So since the last time I wrote y'all I ahve been getting more and more used to things here in Mali. I have a set routine: I wake up around 6:30 in the morning and get dressed, brush my teeth, wash my face and if I am brave enough go to the bathroom. Then I say good morning and good bye to my host mother and walk to the place where the bus picks us up and take us to school. One morning I forgot at least three things, and another morning I go flicked off while crossing the street!! I laughed because I didn't really expect to get flicked off in Mali!! Then we get to school and eat breakfast which is bread with some kind of laughing cow cheese, jam and butter. Also I drink Lipton Yellow Label Tea which is so good! I guess I am just a tea snob in the states and so I never looked at Lipton, but it is now definitely one of my favorites. Then as we eat breakfast we listen to history lectures, or Field Study Seminar lectures, or have a Bambara lesson. Then we eat lunch! Lunch is exciting because it is always different. Though the base is usually rice, the sauce is different. The sides are usually these tiny flavorful meatballs and plantains. And some days we even get black-eyed-peas!!! We drink a lot of water because there is no air conditioning and it is the same temperature as South Texas in August. We eat lunch on a terrace on the roof, because it is cooler and cool. Then we go back down and have French class. French has been fun because all we do is talk about our families and what we do with them in french. After classes have finished this week we have been going to different places in Bamako. Monday we went to a market type place called Le Artisana; Tuesday we went to Le Musée National and saw a bunch of artifacts from Mali's past. Then Wednesday we went to the French cultural center and looked around the library. When I get home I usually try and do some homework, the past few days I have been going on the roof for that because not many people go up there during the day. Then I go down and hang out with my family. For dinner they usually bring me a plate of whatever they decided I should eat with a spoon, and I eat wherever I am. Then I hang around a bit then take a bath. I have told y'all about my bathing experiences, but I am getting better with the roaches. You just have to make a load enough sound with a big enough movement close enough to them... yeah... This trip will definitely make me a stronger person in that respect!!! Then I change in my bedroom and go up on the roof, read a little, say Compline and then stare at the stares until I go to sleep. It's kind of awesome!! Well that is all I have time for right now! Remember if you have any questions ask and I will answer them!!
~Thaddeus
Friday, February 12, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
I AM alive I swear!!!
Wow. I am here and it is so different! Before I let you read the rest of this I want to tell all of you how much I miss you!! I also wish that I could communicate with y’all more but using my cellphone to call is very expensive and there are a few internet cafes but I was in a small village named Siby that is about an hour outside of Bamako that we were at for several days and then we went directly to our families, so I really haven’t had anytime to find an internet café much less the time to sit and talk to even one person for a decent amount of time! On a slightly related note… Being the good Episcopalian that I am I, of course I brought my Book of Common Prayer!! It has been a great help in reminding me that everything will be okay, I am here for a reason, and no matter how difficult things are now, they will get better!
I have a completely different name here that my host family and the professors in my program use. It is Aichata Karabenta. So I am having a little bit of an identity crisis because no one calls me Natalie, they ask what my American name is but of course they are going to use the Malian name.
Things that are crazy different:
~The bathroom- area- place, I can’t describe it so here is a picture:
You have to remember to bring in a kettle full of water when you use the bathroom, or a pail of water when you want to take a bath. I have forgotten both several times… yeah they just kind of looked at me and then went and talked about me, which is fine, because I would totally do the same thing with someone who was staying in America.
!WARNING GRAPHIC Bathroom CONTENT AHEAD!
So Pooping in this type of facility is very difficult and no one is going to show you how, so you get to figure it out for yourself… now my body is so not used to squatting and pooping. Even when camping we have a seat, so I am in a strange place using strange facilities, eating food, albeit good, that I am not used to… It has been difficult to poop… UNTIL the first morning I was determined to poop, so I went into that strange smelling place got myself into position… and I won’t go into that much detail but I was unsuccessful at first until mid-try I notice two copper antennae sticking out of a drainage hole across the room… yes my old enemy the Cockroach was waiting for me in Africa! It never fully appeared, but the thought was enough to… you guessed it scare the shit out of me! Just thought I would share that with y’all!!
