What's going on in the next week and ACCOMPLISHMENTS in Mali so far

Hey everyone! So I have so much to post, but I am trying to balance Internet time with being social with my stage before we all depart for our sites for the next two years, so I will do several blog posts (Ni Ala sonna - If God is willing) during the next week.

Here's the breakdown of the next week: 
(TENTATIVE - if there's anything I've learned in the PC so far, these schedules are unreliable and change drastically)

--This week, until Tuesday, we are still in Pre-service training, which means that we are at Tubaniso with about 7 hours of training every day.
--On Saturday night, one person from all of our host families comes to Tubaniso for our thank you dinner for our host families. I am taking my host sister, Oumou.
--Monday night is our stage swear-in party. This is expected to be Crazy!!! Woo hoo!!
--Tuesday is the BIG DAY! Tuesday is SWEAR IN! This means that this is the day when I become an official Peace Corps volunteer. I will no longer be a trainee, but a Peace Corps volunteer, a promoter of peace and friendship on behalf of the federal government of the United States of America. (America, how I miss you and appreciate you)
-->Swear in isn't just at any place. Swear in is at the President of Mali's MANSION!!! Yeah, the president of the country is hosting our swear in ceremony. This is a big deal!!!
--Wednesday is...SITE. We leave for site at the butt crack of dawn on Wednesday morning. We head to our regional capitals, where all of our luggage will be, and we can complete any shopping essentials we need for our new homes for the next two years. After navigating our regional capitals and the market, we spend the night and head off to site..FOR TWO YEARS!!!
--Thursday is SITE. This is where Ill be for the next two years! My site is in the region of Sikasso, and my city is called M'Pessoba. Pessoba is named after a giant snake that protects the village, M'Pewa.
--For the first three months at site, we are not supposed to start projects. The reason PC does this is to really integrate into our communities. We get to know our communities through various tasks, feasibility studies, SWOT analyses, and other forms of analyses. Im keeping very minimal expectations, because I have learned that in the PC, your expectations are constantly challenged and shattered, and to set yourself up for happiness, it's best to keep expectations to a minimum. There's a saying here that the best volunteers have no expectations. Sounds good to me.

So that's that. Things are going really well here, and as you saw, last time I was at TSO (Tubaniso), I was feeling a little homesick. Well, I got over that, and am just soaking up this week with other Americans, free time with Internet, and the fact that we have ceiling fans and running water and clean nyegens without cockroaches at night.

Speaking of cockroaches in the nyegen, for this post, I wanted to post about some accomplishments since arriving in Mali. Here it goes.

(in no particular order)

Mastering the Nyegen
--I finally bathed and used the nyegen at night. This is huge because I saw a cockroach in there, and I powered through it anyway, without freaking out. FINALLY, on my last night at homestay, I was able to work through my fear of the mutant monster cockroaches and get it together long enough to get through a buck bath after dark. Go me! :)


Pre Service Training
--Ummm. PST (preservice training). Two months in Mali!! This is a huge accomplishment because this is hard. As my bestie, who is serving her country in Ukraine with the PC put it, this is the hardest thing she's ever done in her life, but she loves it. I completely agree. Peace Corps is the loneliest I have ever been in my life, and the longest I've gone without a hug from another person, but so far so good. I've made it two months. It's going to get harder at times, but whatever "hardship" I'm facing is really nothing compared to the purpose for being here. It's also a big deal to complete PST because this is the micromanaged and dependent on others I have ever been. I mean, you can't eat yet (don't know how, here in Mali), you can't communicate, you can't use the nyegen and you're resorting to grunting and point most of the time, that sucks!! If you know me, you know I don't like being dependent on anyone, but it wasn't half as bad as you'd think. Going with the flow is big here, and I think I have really learned to do just that. It has served me well.

Greetings!
--Greetings are vital to assimilating into Malian culture. You must greet every person you see on the street, even if they're kind of far away, and it does take a lot of time to greet every person in the village every time you see them. Greetings are a way of showing respect here. And because Malians are indirect communicators and normally don't say exactly what's on their minds, we learned in a cultural session that if you don't greet Malians, they will say that they didn't see you. Malians saying they didn't see you when you were right there, is their way of saying you either didn't greet them or you have disrespected them in some way. We always joke around that if we don't greet each other (other PCTs) that we didn't see that person. Ahh, I love Malians and their indirect communication.

Proof that I have accomplished a feat regarding greetings, is that for our superlatives for PST, my town voted me as "Most Intense Greeter." If you've ever worked with me, you know that the word intense accurately describes my work ethic and usually the jobs I take, and Mali is no exception. The reason I was voted "Most Intense Greeter" is because I insist on greeting everyone, and going through all the full greetings when I do. I even stop to greet people, which most of the other trainees don't in my homestay site. AND I know a bunch of slang greetings that you only say with younger people, or those younger than you.

