IST Take Over (IST Part II)

some of the Goodfellas (left-right: Brooke, McCoy, Taz, Pam, Maria, Marcy, Amy) at Comme Chez Soi 

Taz and Amy, acting, well, like crazy people ;)

LUKA! we love you!

my pancakes. yes. in mali. you may swoon now. 

Marcy! 

sleepy PCVs...Vince, Maria, Monte

the make up artist gets her make up done! thanks pam! 

Amy (hair: Taz, make-up: Me, shirt: Pam)

on the bus to BKO!

McCoy and James...totally presh right?

squashed on a sotrama

Talk about a Toubabs on parade, the exodus from my house to the sotrama stop with roughly ten white people and all kinds of luggage isn’t something Kati gets to see everyday. But there we were, Sunday morning trudging across town to get our ride. Of course, at first we had to stop at the tailors so that I could grab some clothes I had made, including a present that was going to be sent out during IST. The tailor wasn’t open yet, so I actually had to call the guy and have him special deliver my stuff to me, and the whole group, sitting in front of his shop. Only in Africa.

We made the final push to the sotrama, and ended up basically taking it over. At one point Bob Marley was playing on the radio and we started to sing along. I think the Malians on route thought we were officially nuts. But we were having a great time. One sotrama ride and one more taxi ride later we arrived at the Peace Corps office. People had errands to run, we had to drop off crap, but within an hour, we were reunited. We all decided to start off IST with a bang, and went to brunch at a lovely place called Comme Chez Soi. Tucked down a dirt road it’s an oasis. I swear I didn’t know such luxury was available, but there it was. It smelled so good. There were plants everywhere. It is some of those places where people talk quietly and all children are well behaved, where there are five tables and the owner greets everyone. I don’t think we quite knew what to do with ourselves. The food was great (I got pancakes and a fruit salad…HOLLER) and I hear the drinks were even better. Just to balance the classy aspect of brunch, we went to ice cream. What can I say?

By the time we were done eating, we had to scurry back to the bureau to catch transport to Tubes. It was great. Full bellies, warm hearts, good friends.

We got to Tubes and got settled. We had new huts, but basically the same hut mates. I have never been so excited to see a hut in my life. It’s funny because you get off the van at Tubes the first time in Mali, straight off the plane, and you stare at this hut and seriously reconsider every choice you made to get to this point. You look at the nyegen and think a random assortment of swear words, you see the bugs and close your eyes. Fast forward and here I was skipping around laughing with my friends, totally okay with waking up in the middle of the night so cold and fighting with a really squeaky door and ice cold water to go to the bathroom. Tubes is my Malian home. It’s where my family comes together, it’s where I get taken care of, it’s the place where whenever I return, I recharge and unwind.

So I embraced my twin sized bed with the bad foam mattress and the mosquito net that was weirdly disproportionate.  I unloaded some of my crap and sighed. We made it. We made the first three months apart. We made it to IST. All the countdowns, all the prayer, the bad days, the long phone calls, the loneliness, for just a little while it got to all be worth it, it all disappeared. For just a moment it was exactly as it should be. I got hugged, told that my work was important, congratulated for making it so far, it was the perfect affirmation.

The first morning of IST Marcy and I woke up at the crack of dawn and timed the half marathon that was ending at Tubes. Really it was a great excuse to watch two hours of Glee at 6am. I’ve never been happier to be up to watch the sunrise. To say that IST just got better would be an understatement. It was fabulous. I got to reconnect with my friends. I spent money on Cokes and candy. I wore jeans and got to put on make up because I didn’t have to walk very far to anything specifically at the middle of the day like I do in Kati. I got wrapped up in boy drama, ranted, laughed, gossiped, borrowed everyone else’s clothes, broke in my gray TOMS. I met new people and made new friends.

Of course there were the classes, and some of them were awesome. The focus of IST is technical training, so I spent a lot of time in training specific to education. Topics ranged from language testing, to literacy centers, to educating youth through games. We debriefed what we had done the past three months and focused on what we would be doing for the rest of our service. It was both rewarding to see how far we had come, and overwhelming to think about all we had to do, all the time left, and how in the world we were going to make it to the COS conference.

