Swear-in and so-on

A few days ago we had our swear-in ceremony at the American embassy in Mali. The ceremony was relatively painless and after a speech from director of Peace Corps Mali and a word from the ambassador we were off to the American Club to act like a bunch of toubabs for a while. The spread was phenomenal as the buffet had everything from beats to cheeseburgers. Although we were offered a fair share of American food, I stuck with my favorite Malian dish: Zamen Zamen is sort of like fried rice and it is usually served with fish, cabbage, Malian eggplant and other veggies. After stuffing our faces, swimming and drinking some jack, we hopped on the bus to head on for the rest of the day’s activities.

During a bus ride that day I found myself stumbling upon all of my highlights in Mali and I thought I’d share some of them today. So the best that Mali has seen of Katharine and Katharine of Mali: midnight cocktails at the top of a mango tree, yoga underneath the electracutable stars of the Malian sky, donkey rides around my well (guided by my host brother/ the Samakes donkey master), light-frisbee with the Malians in Banankoro (it goes without saying that they had never seen a light up flying saucer let alone a flying saucer), listening to the Dead in a bamboo forest by a creek that wouldn’t shut up, playing cards with my host siblings and neighbor (whose name is ‘cetigi’ which means ‘master of men’- needless to say he’s a gem and an excellent trickster), discovering hidden hammocks in the middle of the night, picnic (egg, avocado, and cheese – yes CHEESE – sandwiches) at the waterfalls of Sikasso, hotel rooftops chats about heaven and the Stranger (by Albert Camus), a bike ride that consisted of a few ditch dumps and a downpour, makeshift grilled cheese sandwiches at the med unit with a swollen foot...

Swear-in night was filled with dancing like jellyfish and drinking like toads (they do drink a lot, don’t they?). After a joyride around Bamako with a stranger, the night ended with me being locked out of a hotel room with a swollen foot and an angry bellman.

Here are a few pictures of swear-in (the education sector and then a picture of our entire stage at the embassy), some pictures of my new home and yard in Farakala (Sikasso), also above is a picture of me and some PC friends with our hula hoops (yes, we did manage to find the stuff to make hula hoops even here in Mali):