WE HAVE ARRIVED

We made to Bamako. It's been a long road for many of us with many challenges and ups and downs. Language will be my biggest challenge. Staging in Philadelphia was a meet and greet afair with flip charts and ideas being thrown around. We did skits, sang songs and started to get to know each other. The Peace Corps staff kept saying your starting to bound with each other, these people will be your best friends and your best support system while in the Peace Corps. We loaded onto the Air France plane taking most of the seats. In Paris many of us took naps and dreamed of a moment of free time sometime in the future.

Since arriving in Mali we haven't left Tubanisu Peace Corps training center. We have had cross-cultural training, Language training and testing, diversity training, met the Peace Corps Country Director with hardly a moment of free time. We learned the Emergency Action Plan we have eaten out of bowl had a cultural festival.

This is a picture of the Main Hanger. The floor is sand the roof grass and chairs are old folding chairs when we got a chance we sat in the chairs that were strung with plastic. The first the Malian training staff were in front all sitting it these chairs and now we know why.

The medical team has given shots, educationals on treating water, received our medical kit, learned how to prevent malaria. We learned about Mr. "D" and Mrs "C" and how to prevent them and treat them. My blood pressure was up a little and they took our temperatures too. Our medical kit looks like a small suit case with every kind of non-prescription and prescription drugs. The kit also included some herbal mosquito repellent by mistake. They handed some stronger stuff the first day. The Medical Officer suggested using the herbal stuff as a air fresher. We also received a mosquito net for our home stay today.