and that's when i said "oh fuck yeah bananas!"

When i came home from the internet cafe before I went to the villageI talked a bit with Moctar and told him hos I was feeling with a slightly quivering chin and he gave me a reassuring smile. Then Ladji proceeding to come out, pop in the Paul Simon album Graceland, which makes me feel like my childhood and dancing and my dad. He z&ang beautifully the zulu parts, and I sang along with the English as he grinned at me.
So the village stay. Sanankoroba.
Just when you get used to life, eh? I stayed on a large compound with my friend Katie. So many sisters, brothers, babies, grandmothers, and donkeys... There was a mute and mostly deaf servant who told animated stories with his hands. The youngest son of the family Aruna was due to be married, or well, start his marriage ceremonies on Thursday. Family members kept arriving from Bamako or other villages, the children were multiplying by the second, it seemed like all the women were nursing some child. With the family we helped wash clothes, attempted to stir the to - pronounced toe- (a traditional Malien dish that is millet gooish cream of wheaty, gelatinous stuff with what we have come to call "booger sauce" or gumbo), held babies, clumsily tried out bambara phrases, and just plain observed. the women were dressed beautifully in so many colored pagnes, I started to feel overwhelmed with the amount of overwhelming beauty. I took so many pictures, trying to get as many candids as i could before they would run over to immediately see what it looked like. digital cameras ruin everything - i want to say, no, keep pulling the water out of the well with your stunning skin glistening with perspiration in the 105 degree sun! sweat makes photos look more epic somehow...
With the group we did several traditional arts, dying fabric after stampng wax designs, bogolon -or painting with muddish clay from the bottom of the Niger river. Walking along the road we'd purchase fried tasty treasrues, something like a savory funnel cake, pass by a soccer game that it seemed the whole village was attending, ran into camels.
We went to whats called an SOS village, an orphanage, where women over the age of 36 become mothers to children brought in from the streets. Comparitively immaculate lodgings furnished with fridges, ovens, lush trees lining the compounds. Like a little utopian oasis away from the poverty nearby. SOS has places all around the world, and here in Mali it seems to be doing very well. After seeing children on the street in bamako begging for money, and then actually goign to the orphanage where we can see that a program is really working, far better than foster families in the states, it's so impressive. I felt on the verge of tears all day.

All in all it was a wonderful week and my homesickness quickly slipped away. While I ate barely anything, as "to" was served to us every night, I did remember we had a bushel of bananas in our room. never been so ecstatic in my life about bananas. electricity went in and out, no running water, polygamy, to, and smiles and kindness and beauty and brilliant colors and falling in love with every child i see...

as the wise robert plant says, "your time is gonna come"

well. all the posts can't be super positive I guess. So this last week has been a little rough. While other students experienced their bouts of homesickness at the beginning, it seems my time has come...it did not helt that after eating dinner at a friend of my brother Ladji's house, I was overcome with fullness and then at 2am ish I woke up and puked. I thought that was it. To my dismay, Friday, at school, I found there was more to come. EEsh. But I'm better now, I just, well, really miss home.
Despite all this, my week was filled with laughs both at home and with friends from school. I lucked out with really great group of kids and a really great family. One night this week I talked for along time with my brother Moctar about our respective definitions of the word "respect", very different, he put fear as somewhat synonymous to it, I put them nowhere near each other. But we never got frustrated when our understandings didn't match up...I love this stuff. Another day I had a homework assignment that was supposed to be read a newspaper article then write an essay on it, supplementing your summary with information from various other sources such as conversing with family members visiting businesses, etc. So I ended up talking to one of my sisters, Tanti about contraception in Mali. sooo interesting. I won't go on about it here, but its one of those things where I can really tell why they give these assignments!

Another thing I wanted to add to my little description of kyra's daily life is, my weekend visits to the boutiki on the corner. There is an adorable Ghanain, Ghanian (?) man wh works there. On weekends i go there to purchase my morning bread. THe first time i went there, after speaking french to him and gettinga blank stare I found he asked me if I was french, I said no, American. He got excited and exclaimed, "good, because i from ghana I don't speak french, i speak english!" mmm goood. so every weekend he greets me with his buck tooth smile, in his broken, but wonderful english, asks how my family is.
so tomorrow i head off to the rural village of sanankoroba. no electricity. no running water. SPRING BREAK '09 HERE I COME!!!!

a month?!

Well i realized that I have not been super descriptive. or maybe I have, I don't know, but I decided I shall give you an idea of what my days are like here. If I go on a run in the morning (which has been slightly difficult with the sickness, but i'm feeling better), I wake up at 6am and run to the sea foam green mosque on the main street near my house. There I meet Alys and/or Katie (girls on the program) and we run through the red dust while the sun rises. Then I proceed to do the bucket shower, before I change and meet the SIT bus on the main street. The mornings before class starts remind me of highschool early mornings where we would sit groggily together before class began. But here, we're greeted with a plethora of french bread, tea and coffee, or "lipton"- in a french accent, and nescafe flakes. Sometimes, there's nutella or jam or even laughing cow cheese!
Every week we have an excursion and we've gone to many different places that could potentially correspond to our Independent projects, for example Women's right associations, etc...
After school, sometimes I go to friends houses to see baby chicks, or better yet, little puppies, that actually end up making me more sad than happy. Not too healthy. There is a boulangerie with an assortement of pre-scooped ice cream portions, cool drinks, and french pastries galore! They even have espresso there!! Yesterday we set up shop, did some homework there...it almost felt a little like an afternoon at college...
When I get home I am bombarded with smiles and questions about how my day went. I sit and do homework, do my pleasure reading, watch shitty spanish or australian or american or african soap operas, and often talk at length with my siblings. Now, as it's getting hotter and hotter we are sleeping on the roof most nights, which on the weekends, when I sleep in a little, makes me feel like I'm waking up in the middle of a sunbathing sesh, before I open my eyes, see the mosquito net above me, and realize it's 90 degrees at 9am. splendid.
OH! My oldest brother Ladji asked me last week if i wantexd to pray with hi, mais bien sur!!! We went outside and performed ablutions, washing hands, feet, face, teeth, ears, head in a systematic order. I tried to follow along as he quietly said "bismiallah rahman..." After my younger sister mimi wrapped a pagne around my waist, and they provided me with a scarf to cover my hair and a prayer rug, we climbed to the roof and faced mecca. He told me to simply follow along through the motions.
This is why I came here.
So I am coming closer to solidifying my topic for my independent study. I think i'm going to look at the prevalence of Polygamy and how it is decreasing with the younger generations. I am definitely going to look at how Muslim beliefs both influence and encourage polygamy, and how beliefs are consitent with what Muslim texts actually say.
My health is improving, I think. Its so hard to tell when you're hot and sweaty all the time, but i'm managing. and life is good.