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Published: September 21st 2008
Nora, Washing My Shirt
... for the first and perhaps last timeWe’ve been in Bamako for two days, but it has seemed much longer for all of the activity. That’s even taking into account the fact that we slept for half of the first day. Anyway, because our flight from Casablanca was three hours late to leave, we got to Bamako right around 6:30 am. We were greeted by a weary albeit vigilant man, who collected all of our things and filled out our passport information for us. After directing us through quite the confusion at the baggage claim, he led us outside along the side of the main building to a small private lounge room. There we met two Rotarians, who had graciously waited for us over the course of our three-hour delay.
After introductions we were off, headed north through the city of Bamako. Being situated on the southern outskirts of the city, we sped along a narrow paved road that twisted through uncrowded blocks of modest cinder block homes and stores. Although the buildings were humble, the vegetable gardens and swept dirt yards adorning them gave a very charming ambiance to the area. As we crossed the Niger River into the central area of Bamako, we entered the more developed area of town. Nevertheless, the banks and shallows were dotted with fishermen in dugout canoes.
North of the river, we passed through a section of town with many government buildings. These were rather stately, and everything was green, from the shrubbery abutting the sidewalks to the enormous trees in the yards, to the occasional roundabouts. This gave way to a more densely built-up area with more modest cinder block buildings and the first of the market sellers laying out their wares. Once we got to our hotel, a simultaneously cozy and sprawling complex shaded by enormous trees, we were led to our room, where we promptly knocked out for about 7 hours.
We woke up in the afternoon to a tremendous thunderstorm (apparently the rainy season doesn’t end for another two weeks), but stayed put in our room until most of the torrential rains had fallen. We ventured out not long after and made our way down the main road, which was a muddy mess, but we managed to make it to a nearby grocery store, which made it worthwhile. Afterwards, we met up with the president of one of the Bamako Rotary Clubs, who was also one of the men waiting for us at the airport. Georges, who is also director of the electric utility in Mali, kindly drove us a little ways to a modest hotel and restaurant, where we met “Panda”, a Chinese woman who went by Panda because her name was too hard to pronounced, or so we were told. We were fed egg rolls and given water and engaged in some elementary conversation in French, after which we learned that Panda was Georges’ wife—just a slight faux pas.
We left soon after, and Georges took us to a couple of apartments to see if we might want to rent them. Although clean, they lacked much character and offered no natural light whatsoever. Beyond that, there were outrageously priced…$450/month and $600/month for the other. Needless to say, we didn’t go for either.
By the time Georges dropped us off, we were both exhausted, Nora for having to speak French for hours on end and me for having to listen. (Alright, we were still tired from our travels that morning, too.) Nevertheless, we arranged to meet with Bubakar, the brother of a Malian friend in Durham, that evening, and that proved to be well worth it. He was quite the engaging guy. He told us about the student demonstrations at his law school and the funky scheduling of exams and breaks. We also talked about the economic crises in the U.S. and the one hitting the people in northern Mali. By the end of the evening, Nora and I were Frenched out, so we slept pretty hard that night.
The next day, we woke up late with just enough time to grab breakfast (sorry, Margo, just bread and jam) before meeting Georges. He took us straight to an upscale hotel where his Rotary Club would be meeting. We met a few people there, including a very engaging man from Burkina Faso and visitor from Quebec who spoke incomprehensible French. The meeting proceeded with introductions and then lurched into a long discussion about the Club’s projects. I followed the first half but lost concentration as it wore on. It did get a little rousing, when some of the members challenged Georges’ rush to find projects for Nora, and, yes, myself. Nora and I were both struck that it seemed too predictable that the only other white man in the room (Georges is originally from southern France) would end up trying to cram some project down the West Africans’ throat. Georges rang the meeting to a close (with a bell, of course) before things got too contentious (and awkward), and also just as the student Rotary group, Rotaract, filed in.
As we waited for Georges to transfer money to the bank representative, Nora and I found ourselves standing awkwardly behind the table of the student members, who were beginning their meeting. We sat down so as not to stick out too much but we were up again as Rotaract stood up and haltingly lurched through an off-pitch ode to Rotary. It would have been much more amusing, but as we were heading out the door moments later, I noticed that the back of my pants were wet. Indeed my entire butt was wet. It only took a few minutes further before I realized that the liquid in question was urine. I had indeed sat in a urine-soaked chair.
Although nothing could have masked my dismay to an English speaker, there were none in the area who could enjoy my colorful use of language for all its meaning, save Nora. I stormed off to the bathroom where I found nothing useful for cleaning one’s clothes of urine. After a few moments of desperation, I returned to Nora and Georges, to whom Nora had explained that I had sat in something “dirty”. He kindly drove us back to our hotel, where I washed someone else’s urine from my pants, shirt, and boxers.
Afterwards, we made arrangements to meet with a “realtor” friend of a friend of a friend, who would show us more apartments that afternoon. We strolled around a little bit, but by then it was quite hot, so we settled into a deserted courtyard/restaurant/bar/dance club, and ordered some lunch. By the time that we finished, we were off with Kebe, the “realtor”, first showed us a real dive at the base of a beautiful mountain at the north end of town. I would have actually gone for it, if it had had any furniture. The next place that we saw was better and was in a great part of town (not too far from our hotel, in fact) near the good restaurants and music clubs, but we still wanted a little more. We then went to an awesome house not much further away that was without furniture but had its own courtyard and separate kitchen. Because getting furniture would be an issue, we decided to sit on that further. We ended up seeing about four other places, which involved a lot of driving slowly over badly rutted dirt roads and hunting down hard-to-find people before we decided that we wanted the house without the furniture. We returned to the owner’s apartment, but he wasn’t there, so we agreed to return later that evening. In the meantime, we knew that we would have to come up with some cash to pay for our hotel, the “realtor”, and for the house, three months’ rent of which we would be expected to pay. Unfortunately, our bank does not let us withdraw more than $200/day, and so we would have to transfer money to all of our various accounts to retrieve enough from the ATMs. To do this, we had to go online. However, the hotel’s wireless was not working that evening. Go figure.
Kebe returned, and we ended up engaging in the most bizarre of negotiations with the house owner over paying the three months’ rent and whether or not we wanted to buy furniture from him. Between Nora and myself, and Kebe and the landlord, it felt way too much like a Mexican standoff. Nevertheless, we paid a $200 deposit, thus sealing the deal until the next morning. We then luckily managed to get more cash from the ATM before paying Kebe and returning to the hotel to meet Hama, a friend of the same Malian friend in Durham. He’s a med student here in Bamako, so medicine dominated the conversation (just when I thought I wouldn’t have to face that for a long time!). It was OK, though—I was too tired to follow the French much anyway.
Today we'll be tied up with finalizing our lease, buying furniture, and moving in, so I expect the next entry to be a ways off.
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Claire Dennis
non-member comment
So which house did you go with? I can't wait to read this sober. Love, your faithful reader, Claire