I’m pretty sure the next two years will be a lot of my shuffling around between Kita and village, village and Kita, and then maybe traveling to other places in Mali once in a while. As for now though, we new volunteers are technically limited to staying in our own region for the first 3 months of training; no traveling into Bamako unless for specific reasons, and no visiting other volunteers in other regions. This will supposedly insure that we really get to know our villages and become well-integrated into our communities. That is basically the goal for us right now, since there is no other thing we can really do except learn the language and learn what kind of projects our village needs and wants, and what we can reasonably accomplish as volunteers here for two years. It’s actually a long, long drawn out process, much more than one would think. Most volunteers don’t really start doing any kind of work until January, at the earliest, because most are trying to come up with a good project that will be sustainable in the community long after the volunteer is gone; not an easy task in many Peace Corps countries. It helps that everyone is all on the same page when it comes to this, and at least in this way volunteers come together and support each other.
Anyway, I thought I’d actually explain what I do all day, because I talk a lot about how much I DON’T do and perhaps some people don’t really believe that? I get up early every morning, and walk to the water pump a hundred or so yards from my house to get water for my day. Make myself tea and heat up water so I can take a hot bucket bath (because cold water at 6:30 in the morning is nobody’s idea of fun, even if it gets to 90 or 100 later in the day). And then I go to my host family’s house, where I have a corn porridge type thing, with sugar mixed in. After that I sit around with my language instructor and some other men, sometimes with another woman (who are usually the ones doing all the work here, so not always likely). Normally we make green tea, the first batch of the day. Now let me stop and explain about green tea in this country, which is a big thing. Malians love to buy loose-leaf green tea and make it over a little wood burner. After the tea has been boiled, they had sugar to the mix, and then mix it by pouring the tea into the cup and back into the pot, repetitively. The cup is actually not like the mugs we use in the States; they more resemble shot glasses. So you know you have a person who knows how to make tea if you have a nice bit of bubbles and foam in your shot glass. Usually people only have one glass to serve with, so people are given the tea in order of importance, sex, age, etc. Normally I would be last to get the tea because of age and gender, but because I am the foreigner/guest, I get served first. And tea is made three times, until the third cup consists mostly of sugar and less of tea flavor. This whole process can take anywhere from a half to a whole hour. I mention this because this is a HUGE ritual in Mali, at least in the southern regions like Bamako and Kayes. Throughout the day I might get tea (and I mean the 3 different stages of) three or four times a day. As you all well know, I love tea, but I might never want green tea again after Mali. Anyway, after tea with my instructor, I might wander over to the clinic, or to another family’s compound, and chat. I like hanging out at the clinic because I sometimes get to work a little, such as helping with baby weighings or watching pregnant women get check-ups (although there still remains some confusion as to my role there, and how I am NOT allowed to help with births or anything that involves blood and bodily fluids). Sometimes we just sit around and chat, if there are no patients that day. Around noon I head back to my host family’s house and have lunch, which usually involves rice/corn and sauce, which I eat with my hands or a spoon, depending on how badly my host father thinks I suck at eating that day. After that, I usually hang around at my family’s compound, another compound or the clinic again and pretend to chat. With harvest time almost upon us, I can sometimes help shelling peanuts or corn while we sit around talking and drinking tea. Sometimes they worry about me hurting my hands and won’t let me do anything except sit there. This usually continues until about dinnertime, around 7, when I eat corn to, a dough like substance, and sauce, and sometimes fish balls (ground up fish fried into little balls, which sounds disgusting but is actually pretty good). After dinnertime I’m usually fed up with trying to speak Bambara and eating carbs and sugar all day, and do my best to explain that I want to go home and rest, and no, I don’t want to chat anymore, thank you, and no, I’m not weird because I want to be alone, I’m just American. They are slowly getting used to the idea of me being alone in my little hut for a few hours a day, because in truth Malians have no such thing as private or quiet time. People are always visiting each other, and always wandering in and out of each other’s houses. Which is another thing that is hard for most volunteers to adjust to, because even the most outgoing American likes to have an hour or two to themselves in a place they can call their own. But eventually they understand that I’m tired and want to go home, and my host father insists on walking me home the couple hundred yards from his compound to mine, because God knows what could happen to me in my little village of 2000 that hasn’t already happened after living in Mexico City and Los Angeles my entire life. And then I get my quiet time, where I listen to the BBC (in English, and not one of their other numerous languages) and read my book or study language. That’s my day in a nutshell; that’s what I’ve been doing since I got to Mali. Eventually I will be working, (I promise) and not sitting around using Americans’ precious tax dollars, after I learn how to.
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