Badalabougou

We were really blessed to be able to move into a nice apartment in a good neighborhood.  A friend who worked with our group lived here but moved away, so that’s how we found it. 
The neighborhood of Badalabougou is very centrally located in Bamako.  The city is divided by the Niger River, which is just a 5 minute walk away from the house.  The north side of the city has the downtown area and JP’s school is up there too.  We live just south of the river between the Martyr’s Bridge and the New Bridge.  There is one more bridge in the city and it’s newer than the New Bridge, but they didn’t want to change the New Bridge’s name, so the newest bridge is called the Third Bridge.  Not very creative, but better than calling it the Newer Bridge I guess.
The names of the neighborhoods here are all quite a mouthful.  But if you know a bit of Bambara (or ask someone to explain) you can often disect the names and make some sense of them.  Badalabougou is broken down to ba-da-la-bougou, which means “river-mouth-place-neighborhood.” 

I took a few pictures from our side of the river.  In this one you can see the Martyr's Bridge.

before + after: bedroom built in

Here are the before and after photos of a project I did in the main bedroom of our new apartment.  It is unusual to have any built in cupboards or closets in houses here at all, so its a nice bonus to have this closet.  However, I really wasn't a fan of the diamondy design.  I got some fabric and covered the small doors and the center panel.  To be more specific, I covered pieces of cardboard in fabric and staple gunned them on.  What do you think?

new apartment

Here is what our apartment looks like from the outside front. 
The building has 4 units, we are one of 2 on the bottom and there are two upstairs.  Across a wall from us there is an identical building.  The apartment is a bit smaller than the house we lived in before, but still plenty of room (maybe except the kitchen, which is more of a "kitchenette").  The biggest thing to adjust to is the yard and the whole privacy factor.  At the house we had a big yard and it was surrounded by a high cement wall.  Here there are bricked pathways around the building and any of the building's other residents or visitors could pass by a few feet away from my windows at any time. Curtains aren't just decorative here!

 

This picture is taken from the roof of our building and is what part of our street looks like.  There are a lot of sheep and goats in our street, here you just see a few sheep, but if you were to go down a bit further there is a herd of about 25 goats hanging out in the street.  Our dog Teddy now makes an effort to avoid them as he was head-butted by a protective mama the other day.
The street here is also filled with small children and quite a bit of debris.  There is a lot of construction going on and within the neighborhood the roads are unpaved and very rough. 

Moving (or TRYING to move!)

Sheesh!  I haven’t written on my blog for quite some time!  Well, we’ve been REALLY busy lately with packing and trying to move, then finally actually moving, and then unpacking and settling in.  These things take time and energy.    
So heres my story of what moving was like: (Oh the stress!)

We knew we were going to move but didn’t know when.  Jean-Patrick was registered for school, but the school hadn’t given a start date for the school year.  Kids’ schools usually start right at the beginning of October and run to the end of June.  But universities are often a month or more later than that, and this year seemed really unsure because the school year had been messed up a bit last year because of the coup d’etat and all that.  So I was actually hoping that JP’s school wouldn’t start until January so that we could go to Chad to visit his family for Christmas as planned.  We didn’t want to move until we knew the school would be in fact starting soon.  I had a women’s retreat in Bamako the last weekend of October (which was fabulous… maybe I should write a post on that, too) and so of course it was just a few days before I was going be leaving for a long weekend that we got word that JP needed to go to his school.  He went all the way to Bamako and to the school to find out that school actually was starting in 2 weeks time.  JP was going to hurry back home and work on getting the packing started while I did my weekend trip to Bamako.  But this was all happening during the time of the Tabaski Muslim holiday, and it wound up that there were no places available on any bus – tickets had been reserved long in advance for the days surrounding the holiday.  So JP was stranded in Bamako for like 5 days more than he planned to be.  We called someone to feed our dog and cat and we got to see each other in the city!  We also got the papers signed and deposit paid on the apartment we would be moving in to.  It would be ours as of November 1^st.  We went back on Sunday Oct 28^th to Koutiala thinking we would work real hard to get things all packed up super quickly and then move at the end of the week.  JP’s school would be starting on Monday, November 5^th, so we needed to be moved before that!