!END GRAPHIC BATHROOM CONTENT!
~You eat with your hands here, which is easy when you sit on the floor, but when you are put in a chair for whatever reason, things get difficult, and it is hard to know when you are really full because you are bending over to eat the rice and sauce from the communal bowl… I am okay with the communal bowl, it’s like eating Chinese food, and the food is really good! But my hands are TOTALLY not cut out for eating with because you need to be able to wipe the rice off of the back of your fingers and my thumb does not reach that far over! So I end up licking the rice of the back of my hands because I don’t want to use two hands because then I would have two dirty hands.
~There is no air conditioning. I realized that it is about the same temperature here as in a Texas summer… but we have air conditioning. You know that saying that Texans invented the air condition? They should have been good Christians and shipped that over here!!! Anyway the wind helps A LOT, though at night the house gets VERY warm, and they noticed this the first night I was here when I was getting ready for bed, and they told me that the roof was a lot cooler, so I went up there and you get a nice view of Malian rooftops, y’all know how I love a good roof scene, so I was sitting up there and looking at the stars and the sunset, when Mimi the youngest of the main family here, brought me a chair to sit on and we talked. Then Kante’ the girl I share a room with brought up our bed and mosquito netting, and told me that we were going to sleep up there… IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I love sleeping on the roof!! K Whoever is reading this and we are together for a night and it is not raining or too humid we should set up some mosquito netting and SLEEP UNDER THE STARS!!!! Mosquito netting is better than tents! OMG the beach with mosquito netting Peeps et Fam lets do this!!
~Disciplining small children. There are these two ADORABLE children a boy, Bebo and a girl, Yaya. The boy is always getting into trouble, but not for breaking things or disappearing or spilling things. He gets in trouble for talking to me. Or even being too close and looking at me… it is very disconcerting. I think they consider it impolite or something like that. While they don’t hit him hard, they hit him a lot. But he is so cute he does not like to wear clothes here is a picture of him and his sister:
~There are so many flies here. But nobody seems to care… it freaks me out when they are crawling on the uncooked food, but then I realize that they will cooked the food because they have too for me.
~Public Service Announcements on the problems with Female Circumcision.
I love my family and the group. We had our first day of class and it went okay, my french is getting so much better!!! I am going to try and play with the kids more because they are too cute to not. OH and btws Lady Gaga is very popular here along with Micheal Bolton.... and Barbie Girl.... they wanted me to translate Just Dance... I tried to tell them that she was drunk... it didn't quite translate.
My family is really cool, but they don't let me do much except wash my own underwear. So I read and write and talk to my family. That is all for now. Ask me questions and I will answer them.
~Thaddeus
I have a completely different name here that my host family and the professors in my program use. It is Aichata Karabenta. So I am having a little bit of an identity crisis because no one calls me Natalie, they ask what my American name is but of course they are going to use the Malian name.
Things that are crazy different:
~The bathroom- area- place, I can’t describe it so here is a picture:
You have to remember to bring in a kettle full of water when you use the bathroom, or a pail of water when you want to take a bath. I have forgotten both several times… yeah they just kind of looked at me and then went and talked about me, which is fine, because I would totally do the same thing with someone who was staying in America.
!WARNING GRAPHIC Bathroom CONTENT AHEAD!
So Pooping in this type of facility is very difficult and no one is going to show you how, so you get to figure it out for yourself… now my body is so not used to squatting and pooping. Even when camping we have a seat, so I am in a strange place using strange facilities, eating food, albeit good, that I am not used to… It has been difficult to poop… UNTIL the first morning I was determined to poop, so I went into that strange smelling place got myself into position… and I won’t go into that much detail but I was unsuccessful at first until mid-try I notice two copper antennae sticking out of a drainage hole across the room… yes my old enemy the Cockroach was waiting for me in Africa! It never fully appeared, but the thought was enough to… you guessed it scare the shit out of me! Just thought I would share that with y’all!!
!END GRAPHIC BATHROOM CONTENT!
