La Nostalgie

Since I’ve spent the past week or so feeling really nostalgic, I’ve thought a lot about what I’m going to miss about this country. Of course there is the obvious: I will miss my family, the girls on the program, and all of the other friends I’ve made here. But there are definitely other, more discreet aspects of life here that I am going miss. The pace of life here, though it did take some getting used to, is so much more laid back than life in the US. There’s a lot of sitting around and waiting… which still bothers me at times, but it’s a more relaxed lifestyle than anything back home. Then of course there is all of the importance of greetings, and how no one simply walks by each other in the street. Also, although it will be nice to eat the food back home, I’m going to miss the dablennin (hibiscus drink), degue (yoghurt-millet porridge), tigadegena (peanut sauce), pain au chocolat from pastry shops, zere (watermelon), and all of the other delicious fruit. I’m going to miss spending the last 4 months Lady Gaga-free. I’m going to miss the bright colors that everyone wears. I’m going to miss never having to worry about layering, and being able to just throw on a tank top and go outside. I’m going to miss seeing Malian men riding their motos with their boubous blown up by the wind, making them look like marshmallows. I’m going to miss the French television my family watches, notably the international new on France 24.  I’m going to miss stepping out of my house and watching soccer games on the field right outside. I’m going to miss waking up to the quiet sound of sweeping outside of my window. I’m also going to miss not having constant internet access; it’s been a nice break. And I’m really going to miss hearing my name, Raki.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t some things I won’t miss. Having privacy is currently the number one thing I’m looking forward to, especially now that my sister has taken to locking me out of my room basically every day. It’ll be nice to finally sleep through the night without being woken up with lights, my sister’s phone calls, and loud music. My family has also been fighting a lot lately, and it’s uncomfortable for me to sit through. I’m really looking forward to controlling what I eat and when I eat it. I won’t miss inhaling diesel fuels every day when I cross the paved road near my house. And it’ll be nice to be able to walk down the road without hearing “toubabou!” nine hundred times.

As my days remaining in this country are down to the single digits, the negative things about my time here are harder to think of, since the positive aspects are so much more important and are the things I want to remember. I’m sure that when I get back home, the bad things will be a distant memory, and I’ll just want to come back.

Crunch Time

Phew. The last week was crazy, but I’ve finally turned in my ISP and feel like I can relax again. After going back to Kalaban Coura for a couple of nights last weekend, I headed back to Sikoro to finish up my project. On Monday, I interviewed two more government officials: a worker for the Service of Sanitation, Pollution, and Environment, and the representative of Sikoro to the “town hall” of Commune I, the district of Bamako that Sikoro is in. The interviews were interesting; they echoed a lot of the grievances that the mayor of Sikoro has told to me the week before. The government’s resources are just too limited to provide adequate sanitary infrastructure to Bamako’s booming population.

I spent the day on Tuesday writing up my report in French for the coordinator of PACAPSI, the NGO I’ve been working with over these weeks. I promised him I’d give him a summary of my findings at the end of my time with him… but it really was a lot of extra work on top of my ISP. After turning over to him my 25-page report, he read it and said, “But you didn’t include anything about liquid waste, only solid waste.” Needless to say, I was a bit annoyed. I told him I could give it to him next week, after I finished up my paper for SIT.

I moved back to Kalaban Coura on Tuesday night and dedicated the next two days to writing my paper. It was exhausting, and I don’t really want to have to think about it again, at least for a couple of days. It felt good to turn it in… but I do have to present my research for 30 minutes on Wednesday, so I can’t totally put the subject out of my head quite yet.

After turning in my paper, my rapidly diminishing amount of time in this country became a reality. I’m starting to really dread going back. Although it will be nice to take a shower, not be hot all the time, and download Taylor Swift’s newest album (and of course to see my family), I cannot imagine leaving what I have made my home here in Bamako. My family is truly wonderful, and I hate that I’ll have to leave here without them really knowing how much they mean to me, since there’s no way to put it. They gave me a beautiful gift yesterday: a dress of beautiful green and purple tie-dye, several bracelets, and a pair of leather sandals. My father keeps threatening to hide my suitcase so I won’t be able to leave. I’m mostly worried since keeping in touch with them really won’t be too easy, but I’ll have to find some way to make it work.