We spent long days packing as well as tying up all the loose ends that go along with leaving jobs or ministries and friends and a house, lots of accounts to be settled and responsibilities to hand over.  I was really hoping we could move on Thursday the 1^st.  By Tuesday night it was clear that we wouldn’t be ready in time, so we made a plan for Saturday.  JP called people and met with people and did all he could do to try to find a truck to move our things.  One truck that was lined up fell through on Saturday morning, and so another possibility (previously rejected because of high cost) was reconsidered.  The truck boss came to the house to see our things that needed to be moved.  At this point we were totally ready to go, everything packed up and just waiting.  The truck boss looked at our stuff to judge how much space it would take up in his truck and struck a deal with us saying that the truck would be filled 50/50 with bags of millet and our things, thus sharing the cost as well.  Then he said it was too bad we waited so long, he could have had our stuff on the road that night, but now we’d have to wait until Monday.  Obviously this was a problem since JP needed to be at school in Bamako (7 hours away) on Monday morning. 
JP left for Bamako and I stayed to wait for the truck.  On Sunday an announcement was made asking people to show up to our house on Monday evening to help load the truck.  On Monday evening, just before the truck was supposed to show up (around 7pm- after the sun has set and so its not as hot)  I had 15 helpers waiting with me at the house.  And then a messenger came to let me know the truck was not coming and I should send the helpers home.  But don’t worry, the truck will come soon, any time really, they are still just working on finding bags of millet to fill up half the truck. 
The next time (I can’t remember which day it was anymore) I had 6 helpers waiting with me when the truck was supposed to come.  And again it didn’t come and I had to send the helpers home.  They said it would be Friday evening, November 9^th (as in a whole week after we had really wanted to move, and all this time our apartment is paid for and sitting empty!)  Friday evening I was thinking that if the truck didn’t come this time I might have some kind of breakdown.  Oh, also, on Wednesday my friend who was moving into our old house did finally move into the house.  So I was still living there with all of our belongings taking up the whole living room and saying “sorry, I know you want me to move all this stuff and me and my pets out of what is now your house, and I’m trying, but what can I really do?”
Friday night at 7:30 the truck finally arrived!  I was so relieved!  This time there were only 2 helpers (that’s what happens when you cry wolf I guess.)  But the truck boss was there and had 2 helpers, and then there’s me, so 6 people total.  It took us 1 ½ hours to get it loaded up. I was not so impressed with the way our stuff was put in the truck – it was all layed down up on top of piles of bags of millet. Not quite what I had in mind.  I figured we’d find a lot of broken things in unpacking.  And a lot of our furniture was beat up, but not one broken dish even, so it could have been worse.  We’ll definitely do the whole moving thing differently next time though!

They said they’d drive all night and get to Bamako very early Saturday morning where JP would direct them to the apartment and help get it all unloaded.  I was to go in a friend’s car on Saturday with the dog and cat and be getting into Bamako in the afternoon.  I was really looking forward to arriving at my new apartment that would be filled will all our boxed up belongings.

On Saturday morning when the friend came with the car to get me and the pets, I had put the cat in a lidded basket and bungeed the top on.  I had asked around but couldn’t find a cat carrier box to borrow.  The basket idea seemed like a good one until I was just about to place it in the car and the cat flipped the lid open and rocketed out of the basket and zoomed off to hide.  He wasn’t too impressed with the basket idea I guess.  He would not come out from hiding, so I had to leave for Bamako with out him, but finally (4 weeks later) he will be getting a ride here this next weekend (in a taped up cardboard box with breathing holes.) The dog seemed to enjoy the car ride, his first one ever, and he stayed calm the whole time. 

Saturday afternoon I was getting in to Bamako and I called JP to see if our stuff was all moved in.  Surprise, surprise, the truck hadn’t arrived yet.  So I had to go wait with him at the mission base.  JP had been staying there because it would be hard to live in a completely empty apartment – no stove, no fridge, no bed, etc.  I kept thinking the truck people would call at any moment, but they didn’t.  When JP tried to call them there was no network coverage, meaning they were somewhere out in the sticks, out of the city still. 
I went to sleep very frustrated on Saturday night, and to be honest I was just a bit wondering if maybe the truck people decided it would be better profit if they just sold all our stuff.  Sunday morning went by and finally around 2 on Sunday afternoon the truck people called and JP went to direct them to the apartment.
When the truck got near our apartment they found that the roads in our neighborhood were not designed for a big freight truck, so they had to park some ways away.  JP had to hunt down a smaller truck.  Then he and his buddies unloaded our things from the big truck onto the smaller truck which drove over to the apartment and then they unloaded from the smaller truck into the apartment.  This took them 4 hours (remember it was only 1 ½ hours to load!)  I waited in comfort, and boredom, at the base during this time. 
JP came back to the base to have dinner and get me and Teddy the dog, and we got to the apartment just after 9pm.  We dug through our stuff and found the bed mattress and sheets to put on it and got that arranged and called it a night.  The next morning JP left early for school and I started the process of unpacking - another adventure altogether, but thankfully this time it was on my schedule.