~You eat with your hands here, which is easy when you sit on the floor, but when you are put in a chair for whatever reason, things get difficult, and it is hard to know when you are really full because you are bending over to eat the rice and sauce from the communal bowl… I am okay with the communal bowl, it’s like eating Chinese food, and the food is really good! But my hands are TOTALLY not cut out for eating with because you need to be able to wipe the rice off of the back of your fingers and my thumb does not reach that far over! So I end up licking the rice of the back of my hands because I don’t want to use two hands because then I would have two dirty hands.
~There is no air conditioning. I realized that it is about the same temperature here as in a Texas summer… but we have air conditioning. You know that saying that Texans invented the air condition? They should have been good Christians and shipped that over here!!! Anyway the wind helps A LOT, though at night the house gets VERY warm, and they noticed this the first night I was here when I was getting ready for bed, and they told me that the roof was a lot cooler, so I went up there and you get a nice view of Malian rooftops, y’all know how I love a good roof scene, so I was sitting up there and looking at the stars and the sunset, when Mimi the youngest of the main family here, brought me a chair to sit on and we talked. Then Kante’ the girl I share a room with brought up our bed and mosquito netting, and told me that we were going to sleep up there… IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I love sleeping on the roof!! K Whoever is reading this and we are together for a night and it is not raining or too humid we should set up some mosquito netting and SLEEP UNDER THE STARS!!!! Mosquito netting is better than tents! OMG the beach with mosquito netting Peeps et Fam lets do this!!
~Disciplining small children. There are these two ADORABLE children a boy, Bebo and a girl, Yaya. The boy is always getting into trouble, but not for breaking things or disappearing or spilling things. He gets in trouble for talking to me. Or even being too close and looking at me… it is very disconcerting. I think they consider it impolite or something like that. While they don’t hit him hard, they hit him a lot. But he is so cute he does not like to wear clothes here is a picture of him and his sister:
~There are so many flies here. But nobody seems to care… it freaks me out when they are crawling on the uncooked food, but then I realize that they will cooked the food because they have too for me.
~Public Service Announcements on the problems with Female Circumcision.
I love my family and the group. We had our first day of class and it went okay, my french is getting so much better!!! I am going to try and play with the kids more because they are too cute to not. OH and btws Lady Gaga is very popular here along with Micheal Bolton.... and Barbie Girl.... they wanted me to translate Just Dance... I tried to tell them that she was drunk... it didn't quite translate.
My family is really cool, but they don't let me do much except wash my own underwear. So I read and write and talk to my family. That is all for now. Ask me questions and I will answer them.
~Thaddeus
Monday, February 1, 2010
The events leading up to the Great Sleep
This is from an e-mail I sent my dad just without all the personal stuff.
Dakar has a smell to it. It's the same smell that Mexico has, and that the Mission District in San Francisco has. It reminds me of home, but in a way that doesn't make me homesick.
So we board the plane in D.C. and we are sitting there all ready with our seat backs and tray table in the upright position, and all our baggage and things have been stowed, when the captain comes on and says something about de-icing the plane and that it takes two mixtures blah blah blah and we sit... and then this truck comes with a cherry picker on it and from the top of the cherry picker there is the huge stream of liquid just power washing the snow and ice off of the plane. I watch it for awhile and then I fall asleep fully expecting to wake up in the air or on the way to it. No such luck! I wake up to a hot dry cabin full of babies crying and some thoroughly annoyed people. The captain comes on again and tells everyone to chill out we are in the largest plane on earth and it's going to take awhile to get all the ice off. He also tells us that they are going for the second mixture and that hopefully that won't take too long. So we sit some more... Eventually we get off the ground, but in the process of doing so you can watch the plane itself take off from a camera that is on the tail of the plane. Now as the plane is leaving the ground or returning to it they turn the camera off, but before during and after the flight you can have a birds eye view of your plane.
