Okay, so homestay. Wow, is it a homestay.
I live in a rather big compound. with separate buildings. I have my own room, which has a tin roof, mud floors and mud walls and a couple pet spiders. No running water, and a lightbulb that only sporadically works depending on the way I flick the switch. The hole/toilet is about 50 feet away which also doubles as where I wash. The first night there, they asked me to bathe (which sounds offensive, but Malians bathe on average 3x a day) and so I took my bucket of water and bathed under the African sky. There is no roof on the bathroom, just walls that go up to my armpits. So I enjoyed the new view of a beautiful starry night.
Unfortunately, that night, I slept horribly from sickness and the noises of roosters, donkeys, dogs, cars, people kept me up all night. It's definitely something I'll need to get used to, but with time and earplugs, I should adjust. If not, I'll just go a little crazy and doing some sacrifices of my own at 4a.
My family is big and to be honest, I'm not quite sure how many people live in my compound. So far, I know I have 1 dad, 2 moms, 5 sisters and 2 brothers. There are only rather people I see around, but so far, no introduction or mention of their relation to me. Everyone seems nice, but no English is spoken, so they could be doing voodoo on me and I'd never know the difference. Ahh, peace corps.
We also have 2 sheep (which were slaughtered yesterday for the holiday, win for LeeAnn's sleeping) 3
donkeys, about 10 roosters that I can count and one dog named Police. But to be honest, I haven't seen him do much of any policing, mostly sleeping under the hot sun.
There are 7 other volunteers in my village, the closest being about a 4 minute walk. So we all hang out or I presume we will when we aren't in class. Our class runs from 8a-4p everyday except Sunday. Since it gets dark by 6p, there isn't a whole lot of time for anything else except studying Bambara.
I will say, I can understand how people ET (early termination/quit) so often. There have definitely been moments where I'm not quite sure what in the hell I signed up for. But that is how it goes, right? One minute its the best decision I have made, the next I'm totaling the weeks left here (which is a lot- so don't do it!)
I live in a rather big compound. with separate buildings. I have my own room, which has a tin roof, mud floors and mud walls and a couple pet spiders. No running water, and a lightbulb that only sporadically works depending on the way I flick the switch. The hole/toilet is about 50 feet away which also doubles as where I wash. The first night there, they asked me to bathe (which sounds offensive, but Malians bathe on average 3x a day) and so I took my bucket of water and bathed under the African sky. There is no roof on the bathroom, just walls that go up to my armpits. So I enjoyed the new view of a beautiful starry night.
Unfortunately, that night, I slept horribly from sickness and the noises of roosters, donkeys, dogs, cars, people kept me up all night. It's definitely something I'll need to get used to, but with time and earplugs, I should adjust. If not, I'll just go a little crazy and doing some sacrifices of my own at 4a.
My family is big and to be honest, I'm not quite sure how many people live in my compound. So far, I know I have 1 dad, 2 moms, 5 sisters and 2 brothers. There are only rather people I see around, but so far, no introduction or mention of their relation to me. Everyone seems nice, but no English is spoken, so they could be doing voodoo on me and I'd never know the difference. Ahh, peace corps.
We also have 2 sheep (which were slaughtered yesterday for the holiday, win for LeeAnn's sleeping) 3
donkeys, about 10 roosters that I can count and one dog named Police. But to be honest, I haven't seen him do much of any policing, mostly sleeping under the hot sun.
There are 7 other volunteers in my village, the closest being about a 4 minute walk. So we all hang out or I presume we will when we aren't in class. Our class runs from 8a-4p everyday except Sunday. Since it gets dark by 6p, there isn't a whole lot of time for anything else except studying Bambara.
I will say, I can understand how people ET (early termination/quit) so often. There have definitely been moments where I'm not quite sure what in the hell I signed up for. But that is how it goes, right? One minute its the best decision I have made, the next I'm totaling the weeks left here (which is a lot- so don't do it!)
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