running

In spite of the fact that I know I’ve said in the past that I would only be found running in the case of something dangerous chasing me, I’ve taken up running. Or rather, I am currently attempting to complete a program and we’ll see where it goes from there.
I have a few friends who are “runners” and I’ve been amazed by their discipline and tales of the long miles their legs have carried them. I’ve also thought that maybe they were just a bit crazy. And I have a couple of friends who have recently taken up running and I’ve been inspired by their accomplishments. Well, I decided that if they can do it I can do it too.
I’m not talking about a marathon here; the goal is to be able to run for 30 minutes nonstop. So for my friends who do run marathons I imagine that it sounds like nothing, but for someone like me it is a huge challenge. The program I’m following is called “Couch to 5K” and it’s supposed to take you from zero to 30 minutes of running in 9 weeks. The 5K is because it would also be a nice goal to do a distance of 5 kilometers in those 30 minutes, but that’s really not my focus right now. Maybe after the 30 minutes are reached I’ll work on upping the speed. 

Basically you start off in week 1 by running 1 minute at a time with walking breaks in between, then each week the amount of time you run increases bit by bit.  There are podcasts to download for each week and they play music and tell you when to run and when to walk.  You are supposed to do it 3 times a week, but I have these ridiculous over-achiever tendencies and I’ve been going 4-5 times a week.  So now I am in week 7 and I’m up to running for 25 minutes at a time nonstop.  A couple months ago I couldn’t have possibly run for 25 minutes straight, so I feel pretty happy about this.  I take my dog Teddy with me every time and he's pretty happy about it too. 
Here are my ratty old sneakers (or “tennis shoes” for my MN friends, or “trainers” if you speak the Queen’s English) that I am running in.  I count that they are about 5 years old, but they are the only sneakers I have here in Mali.  I have a new pair of actual “running shoes” in the mail from the states and I’m excited for those.  I hope they make it here soon. I remember when I was a kid when I’d get new shoes I felt like I could run faster and jump higher. 

des escargots

 

During rainy season there are snails in our yard!  Here are 7 big ones that were collected when the leaves were raked recently.  I put my foot in the picture so you can have a better idea of their size.  I went outside and saw them all sitting there, and I wasn't sure why they had been collected together like that and what I should then do with them.  I think they are pretty gross and kind of creepy, and the last thing I need is for them to get together and breed more gross and creepy snails in my yard, so I pushed them into a dustpan with a stick and threw them out into the street where there are some green plants growing.  I don't understand where the snails go when it is the dry time of the year.  Its the same thing for the toads around here.  I haven't seen any yet this year, but soon we will have an abundance of toads for a couple of months.  After awhile you start seeing completely flattened dehydrated toads in the street, and then as suddenly as they appeared there are no more toads again for many months.

a nice relaxing weekend away, part 1

How to not complain but tell a true story that could sound pretty whiney?  Not sure, so I ‘m just going to go for it.  That’s my disclaimer, nobody’s forcing you to read.   I want to be  a positive person, but sometimes the negative truth smacks ya in the face and some venting might help…  (or at least it’ll amuse my mom who I know reads my blog.)


This was our room at Teriya Bugu.