So I get to Dakar airport and it not a U.S. airport by any stretch pf the imagination. There are no jetways, though there are shuttle to take you from your plane to the airport. The airport consists of an entry point where you either go through customs or straight to baggage claim. When you go through customs you of course have to fill out the card that tells the essentials of your life story. Within this process that no one ever expects, so no one has a pen, unless you are neurotic like me and have three, I meet the SIT Senegal group. They are nice and looked just as clueless as I did!!! Anyway I get there and it is CRAZY!!! I have no way of explaining to you with out using my hands so that will just have to wait. But a nice porteur (porter) helped me get my bag and get all my stuff through security. This is where it gets sketchy. I told him I need to get to the Novotel shuttle and he says okay. So we get to the exit and he walks up to a woman in regular clothing standing next to a sign that says 'Novotel' We confirm again that that is where I am going and that that is where she is taking me, Then she takes me to go sit in some random chairs by another set of doors and tells me to wait here because she is picking up someone else. Now these chairs are plastic porch chairs, and look so dirty!!! But I sit in them because I figure that if it was a scam that I wouldn't be sitting in these chairs in front of security guards. So I sit there and wait for her to meet the other guy. So eventually this guy comes though he is not the guy that she was looking for, she doesn't realize it until we get to the shuttle and then
we spend time trying to figure out where the hell he is going. What is vool about this guy though is that he works for the U. S. State Dept. and is in Senegal to do a short broad study of human migration and climate change! We chatted about what each one of us is here for and that was nice.
So I get to the hotel check in write my Dad an e-mail telling him the above and that I forgot my dictionary and plugs. After that I take a shower and after that I get back on the computer to Skype with my Dad. After that I try to decide if I want food or sleep more, so I decide to order food so that I can have the energy for a thorough sleep. So I order Thiébou diene á la sénégalaise (fish and rice Senegalese style), and for dessert I ordered Crème au caramel (Flan or Caramel custard dessert). After I have ordered I sit down on the bed and fall asleep. Literally just fell asleep. I wake up thirty minutes later wondering where my food is and then I here a knock at the door! SO this food was AMAZING!!!! Though they don't de-bone the fish so you have to be careful. It was so good, I had to stop myself from eating too much, and the dessert was good old flan! It was nice to have something familiar for my favorite part of the meal!
Then after I put the tray in the hall to be picked up I lay on the bed thinking that I will wake up in like two hours... Around five o'clock I wake up go to the bathroom and fall back asleep... then at like seven I wake up and get under the sheets... then around twelve I wake up go to the bathroom read for two hours then go back to sleep... then at like six in the morning I turn off my alarm and decide to go back to sleep, then at seven thirty I decide to get up and go eat breakfast. I take the elevator down and walk into the restaurant. I find a small table for two and put my book down to go get a plate.
Breakfast was a buffet...
It had four different meats two pork and two non-pork. It had potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes and what I think were eggs... They were really runny and I guess scrambled... with cheese? I don't know but they were not the eggs that I was hoping for. The bacon was super thick and that was all very strange... but the tea was plain Twinning English Breakfast Tea!!! That made my day so I got a brave plate of all these strange forms of my favorite breakfast foods, and tried a little bit of each. I go back to my table to find a man sitting at the table I had put my book down on!! I go and get my book and he looks at me and I say "C'est ma livre" and he kind of nods and I wander off in search of another small table. I didn't really like any of the food I had gotten, so I went back for a plate of bread, cheese, yogurt and orange juice. I ate most of that, and I got full pretty quickly. So I signed my bill and came back to the room!
What is kind of neat is that when you walk by the staff of the hotel they say "bonjour madam" to you! It is super cool!! Anyway I need to get some reading done, before I get back on-line!
~Thaddeus
Dakar has a smell to it. It's the same smell that Mexico has, and that the Mission District in San Francisco has. It reminds me of home, but in a way that doesn't make me homesick.
So we board the plane in D.C. and we are sitting there all ready with our seat backs and tray table in the upright position, and all our baggage and things have been stowed, when the captain comes on and says something about de-icing the plane and that it takes two mixtures blah blah blah and we sit... and then this truck comes with a cherry picker on it and from the top of the cherry picker there is the huge stream of liquid just power washing the snow and ice off of the plane. I watch it for awhile and then I fall asleep fully expecting to wake up in the air or on the way to it. No such luck! I wake up to a hot dry cabin full of babies crying and some thoroughly annoyed people. The captain comes on again and tells everyone to chill out we are in the largest plane on earth and it's going to take awhile to get all the ice off. He also tells us that they are going for the second mixture and that hopefully that won't take too long. So we sit some more... Eventually we get off the ground, but in the process of doing so you can watch the plane itself take off from a camera that is on the tail of the plane. Now as the plane is leaving the ground or returning to it they turn the camera off, but before during and after the flight you can have a birds eye view of your plane.
