My little piece of Mali

I am writing this post from Douentza, Mali. My site for the next two years. I am sitting in my Air Conditioned office typing on the computer and surfing the internet. haha no im not kidding. We arrived in Severe on Monday nite after a long and eventful bus ride. Actually we had an accident on the way up. Thankfully, no one was hurt. We were passing a truck on its left side while it was turning left. we hit it on its left front panel and it bounced off to the right and rolled off the road. there was a man that was walking his moto across the road that had to ditch his bike and jump out of the way of a giant bus that was barreling toward him. Thank God he was only walking his bike and had time to jump out of the way because we ran over his moto, which got stuck under our front axle. it was a bumpy ride but our driver was great and prevented us from rolling over into a ditch that we narrowly avoided. Hopefully everything works out for him. The police did eventually show up and decided it was necessary to take some official measurements, which included knowing how far away the bus was from a random tree in a field, the diagonal measurement of the road to the front tire, and even how close the onion stand we hit was away from the bus after we had hit it. it seemed to us Toubabs (white people) that the police were just putting on a show for us white people to make us feel alittle better. but everything by that time was fine and the bus company had sent us another bus and we were on our way to Severe.

We stayed in Severe for 2 nights and then Me, Dave, Phil, and Deryk caught public transport up to Douentza which took forever because the driver wanted to fit as many people as he could to earn an extra buck. so we had 35 people in a small van that at top speed only reached about 30 miles an hour. a 2 hour trip took us about 4 hours. which is actually kinda speedy here in Mali. But we did eventually arrive in Douentza. That day and the day after were spent buying furniture for our new places and trying to bargain for the lowest prices which is extremely difficult and stressful but we got everything we needed and found out we paid pretty good prices for them. I got a shelf made for about $40 american dollars. or 20,000 cfa. its a really nice shelf and should last me my full 2 years. i also picked up a mattress and cot for a bed, a electric fan to keep me cool in these blistering Mali temperatures. i also got 3 mats for the ground to help keep the dirt at bay and a chair. I will also probably pick up a basket and some bowls at the market this Sunday. It took all of yesterday to set up my room but i finally got it the way i like. it is so hot inside that i almost cant stand it. its better if you stay outside and most all Malians sleep outside because its so much cooler. I also found out where the post office is in Douentza and my new address is

Mike Kapocsi
Peace Corps Volunteer, Corps de la Paix
Douentza, Mali West Africa

trust me the packages should get here. the volunteers that have been here for a year have had all their packages show up. I will be taking some pictures of my town and of my new house this week and will try to upload them as soon as i can. Thanks again for all the support and emails i have been getting.

My City in the North

I have just returned from my Site Visit. My town for the next two years will be a city of 20,000 named Douentza, which is in the Mopti Region of Mali. It is pretty far north east of Bamako, about a 15 hour bus ride. Its an amazing city with giant rock cliffs that line both sides of the city. its a great view to wake up to in the morning. I was only there for 3 days but it was enough to get a taste of what is to come in the next two years. My job is with the local radio station and working with tourism. I am pretty free to have secondary projects to help the community in anyway they want and need. There are a few other volunteers that are either in my town or within 50K from my town. It was an amazing trip but i know there will be challenges ahead and im ready for them.

Mali is a great country and the people are even better, everyone is always willing to help or just greet you with a smile and multiple greetings that start to sound like mumbles after a while. The Malians love to greet people and have about a 5 mintue speech they go through everytime they come across someone they havent met in the last 10 minutes. Hence the Malians never really being on time for anything. I mean its pretty hard to be on time if you greet everyone with a, " Ine Sogoma. E Ka Kene, Toura te, Somogo bede, Toura Tou la, E Fa ka Kene, Toura ta la, E Be ka kene, Toura Ta la.".....you get the drift. but its amazing how everyone says hello to everyone and everyone has a smile on their face.

Im still having a blast and my health is doing pretty good, about as good as can be expected. I am still making friends wherever I go, whether it be another trainee, another PCV, or a Malian nieghbor. Its been great to hear from everyone and all the news back at home. Thanks for all the love and support.