Today we had our final party at school. All of our homestay families were invited, and we were asked to prepare the food. Our options were fairly limited, since we don’t have access to an oven and instead cook everything over coals, but we ended up making a pretty delicious (if I do say so myself) stir fry with a wide variety of veggies along with homemade hummus served with pita bread. Modibo’s wife provided some Malian food… which was probably for the best since I don’t think my family was crazy about the vegetable-filled meal and were happier to eat something they were familiar with. I, however, ate a lot of the stir fry and hummus, and was extremely content.

I feel really weird right now; I’m essentially done academically and now have all this free time that I don’t know what to do with, but I definitely don’t want to spend the next week and a half twiddling my thumbs waiting to leave. I guess I’ll just have to enjoy my time with my family as much as possible.

Happy Thanksgiving

                Well, I have finally finished my week plus of walking (more like hiking) around Sikoro, literally wandering into people’s homes and asking them to partake in my questionnaire. It was interesting, to say the least, and very, very hot (in the upper nineties everyday… how is it November?). I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful translator, Souleyman, who is a joy to be around… lucky because I’ve spent five hours with him every day for the past week and a half.

                My survey consisted of a dozen or so questions about where families get their water for both drinking and utilization (cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.), how long it takes to collect the water, who does the actual collecting and how many times a day, where the families dispose of their solid waste, and how they empty out their pit latrines when they are filled up. Listening to people’s grievances about obtaining water is not easy. It is especially difficult for those living on the top of the hill, for the closest water source they have is a well located relatively high up, but by no means near the top, and the potability of this water is questionable. Not only that, but carrying buckets of water up the steep hills is truly unimaginable for me, since it was really a struggle without a load. Families at the bottom of the hill, where it is crowded but there are more water sources, face huge problems with lines at the public faucets: it can take them several hours to collect their water even if they live 100 yards away. The problem is worsened exponentially during the dry season (March-May), when most wells dry up and the faucets are sometimes cut off during the daytime hours, and thus families can only obtain their water between midnight and five in the morning.

                Trash pick-up is a bit less of an issue, thanks to PACAPSI, the NGO with which I’m working. They’ve supplied a lot of the GIEs (private enterprises that charge small fees to take care of trash pick-up since the government doesn’t do it) with suitable equipment, like working tractors and new shovels (as opposed to the donkey and cart routine), and have organized them to provide for different sectors and all charge the same price, as opposed to competing with each other. However, because the state of the roads is so bad in areas of the neighborhood, GIEs cannot access a number of households (notably those on the top of the hill, where there literally is no road access).

                Today I met with the mayor of Sikoro. A soft-spoken, sweet man, he lamented to me about just how hard his job is. There are a lot of things he wishes he could do, and that he knows he should be doing, but that he simply does not have the funds. He explained that Sikoro is not high on the government of commune 1’s list of priorities, so he is hardly given anything financially. He also said that the commune government “has not put a cent” into bettering the sanitation of the neighborhood. No wonder PACAPSI faces such hurdles.

                Living in Sikoro is going well. My family is not the friendliest, but I do have my own room and I’m a five minute walk away from PACAPSI. Also, there’s an American NGO in the neighborhood and I run into their workers nearly every day, so it’s really not too lonely. It’s also a nice change to live on the north side of the Niger River, where all of the action takes place.

                I cannot believe today is Thanksgiving. I’m meeting up with the other girls in the program for dinner tonight; those that went away to different cities are now back and I’m looking forward to seeing them and eating well! The fact that it’s turkey day is a rude awakening that I now have less than three weeks in this country… it’s really upsetting since I finally feel like I have my bearings. I guess that just means I’ll have to come back!

Relocation… and Sheep’s Blood

                Well, I guess it’s about time I actually write a bit about what I’m researching for my Independent Study Project. After much inner debate, I finally chose to stay in Bamako. I had originally been desperate to get out of the city – away from the pollution, traffic, and noise – but I’m used to it now, and am learning to love it.

                The overall theme for my research is to explore the effects of rapid urbanization on health. I’m working in Sikoro, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Bamako on the outskirts of the city that is growing at an explosive rate, with an NGO that focuses on sanitation and access to water in the neighborhood. The organization, called PACAPSI, consists of a couple of Malian men working out of a tiny office in Sikoro. In the past week and a half, I’ve managed to design my research project, complete all of my background research, write up a questionnaire for families in the neighborhood, and start administering the questionnaire. Specifically, I’ve decided to look into the partnership between the NGO and the local government, since it does a lot of things that the government is supposed to do like trash pick-up and water provision.