The Goodfellas celebrated the end of the first week of IST with a night on the town. We all got dolled up and hit up Bamako. We spilt up for dinner, and I went with the group that ate at this fantastic Italian restaurant. Best meal in Mali, hands down, and it was pizza (back in the States I hardly ever eat pizza). After dinner was drinks at this cheap hole in the wall down the street with a bunch of other volunteers. Once we had our full, we all slowly trickled further to one of Bamako’s dance joints. We all really wanted to shake a tailfeather, and see what this place was all about. I had a blast. I love going out with everyone. The Goodfellas know how to have a dance party. I didn’t want to leave, even as the night wore on and I knew waking up in the morning was going to be a problem. A group of us finally rolled out and curled into bed within hours of morning prayer. The next day was a day off and we were heading back into town to run some errands, have lunch, and check out the new stage that just arrived at the end of October. Again, another awesome day.

Week two of IST means that everyone’s homologues, or counterparts, arrive and we spend the next week working together. I have a special situation and don’t really have a counterpart like everyone else, so the pressure is kind of off (which I totally love). It was a lot of fun to meet everyone else’s counterpart, especially the ones I’ve heard so much about. Us PCVs had some awesome sessions on project design (go team Delta Force!) and the ever so infamous Two Ears of Corn session. These sessions were balanced by late night mafia games (the reason the Goodfellas are who we are), gossip, bonfires, and girl gab sessions.

And, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, Thanksgiving fell in the middle of IST. It was another amazing experience. A great example of cross cultural learning, and the ability to share something with our counterparts and the Peace Corps staff was inspiring. Plus, the food was fantastic. More on Thanksgiving later…

We wrapped up week two with the counterparts and had Saturday back to ourselves. It was a day for wrap up and where we were told how totally awesome we are (best stage in Mali? Perhaps…J).  One applause later and we were done. All that we had waited for was over. IST ended. And just like that, we headed back to our huts.

We were staying in Tubes until Monday morning. Sunday was another great day because I got to visit my homestay family and BCamp in general. And boy was it weird being back. First of all, BCamp now has this stellar alimentation with all kinds of goodies and a killer bread shop that was not there before. I bought a watermelon to give to my family, so yes I can honestly say, “I carried the watermelon.” Walking the streets of BCamp was surreal. It felt familiar even though it was only “home” for two months. I’ve been in Kati longer, and yet BCamp will always hold a special place in my heart. Plus, I was welcomed back like a long lost relative. Malians don’t really hug, but I hugged everyone. The kids had gotten so big even in the three months I had been gone. I tried to chat, but because I speak more French at site, it was still pretty quiet. But Badji, my host mom, is still awesome. We had lunch, and then I got fed three bananas, and then the watermelon. I didn’t really like the green sauce we had for lunch, but the bananas and watermelon were welcome. I watched TV with the boys and sat with the women. I wasn’t there for too long because we were able to grab Peace Corps transport both ways, which meant direct service, and not having to pay. We got shoved on a bus with the new stage and that gave us a great opportunity to meet more of them and for them to get to know us a little bit.

We all had to debrief our homestay visits and talk about who understood how much Bambara, whose kids had grown the most, and when was the next time we were going to visit. Then we had to pack and organize our lives in order to move out of Tubes by 8am the following morning. I did laundry and did the “please let me clothes dry” dance while I tried to pack all the workbooks, notebooks, and pamphlets I acquired over the two weeks (luckily I brought I big suitcase).

Our grand Tubes finale was a bonfire/concert. We invited everyone who was at Tubes—us, the newbies, the trainers, the guest PCV speakers. Two of the Goodfellas are a particularly good musical duo and they played for us. Looking around the fire at the laughter and the smiles, the side conversations and occasional yells to get someone farther away to pay attention, I was content. There was nowhere else I would rather be.  No matter what happened next, where the next twenty months takes us, in that moment, we were together; we were family, and even more that that, we were the mafia.