My name is Omar Coulibaly

I've spent the past two weeks in the village of Tieguena, about an hour out of Bamako, where I have been living with a Malian family and studying everyday to learn Bambara.

A typical day:
I wake up and wash my face, then greet my family.  It is very important in Mali to wash your face before greeting anyone.  Then I eat breakfast, usually bread and tea with powdered milk.  Then I go to class for four hours.  We sit in an orchard of Mango trees, which I climb when we get breaks in class.  Then I go home for a about three hours during the hottest part of the day.  My sister, Omo, will make me fish and peanut sauce with rice.  I'll usually relax in the shade of our family's shea tree, reading a book or trying to chat with my brother, Sidi.  Back to class for the afternoon, and then home for dinner.  My family has a constant stream of guests coming over for dinner and then tea afterwards.

Now I'm in Tubaniso, getting a weekend of technical training, before going back to my homestay for another two weeks.

Now its lunchtime and I gotta go...

K'an Ben

Je Suis Ici

Aw Ni Che!

I finally made it to Mali.  The past two days have been a lot of getting to know my fellow volunteers and getting used to Malian food and culture.  I had a lot of fun last night playing TRiP style games (Who has the hat, Green Glass Door, etc) with the other volunteers, and even solved a french riddle (touche touche pas, mais touche pas touche).  We've been working a bit on language and will be diving in to that more in-depth in the days to come.  We still don't know yet which languages we'll be focusing on (either Bambara, French, or a minority african language), but I tested as intermediate-mid in French so there's a good chance they'll be giving me an African language.

The internet is really slow here but hopefully I'll have some pictures up next time...

Also, I now have an address:

Matt Cooper, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 85
Bamako, Mali

That will be for the next few months while I'm near the capitol in training.  I'll have a different address when I'm out at my village for two years.  On Monday we'll be going to live temporarily in nearby communities to really get immersed in the language and culture!

Love and miss you all!

Hello all! This will be my blog for my time in the Peace Corps over the next two years.

So let me start with a re-cap of the past year, when I first decided to apply to be a Peace Corps volunteer:

This time last year, I was in my last semester of college, trying to figure out what I wanted to do after it was all over. I looked into the Peace Corps but found that I didn't have enough experience to do the Environmental work that I was most enthusiastic about. So, after graduating, I took six months to do an internship with the Student Conservation Association in Ohio's Wayne National Forest. The internship turned out to be better that I could have possibly anticipated! I got to live and work with some awesome people. I learned a ton about fire ecology and how to identify plants. I got to make some awesome side-trips to Idaho, West Virginia, Canada, Chicago & Milwaukee, and even Cartagena, Colombia! I even made some good money as a wildland firefighter. At the end of my internship, I received my invitation to work as an Environmental Extension Agent in Mali.

Since the internship ended two months ago, I've made some awesome trips to the Florida Keys, New Mexico, and Philadelphia. I've been trying to spend as much time as possible with friends and family. That and apprendre le français!

So, in two weeks I'll be in Mali... I'm sure I'll learn a ton.




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