                Sikoro is unlike anywhere else in Bamako, and entering the neighborhood from Hippodrome, one of the more “modern” areas of the city, is striking. Perched on a steep hill on the border of the Manding Mountains, the neighborhood is extremely inaccessible. None of the roads are paved, and a lot of them are even unreachable by cars and wagons. You can imagine how this complicates matters of trash pick-up, which shows: litter is strewn about the streets, and piles of burning trash are ubiquitous. The local government, which, with Mali’s system of decentralization, is supposed to take care of waste management, does not have the resources to keep up with the neighborhood’s rapid growth. Private organizations now have the duty of trash pick-up, but their services are not free, and some families cannot afford the $3.00 a month fee.  Access to water is another huge problem for the neighborhood. Only 3 percent of the people have running water access in their homes, and the rest rely on common fountains, wells, and pumps. Transporting barrels of water up steep cliffs is one of the major grievances for the people of Sikoro. The problem is intensified during the dry season (March-May), when many of the fountains are cut off and the wells dry up.   Illnesses caused by these problems consist of dysentery, diarrhea, malaria (which is intensified by the stagnant water in the neighborhood, providing breeding grounds for mosquitos), among others. 

                Since the neighborhood is extremely far from Kalaban Coura, where my host family lives, I’ve had to relocate to Sikoro for the time being. I have a new host family – the Gakous – and am attempting to settle into life at their home, though it’s not easy. No one in the family speaks French, save one of the children (who doesn’t speak much) and the father, who is always at work. My Bambara skills can only get me so far. Fortunately their home is only a five minute walk from PACAPSI, cutting my commute time down immensely. It’s also definitely interesting to be living the problems of water access: we have no running water and have to store the water from the common fountain in buckets and giant barrels around the house.

                I can always come back to my host family in Kalaban Coura, and I took advantage of that this yesterday, for the celebration of Tabaksi. The Muslim holiday’s “claim to fame” is the animal sacrifice that occurs in the morning, and the eating of that animal for the rest of the day. In Mali, the animal of choice is a ram. The morning of Tabaksi, I got into a shared taxi filled with Malians dressed up in their nicest bazin outfits. As we drove through the city, I saw a few sacrifices occurring on the side of the road, but managed to turn my head away in time to avoid seeing the blood. As I walked to my house, I saw the ram tied up outside and my sisters digging a hole in the dirt. They explained that the hole was for the ram’s blood. Oh boy.

                My dad came outside all excited, telling me to get my camera and laughing at my dread for the sheep’s death. A new knife had been purchased for the slitting of the throat, and he ceremoniously brought it out of the house. Our neighbor seemed to be the man in charge of the actual killing, since he walked around door to door and did the deed at all of our neighbors’ houses.

                I guess the actual killing wasn’t that bad, but when my father brought me a chair to view the butchering of the animal it was a bit much for me. After the ram’s entire coat had been removed, I retreated to my room for a nap. I had a really vivid dream that my parents (my real, United States parents), came to visit Mali on Tabaski and to partake in the slaughtering and to meet my Malian parents. When I woke up the worst was over. I went out back to the kitchen, and all signs of the slaughtering were gone, save the ribs that my sister was grilling over coals. My mother told me she’d bought watermelon, papaya, and was making dablennin (the delicious hibiscus drink) – all things she knows I love. She was also making yassa, a really good onion sauce, so I knew I was in good hands.

                The meal was great. It really did make up for being here for Thanksgiving. I ate until I could not eat anymore, and then my mother brought out the fruit, so I ate some of that. Needless to say, by late afternoon I had entered a food coma, and spent the rest of the day lying in bed with Nene. Overall, it was a great fête.

Quirks

Well, I’d say I’m officially “used to” living in Bamako… the traffic doesn’t terrify me anymore (save my experience at the wedding last weekend), hearing “toubabou” (white person) yelled at me by children in the street has become the norm, and my stomach has officially adapted to (most of) the food – I don’t even treat my water anymore. (This is especially great because I can now buy dablennin, a deliciously sweet drink made from the hibiscus plant, off the street for 10 cents -- I’m drinking some as I write.) Since I feel pretty adapted to life here, I’ve realized that there are things about Bamako that I originally thought were weird or crazy that I don’t even notice anymore, but that you, my oh so devoted blog reader, may find amusing. Here are some that I can think of:

1.       Soap operas. I don’t want to generalize but… they sure do love their soap operas here. My host family must watch 3-4 different ones a day; sometimes they play at the same time so they have to flip back and forth between the two. The soap operas are of a variety of nationalities: Spanish (of course), Brazilian, Indian (my favorite), even Cote d’Ivoirian. All dubbed in French, of course. Watching them with my host sisters has definitely sparked some interesting conversations on a variety of things like infidelity and bulimia… but I usually steer clear from the living room when they’re on.

