My First 3 Weeks With a Malian Family

Woo! Hello everyone. I recently got back from 3 weeks living with my Malian host family. Who are wonderful! All of us trainees are spending a few days together for technical training, medical sessions, and cross culture training. But I want to write about what living with my family has been like.

THE PEOPLE

My host dad's name is Balla Christian Kamissoko. In his compound live a variety of family members. We Americans would consider most of them "extended," and not "immediate" family, but the Malians do not make this distinction. There are cousins, grandkids, uncles, 2nd wives, brothers, sisters, babies, friends, coworkers, other relatives. I have quite a time figuring out who is who! My family has hosted Peace Corps volunteers before so they are on the ball. I spend most of time there with one of my host brothers- Mahadi. He's 20, still in high school, and goes to work in the fields most days. He speaks pretty good English, and every night he helps me study Malinke, the local Malian language I am learning during training. My brother is awesome and I will miss him.

MY ROOM

I have my own room in the house. The roof is made of tin so it gets HOT at night. Screens have been fitted on the windows and doors so there are hardly any bugs in there with me. My bed and pillow are fine- on the hard side, not super duper comfy but it's life.

BATHROOM

Hole in the ground that I try not to look in or drop things into

FOOD

To (congealed millet) and "Snot sauce" (Okra, not actually snot), rice with peanut butter sauce, oily french fries, goat meat, fish, french bread, bananas, hard boiled eggs, mangoes. I eat well with family!

GREETINGS

Everyday all day to everyone. Super duper important.

PRIVACY

Nope!

Things have been great at homestay. On another note, I've been thinking how when I wrote in this blog about Niger I didn't talk too much about the people of Niger, their culture. I think that culture is an important thing for me to write about, so I will try to do that about Mali. I guess I just want to be careful and knowledgeable about what I say about Mali and her people. I will make an effort, though it may be awhile before I feel like I know enough to say anything.

Well, the "cool" evening beckons, so this is me signing off. Thanks for reading, and be well and happy, whoever you are, whatever you are doing, whoever you are with!