"I Swear"

Well now that we all have John Michael Montgomery/Boyz II Men stuck in our heads...

I literally have 14 minutes to write a final post before leaving Internet for... a long time. So here goes:

We are now PCVs! 77 of us took our oaths at the U.S. Embassy in Bamako on the 21st. The embassy is beautiful, and it has air conditioning. AMAZING. I got a HUGE kick out of swearing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies. I also refrained from acting like a 4th grader and literally saying, "I, state your name, do solemnly swear..." If you're not proud of me for making it through stage, be proud of me for that.

We spent the rest of the day having a delicious picnic at Tubaniso and partying it up in Bamako at the "Pirate's Club". Georgetown kids, you would have loved this place. The stage before us had the task of naming our group. Each stage develops a kind of personality. The stage before is the "Belushi Stage". I don't think that one needs a lot of explanation. The Belushis, after much deliberation, have decided to call us "The Breakfast Club" due to our diverse array of personalities. Obviously, I'm Molly Ringwald.

September 22nd is Malian Independence Day. I celebrated with some friends with sleeping in, swimming in a pool, eating Chinese for lunch, and ordering two servings of ice cream. You can see a picture of my special Malian Independence Day outfit in the photo album whose link appears at the end of this post.

I am now in a hotel in the city of Segou, about to head out to my banking town. I'll spend a few days there before finally making it to my permanent site (Kimparana). At site, we have 3 months of just chilling out and getting to know our villages/towns/cities. I will love not having to work and slowing down the pace after a hectic 2 months of training.

As you probably already know, I will be gone from the Internet for QUITE a while, so I thought I would take this opportunity to make a shameless appeal for mail. You can also call my cell phone and leave me voicemails, but I can only check my phone when in my banking town. My address is:

Susan Dyer, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 75
San, Mali
West Africa

Thank you to all of those who have already written me letters (and there are a lot of you!). Replies have been written as well but there are no stamps around this place. It's ridiculous. Hopefully now that I will be closer to a post office I can reply to written correspondence with a bit more alacrity. Here's the link for the last batch of pictures for a while: http://georgetown.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2083305&l=dd02a&id=1404038. As always, I hope you enjoy them. Wish me luck!

TAS out.