2.       Barack Obama paraphernalia.SO MUCH! They love Barack… it’s actually very nice to feel proud of being an American. Barack Obama t-shirts. Barack Obama hair salons. Barack Obama painted on sotramas (the form of public transportation). Obama Biscuits – basically buttery cookies served in American flag packaging sold all over the place. My favorite is the “Barack Obama American Restaurant” in Sikoro, an extremely poor peri-urban neighborhood.

3.       Non-alcoholic beer. Being a Muslim country, there is a big market for it here. It’s funny to see “0.0% Alcohol” as a major advertising slogan.

4.       Mercedes Benz. More than half of the cars in this city are really old Mercedes that run on diesel fuel. My host dad drives one. I guess they really are good quality since they last so long!

5.       American T-Shirts. I know this isn’t unique to Mali, but I still can’t get over it when I see a Malian woman on a sotrama wearing a “Pennsylvania Jewish Little League” t-shirt.

6.       Cell phones. No matter how busy you are, if your cell phone rings, you answer it. This is something I don’t think I will ever get used to. The amount of times we were in class with a guest lecturer and they answered their cell phone I cannot count. Another memorable one was our tour guides on the grand excursion… no matter if they were in the middle of recounting the history of the Djenne mosque to us, if their cell phone rang, they’d answer. And then there is of course my sister, who answers her cell phone in her sleep.  Putting your phone on silent is something unheard of here. What I gather is that it’s actually ruder to ignore someone’s call than it is to answer your phone in the company of others.

The list surely could go on and on, but those are my favorites.

Le Mariage

Yesterday, my sister took me to her good friend’s wedding. (She called the friend her cousin, but I’m not sure if that’s really the case since family lines are very blurred in this country and all of our neighbors call my host parents “mom” and “dad.”) She told me the night before to be ready to leave at 9AM, but punctuality is not Malian’s forte, so you can imagine my surprise when, at 8:45 Sunday morning, Aka opened the door and said, “We’re leaving.” I threw on the one fairly nice dress that I brought to this country and was rushed into the car of a young man that I was never formally introduced to, but I assume is one of Aka’s friends. I sat in the back with Haby, my little sister, and her friend Ami. The car started up, drove quite literally around the corner, and we had arrived. Aka told us to stay in the car while she went into the house, and there we sat for 30 minutes. I asked Haby what on earth we were doing, and she said waiting for the bride and groom to arrive. Finally a big SUV pulled up, honking its horn oh so obnoxiously, and the bride and groom stepped out and went into the house. I was confused as to why we stayed in the car, but about three minutes later they came back out and got back into the SUV. Aka came back to the car and informed me that we were going to the neighborhood’s town hall for the official marriage. The drive there – and all of the drives that I would take on this day – was quite literally one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. The traffic in Bamako is not the safest, as there are so many cars and mopeds and so little street signage or traffic lights, but I never really feel like my life is in actual danger. Yesterday, however, was different. The marriage caravan was much like a funeral procession in the USA with everyone’s hazard lights blinking, but unlike a funeral procession, where drivers go especially slowly, these drivers were speeding especially quickly and slamming their horns the entire way.

When we arrived at the town hall, it was completely crazy. There were two other weddings there at the same time, so literally hundreds of people crowded into the small courtyard. Griots were all around, serenading people (I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a serenade…), and the overall energy was very high. The women were dressed very ornately, most of them wearing bazin, a white, waxy cloth that women purchase and then have colored in beautiful tie-dye patterns. Their make-up is pretty extreme – many of them paint on thick eyebrows and put on brightly colored eye shadow to match their dresses – and most of them wear wildly high plastic heels. (It is a funny sight to see them trying to walk on the dirt roads strewn with rocks and garbage). All of them wear wigs or weaves in their hair. Most men also wear bazin, with a “boubou” and a matching pair of pants, although some wore western-style suits and ties that didn’t quite fit them properly (pants too long, tie too short, etc.). We stayed at the town hall for about twenty minutes, mingling with the others and taking photos.