I think that spending a nice weekend together, aw­­­ay from our everyday life, is a good idea for me and Jean-Patrick to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Pretty much I would be game for any place that has a clean room to stay in and would give me a weekend off from cooking and washing dishes.  Add a pool to swim in and I’m one happy gal.  It’s actually not that easy to find a place like that around here, especially within our budget! 
Last year, for our first anniversary, we did a trip to “Teriya Bugu”-  a really cool resort place that I had heard great things about.  I had been told that Teriya Bugu (which means something like “friendship village” in Bambara) is about a 2 ½ hour trip from where we live.  But that would be 2 ½ hours by private car.  It is not possible to get there by bus as it is not in a major town or between towns.   Our means of transportation is our motorcycle (henceforth referred to as a “moto”).  I thought “oh, a 2 ½ hour trip on the moto, that might be fun.”  Well, it wasn’t fun.  It took us 4 hours on the moto, 1 hour of which was weaving around puddles and holes on a bumpy unpaved road.  In town we don’t really go faster than 30mph, and almost nobody (me included) ever wears a helmet in town.  This was my first trip out of town on the moto, and JP found a helmet to borrow for me to wear.  (he has his own helmet as he does out of town trips more often)  The helmet was too big and very heavy.  It was in the 80’s and humid, but I had to wear a long-sleeved shirt so as to not get sunburned.  I also wore jeans and sneakers (different from the usual skirt and sandals I wear on the moto in town!) and I had a big stuffed backpack on my back.  For 4 hours.  A big heavy backpack on my back for 4 hours while sitting on the metal bars that extend beyond the seat of the moto.   Our moto has no sissy bar.  You have to be alert and sort of try to lean forward because, 1. You don’t want to fall off the back, and 2. There is a big heavy backpack pulling you back as your bottom side goes from pain to numb with metal bars digging into it for 4 slowly passing hours.  By the time we got there I was pretty sore and tired out to say the least.
We had a good time at the resort.  The room was nice and we enjoyed the pool and the food.  I would recommend a visit to Teriya Bugu to anyone who can go in a car. 
When the moment came to get back on the moto to make the trip home (the trip I knew would be 4 very uncomfortable hours followed by lingering backache and butt pain) I gritted my teeth and said “ok, I can do this, it’s just 4 hours”.  Somehow those 4 hours that seemed never-ending ended, and we got home.  It was a unanimous decision in the end that we will not ever again do another trip like that on the moto.

