Blogs from Mali, Africa - page 19

Heya everyone Well there certainly have been some exciting times here lately! I've arrived in Mali but I'll get to that part later. There's good stuff in the middle I think you'll want to hear about... So I finished my 3 week stint in the desert two days ago. I will admit that I was a little sad to leave, but only because I had met some great people there. Hopefully it won't be too long until I see them again! Travel the last few days has been rough, starting with a trip out in the bush where we spent 2 hours getting our truck out of the mud because it got stuck; twice. There is nothing like the feeling of scraping mud out from under your wheels with your bare hands, let me tell you. ... read more

Reuters does a great job of covering trouble spots around the world. They pay attention to things that major US media hold in their blind spot. So read the latest on the situation in north Mali with the Tuareg nomads. BAMAKO, June 30 (Reuters) - Mali has reached a peace agreement with Tuareg rebels seeking greater autonomy for their northern desert region, a senior government official and a spokesman for the insurgents said on Friday. The light-skinned, nomadic gunmen attacked army camps in the Saharan trading town of Kidal last month, looting vehicles and arms before retreating to mountains near the Algerian border, raising fears of a full-scale desert rebellion. "The demands for autonomy, special status, or the creation of local governance structures have been abandoned," a senior official from Mali's Territorial Administration Ministry told Reuters, ... read more

I’m not planning on posting anymore updates on this blog in the near future, but if you want to see what I am up to now you can check out www.nigercurrents.ca... read more

Geo: 12.653, -7.9864After receiving our Malian visa in Dakar, we opted to take a flight (2 hours) rather than take a bus (2 days journey) from Dakar to Bamako, Mali. Reports from those who took the weekly train to Mali were also discouraging - one party got off and took a cab after 50 hours! Bamako, both the capital and largest city in Mali is a dusty sprawl of 45 square km and home to over one million people. Two words can sum up our first impressions of Mali, "hot and dusty." We arrived at the end of the tourist season where temps rise to over 110 degrees each day. It is like being in Arizona in the summer time - yet there are no air-conditioned buildings where one can take refuge.In order to avoid a ... read more

Y'ello, This journal is about Mali, about wild stuff that happened on the edge of the Sahara, but before I get to that I feel compelled to confess that I wrote my last journal somewhat frustrated and bothered and so omitted some of the positive that had a place there. I forgot to write how utterly exhilerating it was to cross the breadth of a country, of Ghana, in three days in the back seat of a station wagon stuffed to bursting with the musical instruments of Burkina Faso, instruments my friends had made, ngonis and djembe drums and bellophones. That was worthwhile. And I forgot to write how I spent most of my evenings that first week in Burkina making music with friends around a leafy courtyard, singing, mostly, because I don't know how to ... read more