2 years in 2 paragraphs

Dear faithful readers:
Most Peace Corps journals are started before leaving the states.  Volunteers’ statements of uncertainty and excitement follow long packing lists of essential items, like toothpaste and biodegradable toilet paper.  They document the departure from America, the first steps on a new continent, the smells, the tastes, everything.  This blog is going to be a little different because I have already been in Mali 2 years and I am not trying to impress anyone.  So, for those of you who don’t know me I’ll sum up my last two years in just a few sentences. In July of 2007 80 or so volunteers and I spent 3 days in Philadelphia filling out papers, getting shots, and drawing pictures of spiders.  Then we boarded a rather large aircraft and headed to Paris.  Once in Paris we were whisked off to the airport hotel and told to shower and dress professionally for our arrival in Mali.  We got to Mali at 3 in the morning and were greeted by some dirty looking Americans and a bunch of buses.  We loaded our luggage and drove to a training center where we were taught how to pooh in a hole, and then scammed out of American cigarettes by older volunteers.  We spent a while at the training center and taught enough Bambara to only seem mildly retarded (no offense to Trig) when we got to our villages. We stayed in temporary villages for a few weeks and learned the local culture and more language and then we were sent to our permanent villages to see where we’d live for the next couple of years.  I spent three days in my village and was on my way back to the capital, when I broke my leg.  I lay on the dirty floor for 2 hours while people asked me questions in a language I didn’t understand.  Finally an “ambulance” came and rolled me onto a stretcher.  Obviously the men in the ambulance weren’t used to picking up Americans, they managed to lift me approximately 17 inches off the ground and dropped me.  Finally, after some discussion, I was lifted into the ambulance/truck and driven to the “hospital”.  I was laid on a gurney covered in someone else’s blood and wheeled into a room.  A few minutes later a man walked in wearing a dirty lab coat, flip-flops, and a woman’s t-shirt from the Grand Canyon, he was the orthopedist.  He smiled asked me my name and then reset my broken leg.  I promptly passed out and woke up in another room by myself.  An empty tomato paste can was placed on the floor for me to urinate in and an air splint, like John Candy’s in Summer Rental, had been placed on my leg.  An hour later the Peace Corps nurse showed up, and I was driven to the capital.  I was put on a plane the next day for New Orleans and arrived wearing the same bloody and muddy clothes I was wearing on the other side of the world.  I had surgery, rehabbed my ankle, and returned to Mali in January 2008. For the first few months of 2008 I was playing catch up with language and cultural integration.  My first projects were a series of soak pits to reduce standing water in the village and prevent Malaria and other diseases.  My second project was a school garden, to teach the schoolchildren both agricultural and business techniques.  For my third project I teamed up with another volunteer, Mary Althoff, to build a 6 room schoolhouse with 3 sets of bathrooms, an office for the teachers, and a rainwater harvesting system to collect much needed water during the dry season. So, basically I have spent the last year begging for money from everyone from Oprah to my dad, and that is the reason I am still here for a third year.  Now, you’re caught up to the present.  Today is my birthday, it is the third one I will celebrate in Mali.