a nice relaxing weekend away, part 2

Now fast forward to this year: our 2^nd anniversary celebration.  We made plans to take the bus to a town about 2 hours away to stay in a hotel (with pool!) for the weekend.  I figured this would work out a lot better than the difficult travel last year.  Again the 2 hour estimate is “in a private car”, but it seems like it really should be a quick trip as this town is only 76 miles south of us on one paved road.
Our plan was that JP would drop me off at the bus station (which is on the other side of town) and then he’d go pick up a friend and they’d come back to the station to drop off JP and the friend would bring our moto home.  But when we went out into the street to leave, I saw that there was a taxi dropping someone off nearby, so we flagged it down and JP put the moto back in the garage.  Good, its much nicer to go to the bus station one time and together!  I can hear you asking why we didn’t just plan to take a taxi to start with. Well, taxis aren’t just roaming neighborhood streets usually.  You can take them home from the bus station or downtown, or if you have the personal number of a taxi driver you could call to have them fetch you, but we didn’t have a number.
So we got to the bus station by taxi and then had to wait oh about 45 minutes or so for a bus that would be heading there.  To take longer trips you can get a ticket in advance and know the scheduled departure time.  But for shorter trips you just wait for a bus that is going that way and hopefully you don’t wait too long. 
The busses here are “coach” style buses, with baggage compartments on the bottom and big picture windows that don’t open because they are equipped with air conditioning (which probably actually worked a couple decades ago).  The buses get shipped to Africa after they are no longer usable or acceptable to the people wherever they come from (judging by the writing in the first bus we took, it came from Germany).  When you see them in the bus station it can be deceiving.  The bus companies do a nice job of patching and painting the outsides.  So you put down money to buy your ticket and then when it’s too late, you’ve already paid, you get inside the bus and realize what an old filthy dilapidated hunk of metal it is.  (In case you’re wondering - our tickets for the 76 mile trip were $7 each one way)  But they are all like that.  Some a bit worse than others.  The bus we got in smelled particularly bad, rather urine scented I’d say. 
Riding the bus here really is a full 5 senses experience.  You see the ratty bus interior and try to imagine that it somehow could have been nice and clean when it was new.  The seats may be ripped open with bars protruding out and are stained to the point that you can only guess at the original fabric color.  There are dials above your head for speaker volume and air, but these dials do nothing.  The bus driver blares music or Islamic preaching tapes for the whole ride.  You are also likely to hear some interesting conversations at max volume (more interesting if you can understand the language) and some crying babies.  The smell is never good.  The bus itself is likely to smell unpleasant and then there is the odor of 60+ people crammed into a metal tube with minimal airflow under the hot African sun for hours at a time.  There is always a lot of dust here and that makes its way everywhere, so we can count that for taste.  During the rainy season the dust isn’t as bad as the dry season, but I still managed to be pretty well coated with the reddish-brown stuff at the end of my journey.  The feelings of uncomfortable cramped seats and being sweaty pervades the trip.  For small or even average sized people the seats are not that bad.  But I truly feel sorry for JP (who is 6 feet 5 inches) when I see his long legs splayed at odd angles because they simply will not fit in a normal fashion between his seat and the seat back in front of him.  Then I feel sorry for me sitting next to him because he has a leg taking up my already minimal leg space (and I’m pretty tall too!)
You might think that once we’re in the bus all is well and we should be there in 2 hours.  After all it is only 76 miles.  Then why did the bus ride take 3 hours and 45 minutes?  First, the roads are really bad in some places, (which is why even in a private car it would take about 2 hours to cover 76 miles) and second, the bus stops too much.  After it leaves the station it keeps stopping every few blocks as people with bags wave, wanting to get on.  The bus is already “full”,  but there is plenty of room in the aisles for people to sit on plastic oil jugs.  Then imagine you are sitting cramped in this bus that is cruising along the road allowing at least a little air to flow through from the overhead vents, and the bus pulls over and stops (AGAIN!) allowing a dozen young girls to climb aboard and block the doorways so they can try to sell peanuts, muffins, or juice in pre-used bottles.  Not that you’d want to get out of the bus at these stops anyway; there is no way to know if the stop will be for 3 minutes or 15, and there are generally no restrooms along the way.  Even if you do happen to find a toilet, you’d be better off squatting behind some bushes, trust me.  While you are waiting for the bus to move again, sweat starts streaming down everyone’s faces as the temperature has just risen 15 degrees, and I am ready to tear out one of the bars protruding from a seat so that I can use it to smash open a window and allow some fresh cooler air into the sweltering bus.  Or it goes something like that in my imagination anyway.
Once we arrived at the bus station, we had to take a taxi to the place we were going.  The hotel was nice, and it does have a nice pool.  Our swimsuits remained unused however, as there wasn’t any water in the nice pool.  I would also recommend this hotel to someone if they could go in a private car. 
The trip home was basically the same thing that I’ve already recounted in reverse.  In total a 5 hour trip each way (counting taxis and bus station waiting with the bus ride) that we could have done in 2 hours in the relaxed comfort of a car if only we had one.  We actually took time to pray together on the bus on the way home, “Dear God, please give us a car.” 
We are planning to fundraise for a car the next time we go to the USA – 2 years from now if all goes well.   Although I see many people bringing their babies on the bus and families of 4 or 5 riding on a motorcycle together, I refuse for that to be one day me.  I think it is good to know one’s limits. 
If the test of “was it worth it?” is “would you do it again?”  then I’d have to say that neither of our anniversary weekends was worth it.  I realize that this could come across as really spoiled and bratty of me.  But we need to count the cost in whatever we do.  To be living Africa I am ready to live an ocean away from family and friends, learn a new language, eat weird food, sweat more than I knew was possible, refer to a hole in the ground as a “toilet”, and suffer bouts of malaria if need be.  But I am not willing to ride around on a moto with a little baby (or even with a large pregnant belly.)  And if the price to pay to get away is 4 or 5 hours of miserable travel each way, then I’d rather stay.  Maybe by next year we’ll come up with some other way to get away together, or we may have to be creative and turn our house into a hotel for a weekend or something.  If you have any suggestions for next year’s celebration, or large amounts of money that you’d like to give for the purchase of a car, do feel free to contact me.  J

the best thing ever!

The best thing ever... thats how I think Teddy would refer to rawhide bones if he could talk. 
When I gave him one last night I snapped some photos.  I find it pretty amusing how he gets so into chewing and chewing and chewing on his rawhide bone, like he's in this zone and he is so focused.  So thanks for sending these mom, and keep 'em coming!

I've had some intersting moments with Teddy lately. 

