Site visit!

So before I forget this, I have a different address - ask my parents, my sister, or Philippe if you would like it.

I wrote the following on the 16th (at site):
So I've been at site for a few days now. As I write this, I'm eating roasted peanuts from a little bag that my (new) host father gave me. The hulls taste like dust and dirt, but if you roll a pile of them around in your hand, the hulls come off and the peanuts are quite tasty. My family things I'm strange for doing this - they keep staring at me and shaking their heads.

Getting to F. (my site name since I can't give the real name) was a 6 hr bus ride from Bamako. Everyone else in my 1/2 of the stage (we've been divided into two groups since the beginning) that was going to the Sikasso region is on the other side, so I was the only PCT on the bus. It was a quiet, uneventful ride (thankfully ... I've heard a few horror stories from other people). The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and my homologue (Malian counterpart, her name is Adiaratou) & I got off. When the bus pulled away, I was looking down a dirt/mud road lined and shaded by full grown mango trees for as far as you can see down. It's very picturesque, and pictures will be coming sometime, I promise). A 15 minute walk down the road puts you at my house. I'm savoring the way those words feel to say... my house. funny what a little personal space and privacy can do for a person.

Eventually, I will be posting a video of a virtual tour of my house, but that won't be until I get it furnished and decorated - probably sometime in October? I have 3 rooms at about 7.5 x 13 ft each. that estimate was made by using my height as a measuring stick, so it might be a little off. The structure is mudbrick that's been cemented and painted, though I might be repainting. The door leads to the middle room - there's a window opposite it and two windows opposite each other in each of the other rooms, all on the NE & SW sides, so I get sunlight all day and a cross breeze. very nice. My roof is metal and extends out about 3.5 ft in front of the house for a little cement floored porch thing where I will be putting bamboo chairs. I wouldn't have minded a thatch roof, but I do love the way rain sounds on the corrugated metal (someone once told me it's zinc, but I don't actually know). The sound of rainsticks I made as an itty-bitty girlscout make much more sense now. Some volunteers dislike it, but for me the sound is always very calming, even during a big storm.

Next to (sharing a wall with) my house is my nyegen (latrine), which is very large, clean, and has high walls. There is a 4 ft tall wall on three sides of my area (called a concession), with the back of my house making the 4th wall. My yard is fairly large, considering it's just mine. There are a few young-ish trees that I couldn't name, a moringa tree (a.k.a. amazing tree. google it.), and a ton of aloe vera plants, so that's fantastic. If you have any cool ideas for what I can do with aloe, please let me know.

I don't have running water or electricity, but that's to be expected. It is possible for me to buy a solar panel and a car battery and get a few lightbulbs installed with that, but we'll see. might be too much of a hassle. There's a well next door that I can use for most things, and a pump less than 500 meters away for drinking water. I'll buy a gas stove, kitchen stuffs, a bed, a desk, etc. when I move in in September. I'm excited to buy furniture, decorate my house, cook for myself... just to get settled in and not be living out of a suitcase. There's been a distinct lack of fresh things in my life lately, so that will change once I'm able to cook for myself. Since I'm in the southern region (well, kind of), I'll be able to get fresh fruits and veggies year round, which is pretty impressive. Right now it's mainly cucumber, onions, and garden eggs (similar to eggplant; they're very bitter and not really good cooked, but I may experiment with frying them), with cabbage and tomatoes around sporadically. Right now everyone is farming rice, millet, and corn, so I can't really get any veggies in my town itself. My market town is about 6 km away, so I'll be biking there about once a week to stock up on things. I'm really excited to have the time to just hop on my bike and ride wherever (and get regular exercise for the first time in a very long time).

Moving along... each volunteer is assigned a host family - some live with the family and some don't. My family is two compounds down from me; compared to my homestay host family (I realize this could get very confusing very fast), my hostfamily in F. is very small - husband, 1 wife, and 7 kids, but only 4 of the kids live with them still. My host mom runs a little store out of her house - salt, batteries, cigarettes, packets of powdered milk, little bags of cooking oil, etc. She sells a kool-aid type drink called Jucy Jus (seriously)... just add water... I may develop an addiction. She also fries up woso (it's kind of like sweet potato, but more potato-y and less sweet) and has her daughter carry it around and sell it in little bunches. My host father is a mason and a farmer, because you cannot survive here unless you farm. They've hosted 3 other volunteers, so hopefully they kind of know what to expect from Americans and I don't offend them too much. They have some games - skip-bo, set, etc. - from one fo the past volunteers, so I feel like we'll end up spending a lot of time with those games. My hostmom kicked my butt at skip-bo the other night. The man living between us bakes bread (pretty good, too), so I'll have to stock up on peanut butter, jelly, and nutella. My plan is to befriend the bread man and use his big mud-brick oven sometime to make pizza and cookies... I will keep you updated.

I haven't really had a chance to explore the area, but what I have seen is beautiful. The sun is going down as I write this - blues, pinks, and peaches light up puffy clouds carrying the promise of rain. The riverbeds are full and everything is a shade of green right now, broken up only by the red-brown mudbrick houses of small villages off of the main road. There are birds in colors that surprise my eyes. Shocking yellow, bright red, and blush rose small birds, medium size indigo-watery birds, and large ones with long tails that trail behind them and fan out when fly. Those ones are oil-black - you can see rainbow patterns in their feathers when the sun hits them right. Everything feels serene and vibrant at the same time.

I catch myself thinking about how everything here is so nice and peaceful and happy - it's a wonderful life kind of story. And in some ways it is. I meet a lot of happy people, people who are proud of their culture and wouldn't trade it for the world, there's just a lot of good around me. At the same time, there's always something to remind me where I am and why I'm here. I'll see a child with hungry, sad eyes, or a baby that doesn't have baby fat. I watch people eat nothing but carbs and cook anything with vitamins into oblivion, and women who go straight from the nyegen to cooking without washing their hands. I'll remember how many people here want my life, my opportunities. I guess that's why I'm here, when you get down to it - just because I can. I can have this crazy, amazing, life changing experience, and hopefully get the chance to really help people in a sustainable way at the same time. Weighing pros and cons when I first was considering Peace Corps, when I was in the thick of that frustrating application, and even when I was asked to serve in Mali... it was never a fair debate. In my mind, if I could, how could I not at least try? Something like that, at least.

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So now it's a few days later. I got back from site yesterday, had sessions in Tubaniso all day, and then will head back to homestay for 9 days starting tomorrow. We come back to Tubaniso on the 29th, have stuff and tests here for a few days, and then swear in as real volunteers on the 3rd of September. so soon. I was at site for my birthday, and most Malians don't know what date they are born on (or the year, some of the time), so it wasn't a big deal to them. I celebrated in small ways... lunch was a big bowl of beans and onions, which was awesome (I know, my exciting birthday food here is ... beans. gotta take what you can.), and a big storm blew in, so it was nice and cool for most of the day. The next day I got ice cream on my way in to Bamako, and then got to see all of my American friends. The staff at T-so made cake for me this evening, so I even got birthday cake.

Life is really good. Seeing site reminded me that I will have a home here and will be actually doing something eventually, so that was good. Extra motivation to boost me through the rest of training. soooo yeah. good vibes.

Peace and Love
Elyse