Already at the end of July! I pretty much can’t believe that I survived my first year in Mali! I know it sounds crazy, but those of you that I have spoken with on a regular basis know… there were plenty of times that I was ready to pack it up and head home. Thanks to all my amazing and supportive friends and family at home, as well as my new Risky Business friends that I have made along the way.
It’s now 1 week tomorrow, until I take a month vacation home! I’m so excited, but very busy trying to tie up all the loose ends over here before I go. Things in Dioila are going well, I just found out that I officially get to stay in my house and have begun to fix it up. We want to make it more “homey” feeling, (Owen is pretty good at this home décor business!) I also have corn growing in my yard! By the time I get home from vacation it should be just right to eat.
Working with Djiguiya womans association has been fun thus far, we went to the Peace Corps Cultural fair at our training facility Tubaniso and it went really well. Which is very encouraging for the women! We have been struggling a little bit to see eye to eye on everything, us coming from the American “time is money” and supply and demand stand point vs. the Malian, “Eh if we sell something cool, if not that’s cool to, we will just sit around and talk all day” stand point. After the cultural fair we were able to show the women and help them completely understand that it’s better to sell more products at a lower price than to sell a few things at a ridiculously high price. Now we are on the same page and I am happy to continue moving forward with the Bogolan.
I am going to start learning French! I know I should have already picked some up before, but I didn’t. I just stuck with Bambara, but I figure…. Why not? I have enough Bambara to get by, and Peace Corps has an amazing language program, I might as well get a year of French in if I can huh? The last time I was in Bamako I had a funny experience, (typical experience actually, but I chose to write about this one) I went to a Vietnamese food stand which have delicious sandwiches and egg rolls. I usually don’t go to them by myself and realized as I walked up to the counter that I doubt they speak Bambara… I obviously don’t speak Vietnamese, or French… they don’t speak English… SHIT! Luckily I know my numbers in French so it was easy to just point and say a number, but the trouble happened when I needed more sauce and another package of veggies because I ordered two orders and they only gave me fixings for one order… Yeah that didn’t go over very well! Haha… we were both talking and nobody was listening, she was calling over everyone and their moms, it was sad. Finally a Malian man came over to translate for us. I told him what I needed in Bambara and he translated to her in French. SAD! This my friends, is one of the many reasons that I need to learn French… so I can order Vietnamese sandwiches in Africa!
I can’t wait to get back to America where everything is so “easy”! hahahaha…. See you soon Seattle!
