say what?! Bambara language update

Take a quick look at this picture.  It looks like pages of a chemistry book, right?  Nope, this is a Bambara language learning book.  When they have to explain something with half-page diagrams its gotten too complicated!  I'm an English teacher and I have to explain some tricky grammar rules sometimes, but this is meant for people with degrees in linguistics or something. 
That said, my Bambara learning is going quite well.  I've now done more than 50 lessons with my teacher Fatim. (each lesson is 2 hours, so that's more than 100 hours of private tutoring - wow!)  And I've started doing an extra Bambara morning each week with Daniel who is pictured below.  When I started my lessons I made noticeable rapid progress; that's how it is when someone is at a beginner level of language learning.  Now that I am "intermediate", my progress seems to have plateaued a bit.  I know I am still making progress, but its not as dramatic from week to week.  I am now able to say all sorts of things in Bambara, my problems are with trying to understand the rapid mumbly way a lot of people seem to speak.  I often have solid 10-15 minute conversations all in Bambara with taxi drivers, so that is encouraging and its definitely coming along.  I hope that the next few months of lessons will help me get from intermediate to advanced.
I am so grateful for the financial gifts that a few people gave that have allowed me to do my language lessons!  Thank you so much!

I am doing extra lessons with Daniel now and I think its helpful to learn from more than one person.  My regular teacher is a Muslim and Daniel is a Christian, so he is helping me with certain Christian vocabulary and giving me a different perspective on cultural issues.   The picture is from last week when I visited a prayer meeting.  He is an assistant pastor at a local church but on Fridays he is part of leading this prayer meeting where people come to pray especially for Mali.  I knew that Daniel was the guy to ask to find me a good family and village to spend some time with to practice my Bambara.  I'll write about that in the next post.