So far

So. We got back to Tubaniso yesterday.

The past week went well. My host mom stopped laughing at me and we actually had a conversation, sort of. I bought some awesome airplane fabric that I got made into a hip dress outfit. I’ll have to post pictures later. My father saw my outfit and called it good. Then that day I return for lunch and my father gives me fabric with leaves on it that’s a little more feminine. Not as cool as the airplane fabric in my opinion but good. Then later that night my mother takes me to the tailor to get me fitted for an outfit that looks just like hers.

Oh and a couple of weeks ago I told my mother that I liked her outfit but really I told her I wanted it. It turns out that the verb for to like and to want are fairly similar if not the same in bambara. So she gave me her outfit. 

Yesterday I met the representative from Makili, my soon to be home for the next two years. First off we’ve really only learned bargaining in the market, family, describing someone vocab, traveling vocab, greetings, and daily activities. So using this limited vocab I figured out that my representative has three wives and 12 kids. A lot of them are tall because he is tall. Makili is 100 km from Segou and has 1000 people in it, which he said was a “little” big. His last name is Jara ,which he said was very good. My last name, Konate, is also very good.

I think he also explained to me that now I know little little Bambara but that I will know Bambara a lot a lot when I live there.

Yesterday evening the MSU Study abroad from Mali came to Tubaniso to visit. My friend Heidi from my co-op last semester was there so it was pretty cool to see her.