Site Announcement...Finally!

Ah, yes, success...I've made it through 5 weeks of training and an incredibly slow last few days waiting for site announcement. As I hoped, I'm placed in the Sikasso region! Within the Sikasso region there are 7 "circles" or subregions. My circle is Kadiolo. Within Kadiolo there are multiple communes, mine being Loulouni. Within Loulouni, I will be living in the teeny village of Kadiaradougou! And by teeny I mean 250-300 people. But the village is on Rt. 7 - a main road that runs through Mali down to Ivory Coast. Many volunteers are located right on Rt. 7 so I'll be able to see them regularly and easily! There is a public bus/minibus that runs from my site to Sikasso (the capital of my region, also my banking town and where I'll have a p.o. box) every day of the week! It's about 46 miles from my site to Sikasso, which could take anywhere from 1-3 hours on public transportation. With that kind of accessibility, I plan on going into my banking town (where there is also a regional Peace Corps "safe" house or hang out house) once or twice a week. My counterpart/homologue's name is Hady, just like my older sister's baby-ish name! hehe. He has worked with two female Peace Corps volunteers in Kadiaradougou before me - Chelsea and Katherine, I believe. They both kept up blogs, which Daniel looked into for me, and I saw a picture of my house! I'll be living in a two-room hut/house made of mud bricks with a tin roof, there is a lovely "gwa" (hanger) outside the house to provide shade and a place to chill, there is a separate kitchen hut for the storage and preparation of food, and I have my own private nyegen (bathroom) stall and a separate shower stall (but no running water...bucket baths it is for me!). Actually, all of these little structures make up my "concession," a walled in area just for me! There are a few other concessions around mine, so my neighbors will be close, providing good security and a sense of community. As I've mentioned before, the first thing I'm doing at site is getting a puppy! My concession wall has a gate so it will be perfect having a yard that my dog can hang out in. I eventually want to train it to follow me around town though. Such a teeny town! I like that I'll have the best of both worlds - a teeny town, but right on the main road with access to other volunteers and much bigger towns. My main business is town (according to the town's volunteer request form) will be helping women with their community garden, and helping men with crop processing and commercialization (although, since I'm not a business volunteer, I'm not entirely sure what that will consist of). Overall I'm excited! A bit nervous about some things, like my village being very conservative Muslim (one of the former volunteers there said it was a bit difficult getting respect from men), and Bambara (the language I'm learning) is not the only language spoken there, but I've been told mostly everyone can understand Bambara, since it's so widespread in Mali. Well, my counterpart arrives at the training site TONIGHT! I got an awesome Malian dress made just for the occasion (pictures to come soon). We'll have a couple days of workshops/info sessions at the training center, then Hady and I will start the 7-8 hour trip to Kadiaradougou on Monday! He'll be helping me take my luggage there by public transit. Oof! Quite a trip that will be, especially on small smelly bumpy Malian buses! I'll need ginger and/or dramamine. I tried finding Kadiaradougou on Google maps but, to no surprise, could not find the exact spot. But I did find two towns I'm in the middle of - Kadiolo (also the name of the circle) and Loulouni (also the name of the commune). So guesstimate the center point between these two cities, but on the main road (Rt. 7): http://g.co/maps/ut2w9

Love and miss you all! Hope you're enjoying snow and Christmasy things :)

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