In Kita Once More.....

So I realized that I had written a nice little description of the swear-in ceremony and the preparing in Kita for site drop-off, but when I arrived at the internet café to post it, I had forgotten to save the post on my USB drive. Hence, there has been no blog post since August, I know. A very long time to have no news. But here is my swear-in update, and an update on what has happened since I was dropped off at site…

The swear-in ceremony was held Friday morning, September 12th at the American embassy, and was everything a ceremony should be: short and simple. The country director spoke, as did the American representative to Mali and a few of my fellow volunteers. And then we took the oath to uphold the American constitution and defend America from all enemies, and to do our best as Peace Corps volunteers. Unfortunately we didn’t know the oath, and weren’t very good at repeating after the American official, so it came out sorta like: “I promise to defend America, uhh, from all enemies foreign and domestic, uhhhh….the end.” At least she made sure we said our actual name, and not just “state your name.”

After the ceremony we headed to the American Club, where we got to swim in the pool and eat hamburgers and hot dogs and just chill out. I imagine that they wanted to give us a piece of American culture before we head out into the wilderness (so to speak) and can’t get such a thing as a hamburger for a while. Then we headed out on the town, where we met other serving volunteers and celebrated becoming official volunteers ourselves. We also received our group name, chosen by our volunteer trainers, in grand Peace Corps fashion: my fellow ’08 volunteers and I are now known as the Honey Bunches of Oaters (Hobos). Saturday was spent getting too little sleep and spending too much money on food. Finally we all came back to Tubaniso So again, where we said our good-byes and packed up to leave early Sunday morning. I probably won’t be seeing the rest my teammates (especially those 5 I spent the long 2 months training with) until January, when we’re back in Bamako for more in-depth training. I was the first volunteer of my group here to be installed, and hence spent the first two days in Kita doing all kinds of shopping and packing since my compound was completely empty of everything. And then Tuesday morning, September 15th, I was packed into the Peace Corps vehicle with all my stuff, driven out to bush, and deposited in my little hut amid the Malian villagers. And then the car drove away. Probably one of the biggest, “Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into?” moments of my life.

However, it has actually been a nice couple of weeks, if not slightly crazy. My village has no telephone reception, no electricity, no running water, no radio frequency and no real contact with the rest of the world except for the villages directly surrounding it, sooo I didn’t see or speak to any of my fellow teammates since leaving Kita. I spent most of my days sitting around, speaking to people, drinking tea (green tea prepared over a little charcoal burner is a big thing here), trying to learn Bambara. Thankfully everyone has been very nice, very patient, very understanding so far with my lack of skills, although after a while my patience tends to wear very thin. Of course, I can’t say that it was easy either- most nights I was definitely left wondering what I had gotten myself into, and why. I keep telling myself that with time, and understanding of the language and culture, I will feel more comfortable in my role here and stop questioning everything right now. It is pretty much the same with all the volunteers here, since things are so very different from what we know, and right now we have no purpose and no tangible goals. Which is hard for us as Americans, because we are so used to always being busy, always working hard for some reason or other. I think it is going be like that a lot for the next two years, but especially the next couple of months as we spend time just learning about our village and learning Bambara.

But enough of my internal turmoil. Since I have the time, I thought I’d give a little insight into Malian culture. I’ve written a little about Malian families, how men have more than one wife normally, lots of children, and huge numbers of relatives. It is infinitely more complicated in village. The social structure is basically the same: men have more than one wife, and numerous children, but everyone is also related to each other in my village, and there are only 8 or 9 different last names, so I am having a hard time keeping everyone’s name straight and who is related to who and how. To make things harder, girls in village actually get married and starting having children when they are still girls: around 13 or 14 years old. And they continue having children for as long as possible, which can obviously be up til 35, 40 years old. So my host mother, who I believe is in her late 30’s, not only has adult children who have babies of their own, but has babies herself. So it has been a huge shock to me over the past week, as I talk to the women who seem to be much older because they have been wives and mothers for a long time, but are really only my age. I think at least it has been as huge a shock to them to find out I am 23 and not married.

The other thing making life complicated, as I said, is the last names. Many ethnic groups in Mali live in certain regions, such as the Arabs/Tuaregs in the north, Dogon in Dogon country in the middle, etc. Most of the people in my village belong to two different ethnic groups, the Peulh and the Forgyron. Stereotypically, the Peulh were cattle herders, while the Forgyron (Numu in Bambara) were metal workers. I, Mamine (my last name has since been changed to Diallo) belong to the Peulh’, which I find rather fitting seeing as my mother’s family was in the dairy business for a long time. Among each group there are only three or four different last names, which is how people know what ethnicity you are. So, for example, among the Peulh there is the Diallo, the Diakite, the Sidibe and the Sangare. Which brings me to joking cousins, an important part of Malian culture and one of the more amusing ones. Among ethnic groups, and sometimes between, people of different last names will insult and joke with each other. There is really no limit to what people will say, but the general insults in my village between people is that they are each other’s little brothers, that they are thieves and liars, that they are not good people, that they are the other families’ slave (yes, I have told people they are my slave. No, I don’t think they got the irony). It’s a fantastic way to break the ice and get to know one another, which some people say is why Mali hasn’t had any major ethnic conflicts such as happens in other African nations. I had originally thought that many people would find it strange that the white foreigner was trying to insult them for being a Diakite or Sidibe, but actually the villagers get a huge kick out of it. Unfortunately, my insults are fairly limited right now, so I have gotten a little tired of talking about how much the other families suck compared to the Diallos’, but hopefully once I get better I can be really insulting. Because as we all know, I can be really insulting on a day to day basis.

I will actually be in Kita for the rest of the week, doing some training, so I will try to come back and post more about my life in a Malian village, and I hope to hear from you all too!