"There is nothing perfect...there is only life"

3/30/11: last stint at homestay

So much to say. Back in Mountugula for the last time. 3 more days left with the fams. Probably should be hanging out with them, but I’ve never been good about that. Instead, Delissa, Hannah, and I are sitting on our mats under a tree listening to our ipods. Surprise, surprise.  Jasmin went back to America after site visit. I cried, but then again, I saw it coming. Of course I was super bummed & miss her, but I know her leaving was what’s best for her. She wasn’t happy here and that’s not good for anyone. In no way do I think less of her or say she gave up; she came here, which, in my opinion, is more than half the battle, and stayed almost 2 months under extreme and unfamiliar circumstances. Shout out to you, Jasmin. You’re my girl.

So, Hannah and I both have had site changes. I think we’re the only 2 out of 61, and even then, Hannah’s going to Jasmin’s old site. I like to think of it like a blind date. I know my new village’s name and I’ve heard a few things about the place, but I haven’t seen it yet. I hope he’s cute. But let me set the record straight: I could have survived in Farako. HOWEVER, that is not what would have been in the best interest of the village & its people – to have a volunteer who was merely surviving. I would have been psychologically affected by its remoteness and limitations and not have been able to be an effective volunteer. That is both the politically correct & Peace Corps response. Frankly put, shit was rough. I had no cell phone service (not that most people do, however:) logistically, it would have been virtually impossible to get in & out of village during rainy season (3 months) & even to get to a regional capitol, banking town, Bamako, Sikasso, etc. was very tricky; biking for hours on dried-up river beds, 10+ hour bus rides. I’m still trying to convince myself I made the right decision (can you tell?) since the village was so excited to have me & had prepared for me to be there, serving them for 2 years. But, being that far out in the bush scared me, no matter how wonderful the people in the village were. So, that all being said, my new site is 18k outside of Sikasso (super pumped about that) and close to the Burkina Faso border. I’m pretty sure the village is called Fankolo. One of the Trainers went to check in on my site the other day (since it’s a new site) and said that the people were really excited about me coming, that they planted me a banana tree, a mango tree, and an orange tree. WAHOO! Also, word on the dirt path is that there are waterfalls not far from my village. Also, my market town is only 4k away. Holler. Other than that, I don’t know much about my site. I’m just excited to be close to a large city (Sikasso is the 2^nd largest city in Mali) and to have a main road. I’m supposed to be getting a site folder sometime soon. It’s just taking a while since this village wasn’t planning on getting a volunteer until October; they’re just speeding up the process since a new site was needed. Example: my house is being built as I type this. No lie.

3/4/11: back in Toubaniso (training site)

The last few days with our homestay families were intense in different ways. We had 'going- away' parties in our respective villages, but not quite what you would think of as a 'party,' per se. First, we had to give a farewell/thank you speech to the elders in the village. We all sat on the floor of the communal meeting hut where all the important convos take place; you might say it's where the magic happens. All of the dugutigi's posse (basically all of the men over 60) showed up to listen to what we had to say and speak on behalf of the village. Naturally there were lots of blessings and thank you's for being polite/respectful. One of them said (translated by our language teacher) that we dealt with the living conditions well as they know that they are nothing like what we are accustomed to in America; that our bathrooms in the U.S. are nicer than their entire homes. I didn't want to correct anyone, but that was a vast understatement.