The greetings usually go like this:

(Depending on the time of day - Ill go with morning)

A. I ni sogoma! (Literally means you and the morning, but is how they say Good morning here)
B. Nse (or Nba if you're a man), I ni sogoma! (The polite way of responding, and is gender specific)
A. I ka kene? (How are you?)
B. Toro te! (No problems, or I am fine)
A. Somogo ka kene? (How is your family?)
B. Toro t'ula! (They are fine)
A. Here sira? (Peaceful night, aka Did you sleep well/in peace?)
B. Here doron! (Peace only!)
A. Nse!
B. Nse! (The end of greeting)

And then B will greet A with the same questions and A will answer the same way, whether or not their family is great or whether or not they slept in peace only. Our LCFs told us that even if you are dying, you always answer that things are fine, your family is fine, etc. You always answer initially like this, until you have gotten deeper into the conversation, and then you can go into more details.

Blessings
Blessings, like greetings, are very important here. Malians do blessings for everything - when someone is feeling sick, when someone dies, when you travel, when you leave a village, when someone helps you, when giving directions, when leaving a butiki (store), when begging for money, with all ceremonies, such as baptisims, naming ceremonies, weddings, funerals, when arriving in a village, when doing work, when waking up, when going to bed, when leaving, when meeting people...many, many blessings.

I can't say I've mastered blessings, but I feel confident in my blessings ability and my somewhat diverse knowledge of blessings at this point. I know four blessings for going to bed, one to get kids to stop begging for money, the blessings for every time of day, three blessings for a person sick and one for when someone passes away. These are a lot of blessings to know! And Malians are very impressed with even one blessing that you know. It's a great way to build respect in my community. Here are the blessings I know so far:

Blessings for each time of day:
Ala ka tile here caya! = May God increase the peace of your day.
Ala ka wula here caya! = May God increase the peace of your afternoon.
Ala ka su here caya! = Good night/May God increase the peace of your night.

Blessings for people who are sick
Ala k'i segin i yere ma = May God return you to yourself.
Ala ka nogoyake = May the pain lesson (I think...)
Ala ka toro dogoye = May God lessen your bothers (something like that)

Blessing for someone begging money
Ala ka san = May god give you money (something like this)

Blessing for butikitigi (store owner)
Ala ka sugu diya! = May God/May you sell everything in your store

Blessings for going to bed
Ala ka su here caya! = May God increase the peace of your night.
Ala k'an kelen kelen wuli = May we wake up one by one (because if everyone in the village woke up at the same time, it would be a logistical disaster, so it's believed that waking up one by one makes the day go more peacefully)
Ala ka si here la = May your night have peace.
Ala ka dugu numan je = May the village/morning be good.

Bargaining in the market
I have successfully bargained in the market a handful of times now. I can go to the market by myself and bargain in Bambara. I am still learning the relative prices of everything, but once I know that, things will be smooth sailing. You must first greet the butikitigi (store owner), and the important thing to note here is that because I am white, most often the first price they give is skyrocketed, because some Malians think all white people have a lot of money. Here's a quick breakdown of bargaining in Bambara:

A. I ni sogoma butikitigi!! (Good morning store owner!)
B. Nba!
A. I ka kene?
B. Toro te!
A. Somogo be di? (How's your family?)
B. Toro t'ula!
A. Buru b'i fe wa? (Do you have bread?)
B. Owo. I b'a fe ka jolie don? (You want how much?)
A. Buru kala. Nin ye jolie ye? (One loaf of break. How much is it?)
B. Keme. (500 CFAs)
A. O ka ca!! A barika! (That's expensive! Reduce it!)
B. Ayiwa, bikonontan. (ok, 400 CFAs).
A. Buru di yan. Wari yan. (Give the bread here. Here's the money).
Ala ka sugu diya!
B. K'an ben! (Good bye)
A. K'an ben!

I actually have no idea how much a loaf of bread is, but this is a typical situation in Bambara of purchasing something small and bargaining. I remember thinking of money here, which is extremely complicated, and bargaining combined with that, and thinking that I'd never be able to do that. It just takes doing it and practicing it to get over that fear.

These aren't your typical, American-style accomplishments
What I love about this, is that none of these accomplishments would be considered American-style accomplishments because they're not results, numerically-based, quantifiable accomplishments. But I love that. I've learned that in order to be happy and successful (success being very relative), it takes a good attitude, low expectations and extremely small victories. Extremely, Small, victories. They say learning the language and establishing relationships are the keys to success as a SEDDIE, so I have taken both of these things very seriously, and am adjusting well while picking up on the language well.

I really love Mali, the culture, the way they see family, but especially the people here. They would give me the clothes on their back and the last food on their plate to make a guest or another family member happy. Here they take you in as if you were literally family, give you their best chair, do everything in their power to make you comfortable and happy. The family unit is the most important thing here, community is everything. Shame is the biggest demotivator here.

I also feel accomplished in that I have kept a good attitude most of the time. I believe that attitude is everything. It colors or discolors our perceptions of the world, depending on how we see things, and thus, makes or breaks our experience and how others view us.

Anyway, Im delusional at this point, as it's almost 11 PM and I have yet to accomplish staying up after 10 PM without being extremely tired.

Ala ka su here caya!!
Ala k'an kelen kelen wuli!!
Ala ka dugu numan je!!
Bonne nuit! Good night!