I found myself saying this often to the PCV I'm replacing in a month. Even more disconcerting is how far my standards have dropped as well.
Case in point, my highlight of the week was opening my mailbox I'm sharing with another PCV (my own mailbox!)... which i will need to bike 20 km to access. But none the less, it felt good to have the postman point to the dull metal box with a faded "16" on the front: "Voila, numero seize est votre boite de poste." This will be the best way to get in touch with me once I move up to my village, Tioribougou:
[my name]
B.P. 16
Kolokani, Mali
West Africa
My post box is in Kolokani, the next largest city outside of Bamako since my village does not have electricity, much more a post office. Also oddly enough, my village is in a valley, so there is no cell phone coverage until I go north to Kolokani, or south to Bamako. To call me, you must call one of the three landlines in my village. Here is the Cabine which is open the most and tends to do the best job:
011-223-226-65-16
A Malian girl named Kura will answer. Just say my name, "Fatim Diarra" ("Di" sounds like a "j") or try the French "je veux parler avec Fatim Diarra" and then she'll hang up. If all else fails, say "tubabo" (white person) as I am the only one of those in the village. Wait ten minutes and call back. Kura will walk to my house to get me; it only takes about five minutes to walk to the cabine, so I should be sitting there waiting. Also, check the weather: the landline is powered by solar panels, so on a cloudy day, it doesn't work that well.
You know your life has become absurd when it takes a paragraph to explain how to make a phone call. And further, that phone call is contingent on the weather.
Also gone is any uncertainty about where I am. Over the past week, we road up to Kolokani, and then walked about 2 km to the neighboring village at which the current PCV did baby weighings. As soon as you walk for about 10 minutes in either direction from the edge of my village, the fields of millet stop, and you're in the middle of the bush:that untouched land that goes on, seemingly, forever. It was the first second I'd honestly had to simply look out across the grassy landscape, to notice the hornbills in the trees, to look at the brillant white clouds in a sky that is not nearly that big on the East Coast in America.
Case in point, my highlight of the week was opening my mailbox I'm sharing with another PCV (my own mailbox!)... which i will need to bike 20 km to access. But none the less, it felt good to have the postman point to the dull metal box with a faded "16" on the front: "Voila, numero seize est votre boite de poste." This will be the best way to get in touch with me once I move up to my village, Tioribougou:
[my name]
B.P. 16
Kolokani, Mali
West Africa
My post box is in Kolokani, the next largest city outside of Bamako since my village does not have electricity, much more a post office. Also oddly enough, my village is in a valley, so there is no cell phone coverage until I go north to Kolokani, or south to Bamako. To call me, you must call one of the three landlines in my village. Here is the Cabine which is open the most and tends to do the best job:
011-223-226-65-16
A Malian girl named Kura will answer. Just say my name, "Fatim Diarra" ("Di" sounds like a "j") or try the French "je veux parler avec Fatim Diarra" and then she'll hang up. If all else fails, say "tubabo" (white person) as I am the only one of those in the village. Wait ten minutes and call back. Kura will walk to my house to get me; it only takes about five minutes to walk to the cabine, so I should be sitting there waiting. Also, check the weather: the landline is powered by solar panels, so on a cloudy day, it doesn't work that well.
You know your life has become absurd when it takes a paragraph to explain how to make a phone call. And further, that phone call is contingent on the weather.
Also gone is any uncertainty about where I am. Over the past week, we road up to Kolokani, and then walked about 2 km to the neighboring village at which the current PCV did baby weighings. As soon as you walk for about 10 minutes in either direction from the edge of my village, the fields of millet stop, and you're in the middle of the bush:that untouched land that goes on, seemingly, forever. It was the first second I'd honestly had to simply look out across the grassy landscape, to notice the hornbills in the trees, to look at the brillant white clouds in a sky that is not nearly that big on the East Coast in America.
Yes, I really do live in Africa. And it's beautiful.
1 comment:
I still find it incongruous that you are posting updates online but then you have to walk 5 minutes to a solar-powered phone. Wow.
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