The party was really fun. We danced to drumming music and wore Malian clothes. I put a few pictures on Facebook, so if you're on there, check it out. The following night, our last night in village, was one of the most memorable, though. There was some sort of dance party in the same place as our 'going away party,' but I would equate it to Mountugula's highschool prom/homecoming dance. All of the old teens/early twenties were dressed up and paired off, or so it seemed, and Somalia (my 18 year old brother) was wearing black dress pants and a striped button-down shirt TUCKED IN! It was adorable. I kept telling him he looked 'fresh,' because I taught him that word in English. There were a couple djs who were blasting the latest hits from Celine Dion & Akon, of course. Malians LOVE Akon, by the way. He's from Senegal, which is our neighbor to the west. And for some strange reason, they love Celion Dion. She can sing 'kosebe kosebe' (very, very well) as Drisa says. Sure. Malian dance and American dance is very different, but it was cute to see the girls show off their moves as they were called out by name on the microphone one by one to the center of the dance floor (and by dance floor, I do mean dirt ground because it was outside in a clearing just past my family's compound) to show off a move or two. Then the djs took it upon themselves to call out the American girls as well. Awesome. I went to the center of a circle of about 200 people and did the Harlem shake, I kid you not. I wasn't sure what to do or what was culturally appropriate, so I'm pretty sure I startled quite a few people. We all got some great applause, though. Fun night. The next day, word in the village was that the Americans can dance 'kosebe kosebe.' Translation should not be needed. Goodbyes were super sad the next morning; I cried. Sulu came with me to see us all off, carrying the soccer ball I bought him and Somalia as a 'going away'/'thank you' present, even though it was 8am and he was clearly not going to play soccer. Just adorable that he enjoyed his gift that much. I hate that he saw me cry, but atleast they know it was hard for me to leave. Malians dont hug or show emotions, but I hugged Nana anyways. She has had malaria for the past week so I barely saw her until she came to see me off. Baby strapped to her back and all, I gave her a huge hug and told her she looked beautiful anyways, despite the malaria. She always told me, 'no, YOU are beautiful.' She could model, I kid you not. I'm gonna email Tyra. 

If my new site's people & host family is half as wonderful as my homestay family in Mountugula, I will happily serve them for 2 years.   

"Find beauty in all things."

Allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is...

Kadidya Dumbia. But everyone just says Kadja for short. We were all given Malian names upon our arrival and since our village – Mountugula – is so small, all the little kids run around screaming our names when we walk by and most of them want to touch our hands. Being OCD as I am, and not being the biggest fan of dirty hands, I usually extend my wrist, as we’ve been taught to do when people want to shake our hands and either theirs or ours are dirty. I live with the dugutigi (chief of the village) and his 3 wives, though I swear only 2 are ever around. I call them Granny 1,2, and 3, but to their faces they’re Monyo, Korotun, and I forgot Granny #3’s name since she’s never around.  I’ve met 7 of his sons, or atleast 7 that claim him as their father, though not all biological. In Mali, and in most African cultures, when a man dies, his brothers will take his deceased brother’s wives and children for his own, so there’s a lot of “He’s my father, but my father died” going on. In descending order, according to age, my brothers here(sons of the dugutigi): Madu (lives in Bamako, so he’s not around much), Mahaman (the Muslim name, Mohammad. He, too, lives in Bamako, so I only see him on weekends when he comes to visit his wife, who lives across the street from us. He’s super cool and has drank with us at the bar), Sungalu (has 2 wives: Nana & Mai; they do the bulk of the cooking and cleaning and are more or less my mother figures here), Drisa (you’ve met him in earlier entries. I can’t write enough compliments about him), Sedu (has taken a while to warm up to me, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t hate me), Koniba (made me a sweet shirt he made at his job in Bamako; he’s a tailor), Solo (my running buddy and also conversation partner. He’s also said on multiple occasions he wants to marry me. Sorry) and lastly Somila, who I walked in on in the nyegen after being here only a few days. It was super awkward, but I think we’re both past it. I temporarily forgot the courtesy clap before entering. Definitely didn’t happen again.  

Music jam sessions make me miss Marla. Talking about crappy TV shows with other Americans make me miss Steph. Drinking makes me miss Jamie. This whole experience really make me appreciate my friends and family back home and how loved I am, especially after getting back to internet access and seeing how many people are keeping up with me. Thank you all. You have no idea how much I love your seemingly random Facebook messages, wall posts, music updates, emails, and letters. Keep them coming.  

Last weekend, we went hiking in Niamana after biking there with some people from that village. On top of the mountain, overlooking the whole village and it’s beautiful scenery, Delissa, in all her profoundness: “I’m black and I didn’t expect Africa to be like this.” Hilarious.