Finally we left, presumably after the official papers were signed, although I didn’t even see the bride and groom the entire time we were there. Getting out was a bit hairy, with a bottleneck through the tiny gate to the town hall, but eventually we made it out and got to the car. We sped back to the couple’s house and were herded into their courtyard. There was an area of seating for the men on one side, and women stood and mingled on the other. Sodas were served to everyone, and I was just opening mine up when Aka grabbed my hand and said, “Let’s go!” Off I was, herded back into the car, this time to be driven all the way across the city to Hippodrome, a neighborhood in the Northeast. Time spent in the car: 40 (terrifying) minutes. Time spent at the destination: 45 seconds. I was told we were going to greet the parents of the bride and groom, but I didn’t even make it into the house before the greeting was finished. And so this continued: drive, get out at someone’s house, watch everyone go in, stand outside with a bunch of young men and women, watch everyone leave the house, get back in the car, and drive some more. This probably occurred seven or eight times. Finally we were taken to an Espace Culturelle, essentially an outdoor setting for functions, and were seated at tables with very loud music playing. We stayed there for about 10 minutes, for Aka to pose in some pictures with the bride, and then left before everyone else did. We drove back to the bride and groom’s house, and I was shocked to see hundreds of people there, sitting under a tent. Musicians were performing and people were dancing, even though the bride and groom were not there. Aka explained to me that they were waiting for them to return from the Espace Culturelle. I sat under the tent for about 20 minutes listening to the music and watching the dancing, until about 2:00PM, when my host mother sent me home for lunch. At this point, after five hours of running around Bamako, I was relieved to go home. My other sisters didn’t come home until about 4PM, and they told me that the wedding would keep occurring until sunset, when the couple would be delivered to the location of their first night together. The new wife will stay in that location in bed for the next seven days. According to my sister she can receive visitors, but she cannot leave. Quite a honeymoon…

I cannot believe how exhausting the wedding was. It was definitely interesting and I’m glad I went, but phew!

The Grand Excursion

I am exhausted, freckled, and my butt is sore from spending days in what is most certainly the world’s most uncomfortable van, but I am also very pleased with my travels around Mali and am so sad they are over. There is a lot to write about and many stories to tell, so I’ll break it up by recounting all of the highlights from the various places we visited.

We started out in Sikasso, a small city 370 kilometers southeast of Bamako and capital of the Sikasso region. The region could really be called Mali’s “bread basket;” it is noticeably verdant (especially compared to the rest of the country) and is the country’s primary region for agriculture. The town itself really isn’t a tourist destination like some of the other stops on our trip, but that made it nice to walk around without being harassed by vendors and guides. We also did get to visit a few cool things… most exciting was Missirikoro, a village outside of Sikasso with a beautiful grotto that we got to hike around. The cave itself is used as a Muslim mosque, but also animists come and perform sacrifices in this sacred place. (When we went, we came across a group of village chiefs from surrounding areas that had come to sacrifice chickens for good fortune for their villages.) We also got to climb to the top of a cliff for a stunning view of the region. Unfortunately, everything else we did in Sikasso was pretty underwhelming. For example, we visited the “great wall” of Sikasso – the “tata” – which is actually a crumbling down mud wall no taller than 6 feet built for protection in the late 1800s. (You can imagine our reactions after being told we were going to visit the “great wall of Sikasso.”)

Our next stop was Teriya Bugu, Mali’s first ecotourism project. The hotel is perched on the River Bani and is surrounded by eucalyptus trees and so many incredible birds (the best were certainly the wild peacocks). Teriya Bugu was created by a French missionary who came to Mali in the 1960s; all of the hotel’s earnings go into the development of the surrounding villages, providing schools, healthcare, jobs, electricity, and running water. It was definitely a treat visiting this little slice of paradise, with wild birds so loud you can’t hear each other speaking and with a restaurant serving fresh baked bread. Coincidentally another study abroad program run by Antioch College was in Teriya Bugu the same nights as we were, so we got to spend some time with the students and compare about our experiences.

