Blogs from Mali, Africa - page 9

The next morning Souleman had arranged for a vehicle to pick us up and bring us to Mopti. Once again it was an incredibly hot and crammed van on a terrible bumpy road, but we were getting pretty used to this by this point. While we were sitting there, Berkley and Jess talked with some guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who owned a 4x4 that he takes out to Timbuktu. Normally this would seem like a sketchy situation, but its pretty much how it works in Mali. There aren’t many transportation options like busses or trotros, its really just “I know a guy who knows a guy…” Once we got to Mopti and stopped by an ATM we got to the “station” where there were 4x4s to Timbuktu. The guidebook had warned ... read more

Two and a half weeks removed from Senegal, I admit feeling rather disinclined to document our vacation there. Not that it was not a great time. The weather was terrific (about 20 degrees cooler than here), the nearly deserted beaches of Popenguine and Toubab Dialaw were fabulous, and even the pushy vendors of Dakar could not detract from its cosmopolitan flair. But something about returning to noisy, dirty, smoggy Bamako felt good, familiar. Of course, I’m ready for another vacation at this point. There have been a couple of noteworthy developments since our return. For one, we have found ourselves as the unwitting employers of child laborers. It sounds bad, I know, but it is not what we intended. When we came back from Senegal, Nora’s laundry lady came to use immediately with two electricity bills ... read more

Obama pagne - notice anything askew? I also saw Obama panties but couldn't get a snapshot. Is it just me or is it disrespectful to put the president's name on panties? And, if you are going to go to the trouble to design some fabric, I should think you'd want to make sure the guy's flag isn't backwards! But, maybe that's just me!... read more

Nora chided me the last time she read my blog for always claiming shock at how long it’s been since my last entry. It’s a genuine sentiment, though. Perhaps I’m easy to shock, or perhaps the notion that I have of myself as a regular blogger is woefully misplaced. In any case, wow, it’s been a long time since my last entry! When I look back over the past three weeks, one of the only defining things that comes to mind is the heat. It is ridiculously hot these days! Hundreds during the day, 80 degrees at night. As it gets hotter and hotter, my sleep is becoming less and less adequate. For the past two nights, I’ve woken up sweating to the point that I have gotten up to take a cold shower. That usually ... read more

I settled down to write a long entry chronicling the myriad things that have happened since my last post, but now that I’m at the keyboard, I feel like that task is too daunting—a lot has happened! Instead, I feel more inclined to give just a brief look back at the past three weeks. In that time Nora and I went to the Festival on the Niger, had Nora’s parents and brother visit us, traveled to Dogon country, and returned to Bamako with the first wave of hot season sweeping over us. Now, those three weeks of activity and heat seem quite distant. Nora has since departed for North Carolina along with her family to attend the funeral of her grandfather, leaving me in quiet solidarity. Moreover, the weather has changed yet again. The days have ... read more

I felt the rains down in Africa, so says the song. Here we are at the airport in Casablanca, awaiting our flight to Bamako and it's raining. It's 10:30 PM. We've been here since 4:05 PM this afternoon. We left Amsterdam at 1:25 PM. Royal Air Maroc was it's own experience--though not a bad one. It was just a bit of cattle call loading--Southwest Airlines was orderly by comparison. No one was listened to the gate agent about loading by rows, and the one bag carry on rule was not close to being enforced. Thomas pushed me (literally) to push my way on as well. Welcome to Africa! The crowd was a mix of western tourists, American Christian volunteers, Moroccan families, Tuareg families--quite beautifully and colorfully attired, and other African peoples. The 737 took off and ... read more