Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and spending time with friends and family. Since 90%(ish) of Mali is Muslim, Christmas is largely not celebrated here. Which, suprisingly, was nice. It was helpful in that for my first Christmas away from home, I wasn't constantly reminded of what I was missing since there were not any holiday lights, snow storms, Christmas radio stations, Christmas trees, decorations, etc. I did have a great time celebrating Christmas with my PC fam here in Mali. A group of five of us stayed in Sevare, made a fantastic Christmas Eve dinner of Mexican food (you can tell what I'll be eating all the time when I get back stateside by how frequently I mention burritos in this blog), went to Christmas Eve Mass in French and Bambara with a African dance party after, woke up Christmas morning to drink hot chocolate and open presents from home, then made a delicious Christmas brunch. My friend Eliza's birthday is on Christmas, so we celebrated that with birthday brownies and M&Ms. Unfortunately I was sick with amoebas so I couldn't really eat anything or go to church, but such is life in Mali. :) It was good to just be around friends and hang out. Thank you to everyone that sent presents to me here! I know it's a lot of work to do during a very busy holiday season -- I really really appreciate it!

I just got back from my in-service training (IST), a training which Peace Corps does in Bamako after your first 3 months at site are over. Since the first 3 months at site are all about language learning and community integration, IST focused more on learning technical skills that will help us do projects in the next year and a half. Most of my environment tech sessions focused on reforestation and gum arabic, a tree whose sap is used in all manner of things (Coca-Cola, the caps that cover pill medicine, chewing gum, etc). Mali already exports some of it to developed countries for use, but it has the potential to export so much more. Gum arabic grows really well up north in the Mopti region, and starting a tree plantation can be a great way for the community to earn income which can then be used for their development as they see fit. For example, supplementing their diets with more vegetables or improving water quality. The trees also fix nitrogen in the soil, thereby improving soil quality and crop yields. We also had a lot of training on how to apply for funding for our projects and write grant proposals.

In our spare time (ha) it was awesome to hang out with friends from PST and catch up. Randomly, Sean Paul came to Bamako to do a concert, so of course we had to go! It was so much fun, met some cool Malians and Gambians. We also had a wonderful Christmas / Hanukkah / whatever you celebrate party where we had a white elephant gift exchange and the Tubansio kitchen staff made us a delicious dinner. Pics are up on facebook. So great.

I head back to site soon, but will be back in Sev/Mopti for the new year. I'm really excited to get back. For the first time, it feels like Sassolo is home, and I find myself missing being there and chatting with friends. The night before I left Kumbari was very upset because she was forced to sell all of her cows and one of her friends died. It was hard to leave when my Malian family was going through such a hard time, and though I know I can't do anything to help, I can't wait to get back and just be there for them. Bad timing for IST, right? I'm also excited to start working on projects, though I don't quite know what they will be yet. My supervisor has some ideas, and I have some ideas, I think we just need to sit down , come to an agreement, and write out an action plan for the next couple months. (woahhhh action plan, what is that about? haha)

I would also like to apologize for the quality of my English - I don't speak it all the time and it is getting worse at the same rate that my French and Fulfulde is getting better. Sigh. One day I will speak a language fluently...one day...

Best wishes for the New Year!