quicketst post ever on a french keyboard- so im sorry.

I went to a traditional islamic wedding last night, nothing like american weddings and i will post pictures. all it was was brining bride to new home.


Learning the language is going well. we leearned our first sentence today. Nakk tela 22 nawayen. im 22 years old. its not easy to pronounce. good luck.

love my professors and the other three volunteers with me in kalanbankoro.

Today i played human frogger to get here and that pretty much sums up how crazy fun my life is. post more soon.

I am learning the language of the touregs, the nomadic people of northern mali, sort of a ethnic mix of black african, and arab and apparantly me and three other volunteers are the first americans to learn it. its like arabic except some of the sounds are different and i physically cant make them.. i had six hours of lang today and its overwhelming. my brain is the fried egg from the dont do drugs commercials.

I will most liekly be stationed in the north of mali and my assignment area thus far sounds pretty cool and im excited to do it. ill let you know more about it soon. Although i still cant imagine myself communicating well enough in this lang, it will be worthwhile to learn it.

ive been eating nothing but rice and meat and sleeping at night is hard because its a gazillion degrees here. fun parts tho- The natural resource management stuff im going to learn will be amazing. Ive already planted a tree.

My host family is so sweet and caring, although they wont let me speak french, only tammashek. They are artists who male jewelery and pillow in their tradional custom. our yard is their work room;
i have to go im out of time but ill write more soon.

First week

Today marks one week of Peace Corps service for me and so far it hasn't really been service, but more like summer camp. Since we arrived here in Bamako late Friday night, we've been living at the Peace Corps training site outside the city, spending our days listening to lectures on culture, safety and security, health and language lessons. We haven't really left the compound with huts and pavillions and I kind of feel like I'm living in a commune from which I'm not allowed to leave. We've got electricity, running water and internet access, kind of like we're at a really nice campsite in the US and nothing like we're actually in Africa-except for the nyegen-the hole in the ground that serves as the toilet. I also got a traditional African skirt yesterday although I'm nervous about wearing it without it falling down.

Tomorrow we leave for the villages where we will be spending the next nine weeks, with occasional several day visits at the training site for technical training and other stuff. In the villages we'll be learning our new languages, based on where we will be placed in the country. There are a three or four volunteers to a village and a language and culture facilitator, who will be our teacher seven hours a day, seven days a week and when we're not with them, we're with our host family practicing our new language. so it should be pretty intense but I'm excited. The volunteers with me in my village will most likely be placed near me at my final site out in Mali so I'm also excited to see who that will be.

When I know vaguely where I'm going I'll write about it, but at the homestay village for the next nine weeks, I will only have internet every two weeks or so. I'll try to write some letters soon.

I really love it so far although its been fairly easy and straightforward and I'm anxious to get out into actual Africa. Tomorrow will be the true test when I eat dinner with my host family who probably don't speak french and I have to try to communicate with nothing but handsignals.

Anyways, love and miss you all and hope to hear from you soon. sorry its a short post but I have to run.

Puppy Chow

Hey y'all. So far everything is going great. I love all the pcvols, staff and all the new stuff we've learned. Tomorrow we depart for Mali from Philadelphia after we finish pre-service training in the morning. So far we've covered safety, security, acceptance and integration, cultural exchange, aspirations and anxiety etc. and have done alot of getting to know each other activities. There's 80 of us just going to Mali, so I still have lots of names to learn. Also got some of my vaccines and took my first malaria pill which I will take weekly from now until the end of my service.

We get to Paris 830 Friday morning, go to sleep at an airport hotel, and then we arrive in Bamako, Mali at 830 Friday night, where they're having a ceremony to greet us. Then later next week, after more intro stuff, we'll meet our host families for the next nine weeks, who live in villages around the training center. There will be several volunterrs in each village so we'll be able to take classes together there. We'll go into the training center two-three times every two weeks during training--that's when I'll have internet/phone hopefully.

hope everyone's doing well. love and miss you.

rock-puppychow=awesome. im sharing with everyone and they all love you.
Sheils and Courts= thanks for the great send-off. I think I'm having a food coma. and sheils is just in a coma.
dear evan- tomorrow, the williamstown water supply will be laced with lsd. do not drink the water. shower freely. cordially, future evan
jacks and arrin, i ate all the chocolate pretzels in the first half day. thank you. maybe those should be an appetizer?

Mali

Here are some websites for educational purposes

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2828.htm

www.usaidmali.org

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ml.html

Leaving in a week

here it is. We'll see if it's a success! countdown 6 days.