Sira Samake on Air

After a little over a week in Djenne post training in Bamako, I’m getting back into the swing of things. Going from such scheduled days at Tubaniso to the typical two hour lunch/nap break in the middle of the day took some adjusting, but it was also nice to get back to the house and not be living out of a suitcase anymore! I also came back to 6 cats instead of one…Sally had her kittens! I’ve managed to find homes for a couple of them already with other volunteers, so hopefully I won’t be living with 6 cats for the next year and a half!
While at Tubaniso cold season came and went in a flash. There were definitely days when I wore long sleeves all day, but by the time training was over (3 weeks later) it was hot during the day again. Typical desert weather I suppose. Currently, it’s been hot during the day but still nice enough at night that I’ve been able to sleep inside. I hear from the volunteers that lived through hot season last year that by the end of February, it’ll still be 80 or 90 degrees in the evenings…blech. This makes even Florida winters look chilly!
One nice thing since I’ve been back is that I’ve finally started a couple of the things I wanted to do prior to training. The most fun one being a radio broadcast! It looks like I’ll get to have my very own time slot each week to talk about health related topics. The health hour was already on the schedule, but the midwife who used to do it moved away, and no one ever replaced her so they had just been playing music. Perfect for me, since it won’t be a big deal if I can’t make it one week or am out of town. Basically, I write out what I want to say beforehand (since my Bambara isn’t quite up to ad-libbing on air yet) and then I talk a little, the Dj plays a little music, and back and forth like so until I’ve finished my talk. Then of course we have the “shout outs”. I greet my host family, homologue, and the people in the village whose clinic I work at. This seems to be everyone’s favorite part of the broadcast, but hopefully they’re learning a little while they wait to hear their names on the radio. Eventually I’ll probably play some American music and maybe even have a guest speaker or too, but for now I’m content to read my scripts and say a few hellos.
After doing our first lessons on HIV/AIDS at the 9th grade here, it’s been like walking around a whole new town for Kate and me. I don’t know if it’s just wishful thinking, but I do feel like I’ve heard less “Toubab!” and more “Sira!” when I’m in town. Probably that’s because with 80-90 kids per class and the three classes we’ve gone talked to so far, there are a whole lot more kids that recognize me, even if I don’t remember all of them from class. We’ll see what happens after I do my first health lessons at the elementary school this week…I’ll be practically a celebrity haha.