I'm off to see my village...

Today is day 4 in Mali... its seems like I've been here for weeks already, (in a good way) the people are very nice and welcoming, and I fell into the routine easily. Not that it has been rough by any means. Peace Corps had done an amazing job easing us into this by slowly integrating things we are familiar with and new things... its really like camp so far. Tomorrow though is the day. Dun...Dun.... Duuuuunnnn! My village is called Baguineda Camp and I'll be learning Bambara! My african last name is Coulibaly (Cool-EE-Bal-E) I like Bambara because its super phonetic! not like FRENCH!! I'll be with 10 other PCT's (peace corps trainees) it should be fun, this is our first home stay with a Mali family and we will be in their home for 12 days! then come back to Tubaniso for more training.
Apparently when we get there tomorrow our village is going to have a welcoming ceremony for us and we get our full African names... right now we are all just called "Tubob" which means outsider or basically white person. How wierd huh? here I am not black so I am considered white! CRAZY...
Leaving the cozy confines here to go out to the real world is pretty scary... Im not going to lie! haha, I will just smile and nod, smile and nod! lol Today at our stereotypes training I learned that one stereotype that Malians have for Americans are that we are dirty. They had a panel and they basically said its because we only shower once day, or not even once a day! haha interesting huh?! Im off to prepare for tomorrow...

Leaving

I don't think it has really REALLY hit me yet! I just checked out of my hotel and am all packed and waiting for the charter bus to take us to the airport... Yeah it still feels like I am on vacation. There are 67 of us going to Mali, so its nice to be with so many other people going through the same thing I am right now. Yesterday we talked about our fears and expectations, it seems like everyone is worried about the same things and excited about the same things. I don't know if that's good or bad...

I'm trying not to think about more than the next few hours or anything back at home yet... its to fresh. There are to many people here I don't know and it seems like everone is putting on a strong front for the sake of everyone else. Which I think is a good thing! So... yeah most of the people I met are very cool. there are two from Seattle and the Denver-ites are cool, they all have laptops so I will likely get to use theirs alot during training... if we have electricity... Hmmm... maybe not! I'll get back to you on that! Wish me luck!

Until Next time
~Glo