Today I started volunteering…I think.  To say there were communication issues would be an understatement and I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be doing for my volunteer work yet.  But, French skills aside, it was a very interesting day.  I was taken to a school in the suburbs of Bamako where adults and teens (mostly women, but some men too) were learning to read and write Bambara, the national language of Mali, as well as learning “lifeskills” (a word my tour guide/volunteer coordinator used in English).  The lifeskills included hairbraiding, fabric dying, cooking, sanitation practices, and automechanics.  

Before the tour, the tour guide/volunteer coordinator gave me a rundown of the program.  There was one sentence in his schpiel that I couldn’t quite get.  I asked him to repeat it and he did and I still didn’t understand and asked again.  After about four back and forths, I just pretended that I understood so I wouldn’t take up his entire day.  But, apparently my acting skills haven’t improved since my failed middle school audition for Harvey and he knew that I was lost.  He kept trying to explain the concept to me and then eventually said “Time is money, yes?” in English.  THAT I understood.  All subsequent jokes about the irony of me taking a full 6 minutes to grasp that concept bombed miserably.  I have come to the conclusion that I am not funny in French…but that’s probably not going to stop me from trying.  Awkward bilingual moments, ahoy!