3/9/11

Had our language evaluations yesterday afternoon, where Peace Corps Language Officials came in to sit down with us one-on-one to test our progress and rank us on the scale as follows: Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Intermediate, Intermediate Mid, Intermediate High, Expert Low, Expert Mid, Expert High. I ranked Intermediate Mid, which I was happy about, since that’s where you are required to be at before being placed at site in April. Meaning, I can kind of breeze by the next few weeks. Not that I have been really studying at all. Oops.

We find out our site placements today! Everyone’s super anxious/excited/nervous to find out where we’re going to be sent to for the next 2 years, especially to find out if we’ll be near the friends we’ve made so far or if we’ll be a 30 hour bus ride away from our buddies. I'll let you know soon. 3 1/2 days of internet access, fans, electricity, running water, and socializing with eachother. Wahoooooo. 

The title's for you, Mo.  

Obama Biscuits and Emergency Cups

Both can be found at your neighborhood butiki and I can proudly say that I have purchased both as well. Malians LOVE Obama. If they know one thing about America and can say one thing in English, it's Barack Obama. His face is on belt buckles, cookie wrappers, t-shirts mostly, and posters on people's walls. It's crazy. And as far as emergency cups go, just use your imagination, but I'm pretty sure I've made it very clear how terrifying the cockroaches are at night in the nyegen. Don't judge me; It's Africa.

2/24/11

We got to go through Bamako on the way back to homestays – a Health Education sector field trip to the malnutrition center there, lunch at an American restaurant (veggie burger WITH CHEESE and a milkshake), and also purchased a few essentials at the toubab store! (Where toubabs: Americans/Europeans/pretty much all white people in general can shop.) We got our bikes last night! You would have thought it was Christmas in Mountugula the way all the kids followed in a procession to watch us receive them. We were all so excited to be able to have some means of transportation other than our own two feet. We’re painting a mural on the wall of the CSCOM (health center) in our village tomorrow morning. Excited about that. 4 of us are doing a pro-hand washing-themed advertisement. Looks good on paper. We’ll see. Off to class. Yippee. Can sarcasm transfer to print?

 3/2/11

So we hit the one month mark today. Proud of us for making it this far atleast. Haven’t killed anyone yet; only bugs. Point for me. Subtract a point for Africa (excessive cockroaches in the nyegen.) Walking back from Hannah’s tonight, after drinking delicious tea Sally (her sister) made for us, and chatting with Drisa & Shaka (Hannah's bro), and singing “Happy Birthday” to Shaka in English, I had this overwhelming, albeit fleeting, feeling of “I love this. I only want to be right here, right now.” We find out our permanent sites a week from today. Holy shit. Excuse my French.

I bought some sweet fabric today for my outfit for swear-in. It’s a deep purple with gold leaves and gold detailing. Should be interesting attempting to convey my style preferences in Bambara to Jasmin’s mom, who’s making our outfits for us. Need to get our teachers to help me translate, “make me look fresh to death” into Bambara. Pictures to follow.

I’m literally sweating to death under my mosquito net. It’s so unbelievably hot here. Today in class, Jasmin looked over at me as I was pulling my sports bra away from my chest to air it out: sexy. Read Ktal’s letter after my nap today (the first one I’ve gotten here so far. Hint: WRITE ME LETTERS!) It literally made my day. Love American/PTC gossip. Keep ‘em coming, Tal. Going running with Solo & Hannah tomorrow morning again at 6 after it’s light enough to see the dusty road in front of me. Cross my fingers to not get attacked by the crazy, wild dogs on the way. Goodnight, moon.

