It's been a month?

Yes, it has been a month. But shifting everything that has ever been your social and cultural compass 180 degrees is no easy task. Friday, we each had our mid training language evaluation. Twice I have bought soap and water from the market entirely in Bambara without myself or the vendor falling back into French.

Progress, little by little.

Today we're back at Tubaniso, where we meet our local Homologues, or local counterpart with whom we will work. My counterpart is a Matrone who works just below (the one) doctor in my village's Centre Sante de Communitaire (CSCOM). Then, with our counterparts, we take public transit to our local site.

Yes, Mali has public transit.

Sotromas, or small vans, are what we refer to as "green boxes of death." Inside are wooden benches, they only sometimes have a door, and people often strap goats or sheep to the roof or windows. For the bulk of my two hour trip, I will be on a large bus which actually resembles the large buses of any American city (Denver, SanFran, etc). The only difference being that Malian public transit can have elastic prices, breaks down much more frequently, stops for the call to prayer, and overall runs on what is referred to as West African International Standard Time--WAIT.

My site visit does have a little bit of the edge taken off--I'm staying with the current PCV, and she's riding back with me to Bamako to help me and the other KoliKoro region volunteers open our bank accounts. Some volunteers are navigating back to Bamako by themselves.

In this month, I a bit about some of the things that Peace Corps expects of volunteers, and how far past we have been pushed past any sort of comfort zone. For example, we received our 9th immmunization last week. The medical officer came out, we rolled up our sleeves, and she went down the line, right under the mango trees. After this, we practiced making a thin and thick smear in the event that we started experiencing malaria symptoms at site, requiring us to mail in slides to be tested. This meant, again, we sat in a circle, passed around slides, sterilized needles, and alcohol wipes, and right then and there practiced smearing our own blood. The week before, the PC bike mechanic came and taught us how to repair a flat bike tire. One of us asked if this would likely happen. He chuckled softley, then said "yes, this happens all the time." The very range of things peace corps expects us to do--self diagnose most medical issues, fix our bikes ourselves, learn an entirely new language in the space of a month, often while being sick.

The other day, after an intense language session, we all met for a few minutes, frazzled, and just began to laugh hysterically. For some reason, it just seemed like the right thing to do.