Rokia Coulibaly

I've got a new location, a new name, and a new "family" all in the span of two weeks! After a little less than a week of training, I am living with my host family in a local village. There are 11 of us living with different families in the 1 village. Let me back up… when we arrived at the PC training center I thought to myself, "OMG what have I done…" Now, the training center is like a little slice of heaven!! It's set up like a mock village and we all (66 of us) live here while we are being trained on health, safety and security, cross culture, language, and on our individual sectors. When we first got here it was quite a scene. First thing we were handed bug spray and told to put it on. We then had to get our luggage scanned at the security check point (on the way out?) which consisted of everyone from the two huge flights pilling their luggage onto one little belt and then running around to the other side to collect it before it fell into a large mound of luggage. If you've never experienced this it's CRAZY! We then headed to the training center where, first and foremost, we were taught to use the nyegen. The nyegen is the bathroom. You take this plastic teapot filled with water called a selidaga (don’t hold me to any spelling) into a little cement room where you do your business squatting over a hole in the ground. You then use the selidaga as toilet paper. Needless to say, you don’t do anything is Mali with your left hand. Yup. Oh my. After the initial shock the nyegen's really not that bad (I still sneak TP, FYI.)

So back to the homestay village…

Day 1, hour 1, I get there and it’s amazing! The community held a welcome celebration for us and we danced with the local women, played with the children, and watched the old men take it all in. BUT when I got to my house I immediately realized there was something living in my roof...BATS!!!!! There were a few other "adjustments" that I found difficult as well. Basically I have slept with the lights on. It’s frightening and 1 bat even made it into my room (this is being taken care of by the PC!) Anyway, I have since adjusted and I really like my family which is lucky because I have a HUGE family including two moms (polygamy is practiced here.) My name is Rokia Coulibaly. My father’s name is Salif, my mother’s name is Rokia, my brother is Isa and his son is Madu. Also living with us are my three cousins Salia, Bah, and Umu. We have a dog named Morgan, go figure. The rest of the family lives in a different house. The landscape here is mostly just dry dirt with a few sprigs of "grass" and we have a tree in our concession for shade. At any time during the day you can see goats, sheep, donkeys and chickens running through our yard. In fact my first call home was spent yelling at a donkey to be quiet. helk. We even had to stop class one day because the goats escaped! It’s hectic.

Mali is predominately Muslim so throughout the day you can hear the call to worship from the mosque’s megaphone. This starts at something like 5 in the morning (arg.)

I eat bread and peanut butter for breakfast. For the other two meals I eat rice with some kind of bony fish, tons of oil, and some kind of sauce. The other night I had yams! Needless to say I fear for my waistline. So far I sweat so much it all sort of balances out. We eat in groups out of bowls on the ground and we eat with our right hand only, which presents it's own problems--no utensils, no napkin, no problem. It’s actually kind of nice.

It’s the rainy season so we’ve had some CRAZY thunderstorms!

I could go on for hours, but it’s time to eat and we’re at the training center so things are too good to pass up. Veggies!!!! Yay! I’ll update more soon. I’m fine so don’t worry about me. LOVE TO ALL!!!