All Sworn In, and Off to Site!

The past week has certainly been a whirlwind... from taking the final language test on Monday to leaving for site this morning. I am very happy to say that I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! There was a really nice swearing-in ceremony on Thursday morning at the US Embassy in Bamako. The Peace Corps Mali Country Director, US Ambassador to Mali, and Malian government representative all had nice things to say about what we have accomplished thus far and gave us their best wishes for our Peace Corps service.

After the ceremony, we had our pictures taken at the Embassy and then headed to the American Club for an awesome lunch buffet. We stayed in Bamako for the evening, had a great dinner at the hotel we stayed at, and celebrated through the night. We certainly had reason to celebrate; after nine hard weeks of training to get to this point, we could finally could call ourselves Peace Corps Volunteers! It felt a lot like college graduation, the end of something great but the start of something even greater.

Essentially, our mission as Peace Corps Volunteers is to fulfill three goals, as outlined by Congress in the Peace Corps Act of 1961. The three goals are:

Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=Learn.whatispc.mission)

As much as we want to do things the "American way", giving our Malian counterparts as much training and opportunities for development as we can, we have to work slowly. Although we will encourage positive change, it must come from within so that the projects we work on are sustainable even after we leave Mali. At the very least, we will be engaged in small diplomacy, constantly learning about the Malian way of life and sharing a little piece of America with our new communities. And partly through this blog, I hope to accomplish the third goal.

Right now I am in Kayes at the Peace Corps stage house, getting ready to move out to Kenieba. The first three months at site will be focused on integrating in my community, continuing to study Bambara and Malinke (the Bambara dialect that is spoken in Kenieba) and asking lots of questions to learn about what resources they have and what they need.

Unfortunately Internet access is limited in Kenieba so it will be difficult to update this blog from there, but I hope to add an entry at least once a month. Inch'Allah (God willing), I will have some sort of Internet access in Kenieba. So please continue to comment on the blog and send me e-mail updates from home, I love to read them!