12/9/11
Yesterday was the big day, the day that set the tone for the next two years of my life. It’s funny how the entire course of your life can be dictated by such small moments in time. As we sat in our large group, watching region by region announce the sites of myself and my fellow trainees, I sat patiently awaiting my name watching region by region disappear from my prospects. Finally, as we reached the end my name was finally called. I would be living in a small village outside the sub regional capital of San. (I am not going to get into specific details on a public blog, so you’re going to have to call me on skype (cell phone or when I have internets) if you want the full story on where I am heading).
(11 Days Later…)
I’ve found that life here can be exhausting, especially when bacterial and viral internal infections here are treated much like I treat the common cold back home (Disclaimer: I am fully on the road to recovery and feel spectacular as I write this, so no worries). And in conjunction with said exhaustion, I find it extremely difficult to sit down and write these. I know that if I continue to go back to this point my blog will become a broken record, but the reason why I reiterate this point again is to take solace now in the fact that I found my inspiration. Somewhere between reading Hemmingway, re-reading my journal and having a moment of silence for the envelopes in bookmark purgatory that were destined for America before I fucked up an address in the land of no white-out, I found the spark necessary not only to start this post, but the source that will continue to fuel my posts throughout my time here (though the list of authors will no doubt increase as time progresses since for the first time in four years I feel like I really have time to read and am regretting my lack of a kindle).
And, in honor of my newfound inspiration, I think it’s only fair that I try to write post #2/3 a little differently:
This week was one-hundred and ten different ways of completely overwhelming, and the only way to do it justice is to divide it up into two parts: travelogue and reflection. There is no way to contain the experience in one continuous story, because to do so would be a disservice to just how ridiculous this entire week has been in every possible sense of its terming in Webster’s.
My week started bright and early on Monday morning. Well, not so bright, seeing as it was 5:30 in the morning. My work counterpart and I departed the training center to get to the bus station for the 7am bus destined for San. So, overburdened with two backpacks and a PC-issued Trek mountain bike we bopped our way through a 7 hour bus ride to a random village on the side of the road of San before continuing the last bit on bike. After a difficult but short venture out into the African bush I arrived at the place I was going to call home for the next two years.
It’s funny how perspectives change here. Anywhere else, in any other experience you would tell someone who shows you a three room mud house with a thatch roof with a basic gas stove and very simple tables and furniture with an outdoor well constructed cement hole in the ground for a toilet where to shove it, but here it would have been inappropriate not to be extremely grateful for such things. After settling a little bit, I had my first experience with toh and sauce, the Malian staple meal that in texture resembles something most people would never put anywhere near their mouths (It’s a thick porridge made of either rice/corn/sorghum or millet – the corn one is damn good, like grits, but unfortunately sorghum and millet are much more common, and personally legitimately less appetizing). I muscled through the experience, but I think in the future I will learn to love it, since it will probably be at least one of my meals everyday for the next two years. After I was granted the luxury of a much needed siesta before greeting my host family and village chief in the African dusk. And as I fell asleep I prepared for day #2 that could only surpass day #1 in its awkwardness.
And of course, that it did. Day 2 began what I will refer to as the “Welcome Wagon Tour” in which I moved throughout the village with my work counterpart and, at least for day one, my site mate (another volunteer already installed that lives about 4 km down the road in another community). The afternoon consisted of chicken (a cultural means of welcoming me to the community – It was not the first chicken I was offered during the week), and a lot of napping. The day finished out strong by cracking into The Sun Also Rises and determining that my first pet here will be named Ernest Hemmingway.
Day 3 commenced with greeting tour #2 followed by a rather awkward lunch that reminded me of my ever-present fishbowl status. At this point I had still not attempted to venture out on my own, preferring a book over an adventure. I think in some part I foolishly assumed that I would run out of places to adventure to, if somehow such a possibility legitimately existed here.
Day 4 came and the cultural and social overload reached a fever pitch, commencing with greeting tour #3 with special guest Peace Corps staff members before departing to market day in a town a decent but manageable bike ride away. After meeting a third fellow PCV in close proximity to my site, I found my way through the market maze, ate lunch for 10 cents, witnessed the millet beer (dolo or cimicama depending on how specific you care to be) sellers hanging out in the Christian section of the market (though the millet beer consumption doesn’t really follow any sense of religious boundaries in real practice), and finally made my way back home before the sun set. It was only at this point so late in the game that I realized that from where I sat in my compound there was almost no real light pollution for roughly 10-20km in any direction, and that as such the stars lit up in the sky in the most spectacular way possible and decided that in lieu of reading I would instead sit down and just stare up at the sky for a spell. Needless to say it was a good choice.
Nothing of day 5 was of particular note, only that it began with more greetings and ended in illness. There was only one instance worth noting for further experiences: children in my village see a camera and decide that in order for the picture to truly be good they must pose like ninjas and then proceed to scrutinize the picture on the lcd screen and laugh hysterically at themselves.
Day 6 was difficult, but of particular note. After calming my stomach enough to make the trip into San I said goodbye to my village and made my way to the paved road to hitchhike into San with a fellow volunteer. After two hours of sitting on the road luck finally befell us when a Mercedes sedan pulled off to pick us up. As luck would have it the man already sitting shotgun just happened to be the representative in the National Assembly for the region of San, and I was able to check off one more line on my road to trying to be a badass in Mali. The day progressed from there with pork, M&M’s and pepto bismol, but managed to relax away the evening before getting up early and making the trek back Bamako way.
That’s my story, but the mindset I ended the week with is another story in and of itself, but I feel as though I have already rambled this post on for too long, so I will leave you all in suspense for a little while longer as to the rest of the story…
(To be continued)…
