Peace Corps Speak

since i am speaking three languages, it's only natural to ponder linguistics inherent in such a melange of english, french, and bambara. in addition of these, there is also a language unto itself here in training in the peace corps, a vacuous place where guttoral galaxies collide. here is a list of peace corps speak. it purports not to be comprehensive and will be amended accordingly. included are bureaucratic idiosyncracies, ie. acronyms, and other parlance that has manifested itself as some crazy frambarish.

HEALTH:

mr. d: diahhrea. and mrs. c: constipation
--both can be or are re-curring problems for people.
mif kit: so you have mr. d, and if over a period of time if it doesn't seem to improve, you do a mif kit. basically you have to take a stool sample and have it sent to a lab for analyis. pcmo's love their mif kits.
pcmo: peace corps medical officer and my favorite is aissata sow. she's awesome compassionate, v.i.p.
negen: out house made of cement and brick; two types-first kind and best has a hole that you do #'s 1 and 2 in, the other type just has a hole in the side of the wall at ground level leading out to usually a collection pool. in both, one bathes. yup.

After Five weeks, stop a moment.

hey kids.

to start. thank you to all who have supported me throughout this terribly long process of getting my ass to africa. you know who you are and you know what you did (read: many beers, pats on the back, consoling words and babysitting my cats, my hearts...)

what can i say? i have absorbed innumerable, unquantifiable, uncalculable amounts of information, if i only were a hard-drive...

mali. it's a developing country. this is the first time i have ever been to one so i am learning alot about how ngo's and organizations like the imf and world bank operate in a pretty democratic country. mali is an island of stability unlike guinea, cote d'ivoire, and algeria. these topics i will write on more later as i learn more because i need to be a 'responsible' media user... (that was a joke)

i have been living out of my bag here during training. i live between tubani so (the training village), sinsina (my training host-village), and bamako. this week has been especially transitory as we all have reached mid-training and the scheduled site visit. i have just spent the last few days in sombo with the peace corps volunteer i will be replacing and my regional teammates.

sombo is about 70 miles from the guinean border near the niger river. so if you get to a map, find mali, then find the niger river at the guinea border, go up to the northeast just a bit and that's me! anyways, it's tiny, only 500 people. there's a school and they're building a maternity spot just behind my new home.

mali is a muslim country. with 90 percent of the population representin', dang, there's a mosque in practically every village. so at 5:30 am til sunset there's a singer calling on prayer hour for everyone. it's like church bells and it's amazing how far they can throw their voice.

i drink gallons of water. and i have yet to get amoebic dysentary or parasites that cause mr. d.

i haven't even had the time to really meditate and process what is going on around me, but after 5 weeks, i am finally starting to feel comfortable with the mere basics. i equate it to the terrible two's. i can barely communicate and have all of these needs to be met and my diaper is soiled and noone is listening. it can be a little frustrating but i don't let it get me down. soon, i will be a five year-old, then a 10 year-old, you get it.

well, i need to scrape up some lunch. and i know you are all still asleep as i write this. i hope you are having sweet dreams.

the time posted is mali time.

and for mom: i only had one job in 2004 and i don't think your email works... again.

oh my gali, the blog works in mali

my u of m and my gmail wont work, but hell i can blog. ther will be futur postings that relate to life ingeneral and specific. and punctuazl errors will happen on a french keyboard.

a tout i love you all

peace chance!