Au Revoir!!!

This past week has been extremely busy with different types of activities with my group and with my host family. It was our last week in La Pocatiere/ Riviere Ouelle, so every second was precious. The week seemed to go by fast and I wish I had more time here to spend with my host family and new friends. Today I leave Riviere Ouelle/ La Pocatiere, and I am not looking forward to that. I am very excited to go to Mali and start a new adventure, but I will defiantly miss my new family here. Tomorrow I head to Mali with my group, and I am gradually getting more and more nervous for the change. I have had so many thoughts run in and out of my mind lately about the uncertainties that come with leaving everything and everyone that I have come to know.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have done a lot this past week, and have been using every minute to my advantage. I did a lot of packing and unpacking, as I was having trouble deciding what I’ll actually use and what I won’t. I really don’t like packing at all, and with the pressure of time, it became somewhat of a pain. Hopefully I don’t end up forgetting something that I really need, as certain necessities are hard to come by in Mali. Some of the other activities I have been up to this past week have mostly been with my group. On Tuesday, Adrien, one of the boys on my team, organized a movie night at the Cgept for our group, family and friends. The movie was made in Mali and was spoken in Bambara, with English subtitles I may add. It was called “Yeelen”, and had to do with the Malian folklore. It was interesting, although I did not enjoy the beginning when they sacrificed a chicken. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I may actually see this sort of thing in Mali on a regular basis. This will be hard for me as I absolutely love animals, but I am trying to be open minded and see it from their perspective. This is something I will have to work on within myself, so that I can fully experience the culture. Although there were some parts I did not feel comfortable watching, overall it was quite interesting learning about their culture through film and hearing some of their folklore.

This past Wednesday was really fun, as Rahama and I had the chance to go to Quebec City with our host mom and her two friends, Francine and Pierette. When we arrived in Quebec city, we went to the mall and walked around for a while. Rahama had never seen such a huge shopping centre before, so it was really neat for her. There was this one store that I was even amazed with because of its size. I am pretty sure this one store was "almost" the same size as my “big” mall back home. After we walked around for a while, we ate lunch in the food court and then left to drive around the city. We drove by the huge parliament building and beautiful homes in the older neighbourhoods. Afterwards we headed to what I and lots of people call “Old Quebec”, which is a big tourist spot. It has a huge castle, 500 year old buildings on cobblestone roads, and the authentic French look. One thing that I love about “Old Quebec” is the local people, as they interact a lot with the tourists. There are also plenty of local artists who sell beautiful artwork, and a lot of local music. It’s really a gorgeous place and it’s pretty close to being in France, without actually being in France. We hung out for the rest of the afternoon in “Old Quebec” just sightseeing and being a typical tourist. The day was really exciting as it brought back a lot of memories from when I was in Old Quebec two years ago for skating.

This past Thursday and Friday were spent with our groups at the Cgept just going over last minute information before we head to Mali. Friday was a really busy day for our group and for me. We did our group meeting all day at the Cgept and went to the company “Dynaco” for some information about agriculture. Afterwards we all headed to the city hall where we set up for our Au Revoir Party for our family and friends. During this time, Ocean and I practiced singing our song as we were singing for everyone. We sang the song “Big Yellow Taxi” and it went really well. Adrien in our group played a solo guitar piece and we presented thank you letters to our families. It was a blast hanging out with our families and friends just dancing and visiting. The night went really well and I enjoyed this last big party with our group in Canada. Later that night Rahama taught me how to tie a sarong (Kounabri in Bambara) Malian style and also taught me how to tie the traditional head dress (Misoro in Bambara) 3 different ways. It was a great way to end off our last week here.

This past Saturday and Sunday was spent doing some last minute shopping for our host families in Mali and of course packing. On Saturday night, Therese and Rogers entire family and all their friends came in from everywhere for a surprise 40th anniversary party for them. It was great and Therese had absolutely no idea. The party was in St. Roch Des Aulnaise at the old Manor that I toured a while back with Francine and Rahama. There was a lot of people and a lot of delicious food. I had a great time taking pictures and hanging out, as it was great being able to celebrate something so special with their family. On Sunday Sept. 12th we had a bunch of people come over to our home for a going away supper and the evening was spent with a lot of family and friends.

These past three months have been amazing and I wouldn’t change anything. I have had a blast while here and have learned a lot about the language and about myself. I wish I had more time to spend with the people I have come to know. Hopefully I can return sometime soon in the next year or two, to visit my family here. Today I leave my town and head for the camp with our group and the other group for the day. We spend the night at the camp and then head out tomorrow (Tuesday) for the airport to go to Mali. We will finally arrive in Mali at 8:30pm on Wednesday. I am so excited, but really nervous to leave Riviere Ouelle. Soon enough I will be in Mali exploring a completely new culture, and unfortunately with that, comes a limited amount of internet access. That will be a good thing for me though, to get away from all the technology that I am so used to. This may or may not be the last blog from me in these next 3 months. I may have the chance to upload a big summary of what I have been up to while in Mali, but I can’t guarantee anything. Check in every once in a while to see if I was able to upload anything, but if I am not able to, I will do a big summary after I return to Canada. Until then, thank you for supporting me and taking an interest in my life by reading the blog. I hope I have written enough to inform you of everything I have done during these 3 months.