Being Bipolar

2/9/11:

Crying into my pillow earlier today, I’m positive Nena could hear me, despite my back being to the door. The sounds of sniffling and stifled sobs are pretty universal.  My daily “freakout,” I like to call it.  I’m always okay for most of the day, but as soon as I let myself think too much, I’m not anymore. Today, like most days I assume I’ll have, is made up of highs and lows. Practicing my Bambara w/ my family after dinner & playing “Mun don?” or “What’s that?” is always fun. We laugh- or more accurately, they laugh at me, and I get by using my charades skills mostly. But I’m getting better. They think it’s funny when I make the noises that animals make to find out their names in Bambara. Lows: constantly being dirty, mosquito bites, flies everywhere, eating the same starchy foods every meal with only my right hand (no utensils), and missing home, mostly. As soon as I talk about my homesickness with someone, I feel better. Jasmin cried today, too. I feel like tears are going to be pretty common here, or at least among some of us. I still wonder, even if I do master the language and can manage to communicate well with the Malians, will I ever feel at home here? Happy here? Not be homesick? It’s daunting to think about 27 months and everyone keeps telling me not to, that you can’t look that far ahead, that one day at a time is all you can do. Damn my forward-thinking.

We bought cookies today at the butiki and I shared them with my whole family after dinner. I felt bad hoarding them. Am I Anne Frank or something? My host brother, Drisa, is super patient with me and is my Bambara teacher of sorts at my home/compound. Found out he’s thirty, though. Bummer. Black people age so well. Jealous. He’s also super cute.

I talked with Ashley about ET’ing, like I have a few times before with other people. My emotions are constantly changing here, so all I can say is- I’ll take it one day at a time. I am learning a lot about myself already and surprisingly: I’m less independent, less brave, less strong than I thought I was. I need people constantly, familiarity, to be social, not to be left alone for more than showering and sleeping…not yet atleast. My reactions to this whole situation seems to be different than most. Many people's frustrations seem to stem from inabilities to communicate. Language or not, I’m sad atleast part of every day. Who would have thought my biggest fear (besides rollercoasters and the dark, of course) would be what I’m trying to create here: change. 

2/11/11:

If I was Malian, I would totally date Drisa. He’s so patient with me and he’s adorable. My fam makes comments all the time about me liking him. It’s cute because he covers his face like he’s embarrassed. He probably is. I look like a hot mess 24/7 here. Nana told me tonight that I’m her friend. All I could say was “Awww” and “thank you.” She is absolutely beautiful. Not to quote an Usher song or anything, but she reminds me of a girl that I once knew…She also said she wanted to go to America with me and then I explained I’d be here for 2 years. Damn. There we go again. For some reason, days are pretty rough, but nights, I’m fine. I’m more than fine, actually. We always laugh and talk and joke around, mostly at my expense, but I totally don’t care. I understand a lot actually and surprisingly for how short of a time I’ve been here. Drisa breaking it down for me helps a ton and he seems to understand me somehow.

2/12/11:
Good day over all. Started out by doing laundry at the pump with a few of the girls from my village. The fam was super surprised I was going to actually hand wash my own clothes. I was like umm…I’m not an idiot. It was a little tricky, though. We ended up hitchhiking a ride in the back of a pickup truck to a neighboring village to hang out with some of the other volunteers there.  We ended up going to this bar (so fun) with couches and electricity and fans and tiled floors and a real toilet (I know!) It was so fun to see everyone. There were groups of people from 5 different villages there. We had drinks, danced a little, but mostly we talked about how much we needed this social interaction with Americans...in English. 

2/14/11:
And the best fam award goes to: mine. Tonight, Hannah, Ashley, and Jasmin all came over after dinner. First off, dinner was delish. They’re finally starting to realize what I do and don’t like. Although, that may not be a good idea since I’ve shown an interest in bread, potatoes, and rice. I’m gonna get so fat. Whatever, though. When in Africa, right? Malian drumming music is on the radio outside my door (loud) and the voices of my fam shouting over the steady, repetitive beat. Tonight, we finally all got up and danced and they all clapped to watch the white girl shake it. I’m starting to mind less and less that my ceiling is full of spiders and that there are cockroaches swarming in the nyugen where I go to the restroom. Happy Valentine’s Day, loves. Goodnight, Moon.