He is about 10 months old now, and our cat is just a bit older.  I really wanted to get them both neutered, and actually we chose to have boy animals so that we could get them fixed, its not real possible to have animals spayed here.  I have the number of a vet who can come to the house to "castrate" animals.  I also have a nurse friend who had her dog neutered here before, and she has access to and knows how to administer medicine to make animals sleepy for their surgery (because the vet doesn't give any medicine!)  So I made an appointment and one fine Monday afternoon we were assembled to remove the reproductive capabilites of our pets - my dog and cat and my friend's cat. 
We moved our table (yep the one we eat at) out to the screen porch.  My friend gave a shot of ketamine to our kitty and very quickly he became very drowsy.  We layed him on an old towel on the table, and I covered and held his head.  The process that followed was a bit different from what happens during an animal surgery in the states (or any developed place I suppose.)  The only tools the vet used were 1.a clamp (looks like a scissors but pinches instead of cuts) 2. a small razor blade (not surgical looking like a scapel, but like something I'd use to scrape paint off a window) and 3. a cotton ball with alcohol.  I held kitty's sleepy head still and tried not to pass out from seeing blood, and it was all over in about 4 minutes.  Notice that I didn't mention a needle and thread of any kind in my list of tools the vet used.  He didn't even stitch it up. 
Before it was the dog's turn, the vet said that it wasn't necessary to give him the sleepy medicine, that he usually does the neutering with no medicine, and we could just muzzle him.  I said "yes, it is necessary."  The price we paid the vet was $4 each for the cat and dog, and it cost another $2 each for the sleepy medicine.  I think $6 each for animal surgery is a price that can't be beat (even if it was pretty low-tech!)
After it was all done with, my animals just slept and layed around for the rest of the day.  But the next day they were almost back to normal.  Now its been a couple weeks and they are both healed.

Some days after the surgery I took Teddy for a walk in our neighborhood and 3 mean dogs didn't like that we were in their territory or something and they surrounded us growling and barking and one of them bit Teddy!  Eventually they backed off and we got away, and I looked at Teddy's back where he had been bit and there was no blood.  But two days after that a spot on his back started to swell, and it hurt if I touched it, and then I noticed a couple of scabs, so I had to treat Teddy with antibiotics.  I just walked to a pharmacy and asked for amoxicillin and bought enough for a week's treatment for $1.50. 

Another thing is that I guess there are a lot of ticks around our yard because I am picking them off my dog every day.  I haven't had any on me, and the cat never has any on him.  But every day I find plenty on Teddy.  JP went to a vet store and got some chemical that is supposed to be used to dip cattle or goats, and I tried mixing it up and spraying it on Teddy to see if it would repel ticks.  Teddy didn't like being wet and decided to help by licking his coat.  The rest of that day he just layed down and refused to eat.  I was fairly worried that he would die and it would be all my fault and people would ask how he died and I'd have to say "I sprayed cattle dip on him and he licked it."  But the next day he was fine again. 
 I have some K9Advantix on its way in the mail from the states - I hope it gets here soon!

yum, yum

Oh, the delights to be found in my kitchen!

When I got back to Mali after being in the USA for 3 months, there were a few bugs in my kitchen.  Here are pictures showing what I found in two of my Tupperware containers; I think one was regular flour and the other was corn flour.  Yuck. 

This is what we had cooking on our stove the other weekend.  Can you tell what it is? 
We had a party for the Centre at our house and made a special meal which featured chicken.  To get the chickens Jean-Patrick went to the place on the side of the road where they have live caged chickens.  He discussed price and the seller brought out a couple chickens then took them over to the big rock behind the cages to chop off their heads and feet and pluck them.  Jean-Patrick brought the heads home (thats what you see here, it was 2 roosters - you can easily see the spiky comb on the right side) to cook up and give to our dog and cat as a treat.  He left the feet with a couple of kids who were hanging around.  I don't really understand how chicken feet can be eaten.  Not only that I find it repulsive, but I just can't understand what is there that can be consumed.  But I don't want to find out. 

