Update: Assignments & Counterparts

Another quick update from Mali.

Along with information revealing our site for service, we also recently recieved what are intended assignments are. However, Peace Corps encourages volunteers to take up many projects outside of their assignment, so these are by no means are only work for the next two years. Rather, they are a guideline on where help is needed and where we may get started.

Joye's Education sector assignment is pretty vague: it is to spread awareness about the importance of education, increase female student enrollment, and work with youth in community development. However, our village also requested a Health Education sector volunteer, so there will be opportunities for her to fulfill this role in the community as well. Moreover, we know that we will be living in close proximity to the teachers, so this will allow Joye to integrate with them quicker, hopefully making her more effective at accomplishing her upcoming work.

Jim's assignment is a bit more specific, but there is a catch. He will be working with a tailor's association on improving their income-generating activities, including artisan craft and tree sapling production. So really, it will be a mix of both the Environment sector and the Small Business Enterprise sector, which is exciting. The catch is that the association is in a larger village 14k (1.5 hr bike ride) away from site, meaning that he will not be there everyday. However, there will be opportunities to work on-site as well, including starting a community garden and improving food security in the local area.

Yesterday, we also had our first conversation with our counterparts, Malians who have volunteered to "show us the ropes" during the first few months of site as well as be our business partners as we seek to fulfill our assignment. This involves a huge time committment from them and we are really grateful. Joye's counterpart is a farmer from our site village who may sit on the local school board, while Jim's counterpart is a tailor and a tree farmer who is part of the association. Joye's counterpart does not speak French (how ironic), so all of our first conversation was exclusively in Bambara! We impressed both our counterparts and ourselves, but we may have exhausted all of our vocabulary, making future conversation very difficult.

Which is a bummer becasue we will be travelling with them for eight hours on the way to our site tomorrow morning. But thankfully, they will be there to make sure we get on the correct bus, transfer to the correct car, and then find our way by bike to our new home. Our counterparts will also make sure we are healthy and secure, introduce us to community leaders throughout the week, and take us to our village's Wednesday market. It will be an exhausting, yet exhilarating week, and we are very much ready for it.

Plan on seeing another post on our site visit in a little over a week's time. Until then, thank you for reading, and please be sure to leave us a comment or question below!