2/22/11:
Driving back to Tubaniso (the training site,) you would have thought we were either 1. arriving at our highschool reunion 2. checking in at the W or 3. returning home from war. We were SO excited to have internet, electricity (to charge our phones/ipods), and even the outdoor showers here. Mostly, we were ready to see eachother after a 12-day absence. They pampered us our first night back with Mexican food and you would have thought it was cheesecake the way I devoured it all. Skyping is among my many frustrations and challenging enough trying to compete with 62 other people for internet connection that is unreliable at best. God knows I can't handle technology...so please, be patient with my connectivity or lack thereof. I miss you all. I'm still alive, so that says something. Wednesday, we go back for 12 more days.  My host family said they were going to spend these 3 days crying. But then again, I probably misunderstood.  

Goodnight Moon

The title's for you, Jamie. I write that at the end of every journal entry I write in and I tell myself that you hear it, too.

Today we found out where we would be staying for homestays and what language we would be learning. Like most of us here, I'll be learning/speaking/dreaming in Bambara, which is what I expected, so I'm somewhat relieved. We've only had a few lessons so far, but atleast I can say hello and count to 10. Survival, right? We leave tomorrow morning and are going to be welcomed in our village by our host families. There's about 8 of us each going to each village and the villages are spread out about 5-10k apart. Should be interesting. Hopefully there's some cute Malian babies who want to play with my hair. We'll be there for the rest of training, only separated by the few days we come back here to training camp every 12 days or so.

Cultural festival yesterday gave us a chance to buy some sweet panyas (long wrap skirts) and the guys got outfits as well; pretty sure they'll never go back to wearing regular pants after wearing drawstring cloth ones for 2 years. They look super comfy. Pictures coming soon.

Each day is an emotional rollercoaster, but emails help (Thanks Mo, Mom, & Neely), as do YouTube videos of Pauly D's antics. Atleast there are a few people here who watch crap television like I do and we can bond over that. Excited for tomorrow. I'll be back in 12 days.

Goodnight moon.

Call out your names & I'll tell you what hut you're in.

Stepping off the plane, all 64 of us were surprised to see the removable stairs that led directly onto the runway. From airplane to pavement. The heat at 10pm was surprising, but 2 days later, it's cool and there's a breeze. Sleeping under a mosquito net and using the bathroom by squatting in a hole in the ground in a cement outhouse-like structure is interesting, to say the least, but it's refreshing. Like camping, but much more permanent. Our week here at Tubaniso -the training center is apparently luxurious compared to what we'll experience at homestays and later at our own sites: we have running water (though cold) in our outdoor showers, and electricity in the dining hall (though it goes out on occasion), which is where the internet is. Also, our water is purified for us and our food is prepared by staff. It's a lot like summer camp. We have iteneraries and daily sessions- immunizations after lunch, breaks in between language courses, etc. In a few days, we'll receive our cell phones (yay!) and have been told that texting the US is as cheap as twenty to thirty cents a text and receiving calls and texts for us is free. Pretty excited about that.
Our group of huts is the married people compound. 3 married couples are here and then theres our hut of 3 single gals. Everyone is bright eyed and curious, wondering what language we'll be assigned and to what region. Since I ranked "novice low"-the lowest French level possible, I will most likely be speaking Bambara, since it's spoken in the majority of the country, making travel for me easier. The pros at French will be taught a minority language and will have French to fall back on when travelling.
I'm still excited and no, I haven't freaked out  yet, but apparently that kicks in later, once we're alone in our village for the first time. Like many others, I prefer to be somewhat close to another volunteer and would LOVE if another volunteer was in my same village, though that's not common. There are more than a handful that want to be in isolation. I can't imagine.
So far, I'm journaling at night and pretty busy during the day, enjoying the company of everyone in our training group, who is made up of some pretty interesting, but surprisingly normal people. We're from all over, something I was excited for. Something annoying (a word of advice for new parents): every list and nametag has me as Patricia, so no one gets my name right. Everyone gets confused and wonders who Lauren is. Thanks Kim & Jeff.