Thanksgiving Christmas. All one post

I haven’t posted in a while. Things have been going alright. Thanksgiving was spent in Sikasso and a good time was had by all. I had one of my first many coarse meals there. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and other foods for which I can’t remember now. It’s been a while, but It was amazing. We then spent a night at the waterfalls near Sikasso, which was a good time. 

Although a good time was had, It was awesome to get back to site. I met with a lady from US Aid about the money for the women’s garden that’s going to be built soon. It was an intense couple of days though. My best friend ETed and went back to the states. It was a sad day but other than that things went well and I kept pretty busy reading books, hanging out with Amy, and attending various markets around my village. 

Christmas was alright. I miss the snow for the first time in my life. It’s so hot here and just doesn’t feel like the holidays are here at all. Christmas eve we all went out and had a pretty good time. Christmas day was spent recovering, relaxing, talking to family, and watching movies. 

Tomorrow I’m heading to Bamako to celebrate New Years. I’m not sure how I feel about that. After spending a total of one week today in Segou, I’m ready to go back to site. It should be good to see different faces, and a change of scenery might do me some good. 

As far as everything is going, I think it’s finally hitting me that I’m going to be here for the next 20 months or so and I’m thinking, This sucks. Definitely not where I want to be around the holidays but I’m sure things will start to look up when I get back to site. After that January 12-31 is IST at Tubaniso in Bamako. Three weeks is a pretty long time, but I’m hoping it will be for the best to have everyone together again, and sad because of all the people that have left.