I'm Jim Cave, I'm in Mali and these are my notes

I'm Jim Cave, I'm in Mali and these are my notes

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Back to the Beginning

I’ve been pretty bad about getting blog posts up lately, but there is a reason for this. I’m currently in Tubaniso again for “In Service Training”, or IST, and am once again together with the rest of Team America (80 people) and all of their counterparts. This is a pretty joyful occasion, as one could imagine, but means I’m pretty busy catching up with people I haven’t seen in months. Additionally, with this many people trying to use a regular router you aren’t able to be get on the internet most of the time. However, right now I’m sick as a dog so it seems like a pretty good time to spend some time on the computer.

A lot has happened since my last post. I’ve made new friends, met a load of other ex-pats reconnected with friends from PST but two events dwarf all of these. 1.) I have a new host brother! My host mother Annee had a healthy baby boy on the 3rd of December. I know all of you want to see pictures, but the little man was borne while I was making my way to Bamako. Consequently, I have yet to see him. My host dad, who came in a week later tells me the baby is doing fine and I can’t wait to see him. Jennifer, the PCV I replaced, named the baby Jan and tells me he is a cute little guy.

2.) The day that my homologue left to join me a T-so his horse died. Not only was the horse by far the most valued of the my families live stock, but there certain level of affection shown towards the horse (something very rare here in Mali). Essai is understandably sad not only for the reasons that a person in the States would be for losing a pet, but because this is a serious threat to his livelihood. With no horse these is no way for him to take goods into San to sell. If crops were still in the field they would have to be transported into town by hand, instead of wagon. This would add an insane amount of time to how long it takes to get a crop turned out.

Being back at Tubaniso with everyone brings up some complicated feeling. It doesn’t seem like anything has happen. I’ve spent three month at site and it seems like nothing has changed. However, the realities of the situation make one look at the event differently. Realistically this may be the last time I see quite a few of my fellow volunteers before our service ends. This is the last of the big gathering until we have the “close of service” conference in 2012. For the next few days it feels like I’m back at the beginning. Back in T-So where I live with other Americans, speaking English on a regular basis and hope to get tacos for dinner. In actuality this is the end of the beginning; the last time I’ll be at T-So, the last time I’ll see some of the staff that is retiring, the last time I hear people complain about the condition of the negens and the last time I damn the internet here.

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