I'm the proud new owner of a BRAND NEW HOUSE

Written May 19, 2011
It's mini story time again!
New House:
My windows and doors were delivered to my village today!!!! You have no idea how happy I am! It was slightly over 2 months ago that my APCD agreed to have my doors and windows paid for with Peace Corps money. It has been such a long and frustrating wait, but I'm happy to say that I am now that much closer to moving into my new house! The doors and windows are all the remains in the construction of the house, so once my homologue installs them I will be good to go! I seriously cannot wait!! I have major plans for my new house! I'm going to start a garden as well as hang up flower pots (well oatmeal tins, basically like small coffee cans) all around my gwa. Also I am going to cover my walls with glow in the dark stars as well as display my Gator Pennant, oh and maybe even paint a Gator head on my wall! The possibilities are endless! But most of all I can't wait for my PRIVACY.
Wedding Season:
Weddings, weddings, weddings! It seems like there is one every single day in village! This week alone I attended 2 weddings and heard of 3 others. There have also been quite a few civil marriages at the Mayor's office in the past few weeks (Malians have to have a civil ceremony, which is basically like getting a marriage license back home, where they swear to a bunch of stuff and have witnesses and have someone from the Mayor's office as the officiant. It's not obligatory, and many Malians can't afford to do this or often times they wait several years before they do this, but a wedding party is thrown after the bride and groom return from the Mayor's office. This, I guess, could be compared to the reception after a wedding back in America. Basically at these parties all the men sit together at one side of the family's concession and all the women sit together on the other side. Or actually the women are usually not sitting, but cooking and cleaning and getting things for the men; even the female guests are put to work! The men spend the whole party conversing, eating, and playing cards. At some point a main meal is served, usually Zame (sort of like fried rice or jollof rice), by the women, the men eat and then the women eat and then dancing starts or people (men) go back to their conversations or card games (women start to clean up). Attending weddings is something I definitely like to do here because it means lots of free food! Although weddings can also be kind of sad because arranged marriages are something quite common here, and often times a very sad bride gets paired up with an old man. One of the marriages I attended had a bride that looked like she was near tears, she could barely answer the questions asked of her at the Mayor's office. I feel really bad for these women, but to be honest, it's times like these that I'm so happy to be an American where I have free will!
Food!!:
I would have to say that Malian cuisine is definitely no where near the top of my favorite foods list, but there are a couple of dishes that are working their way up there! One of these is Moni. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it is basically a porridge that is made with little balls of millet flour that has lait caille (kind of like yogurt) and lots of sugar mixed in. I thought Moni was disgusting the first time I had it back during PST, but now I can't stop craving it. I use to say no thanks everytime it was presented to me, but about a month ago I decided 'oh what the hell, why not give it another chance,' so I did, and it was AWESOME!!! Now I eat it every chance I get!
My other new found Malian food favorite is Cabbage! I know there is cabbage back home, but this is different. Malians came up with the brilliant idea to add cabbage to their sauces to be eaten over rice. Cabbage in Tige Dege Na (Peanut Sauce) is legit one of my favorite things to eat, and it's good for me!
All Alone:
Well this isn't really true, but it is kind of a sad time in village because several of my friends have left. My friends were Stagiers, or teachers in training, who were here to be student teachers, and their school-year long program has come to an end. The stagiers were from a bunch of different regions of Mali, so they basically all went back to their hometowns to take their final exams and become real teachers. These were the guys I would play Uno for hours with. They also were the only ones besides my homologue that I could have a legitimate conversation with because they are fluent in French. I will miss them greatly, and I hope the stagiers next year are as cool as these guys were.
Things people call me:
So I found out the other day that kids in my village have been calling me Toubaboo Nyera which means Red Toubab! I find this to be incredibly amusing and also very interesting! Back in America people of my skin tone are often called "redbones" and Native Americans who share my skin tone were also called red. It's kind of cool that I'm all the way across the world and similarities like this can be found.
I also found out that Secondary school students have developed an odd fascination with my real name, Elizabeth Coomber. They love to repeat it over and over. They also try to spell it out loud to each other to see who can get it right. I found this to be amusing at first, but then it started to really annoy me. The reason I find it so annoying is because they are so terrible at pronouncing my name. They say Eh-liz-a-bette Cum-bear. The other day I got fed up and tried to correct them, I announced that it's Coooom- bur not Cum- bear. After this one of the boys had the nerve to tell me that the English teacher told them that it's Cum-bear, implying that I must be wrong. Um no! I think I'm the authority when it comes to pronouncing my own last name kid!