questions the other night. Also the other day when I was running (on a BEAUTIFUL dirt road that goes to one of the market towns nearby) two dogs started barking at me and chasing me a little bit and my gut reaction was to yell at them to stop in Bambara… so I think that is a good sign of language learning. I also picked up a life skills book at the Peace Corps office with Bambara translations and I think that will be helpful in language acquisition as well.

Some of you have been asking about what work I am doing right now and what my job duties or projects are. Mostly right now for these first three months after being installed at our sites we are focusing on language acquisition, community integration. We are also supposed to complete three community needs assessments  education, food security, and gender analysis) during this time. I haven’t begun these needs assessments as I don’t feel like my language is at the level to be successful, and I think I will begin around the start of our second month at site. Pretty much what I do during a given day is wake up, greet the people in my compound, eat breakfast, go to my teacher’s house for an hour of Bambara class, do chores, play with my kids, sit around with the older girls while they braid hair, and sometimes go with my Grandma to other compounds to greet people.  When my family shells shea nuts or peanuts I help them do that, and sometimes I go to the fields to pick up the weeds that the women are removing with their “dabas”, or weeding hoes. Once a week I go to the market in one of two towns around where I am to stock up on food.

Here are a couple of things that happened this past week:

1.)    When I was cooking dinner, two goats tried to walk into my house. (Dave said that if I ate meat I would have had a free meal)

2.)    I killed another scorpion in my house this week and left it on the ground when I went to bed. When I woke up it was gone. I am assuming the army of crickets took it away to be eaten.

3.)    A chicken is roosting on the wall of my compound and has around 12 eggs there. I can’t wait for the chickies to hatch (CHICS!)

4.)    Mary and I unsuccessfully tried to resolve an issue with our tailor in Kati (who made really unflattering clothing for us, omitted the headscarves and one skirt that I had asked for, and decided not to refund me for those items for which I already paid). I am bad at handling these situations in the states and with the language barrier it was crazy! Luckily I’m only out around $2 USD.

5.)    Some of the little girls in my compound were really happy with me the other day because I helped them wash their dishes and do some chores. They took me around to little secret spots like where the boys play drums in the millet field, and to some gardens I hadn’t seen before. Then they wanted to take me to the place where they poop by a tree so they could poop… I told them I would meet them back at home.

There’s a little glimpse into my life here!

I miss you all at home a lot. Congratulations to my sister Marni who got married on Saturday. I am bummed I couldn’t be there for the wedding and I hear it was just beautiful.

Fast forward… my time in Bamako is over and I am now at Mary’s house in Kati. We had a salon night – I cut Mary’s hair and have henna setting in my hair as we speak (thanks to the package from Mom!) I will leave to go back to site tomorrow after we make one more trip to the fini kala yoro (tailoring place) to resolve some saggy crotch pants issues.  Women don’t really wear pants here so I guess I can’t blame him for making me men’s pants… but it’s not a cute look.

I hope you are all doing well and staying healthy in the states. I am officially over my cold and can now taste things again, just in time to devour some of the delicious candy in the packages from Mom & Dad and Allison. You guys are the best!

As you all enter the fall season please drink lots of pumpkin flavored coffee drinks and eat Einstein’s pumpkin shmear for me! And when the leaves change color for my friends in the north, take pictures and send them to me in an email, or throw some leaves in an envelope with a little update on your life and send it my way! I’ll probably get it two months later… seeing as that’s how the trend goes. For those who have sent me letters, I’ve only gotten one from Stef, so hopefully yours will find its way to Bamako somehow after floating around the planet for a while. I’ll be crossing my fingers.

Take care, stay safe, and thanks again for all of your support.

Jamie (Assetou Diarra)