Blogs from District of Bamako, Mali, Africa - page 3

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

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 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

After what has felt like a short amount of time in Bamako, I’m headed off early tomorrow morning to Mopti (a 10-hour bus ride), where I’ll meet Nora, who has been in Tominion. The next day, Christmas Eve in fact, we’ll head off to Hombori (a 4-hour ride) together to meet our friends, who are visiting from Durham. I know that I have expressed it repeatedly, but I can’t say it enough just how unbelievable it is that it’s the winter holiday season back home. The sense of timelessness here is so thorough that I often have to pause and consider the date just to make sure that we’ve only been here for 3 months or that we only have 7 more months to go. It makes it especially hard to shake off dreams of being ... read more

When I researched for this trip I kept reading that many people considered Mali one of the highlights of West Africa. It is known for it's music, hiking in the Dogon Country, a visit to Timbuktu and trips down the Niger River. However, I had also heard that it was very touristy in main sites of Mali and full of pesky guides. I prefer to travel to a place before it becomes the hot travel destination and changes because of tourism. The main thing being that the people see you a $$$ sign instead as a actual person. I arrived in Mali on November 17th from Senegal after 2 long days of travel just to get to Mali. My first night was in Kayes, which is supposed to be the hottest city in West Africa with ... read more