mikaela does NOT do mali: Drunk Goggles and Mad-Hatters

The real beginning has arrived. We are done with training (pre-service training or PST) and will soon be actually living at our sites. It’s crazy! I’m scared and excited and sad to leave all the wonderful people I’ve gotten the chance to get to know little by little over the past two months. We got sworn in at the US Ambassador’s house. There were speeches made that I didn’t understand (including one in the language I am now supposed to understand). I’m thinking the test is rigged because there would probably be very few volunteers here if it weren’t! We all got dressed to the nines in Malian garb and therefore looked like a Discovery Zone or a Chuck E. Cheese with all our crazy patterns and colors. We took many a photo and then went to the American Club, which is some pretty incredible irony if you ask me. We ate pizza and hamburgers, drank beer and went swimming because what else could we possibly do the second after we officially become Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa? I fell asleep watching Beauty and the Beast in the theater room and had sweet dreams of how different the next two years my life is going to look from that moment forward.

Saying farewell to the lap of luxury did not end there my friends. We continued to take full advantage of our new status as PCV’s and go to a swanky hotel (and by swanky I mean, well we’re in one of the poorest countries in the world so you could maybe use your imagination on that one) and then we went out and danced the night away like the crazy American fools we are. All the groups (or stages as they are called) of volunteers are given a name by their trainers at the end of PST, so we were of course all anxiously awaiting ours. As it turns out we as a group are a bit bat-shit crazy and incessantly late for very important dates, therefore, naturally, we are now officially the Mad-Hatters. My name is Fatamata Traoré, I live in Niagadina, Mali and I am a Mad-Hatter. Thank you very much for tuning in, nice to meet your acquaintance.

I am very fortunate to not have to buy anything for my new site because my precursor left everything I could ever want and more. The one thing he did not leave is a bed frame. I thought to myself, I can’t believe this kid slept on the floor for two years especially with all the rats and what not running amok. So now I’m back to putting the puzzle pieces together of this guy’s life. I start to ponder what would inspire someone to buy a juicer, but not a bed frame. And then it hits me: fitting modern day furniture and appliances into a round hut is literally like trying to fit a square into a circle. It’s an absurd waste of space. Plus, in talking to other volunteers I have discovered that I will be doing a great deal of sleeping outdoors once the unbearable hot season hits and a bed frame will only serve to be an obstacle to moving my mattress outside. Therefore, I have to purchase not one thing for my new house. Thanks Josh a.k.a Drissa Traoré, a.k.a my husband according to most everyone in my new village. Until I return to the Internet and the world of connectivity I bid you farewell. This is likely going to be the longest 3 months (and by 3 months I mean 2 years) of my life.