Confession of an Idiot

That would be me, the idiot.  A few days ago I made a quick trip a couple blocks away to the little market. 
The little market isn’t very big, as its name implies, and so there isn’t as much to be found there as in the big market, but if I only need a few basic things it’s great because I can walk there and do my shopping quickly.  This day I was looking to buy some peanut butter (just ground peanuts really, sold in any desired quantity out of a big tub), some dried fish (I boil this and feed it to my dog and cat), and some hot peppers (no meal here is complete without throwing one of them into the sauce). 
Malians are super friendly, so it’s normal that I would be greeted over and over as I made my way between the seller’s tables.  I came to a halt as two people in front of me were blocking my path and smiling widely at me.  They started greeting me and I suddenly realized that this wasn’t just a random greeting, but they seemed to know who I was and though I thought they looked sort of familiar, I really didn’t know who I was looking at.  But that happens fairly often.  It’s easier to remember who the one white lady is in the sea of black faces.  So of course I smiled back and did my appropriate greetings.  They were a mother and daughter by my guess.  Before we each continued on our ways the daughter asked me “Aunty, can I come to visit you soon?”  and I said “Of course, no problem.”  I went on and kind of forgot all about this episode until yesterday when I was home alone and there was a knock on our gate.  I went to the gate and asked who was there.  “It’s Suzanne.  Remember I said I was coming to visit?”  I opened the gate and saw that it was the girl from the market. 
Shoot, why hadn’t I asked Jean-Patrick who she could have been?  But then, the chances aren’t very good that I would have been able to describe the mom and daughter well enough for him to figure out who they were.  “Well, they were African, wearing African clothes, sort of looked like everyone else in the market…”
So I welcomed Suzanne into the house (knowing her name didn’t help at all) and gave her a cup of water to drink as we sat down on the couch to visit.  Ok, so I need to chat and try to figure out how I know this girl (or how she knows me as it would seem) without her realizing that I have no idea who she is.  So asking her last name is out.  Probably I shouldn’t ask her if she goes to church or where she goes to school, because maybe she goes to my church or is a student at our school.  On top of feeling limited as to the questions I could ask, this girl was not very talkative.  It turned into a lot of sitting in silence and looking around the room.  It’s so much easier when I have groups of girls come to visit; if I am one of 5 people in the room I only have 20% of the responsibility to make conversation.
I came up with a brilliant idea.  “Can I take your picture?”  Sometimes people love to have their picture taken.  I asked to take a picture of Fanta my clothes-washing-lady once, and now whenever she has new clothes made she comes over in them and asks me to take her picture.  I figured that if I had a picture of Suzanne I could show it to Jean-Patrick and he could tell me who I had been entertaining. 
So we went outside and I took her picture.  Then I asked her if she wanted to come back in for a while or if she was ready to head home.  Thankfully she said she was ready to go.  I offered to walk with her part of the way.  So we walked a bit, and she volunteered that her family was staying at the base.  Ok, so she has some connection to our base.  Good, this is one piece of the puzzle.  Then she mentioned something about Douentza, which is a town in the north that is not safe to be in because of the problems in the North of Mali.  Oh!  I think this all makes sense now!  She is the daughter in a family that normally lives up north!  Wow, I solved it just before parting ways with her.  So I guess I have met her before, but should I really feel bad that I didn’t know who she was?  We have meetings only once or twice a year where all of our group’s families come together, and then there are 80 people there, so it’s hard to remember every person that I briefly meet.  And as I said before, it’s a lot easier to remember the one white lady, the one who sticks out in the crowd.  But I definitely felt like a big idiot even if I think I did do a good job of not letting on that I had no clue who she was.  Would it have been better to just say right from the start “I’m sorry, how do I know you?”  What would you have done?

