We’re alive if anyone was doubting that (you shouldn’t have been). After two longish flights we arrived in the Bamako airport to a very enthusiastic crowd of response volunteers and staff members. Amazingly, nobody’s bags got lost which apparently happens pretty often. The realization of the 27 month commitment we were about to embark on “hit us” all at different points of the trip. For me, it was the latter-half of our second flight while we were over the Sahara, and the descent down to Bamako – even through Paris it still seemed like a normal trip/vacation.
We are staying in Tubaniso – a compound owned by the ministry of agriculture and leased to the Peace Corps. It’s a really nice setup which feels a bit like we’re at a really obscure summer camp. The response volunteers have warned us that this is essentially the Ritz-Carlton compared to our eventual sites, and to not get too used to it. We will be here working on language (Bambara and French), culture, and health+safety training for our first five days of our pre-service training and return periodically. In the past, all ten weeks were conducted here, but the staff has since switched to a “homestay” system of immersion which was found to be more effective. In Wednesday, we will be placed in host families (different than our eventual sites as volunteers) where we will live while continuing smaller training sessions in out homestay areas.
Today in addition to our classes, we got issued our bikes (very exciting) and had a cultural fair with local vendors and musicians. We are all progressing well, but are finding out that using Bambara in a live setting (e.g. purchasing goods) is much harder to execute than in a classroom.
