Hey everyone,
The past two weeks have been peaceful and a nice break from the fast pace of the past several months. Upon arriving home, I went with my host mom to a women’s meeting where a local relay (men and women who work at the local hospital and travel to villages giving trainings and vaccinations) led a training on Family Planning. This is a huge issue in most African villages in that there is no birth spacing and little concern of those consequences. The general rule is that you have another child when the youngest can kick a soccer ball but it’s not followed all that well. Adults generally receive the meats and proteins while kids live on cereals such as rice, millet and corn and when children aren’t properly spaced, the already high malnutrition rate is put in a precariously dangerous level.
The students in the 9th grade took their exams this past week. It’s a huge test permitting those who pass to continue on in their education and if they fail, comes the end of the line in the school system. My host sister took her exams and I’m hopeful she did well, but the failing rate in bruce villages is astronomically high, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the results coming out next month.
An entertaining anecdote of my last few weeks came about when I was playing Frisbee with some kids. I should preface this story in saying that they’ve never played with a Frisbee before, and they were awful. Seriously, at the end of the day, we only had one completed pass. In order to even reach this level of skill, the Frisbee flew into half the houses in the village and landed on top of a hangar. I was playing with 2 boys and 2 girls and as soon as they saw the Frisbee land on the hangar, they split. The boys immediately started trying, unsuccessfully, to climb the tree posts supporting the hangar while the girls studied the situation and found a long stick that they used to knock the Frisbee off. They were playing with it for several minutes before the boys even realized what had happened.
Rainy season apparently decided to start last night, which made my bike ride into San this morning less than pleasant. But the cool temperature has been a pleasant reprieve and worth the muddy miserable bike ride.
Not too much else to report. Today is a fishing festival in San that I came in for. There is a sacred tree and a magic well that San is notorious for and the festival incorporates them too. I’m headed down to Bamako next week for my STAGE’s Close of Service conference. We get pick our dates to return home and start a tremendous amount of paperwork needed to leave the country in good standing. Additionally we will attend sessions on resume building, interviewing, and transitioning back to our American lives. I’m excited to see some friends I haven’t seen in over a year and really excited to stay in a hotel, with AC and good food! On the sad note, my two best girlfriends both left Mali on June 10 and I’m so sad that they won’t be at the conference to celebrate with me.
I hope all is well back home. I heard it’s a hot summer in KY and I’m truly sympathetic and am not sad that I’ll be returning home in the fall, it’s my favorite season. Wishing you all well,
Love,
Cait
