Hopefully this blog will pacify those of you who have been whining that you don't see enough pictures from my life here in Africa :oP. Sorry the formatting isn't the greatest, but it took so long to download the pictures that I was tired of playing with it once I got them all on there. I'm not promising that I'll be as committed to updating mine as my partner, Amanda, is with hers, but I'll try. Anyway....here is a summary of our first 6 months in country. Enjoy!
This is my friend, Monica and I on our first trip to the market. One of the first things we did upon arrival in the country was head to the market to buy some of the things we would be needing during our time here.
This is our "family" of both "seasoned" West Africa OneStory-ers and the 6 of us "newbies" who came in October. They really welcomed us into the family right away and were super-willing to help us with whatever we needed. We love our brothers and sisters!
One of the fun things we got to do when we first came (when we weren't in training) was to go "rock" climbing. It's not like a steep cliff rock like you're thinking, but sort of like a mountain of rocks. Anyway, here I am on top to the left and above is a picture of all of the "newbies".
Here is my first experience pounding grain in the first village we visited (where some of the "seasoned" OneStory-ers are working). I had been helping out the women in our village doing it with them almost daily until recently when I got a blister on my thumb that took two weeks to heal because every time someone would want to shake my hand (a very common desire for those seeing a "toubab") it would tear open and start bleeding.
Reaiah stayed with me while I got my hair braided by a woman who had some experience doing toubab hair in that first village. It was a long and pretty painful process and I vowed never to do it again...even though they've talked me into it twice since then :o)
The first time I watched them kill a goat (in the 1st village we visited) I found out that I don't do well with that sort of thing. I got lightheaded and developed a headache (I guess all the blood drained out of my head) because it was so hard to watch the little guy trying to breathe through his severed windpipe and struggling for his life.
Here I am putting the freshly skinned and boned leftover chicken which was Thanksgiving dinner last year into our friends' new oven. (We were just being taken to our villages for the first time during that time.)
When we finally started going to the villages where we would be staying, we brought them food to cook and eat while we were there. Since Amanda and I were the last ones to go to our village (because the others' villages are close together, so we took them first) it was just us and our supervisor and another woman who came so our supervisor wouldn't have to drive back alone, but as you can see, we still brought 3 chickens with us! They rode in the back seat with Amanda while I drove.
Here is what our drive into our village looks like. This was our first impression of our home for two years. The roads were pretty rough on us at first, but I think we're becoming accustomed to them.
Here we are with our new family in front of our new hut.
Here is a look at our hut from the inside and our bathroom complete with new rocks so we don't have to stand in the mud to bathe.
They (our supervisor, really) put us to work right away washing dishes. I definitely prefer to do it in a sink with running water rather than on a sand ground with standing, gooey water sloshing onto my feet.
They killed a goat to celebrate our arrival the day after we got there. What an honor and just a glimpse of the hospitality we've been shown while we've been here.
We were pleasantly surprised to see that there is a school in our village. It's not like US schools and I don't think everyone gets to attend, but we were glad to see one there. The professor is really nice and knows some English, but we hardly ever see him.
They taught us how to carry water on our heads just like they do (this was one of the only times I've actually carried it like that - I've found my hands and arms to work much better for me!)
We began to learn the language by recording words and phrases and listening to them over and over. In this picture you can see our first recording session....and the woman who is trying to eat our microphone. It took a few minutes, but they finally got the hang of what we needed from them.
We went to the fields with the women one day...and got burned to a crisp. Here we are pictured in the cotton fields, but we also experienced harvesting millet and peanuts (their three main crops) that day.
After those first few days in the village, we came back to the capital for three weeks of VERY HELPFUL French training. During that time, each team stayed with a French speaking family in order to practice what we learned in class. This picture is us with our home stay sisters.
We also worked with Campus Crusade at the local university during our three weeks of French training. I was really interested in how different it was from the typical American college campus, so for my Gathering peeps, here are some pictures of
the only university in Mali. At the top left, you'll see the laundry room (if you look closely, you can see handwashed clothes hanging on a clothesline). Next to that is the fitness center. In the middle left is the cafeteria and next to that is the parking lot
(SO many free spaces!) Then there is what they call the "playstation" at the bottom left which is basically a recreational field. Finally, we got a picture with the girls we visited regularly during those 3 weeks.
Our "sisters" in our French homestay took us to the zoo one weekend. African zoos are not as safe as American ones. Look how close we were able to get to this ostrich! One of our sisters kept warning us to keep our distance since he could have easily poked his beak through the fence to snap at us if we got close enough. The lion's cage, although slightly better, was not hugely more protected.
Africans love for you to take their picture (well, they ask you to, but then they don't smile). Here is one of the women in our village at a yearly holiday they celebrate. It's not always at the same time of year, but this year, it happened to fall on New Year's Eve. In case you're wondering, we DID celebrate Christmas here with other people from our company, but I don't have any pictures. It was sad not being with my family and I was sick, so I didn't even really think about it.
Ugh! Who would've ever thought you had to sweep a dirt floor?? You really can tell the difference when you're done, though.
This is what a typical lunch or dinner meal looks like. This picture happens to be millet and "tigadigana" (peanut sauce) but every meal is basically a starchy base (millet, rice, corn meal, etc.) with some form of tigadigana. It's pretty good.
This is what it typically looks like when we visit a new village. People gather around to see the "toubabs" and they treat us like celebrities. It's fun for about the first 10 minutes, but most of the time we really just wish we could blend in and not be given special treatment.
Here are some pictures from a wedding we went to. They do a lot of dancing and they love to try to get the toubabs out there. Amanda will sometimes humor them, but I never do (those of you who have seen me try to dance know why). Notice the axe and rifle held high as they dance.
I wasn't able to get a really good shot, but this gives you an idea.
If you click on the pictures, I think you might be able to see them in full-size.
This is actually a different wedding, but what is on top of these womens' heads are presents for the bride.
Here you see the "blushing bride" being driven into her new town on someone's moto. Well, you can't REALLY see her because she's the one with her face covered, but you know she's there.
The weddings last many days and part of the "celebration" is a time when all the young girls from the bride-to-be's village go into a hut with her to "cry" while the married women dance outside the hut. This is actually a picture, though, of most of those same girls in the bride's NEW hut in her new village the day after the actual marriage.
This is the bride and groom. She is pouting because the groom's friends stole her head covering. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this is the only photo of the two of them that was taken that day, so if I can get this printed, this is all she'll have to remember the day by.
Well, those pictures sort of sum up our first 6 months here. I have a lot more, but it takes a long time to get them downloaded on here and I feel like I picked the "best" or "most important" ones. Keep checking back for more updates and I promise to try my best to get new pictures up frequently!
