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Blogs from Bamako, District of Bamako, Mali, Africa
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Every child deserves a 5th Birthday.
Published: April 17th 2012Africa » Mali » District of Bamako » Bamako
April 1st 2012
Blog About Malaria Month 2012 Over half of a million people died from malaria last year. This is more people than in the average American city. Imagine the entire city of Atlanta being wiped off the map. The year before, we lost Denver. The year before that, all of Boston, all gone, in one fell swoop. The majority of these deaths took place in Africa. In fact there are six countries that account for over 60% of worldwide malaria deaths: Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, the DRC, Nigeria, Mozambique, and … Mali. Malaria has been around for centuries. King Tut likely died of malaria in 1332 B.C. This makes it seem like fighting malaria is a lost cause. It’s been around since forever and it’ll be around forever. But this isn’t true. Malaria is on the decline. ... read more
February 13th 2012
I really want to video everything when I walk around to help explain to people what life is like here, but I don't really feel comfortable doing that. I was able to more or less steathily record this street scene from my apartment window. It's a pretty boring video of the street below, and actually one of the quieter and calmer moments. If you have anything that you want me to get on camera here, let me know!... read more
January 30th 2012
Every morning I walk a little over a mile (~2 km) to work. Between dodging traffic, stopping to greet people, and picking up some breakfast along the way this can take me almost 30 minutes. This combined with the walk home in the afternoon is by far the most stressful part of my day. It can at times be the most fulfilling, but this morning was not one of those experiences. Today as I was walking it was impossible to ignore the rancid smell that filled the portion of my walk that takes me along a paved road. There is normally a mix of smells in the air, and admittedly most of them are unpleasant: burning trash, exhaust from all the vehicles, and occasionally urine and feces. I’ve become more or less accustomed to all of ... read more
A history of Thanksgivings past
Published: November 25th 2011Africa » Mali » District of Bamako » Bamako
November 24th 2011
Thanksgiving is my friend Raven's favorite holiday. Aside from the insane amount of food involved, I never really understood why. This year however, I realized that Thanksgiving is an important time, and not just because of the desserts. Thanksgiving is where this all started. It is where everything changed. In 2007, my entire family got together outside of Elkhart, Indiana in a place called South Fork to celebrate Thanksgiving. A few days before my pending departure to Guinea, the day served also a going away party (there were posters with elephants on them that said, "Good luck in Africa, Samantha!") and a pre-mature birthday celebration (birthday cake and pumpkin pie, really what more can you ask for?) A lot has changed since then. One year later I was in the West African capital city of Conakry ... read more
October 18th 2011
After two years, I've come back to West Africa. The first two weeks in Senegal were surreal. I just dived back into life African Peace Corps lifestyle as if I had never left. My French luckily reappeared. But within 24 hours there were people testing my Pular as well. This proved to be a bit more challenging to recall. But I was never fabulous at Pular, so it was really as if nothing had changed. It was as if the last two years of my life hadn't happened at all. No year in Boston, no MBA from Portugal. This was very bittersweet. There was a a degree of relief: I knew how to do things already and I could easily slide in the flow of life here. But there was also a sense of regression: if ... read more
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January 1st 2011
Firstly Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. We have not been in Mali for about 11 days - hard to keep up with the days and date....but we have power this am and hopefully internet later today so I will start at the beginning. We arrived in Bamako (capital of Mali) on 22nd December minus our luggage. The flights from Bangkok to Addis and then to Bamako made it a very long day - about 16 hours in the air, plus down time at airports and we lost about 11 hours in actual time. Thankfully we had a 20 hour stop over in Bangkok to catch up on some sleep otherwise I don't think I could have handled the lost luggage thing as well. I was only one of about 50 people who didn't ... read more
Mali: Southern Mali Bushcamps & Bamako - December 2010
Published: January 18th 2011Africa » Mali » District of Bamako » Bamako
December 20th 2010
We crossed into Mali at the Senegal border town of Kadira and first up had another three nights of bushcamps. The Boabab trees seem to be everywhere now, they’re such awesome looking trees! We stopped near a whole group of towering Boabab’s for lunch just after crossing through the border. However, a policeman from the border who had asked (and been refused) bribes from us drove up on his motorbike and decided to throw his weight around and tell us we couldn’t stop on this (albeit public) land. On we moved to the other side of a guard post... approximately 1km down the road..... which turned out to be outside of his ‘jurisdiction’ and therefore we could resume lunch without interruption :-). That day we stopped at Keyes, reputed to be the ‘hottest town in Africa’ ... read more
I Have Moved - 4 Years On - And a Totally New Challenge
Published: June 11th 2010Africa » Mali » District of Bamako » Bamako
June 11th 2010
I Have Moved - 4 Years On - And a Totally New Challenge So much has happened since I started this blog - and looking back over four years I am a little sad that I didn't keep up with my blog writing. Since those last entries from 2006 - I got married, continued to travel the World, moved through a couple of different jobs, saw the wonderful boom times of Dubai and then the dreadful 'crash'. I hope to cover all of those highlights in some detail over the next few months on my new Blog (http://www.angelprojects.org/blog/my-stories/) - but for now I just wanted all of my subscribers and followers to know that I am still alive and well! And that I have decided to start writing again. A few months ago I found myself ... read more
'Evacuation' sounds a lot cooler than it is.
Published: January 25th 2010Africa » Mali » District of Bamako » Bamako
October 26th 2009
The following are exerts of emails that I sent out during my time in Mali. October 9, 2009 "Ok, so here's the deal. Yesterday I left Guinea. We can't say we were evacuated, but that's what happened. I'm currently just outside of Bamako. I'll be here for 2-4 weeks. It doesn't look like we'll be allowed to go back to Guinea. But there's no final word yet. You may be seeing me really soon. I don't know what to do. There are some people applying for transfers, but they're all for a minimum of a year. Morocco is out of the question. (They said no.) Transfering seems really daunting, but so does the US." "So, Peace Corps Guinea was evacuated yesterday. I'm in Bamako, Mali now. If we aren't allowed to go back to Guinea, I ... read more
September 4th 2009
Hallo, Toch maar een blog haha, op het toetsenbord zit geen punt, dus bij deze is dat : Ik ben via Casablanca naar Bamako gevlogen: Ik heb vanaf het vliegveld een trein genomen naar een buitenwijk van Casablanca (het centrum was de bedoeling): Ik vond de stad heel bijzonder, hitte en uitgeputte mensen die nog de laatste etenswaren kopen bij stalletjes langs de weg voor het breken van het vasten (het is Ramadan), uitbundige bloemen in de tuinen bij gekleurde huizen, palmbomen en vooral heel veel leven: Maar nu ben ik in Bamako: De reisgidsen omschrijven het als een typische Afrikaanse stad: En inderdaad als ik er loop of ik de taxi zit, dan herken ik veel dingen die ik op tv heb gezien over Afrikaanse steden: Zie de 2 foto s: Heel veel stalletjes (van ... read more
