"We can't have happiness without difficulty."
What to say and where do I begin???
I have been at site for nearly a full month now. My language skills have not changed much, but that is also partly due to my poor study habits. I just cannot seem to study in my concession with people there it is too distracting. I also don't like to study in my room, because A) it is usually hot and B) I don't want to be rude or antisocial. Plus side is I have started language classes with my local tutor and now I am in my banking town for Language In-service Training, so we'll be able to review and hopefully set goals or work out lesson plans we can share with our local tutors. Thankfully my tutor can speak a decent amount of English that we understand each other. He is also very proficient and seems very excited to work with me and is very open to what I am interested in learning. I am grateful because the first session we had I was very frustrated; he reviewed the Bambara alphabet and was going over basics that I had already learned from the 9 weeks of training we had at our home-stay villages. After that first session things improved greatly I told him I was interested in the Malian bread-making process. So he got in touch with a local bread-maker and we were invited to see the entire process from start to finish. It was awesome. They were a truly wonderful family, I had tea and ate a little bit of lunch with them; while we waited for the fire to grow big in the little mud house. The bread was delicious, I ate it warm and bought some to take to my host family. Though they gave me more bread than I paid for, very hospitable. They told me I must come back later in the week to see how they make their sweet bread.
I came back on Mali's 50th anniversay CINQUANTANAIRE! After attending a celebration at a large field near the prefet's house and eating a Malian meal with my homologue. I made banana bread though it came out more like a skinny banana pancake. There are no muffin pans or bread pans, just metal roofing they cut into smaller pieces and lay the bread across the shallow divots. But all in all they loved it. I promised them a real loaf of banana bread when I get back from Koutiala since there is an oven here and a bread pan at the Peace Corps stage house. Unfortunately I am here now and there is no internet, hence I am at an Internet Cafe, I don't have any more phone credit, I will buy some soon, the post office is closed so I can't receive any mail or send any of the letters I wrote and finally to top it all off the gas tank for the stove/oven is out and there is nowhere in town at the moment that is selling gas to replace the empty tank. Hopefully all that changes before I leave back to site on Saturday.
When I get back to site I am going to travel by bike to another neighboring town where there is a shea machine. I've been to one town about 20 minutes by bike. It was fun following behind my homologue and friend on their moto with my host mom behind me on her moto. I pedaled as fast as I could to keep up. I passed over a small creek that filled up from the heavy rains the two days before, women walking on the path carry loads on top of their heads, kids on a donkey cart, men in the field working, large mango and shea trees left and right with large fields of corn, sorghum, and cotton. It was a beautiful ride and I can't wait for the opportunity to go to the town again. I think I'll probably be traveling out of my town a lot by bike, and hopefully working on 2-3 gardens in my village. One small one in my concession with my host family, currently they have no compost pile and throw all their kitchen scraps and corn husks and peanut hulls out on the side of the road on top of trash piles. My homologue is interested in building a garden in her concession and she has plenty of space with a well nearby and chickens and goats. And lastly the women's association has a garden and they are going to lend me some space, but as of now due to the rainy season there garden is in a flood zone so they don't work on it until well I don't really know when.
Time for sleep it is only 10:10, but already I'm in the habit of sleeping early and waking early. However, according to Malians 6 a.m. is not early. And I am reminded by that fact, because every morning when I greet my host mother and give blessings, she says "I sunogora kosebe?" "Did you sleep a lot?" To satisfy them I say yes, but I'd like to say no, just because I wake up occassionally in the middle of the night due to a rainstorm, a large truck honking its horn down the main road directly outside my window, the crickets, the prayer call from the mosque every morning between 4:30 and 5 am or I can't get to sleep, because people are hanging out talking or kids running around outside until midnight.
 |
| Oiling the bread pans |
"We can't have happiness without difficulty."
What to say and where do I begin???
I have been at site for nearly a full month now. My language skills have not changed much, but that is also partly due to my poor study habits. I just cannot seem to study in my concession with people there it is too distracting. I also don't like to study in my room, because A) it is usually hot and B) I don't want to be rude or antisocial. Plus side is I have started language classes with my local tutor and now I am in my banking town for Language In-service Training, so we'll be able to review and hopefully set goals or work out lesson plans we can share with our local tutors. Thankfully my tutor can speak a decent amount of English that we understand each other. He is also very proficient and seems very excited to work with me and is very open to what I am interested in learning. I am grateful because the first session we had I was very frustrated; he reviewed the Bambara alphabet and was going over basics that I had already learned from the 9 weeks of training we had at our home-stay villages. After that first session things improved greatly I told him I was interested in the Malian bread-making process. So he got in touch with a local bread-maker and we were invited to see the entire process from start to finish. It was awesome. They were a truly wonderful family, I had tea and ate a little bit of lunch with them; while we waited for the fire to grow big in the little mud house. The bread was delicious, I ate it warm and bought some to take to my host family. Though they gave me more bread than I paid for, very hospitable. They told me I must come back later in the week to see how they make their sweet bread.
 |
| Preparing to bake |
I came back on Mali's 50th anniversay CINQUANTANAIRE! After attending a celebration at a large field near the prefet's house and eating a Malian meal with my homologue. I made banana bread though it came out more like a skinny banana pancake. There are no muffin pans or bread pans, just metal roofing they cut into smaller pieces and lay the bread across the shallow divots. But all in all they loved it. I promised them a real loaf of banana bread when I get back from Koutiala since there is an oven here and a bread pan at the Peace Corps stage house. Unfortunately I am here now and there is no internet, hence I am at an Internet Cafe, I don't have any more phone credit, I will buy some soon, the post office is closed so I can't receive any mail or send any of the letters I wrote and finally to top it all off the gas tank for the stove/oven is out and there is nowhere in town at the moment that is selling gas to replace the empty tank. Hopefully all that changes before I leave back to site on Saturday.
When I get back to site I am going to travel by bike to another neighboring town where there is a shea machine. I've been to one town about 20 minutes by bike. It was fun following behind my homologue and friend on their moto with my host mom behind me on her moto. I pedaled as fast as I could to keep up. I passed over a small creek that filled up from the heavy rains the two days before, women walking on the path carry loads on top of their heads, kids on a donkey cart, men in the field working, large mango and shea trees left and right with large fields of corn, sorghum, and cotton. It was a beautiful ride and I can't wait for the opportunity to go to the town again. I think I'll probably be traveling out of my town a lot by bike, and hopefully working on 2-3 gardens in my village. One small one in my concession with my host family, currently they have no compost pile and throw all their kitchen scraps and corn husks and peanut hulls out on the side of the road on top of trash piles. My homologue is interested in building a garden in her concession and she has plenty of space with a well nearby and chickens and goats. And lastly the women's association has a garden and they are going to lend me some space, but as of now due to the rainy season there garden is in a flood zone so they don't work on it until well I don't really know when.
 |
| Voila! |
Time for sleep it is only 10:10, but already I'm in the habit of sleeping early and waking early. However, according to Malians 6 a.m. is not early. And I am reminded by that fact, because every morning when I greet my host mother and give blessings, she says "I sunogora kosebe?" "Did you sleep a lot?" To satisfy them I say yes, but I'd like to say no, just because I wake up occassionally in the middle of the night due to a rainstorm, a large truck honking its horn down the main road directly outside my window, the crickets, the prayer call from the mosque every morning between 4:30 and 5 am or I can't get to sleep, because people are hanging out talking or kids running around outside until midnight.
 |
| Helping Hands |
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