Village life begins

Village life begins with the firing of rifles. When I arrive with four other volunteers at the end of a muddy road, the town elders come to greet us and fire shots into the air to announce our arrival. People emerge and line the path with color, music and smiles, handshakes and drumbeats. We wind our way into the heart of the village and gather around the grand tree, where we greet the chief and gave him a gift of kola nuts. Then the balafon players woo us into the center of the square and we dance, pulsing forward and backward in lines, women only, exchanging neck scarves, with hundreds of eyes fixed on our every move.
My host mother Kajatu greets me, a strong and stout woman with crinkly eyes that are always smiling. A small crowd of children takes my things and leads me through the warren of thatched huts and dirt paths to our celebration lunch with all the volunteers; we wash our hands with water in tin cans and then gather around large communal bowls. I eat a goat's stomach, wave at the flies, and smile a lot.
The first night I'm exhausted, and by 9 pm I'm splayed under my mosquito net on a scratchy sheet, listening to the sound of a blaring radio, a tribe of crickets that colonize my ceiling, and intermittent donkey brays that pierce through my screen door. My body is drenched in sweat; the air is stagnant and humid. I click on my headlamp and root around until I find my earplugs. These two cylindrical pieces of yellow styrofoam are worth more than the castle of Versailles. I finally fall to sleep.
In the morning Kajatu brings me a bucket of warm water, and I go to the nyegen and bath myself, watching the rain clouds swirling in and listening to the "thunk thunk" rhythm of the women pounding millet throughout the village. The thunks are punctuated by claps, *the women let go of the stick and clap while the stick continues to rise, then they catch the stick again and continue to pound. I am in AWE of this skill and have embarassed myself repeatedly in attempts to acquire it*. I sit in the dirt courtyard between our huts and eat some white bread and drink sugary tea for breakfast, then go to my teacher's hut for my daily routine of Bambara class. The session is soon drowned out by claps of thunder and torrential rain, and we move from our leaky thatched "gwa" (open-sided hangar) to the teacher's bedroom, and continue our lesson sitting on the concrete floor, dimly lit by a small window and a lantern.

For 10 days now I have spent all day learning Bambara, from 8 to 6, with a break in the middle where I go home for lunch. On the way home, I pass a compound where children come streaming out yelling "Bonjore! Bonjore! Bonjore!" and shake my hand, then run to far end and repeat the routine a minute later. It has become an 8-times a day ritual (twice on the way there, twice on the way back, twice on the way there, twice on the way back...). The people of the village are incredibly warm and friendly, and greetings are a very important part of the culture. Each morning I have to greet all the elders in my compound (a family of at least 40 people), inquire about health, how they spent the night, their family, and then give them blessings for the upcoming day. It can be tedious, but I also enjoy the priority of human-to-human engagement. I can't imagine walking down the street in the United States and greeting every person that I pass and asking them if their family is doing well.
One of the hardest things we have learned so far is how to bargain at the market. Last Monday we went to the nearby village and practiced our so-called language "skills." The problem of buying things here is that they refer to FIVE West African Francs as ONE when they tell you the price. Here is a nice example of me buying bananas: (in Bambara)

Me: Hello, how are you? How is your family? How was the night? How are your children?
Seller: Hello, I'm fine. Peace only. Peace only. How are you? How is your family??etc.
Me: Bananas how much?Seller: Bananas twenty twenty.
*oh, they repeat the price? But does this mean 20 bananas for 20? Or a pile for 20? Or 1 for 20? And is the twenty TWENTY, or do I need to times that by 5?*
long pause
Me: Give me 15 bananas.
Seller: hundred two and ten forty
*.... ok, 240, that times 5, ok, that's almost 1000, ok, I'll give him 1000.*
LOTS OF CONFUSION.... finally I walk away with some bananas and possibly the right amount of change. I don't know.

I saw the most beautiful sunset of my life the other night. Two vibrant double rainbows in the East and a molten sky in the West that bathed the earth in yellow light. It was surreal, magical. I spend most evenings sitting in my courtyard while my little brothers watch a Brazilian soap opera dubbed into French, while I study and try to put together basic sentences. I make a fool of myself all the time and get laughed at a lot, but that is part of this process. I like to say very simple descriptive sentences "I am brushing my teeth now with a toothbrush," and when someone understands me it is a big victory for the day.