Miss everyone
-Abou Ba

Homestay and Training

I just got back to Tubaniso(our training site), which is where we have the internet. I have been at homestay which is where we learn our language, French, and get culturally integrated and basically learn how to be a Malian. I am staying at Sanankoroba, with my host family. My dad is Abdoulaye Traore and has 2 wives and roughly 6 kids, i have a grandfather named Moussa and his wife Salle who takes care of me most days with food and water. There are multiple children around and its hard to tell which ones are family cuz they call their nieghbors, friends, cousins, and anyone who they feel like, there brothers/sisters. So i have roughly 30 or so borhters and sisters. I live in a small shack with a tin roof that is loud as crap when is decides to DOWNPOUR. My malian name was given to me by my father, i am Abou Traore. its pronouced just like the monkey in Aladin the disney film, i like it. everyone calls me Abou BA, which in Barbara means Big Abou. i was named after my dads "brother" cuz that guy is HUGE and so am i, he came in from Bamako and we talked english cuz he can speak it and worked for an NGO and has daughters that he sent to university in Canada. It was fun to meet him. Everything is going good. we all have our bad days and our good days. we complain everyday at 11.30am to 12.15pm about the food. all we wish for is american fast food. we go to language classes everyday from 8am to 12noon. then go for lunch with our families and return for more language at 2.30 till 5pm. i eat lunch in my hut with one of my dad's wives usually and eat dinner with my brother Allison. i usually have spegitti for dinner with bread. its not good spegitti and tastes ok but isnt your Mom's spegitti. i have rice with a sauce everyday for lunch. its a wet rice with a mystery meat sauce. thats a little rough. i usally just eat a few handfuls of rice and call it quits. Oh yeah we eat with our hands. sounds fun but sometimes you just want a fork and spoon. ha But everything is going good and im glad to be back at Tubaniso. More later.

Staging in Philly

Well I'm here in Philly, PA and the hotel has internet so i thought i'd put a new post. Im still very excited to get in country, we are just getting an overview and very simple orientation, its basically a meet and greet. There are 82 Volunteers going to Mali, Africa. We will take over the plane over to Mali. It is one of the largest group that they have had going to Mali all at once. I have met a ton of people, and with my memory i have to constantly ask for names. I just got my shots from the clinic, i only had to get 3 shots but of course thats out of a possible 3 shots to be given, i am also going to start my Malaria meds today. Fun Stuff. For some reason i wasnt prepared for the fact that volunteers come from all over the USA, i know it sounds stupid but in the back of mind i was thinking that they would all come from VA or somewhere close. But no, lots from CA, some from CT, Iowa, Utah, Texas, LA, 3 from VA, and then i also met Carla Riel who is from Winchester, VA. i just cant get away from the hometown. We leave for Mali on Thursday. Aight, enough for now.

Still in the States...

I created this blog to keep in touch with family and friends while I journey to Mali, Africa to serve in the Peace Corps. I will try to post as much as I can but without knowing when I will be around an internet connection it will be tough.

Roughly two months ago I accepted my invitation to serve with the Peace Corps in Mali, Africa leaving on July 16th. I will be working within the Small Enterprise Development (SED) program. Basically the program will help small entrepreneurs develop and become more successful in a very broad sense. I will know more about my personal work when I arrive for training and they can place me. The program is about trying to instill a long lasting contribution not something that is temporary. The Peace Corps has been working in Mali since 1971 in many areas such as education, water sanitation, agriculture, health education, natural resources management, and small eterprise development.

I will leave July 16th for an orientation of 3 days which is held in Philly, I believe, not real sure. But then they fly me and the rest of the volunteers to Mali for 3 months of intensive training, mostly focusing on language. In Mali the official language is French but most people speak Bambara. I cant wait to start learning this foriegn language, it seems very interesting. I cant wait to get over there and meet everyone and just start the next 2 years of my life.

Again feel free to comment on anything and everything, I will try to respond and post as much as I can while Im over there.