call me bintou

a ni sogomo friends and fam, Im here in mali safe and sound and I love this place! so far everyone has been so nice, the weather is perfect (really not that hot) and it is so beautiful!
the first 2 days we spent near bamako, going to class in our wonderful, open air class building and meeting lots of people from the area. day one they set us loose in the crazy marketplace in center city and we were paired off and had to find certain things and buy certain things and then find our way back to the hotel. it was completely overwhelming without knozing bambara but we all made it!
weve met so many warm people who are very welcoming and invite us to join them in food or dance or the likes. (this computer is so hard to type on so excuse my mistakes).
ive spent the last 2 days in siby, a small village about 1.5 hours outside the city. it was very remote with no electricity or running water and we had a great time... meetng the locals, playing soccer, etc. the first night there after dinner we heard very loud music coming from another part of the village so some of us followed it and found a huge dance festival with hundreds of villagers. they invited us to dance so we ended up being there for hours, playing zith the kids and dancing a TON. it was so great... i even busted out some of the dance moves i learned in african dance class and they were cheering and joining. everyone just has this great love of life and its contagious.
today we returned from siby and ive just met my host family and seen my home for the next 3 mnths. i love it! its very simple but i have a small room to myself. most of the house is an outdoor area zith a beautiful mosaic floor. there are lots of people that im not sure my "relation" to yet including some adorable little kids; a little baby named mohamadou and a little sis named lala who is 4. there are some girls who are about 12 or so and more people that i will meet tonight zhen they return from work and such. i should tell you now that im not claire anymore... here i am BINTOU TRAORE. i love the name bintou so im having everyone call me that... even the other students. hehe.
so, there is so mcuh more to tell but my internet clock is running low and i need to leave so,e time for this thing to send. from now on, ill post updates when i can on my blog: dumali.blogspot.com. check it out and feel free to subscribe. im not sure that i will be able to use internet so mcuh here but i will try when i can!
feel free to write back and i will try to respond!
miss you and love you all.
hErE (peace),BINTOU
PS annemarie and lucy... there are mango trees everywhere!!! its all we eat!!!