Our next stop was Djenné… wow. What a town. It is striking how different it is from Bamako. For one, the landscape is much drier and dustier, especially compared to Sikasso. Djenné is north, between Bamako and Mopti. It is on the River Bani; we had to take a ferry across to get there. Right now, since it’s the end of the rainy season, it is essentially half under water since the town was built on the floodplain, so it is filled with seasonal lakes and ponds. The most striking thing about the town is that all buildings are constructed with the same medium: mud. Of course the most exciting thing to see is the colossal mud mosque, the largest mud structure in the world. Although a mosque has stood in its place since the 13^th century, the current structure was built in 1907. (The picture on my blog is of the mosque). Every year before the start of the rainy season, members of the town volunteer to resurface it with another layer of mud. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to go in since tourists were banned a few years back. It was still awesome to see, especially since we arrived during Friday noontime prayer, so afterwards we got to see hundreds and hundreds of men pour out of the mosque. After dinner, Jessie and I heard loud drumming coming from next to our hotel, so we walked over to see what was going on a stumbled upon a rehearsal for a men’s dance troop preparing for a national competition. The guys were very nice and kept asking us if we wanted to go up and dance to… we had to turn them down, however. I’ve had enough humiliating public dancing in this country to last a lifetime.

After Djenné, we went to the Dogon Country. Getting there was a pain because the last 60 kilometers were on a very, very bad road; we were essentially bouncing over rocks for two hours. However, it was totally worth it. We arrived at Sangha and my first thought was, “People actually live here?” That is, there is no arable land in sight, and the ground is made of stone since we were perched on a cliff so digging wells seems like it would be pretty difficult. The next morning we woke up bright and early (we didn’t even need an alarm since there was a rooster crowing at 4 in the morning outside of our window) and left for the hike before seven. It was already uncomfortably hot, and the sun had only just risen. The hike began walking across the rocky terrain I had previously mentioned. There was a bit of vegetation, but overall it really felt like walking on another planet. Then, all of a sudden, we started climbing down and were able to see that we were in fact perched on top of the cliffs. The views of the green valley were stunning. Hiking down the cliff, we reached the village of Ireli. Dogon villages may be the most interesting places I have ever visited. For one, they are visually stunning, built up against cliffs and consisting of mud huts, their most distinctive being the granaries, small round buildings with straw roofs that look like witch hats. Above the villages are ancient pygmy dwellings, built into the cliffs hundreds of feet above the ground. Dogon history is a bit muddled, so it is unclear why the Dogon originally moved into the cliffs. Today, the Dogon remain widely untouched by Islam, which is very different from the rest of the country. Instead, they are animist. For this reason, walking around Dogon country without a guide is a bad idea, since really anything could be sacred, and if you take a photo of it or walk into a sacred space you will be forced to pay a high fine. Trekking in Dogon country was so incredible and I absolutely want to go back and do more of it. Since we were only there for one full day, we only visited two villages, but it’s possible to spend days and days going from village to village. However, I will say I’m grateful we only hiked for one morning, since it must have been over 100 degrees by the time we made it back to the hotel at around noon. We were not a pretty sight to see after five hours of pretty tough hiking in the intense sun.

Finally, we visited Mopti, a small city located where the Niger and Bani rivers converge. Mopti has stayed small because it was in fact originally built on several islands, which have now been connected by dykes and landfill. Its main industry is fishing, and the quintessential image of Mopti is of long, thin pirogues out in the river. We got to take a pirogue out, which was lovely and peaceful. It is easy to see that Mopti is essentially constructed on artificial land at this time of year, since it’s the end of the rainy season and some peoples’ homes are completely flooded. We basically spent our day wandering about the town, visiting the market and the area where pirogues are built. For lunch, we actually had deliciously fresh fish served with a curry sauce… yum yum yum.

For the last night of the trip, we went back to Sikasso to hang out, swim in the pool, and use the wifi.

Overall, the trip was great, although I will say I wish the ratio of time in the car to out of the car would have been different, since we really did spend half of our time in transit. It was great to get out and see the rest of the country, to spend nights having slumber parties in the hotels, to drink boxed wine, and to hang out with Alou, the driver, and Suleman, the apprenti drinking tea and causer-ing. Two of the nights Jessie and I went out with Suleman, and we had a fun time meeting an array of Malians, other tourists (namely two Norwegian men who could not speak a word of French and were quite out of place), and tons of guides trying to convince us to hire them…and then not leaving us alone when we said no (this actually almost led to a fist fight between over-protective Suleman and one guide).

This afternoon I got back to my family and Bamako –  I wasn’t thrilled to be back since our independent studies start so soon and I’m anxious about it and would rather just keep traveling – but coming back to my little brother joyfully screaming “Raki!!” and attacking me in a hug was a warm welcome home.

I’m getting a little panic-y over the fact that I only have six weeks left in this country. Although it’s not easy, I absolutely love being here and experiencing such different things every day. I am looking forward to lots of things about going back home, but in the end I’m going to be devastated to leave, and six weeks sounds like nothing!