bonjour!

still adjusting to french keyboards... on a public comp at the hotel we are staying at till wed morn. the rooms are named after musical artists - mine is sali sidibe. tomorrow we meet our host families, they give us a choice of three malian first names to take and we pick one to go by for the rest of the semester. we begin living with the families friday.

today was the first day of orientation and our first chance to see bamako since we got in around 11 last night. bamako is red dusty streets, some paved, others not. there are cars and motorcycles, sutramas (public transport buses) and taxis everywhere. it is not the pedestrian right of way that is northampton at all. i was prepared for deathly heat but it has been just really nice out.

there are many children around teh area of our school building _ tomorrow we begin learning bambara so i`ll be able to speak to those kids and many other malians that do not speak french.

everyone is very friendly - in our group and in mali _ often though malians are helpful and then surprise you by expecting a tip - for help you already got talked into and enjoyed. awk.

we did what sit calls a 'drop off ' today which is kind of like a short scavenger hunt that we qre dropped off to do in pairs in the city just to find our way around and then back to the hotel. this was an experience. i definitely need to work on my french and on my math for money conversion. i did manage to buy a malian rap cd.

i have not had much time to reflect, we just got right into things and will be kept pretty busy during the days. there is a voix du mali arts n music festival starting tomorrow with a hiphop concert that u know i'll be at :)

the foods not bad so far. and am drinking lots of water. and enjoying that winter is all of a sudden over :)


the end for now~