Homestay (pics)

Last night was my final night living with my host family.  Though I appreciated all they have done for me and despite having lots of fun with the children, it was not a sad or emotional experience.  My homestay village and my family were great, but I am eager to be done with training.

I had it pretty good at homestay.  I lived with a slightly more wealthy/educated family.  Other volunteers did not have it as good while others had very wealthy families.  The result is mixed feelings among volunteers.  Some cried when they left their caring families and some jumped with joy to get out of their terrible living conditions.

The first picture captures one of the weirdest experiences of my life.  In it is my host dad and host mom, host nephew, host neice, real half brother, and real mother.  I think I set a Peace Corps record for having family visit only two weeks after arriving in Mali.  My mom and brother were traveling/working in Ghana and took a (very long) bus trip to Mali.  My mom, the most adventerous free spirited individual you'll ever meet, called my cell phone the Morning of June 14th to tell me she had arrived in Bamako.  I was expecting her on the 21st so all I could do was tell her the name of the village I was staying at and that I would probably be at the school.  That afternoon her and my brother strolled up to my Tomokan class and joined.

They spent a week in Mali living with me and my host family.  A pretty awsome experience.


The next two pictures show the inside of my concession.  The baby goats in them I saw be born.  The guy is my friend Vincent, an Education volunteer.

The last two is some hanging out time with other volunteers.  We spend long days being in class learning language, technical skills, and cultural stuff, so when we hang out and put down a few beers I think it is well deserved.

I wish I had more pictures up.  But I am bad at documenting and it so hard to upload pictures with limited internet.  Anyways, I hope this can give a nice visual to what I am seeing and experiencing.