Here is a schedule of my trip to Mali for those of you who are wondering what it looks like:
On Tuesday Sept. 14th--> We leave Montreal at 7:30pm (For all of you back home, there is a 2 hour difference from S’toon to Quebec. Quebec is 2 hours ahead of Sask.)
-->We arrive in Paris at 8:35am on Wednesday Sept. 15th. Yes, this is an overnight trip, which I am not looking forward to. Getting enough sleep on a airplane or at least trying to, can be very hard to do. We are in the Paris airport for 8 hours. I thought it was only going to be 6 hours, but I forgot that there was another time change from Quebec to Paris. We are not allowed to leave the airport, because the Malians do not have insurance for France, so our day will be spent walking around inside the airport and looking out at what we can see of Paris. The exciting news for when we return is we most likely will be able to leave the Paris airport on our return to Canada and explore Paris for a couple of hours. Hopefully we can do something like this, as airports are extremely boring.
-->At 4:30pm on Wednesday, we leave Paris and head to Bamako (the capital of Mali) and arrive there at 8:10pm. It appears to only be a 4 hour flight, but is actually a 6 hour flight because of the time change again.
This is my schedule for the next couple of days, so hopefully everything goes well. I wish I could upload more blogs while in Mali, but considering my village has no power, running water or any necessities such as these, it will be unlikely.

Until next time (which may be a very long time)

Au Revoir!!!!! (Mali in 2 days!!!) :D

I ne Sogoma!

When I began to write this blog entry, I was having a lot of trouble getting started. I think it was difficult for me to get all my thoughts organized into something that made sense. I have only 8 days left before I head to Mali, and although that is just over a week, there is really no time for me to get everything I want done. I have a lot of activities with my group in the upcoming week, and that will take away a lot of my free time. As the date to leave gets closer and closer, time here is becoming more and more precious, and I’m trying to soak in whatever I can before I’m gone. Before I know it, I will be in Mali living a completely different lifestyle. I have been told a lot about Mali since I have been here, and what to expect when we actually get there. Although I have been given all this information, I know what I have been told will be completely different from what I’ll experience. The culture appears to be so vibrant in more ways than one, and I am looking forward to the experience. The village that I will be staying in is called Karaje, with maybe 20 to 30 homes. This will be a big change for me as I’m used to a big city, or even a big town such a Riviere Ouelle. There will be a lot of differences and I’m excited to get started and explore everything.

Since I have been here in Quebec, I have had the chance to experience so many things that I may never get the change to do it again. For example, milking a cow probably won’t be in my future, considering I wasn’t that great at it. I think I’ll leave that job to those who know what they are doing. Rahama and I finished lifting our last huge load of hay for our family, in fact, it was the last load for the family this year! I also would like to inform you that I actually have muscles from all the lifting I’ve done. I have also planted around 170 trees with my group for one of our group’s presentations. It took us two days to do this and we completed what we wanted, even in the rain. We had a blast doing it and goofing off during the day, taking lots of pictures as we went along. I have also learned some Bambara from my counterpart and I think it’s great. They have 4 greetings during the day and the first is "I ni sogoma" (Bonjour in Bambara, and also the title of this blog). I know quite a bit of Bambara, not enough to have a conversation at all, but I think it’s neat what I do know. I made a mental note to learn some words such as Buntani (which is scorpion in Bambara), as my counterpart has informed me there are a lot of those in Mali. Some words are essential to learn, and I truly think that a word such as "Buntani" could be good to know. When I get there, hopefully I will begin to pick up the language more as we will be merged into a community that mostly only speaks Bambara. It may be a little difficult as I am trying to learn two languages at once, but I’ll have my team who will be going through the same thing, which will defiantly help.

One of the responsibilities of the volunteers is to present a project within Canada and one in Mali to our group for an entire day. Rahama and I had the topic of Recycling and composting, since our program is in agriculture. We presented Friday (August 27th) and I had to speak in French the entire time. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do so far, but I think it was also quite rewarding as I pushed my limits. One thing for sure is that I couldn’t have been happier when I finished our presentation day. I defiantly mis-pronounced a lot of words, but at least I tried! The best way to end the day off was going to Andrea and Ya’s farm for Ya’s birthday. We celebrated her birthday with a lot of food and dancing! It was a great night and a great way to spend some time with the entire team. On the following Saturday we all went to the Public market and spent the day talking about Mali at the table our supervisors set up. We gave out tea that they make in Mali from this special flower, and had a lot of pictures and jewellery on display. It was sweet, because it got all the Canadians more amped to head to Mali, seeing all the pictures and hearing all the information.
I only have 8 days until I leave, and I know that it will go by so fast, especially since I will be so busy this week. I know that I am leaving for Mali in 8 days, but at this moment it just seems so surreal. Once I get on the plane, it will begin to sink in that I am actually leaving Canada for 3 months. I have some fears about going to Mali, but those are just fears of the unknown. I will overcome those fears and learn from what I experience. I know it’s been a while since I blogged last, and this hardly seems like enough writing to express all that I have been doing. Trust me I feel the same way, but as I have mentioned before, it was difficult for me to write this blog entry with so many thoughts about everything running through my mind. I promise that I will get in one more blog entry before I head to Mali, so keep looking back as my next one will be up really soon. I have no choice this time, I’m leaving for Mali in 8 DAYS! :)