Site Visit

I had an entry all prepared and ready to go in my ususal format, but I've decided to scrap that plan today and be a little more "organic". Things are going well right now. I'm back at Tubaniso after a week visiting my site. Things are going well at the moment and I'm not sick, which is amazing because every time I come back to Tubaniso I seem to catch something. Hopefully I've beaten the curse forever.

I'm very excited to become a real PCV. Right now I'm a PCT (Peace Corps Trainee), but will become an actual Volunteer on Sept. 10. At the moment all I am interested in is getting the next few weeks out of the way so I can move in to my final location.

Speaking of which... I really like my site. I was afraid I wouldn't, and on the way there I thought for sure I wouldn't, but then I did. How about that. My site is definitely in "brusse" (the country), and definitely in the Sahel. About 10 km before arrving to my village all I could see were rice fields in every direction and probably one tree for every square mile of land... Rrrrggg. However, after a bit I noticed a group of trees on the horizon. My village.

Let me now tell you how much better my village is than your village. Mine has lots of big, huge, old trees everywhere, a new school, a new CSCOM (medical clinic), a three story mosque in my backyard, and great people. The streets are really narrow, and concessin walls really high, so you can't see down any road more than 50 ft at a time. I feel as if I'm in a maze... and I like it.

Here's the skinny on my house. Three room ranch with one full bath (negen). One kitchen, one bedroom, one "rumpus" room. At least two windows in each room. The structure is made out of mud, but all the walls are coated in cement mortar, and the floor is concrete. I have my own concession, so for the first time I'm living by myself in my own house. My "yard" is very small and has no shade whatsoever, but I'm planning on building a shaded porch. Since there's no plumbing, I have to get water from the India-Mali pump located about 200 meters down the street.

I do my banking about 80 km away in Segou. To get there I have to bike 15 km (about 1 hr), and then take a bus taxi for 2 hours to get into town. There's no such thing as "just running to the bank". I'm more than ok with this, however, as Segou is the bestest ever.

Segou was one of the old French regional capitals. The streets are wide, decently maintained, and fairly clean. There's not a lot of traffic and it's relatively quite. Since Segou is in the middle of the country, it's a great destination for tourists, so there's a lot of Europeans coming through. There's even a "tourist district" with nice hotels and stores to buy Western goods... and everything is in walking distance.

Peace Corps has a voucher system set up so that when I go into town to do banking I can stay overnight at one of the hotels. The hotel PC has an agreement with has both airconditioned rooms with private bathrooms, and a dormitory with a community bathroom. Our vouchers are for the dorm. The hotel also comes with a bar, restaurant, and tv with all the European soccer games. Perfect. Going to Segou is like taking a little mini-vacation every now and then.

Peace Corps also has a bureau (office) set up in Segou for the PCVs. There's no staff person there. It's just a single, large room with a bathroom. There's some couches, a computer, kitchenette, and small library of books and dvds. In the future, most of my Internet communication will originate from the bureau.

Now I'm back at Tubaniso and once again into the daily grind of training. I'll be here for a few more days, then I'll spend close to two weeks back in homestay. After that I'll be back to Tubaniso for a few days before swear-in. Time seems to be going by quickly now.