Swearing in as a Peace Corps Volunteer

I swore in this morning as a Peace Corps Volunteer. There were 76 of us, outfitted to the nines in Malian attire at the United States Embassy. I was swimming in my own sweat in the 96 degree heat, but I still got goosebumps as I raised my right hand and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic. It was a strange moment, 76 voices in unison, all wondering what exactly we were swearing to do, but understanding that the moment was symbolic and represented a pretty huge commitment. Two years of my life consecrated to serving a group of people and a country, to better their lives and hopefully, mine as well.

West African International Time

There are a lot of cliches regarding Africa and what one learns while living on this continent. One of the greatest, perhaps because of its inherent truth, posits that time moves differently over here. Things take longer. People aren't as hurried. Patience, a good deal of it, is a recommended strategy for coping with daily life.

Three hours by the roadside and I'm still there trying to catch a "bush taxi" into Sikasso. The late afternoon sun refuses to move faster; it hangs motionless, its heat waves burning into my sweat-soaked skin. I look at my watch, it too seems suspended. I swat some flies from my brow, and my mind drifts....

I watch my thoughts and where they go, both in space and time. I notice how hard it is to wait in the present moment, to just sit and be, to not be expectant. Instead, my thoughts meander into the past, to experiences and to people. More commonly though, they make forays to the future - conjuring up alternate realities and possible lives I may lead. It is such a human tendency to think about what if's to escape the present. And yet, the present moment is all that is. In these moments of stillness, with the sun, the flies, the very realness of just being alone and waiting, time does indeed take on a new meaning.

West African International Time; learning to wait.

Homestay photos

I gave the farewell speech in Bambara to our host village. A lot of blessings! And here is the link to more photos that I posted:

http://usc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2169812&l=51b31&id=3408340

Pictures from Sikasso!

A few photos from my site visit -

I apologize for the lack of pictures... my

camera disappeared. I am relying right

now on my friend's pictures. The one to

the right is the village landscape near

Sikasso; this is the village 3km away

from mine and looks quite similar.

Very lush right now because it is

the rainy season.

Here I am in my hammock outside

my house, which will be my HOME

for two years! I plan to paint

and plant sunflowers.

And this is the main hangout of my village - my host dad's bike repair station/ butiki on the side of the road. I will spend a lot of time here in the months... er, years to come trying to understand Senufo and drinking tea.

Back in Homestay - Baobob leaves

I come back from the daily grind of Bambara class, making a wide arc around the compound of children whose daily goal is to swarm the "tubabus" (white people) and pester us to take photos. I greet my way along the edge of the rice fields, dodging piles of trash and donkey shit. I duck through the arched door into my concession and greet my family; the greetings feel natural and easy now.

My host mom gives me my bucket of water and I bathe, peering over the top of my nyegen to see the kids pulling out the TV and the bench to watch the evening installment of "The Heart of Sin," a Brazilian soap opera dubbed into French and wildly popular. They plug the TV into a battery and fiddle around with the reception and sardine themselves onto the bench to watch surfers and scandalously dressed women. I eat my bowl of mushy sorghum stuff with an oily sauce, study for a bit, then go inside and read with my lantern.

I'm woken from my pages by women's voices outside my screen door, gentle but multiplying. I step out to a scene of more than a dozen women circled around a giant pile of Baobab tree branches, glowing in the blue halo cast by a fluorescent bulb that is plugged into the same battery that so faithfully powers the TV each night. The women are muttering, chatting, laughing, recounting the day, and still working at 9:00pm. They are stripping the leaves and placing them in buckets. I ask if I can help, and after the usual dose of laughter that follows anything I say in Bambara (I am a natural comedian in Bambara, just saying 'how are you' can sometimes elicit peels of laughter), they widen the circle and I start stripping leaves alongside them. I wonder how much the battery costs and how long it lasts; I wonder how my family affords it and how they bought the TV. What do they sell?

But back to leaf stripping. I don't watch the leaves so much as the women. I notice they are wearing nicer clothes than I usually see them going to the fields in; they glow in a panoply of colors and textures and patterns, wrapping, draping, with intricate necklines and sleeves and head wraps. I marvel at how beautiful they are, their smiles and their muscular arms carved from years of pounding grain and washing and hoeing. Many of the women have their babies wrapped around their backs as they work. I think West African women should have been marsupials, but they make up for their lack of a pouch by strapping the little ones onto their backs with a piece of cloth. They do anything with baby in tow.

When the leaves are finally stripped, the women begin chopping them into fine pieces to make into sauce. I wonder how the finished product is going to be divided; who gathered the branches? Who brought them back? How will they know who did more work than others? As I am wondering this I also notice that the leaf stripping and chopping almost seem like a background detail, a setting to facilitate the primary activity: socializing. When a woman is telling a story and especially animated she will stop her cutting and gesture and laugh. The stars are bright; the milky way seems almost like a cloud stretching across the sky, and they are in no rush to finish. There is no time clock to punch in and punch out; no boss measuring productivity or performance, just the rhythm of existence. The leaves aren't measured and divied and horded; they are shared among the women. It will take me some time to grasp the concept that the measuring stick of value here is community, not the individual.

The next day's lunch is a delicious dark green sauce; I compliment my host mom and relish the rare treat of Baobob leaves.