leaves and peanut butter

I'm back at Tubani So (with electricity and internet!) for the next few days. I finally found out where my permanent site will be in Mali: Tongo. It's a really small village south of Segou, which is a pretty big city. I'm going to visit on Monday to see my house and meet the chief. Then it's back to Tubani So for more technical training, then back to Missalabugu for another few weeks for more language training. I'm really amazed at the amount of Bambara I've learned in such a short time. I've gone from cave-man speak (I. Water. Get.) to actually being able to have pretty decent conversations with people. We had language testing yesterday, and my Bambara is now actually better than my French! It helps that there are no verb conjugations, and very simple grammar.
Other than constantly feeling like I've been hit by a train because of the heat, I've been surprisingly healthy so far. It's a challenge to find protein in the village, because all they eat is millet mush or rice for every meal. (Hence, it's no wonder that so many of them are malnourished with bloated bellies). So I've been eating a ton of peanuts (which my family farms), eggs, and the occasional fish, served whole. They also make this sauce from leaves and peanut butter which sounds gross, but is actually kind of like Indian saag if you use your imagination. I've been trying to help with the cooking as much as I can, both to learn myself and to encourage them to eat more veggies and protein. And when I'm really craving something other than mush, we fry potatoes in oil and have make-shift french fries. Totally yummy.
I'm amazed by the hard lives of the women in my village. They wake up with the sun, pound millet for an hour, cook breakfast, go to the field and farm all day planting peanuts one by one in the relentless sun, come home to pound more millet and cook dinner, wash clothes and dishes, go to bed and do it all over again. It makes my 10 hours a day of language training seem like leisure.