Missalabougou

I just found out that I'll be staying with the chief in Missalabougou for my homestay!!! And there's a good chance that I'll be served a goat head for dinner! How exciting is that?!?

winkie

This is the training center, Tubani So


And this is my one-eyed pet tortoise, winkie!
...we had our first class specific to water sanitation this morning, and I couldn't be more excited!! We're learning about soak pits, wells, irrigation, pumps, and other joys.
My roommate decided to leave yesterday, which was probably for the best. We've now lost 2 from our training class, so we're down to 79 trainees. (That's total, for all of mali. Only about 12 of us are in water/san.)
We leave tomorrow morning for our "homestay" in a village, which means I'll be away from the internet for up to 2 weeks.

Where is your poop?

I made it! I'm at the Peace Corps training center, Tubani So (meaning the house of the dove, or of peace, in Bambara). I don't even know where to start; everything is so awesome. The orientation in Phily is already a blur. It was basically a crash course in policies, cultural exchange, what 'development' actually is, etc. The flight here was pretty uneventful (esp. compaired to the effort it took to get to India!). Nobody lost any luggage on the way over, which is apparently very very rare. We arrived in Bamako pretty late at night and loaded up into the vans with all our luggage piled on top and tied down with a tarp. We then drove out to the training center, which is absolutly beautiful. The rooms are either brick (if they're orthagonal) or rammed earth (if they're round) with perfectly pitched thatched roofs. There's a pet turtle that was saved from somewhere in Bamako that is about 3 feet long and surprisingly fast! Since we got here (which was only 2 days ago, but seems like a month) we've been doing non-stop training with sessions in safety, health, malian culture, bambara (the main language after french), and even a whole session in parasites and how to deal with what we've come to call "Mr. D." (I don't think I need to explain..) The food is actually really good, although I think they're americanizing it a bit for us for now. It's rice with some sauce on top made of vegetables and meat, and 'to,' which is corn mush, and actually not that bad. My only complaint is that it's a little bland. (Maybe I'm just comparing everything to India...) On Wednesday we move out to our host-villages where we'll each stay with a family for the rest of our training.
My french is getting much better, but Bambara is pretty tough so far. I've already made some pretty funny mistakes. For example, "I be bo min" means 'where are you from.' However, if inverted ("I bo be min") means 'where is your poop?' Oops! Although I'm guessing this phrase might actually be useful when I get to dealing with water sanitation issues...
Another really funny story just happened tonight: I was talking with one of the language and cultural trainers during dinner, and found out that 'ma' (my initials) means 'god' in Bambara. Joking is a huge part of Malian culture, so he joked that I was a god, I joked that that meant I could command him to do anything I wanted, he asked what I would make him do, and I jokingly said that he should get me some chocolate ice cream. It was all hilarious, since there really is no ice cream anywhere near us. But then, hours later, as all the trainees were hanging out and studying our languages, he shows up with a bunch of chololate ice cream, almost melted, all the way from Bamako!!! It was totally awesome. I'm not sure if I've given any justice to how funny it was, but take my word for it.
Anyway, I love it here, everything is great, and I'm so excited to get to my village. But on a somewhat sad note, my roommate is crying every night and really wants to go home, which is a pretty hard decision.

Give me all the updates from back home! Who dies in Harry Potter, etc. And everybody should send me mail!!!