Dogon

Homestay training has focused mainly on language acquisition.  The day before being sent to live in our homestay villages I learned I would be not be learning Mali's principle language, Bambara.  Instead I would be learning a minority language called Tomokan.

The Tomokan class is only me, Zacharia, and our teacher, Regina.  Regina grew up speaking Tomokan, and also speaks Bambara, Bobo, French, English, and German!  Me and Zacharia (From Boston) live with Tomokan speaking families and spend several hours everyday in language class.  Unfortunately, our peers studying Bambara seem to have an advantage as the homestay villages are Bambara speaking villages.  While they get constant practice with Bambara, my Tomokan practice is limited to class time and short conversations with my host parents.  I still rely on French mostly, and I get frusterated when I am unable to speak basic Bambara to people in the village.  It feels like I am learning a fake language, since I am not able to experience the practical uses of communicating in Tomokan the way my Bambara studying peers can.  It's annoying.

The plus side is that I know what region I will be going to, and its going to be wild.  Bambara students may end up anywhere in Mali (in 10 days we get the name of our site villages and do a site visit), but Tomokan is spoken only by the Dogon people.  Knowing that I will be serving my 2 years in Dogon country makes me feel like badass.  Its a region famous for cliffs, caves, masks, and animist traditions. It is one of Mali's major tourist destinations.

As shown on the map above, the region is east of Djenne and Mopti against the Burkina Faso border.  Bankas will be my banking town, and though I do not know the name of my village until ten days, I know that it will be a community of only a couple hundred, and I will be a bike ride away from Zacharia's village.  

Below one can see the unique linguistic diversity of Dogon Country.  Though the Dogon are viewed as a single ethnic group something like 10 Dogon languages exist.  Include the Fula, Bambara, and French that are spoken and you have one of the most linguistically interesting places in the world.  The pink dots in the map below represent a Tomokan speaking village.  Though no major towns speak Tomokan, it is relatively wide spread and one of the most spoken Dogon languages.

Dogon Country is gonna be Wild!!