So I get to Dakar airport and it not a U.S. airport by any stretch pf the imagination. There are no jetways, though there are shuttle to take you from your plane to the airport. The airport consists of an entry point where you either go through customs or straight to baggage claim. When you go through customs you of course have to fill out the card that tells the essentials of your life story. Within this process that no one ever expects, so no one has a pen, unless you are neurotic like me and have three, I meet the SIT Senegal group. They are nice and looked just as clueless as I did!!! Anyway I get there and it is CRAZY!!! I have no way of explaining to you with out using my hands so that will just have to wait. But a nice porteur (porter) helped me get my bag and get all my stuff through security. This is where it gets sketchy. I told him I need to get to the Novotel shuttle and he says okay. So we get to the exit and he walks up to a woman in regular clothing standing next to a sign that says 'Novotel' We confirm again that that is where I am going and that that is where she is taking me, Then she takes me to go sit in some random chairs by another set of doors and tells me to wait here because she is picking up someone else. Now these chairs are plastic porch chairs, and look so dirty!!! But I sit in them because I figure that if it was a scam that I wouldn't be sitting in these chairs in front of security guards. So I sit there and wait for her to meet the other guy. So eventually this guy comes though he is not the guy that she was looking for, she doesn't realize it until we get to the shuttle and then
we spend time trying to figure out where the hell he is going. What is vool about this guy though is that he works for the U. S. State Dept. and is in Senegal to do a short broad study of human migration and climate change! We chatted about what each one of us is here for and that was nice.
So I get to the hotel check in write my Dad an e-mail telling him the above and that I forgot my dictionary and plugs. After that I take a shower and after that I get back on the computer to Skype with my Dad. After that I try to decide if I want food or sleep more, so I decide to order food so that I can have the energy for a thorough sleep. So I order Thiébou diene á la sénégalaise (fish and rice Senegalese style), and for dessert I ordered Crème au caramel (Flan or Caramel custard dessert). After I have ordered I sit down on the bed and fall asleep. Literally just fell asleep. I wake up thirty minutes later wondering where my food is and then I here a knock at the door! SO this food was AMAZING!!!! Though they don't de-bone the fish so you have to be careful. It was so good, I had to stop myself from eating too much, and the dessert was good old flan! It was nice to have something familiar for my favorite part of the meal!
Then after I put the tray in the hall to be picked up I lay on the bed thinking that I will wake up in like two hours... Around five o'clock I wake up go to the bathroom and fall back asleep... then at like seven I wake up and get under the sheets... then around twelve I wake up go to the bathroom read for two hours then go back to sleep... then at like six in the morning I turn off my alarm and decide to go back to sleep, then at seven thirty I decide to get up and go eat breakfast. I take the elevator down and walk into the restaurant. I find a small table for two and put my book down to go get a plate.
Breakfast was a buffet...
It had four different meats two pork and two non-pork. It had potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes and what I think were eggs... They were really runny and I guess scrambled... with cheese? I don't know but they were not the eggs that I was hoping for. The bacon was super thick and that was all very strange... but the tea was plain Twinning English Breakfast Tea!!! That made my day so I got a brave plate of all these strange forms of my favorite breakfast foods, and tried a little bit of each. I go back to my table to find a man sitting at the table I had put my book down on!! I go and get my book and he looks at me and I say "C'est ma livre" and he kind of nods and I wander off in search of another small table. I didn't really like any of the food I had gotten, so I went back for a plate of bread, cheese, yogurt and orange juice. I ate most of that, and I got full pretty quickly. So I signed my bill and came back to the room!
What is kind of neat is that when you walk by the staff of the hotel they say "bonjour madam" to you! It is super cool!! Anyway I need to get some reading done, before I get back on-line!
~Thaddeus
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