travel adventures

My trip from Minnesota to Mali was really good.   Highlights for me were my last 2 American meals:  breakfast of an egg and cheese biscuit sandwich in Chicago, and a big burrito in Washington D.C. ( I really miss Mexican food when I’m in Mali!)  I enjoyed my last experience of being able to recognize everything on the menu and then getting my food immediately after ordering (some of you are anti-fastfood and don’t think that’s such a good thing, but when I’ll be spending several hours every day working in the kitchen and not getting instant food for another 2 years, I had no qualms about it)  Ok, so besides the good food, I also enjoyed watching a couple of movies on my long flight.  I could have made a bigger effort to sleep on the plane, but I usually can’t sleep well while traveling anyway. 
I was supposed to have 3 hours in Dakar between flights to check through customs and get my passport stamped, go find my baggage on the carousel, go out of the airport and back in through different doors to check in for my next flight.  Three hours would have been plenty of time.  The only problem was that my plane was delayed for 2 hours in Washington, D.C. and so by the time I got to Dakar there was only 1 hour before the plane was scheduled to take off (so maybe 35 minutes before boarding).  I was sure I was going to miss the flight.  I got through customs as quickly as possible, luckily there weren’t big lines and the officers didn’t hassle me.  I rushed to the baggage claim, grabbed a rolling cart (they’re free in every African airport I’ve been to) and waited impatiently for my 2 big checked bags to come by.  The first one showed up – a regular rectangular rolling zippered suitcase.  I waited for the next one.  I had thought I was so clever to pack all my heavy and unbreakable things in a cheap bag from Mali.  These bags can be found in any market and only cost $2-3.  They are a sort of woven plastic and people here travel with them all the time.  The reason that I thought it was clever to pack in this sort of bag is that it only weighs a few ounces.  A regular suitcase can weigh 8-12 pounds, and that is 8-12 pounds less of my stuff that I can bring in the allotted 50 pounds per bag.  Sounds like a good plan, right?  Well, it turned out to be a terrible plan when I found my cheap bag burst open and my clothes and things in sight coming toward me on the carousel.  It had all been stuffed into a clear plastic trash bag by the airport workers, and was sure to tear open again.  I didn’t have time to freak out and rummage through my things to figure out what was missing.  And I was sure that there would be things missing; I was trying to remember everything I had packed in that bag.  I just had to get it on the cart and get out of the airport so I could get back in the airport to check in for my next flight which could already be boarding by this point.  I pushed the cart out with a little detour before the door: they made me send all of my bags through an x-ray machine before exiting the airport.  This makes no sense to me unless they want to assure that I didn’t steal something from the plane or in the airport.  I got out of the airport, around the road to the departures door, and into the line to check in for my flight which I was sure I would be too late for by now.  While I was in the line a guy came over to me to offer bag-wrapping services.  Wow, what a perfect solution to my problem – for $3 he took my bag that had burst open and been stuffed in an even flimsier bag and wrapped it up in layers of green plastic wrap.  Now I still didn’t know what items were missing, but at least the things I had left would stay together.  I checked my bags, got my boarding pass and dashed to security and then to my gate.  Somehow (the somehow being that “This Is Africa” I suppose) the boarding hadn’t even started when I got to my gate.  I made it!
When I arrived in Bamako (so happy to be back in Mali!) a friend came to pick me up at the airport.  The first thing I wanted to do when I got to the base was buy another bag so that I could open up and transfer all of my things from the exploded bag in to the new one and figure out what went missing.  So in a deliriously tired state, after having just traveled for 25 hours after only sleeping 5 hours the night before that, I walked up the street and bought a bag for $2.40 and went back to the base with it.  I got some scissors to cut through the layers of plastic wrap.  I transferred each item into the new bag and realized with relief and awe at what I believe is answered prayer for my trip that nothing was missing.  Not one thing. 

getting from here to there

Traveling between the USA and Africa is a long and tiring trip no matter what, but the way I’m doing it this time is a bit special.  When I left Mali in April I went by car with friends to Senegal.  Then I bought a round trip ticket between Senegal and Chicago, and a separate ticket from Chicago to Minnesota because it was so much cheaper than flying direct to MN.  In returning to Mali, I am using the return ticket between Chicago and Senegal and I’ve had to buy two more tickets to connect each end of that.  So I have 3 tickets to get back:  Duluth to Chicago, Chicago to Dakar, Senegal (which has a layover in Washington,D.C.,) and Dakar to Bamako.  This means that instead of checking my bags once and not thinking about them again until my destination, I have to collect them and recheck them in Chicago and Dakar (so 3 times total to check in with my bags for flights!)  It will be a long trip, and of course once I get to Bamako I’ll have another 7 hours on the road to arrive home.  But that will be the next day because I’ll be awfully tired after dealing with about 25 hours straight of travel and a 5 hour time change.
I will leave my mom’s house at 4am on Sunday and if all goes according to plan, I should get home and see Jean-Patrick around 2pm Tuesday.  I’m excited, but I kind of wish I could just skip over all the travel and just suddenly be there.  Oh well, maybe I'll get to see a cool new movie on one of my flights or something.

weird stuff in Texas

This picture shows the front of a house that someone has decorated with a bunch of junk.  What you can't see is that the junk continues throughout the yard.  There was an old couch and a microwave amid the other stuff.  I was wondering if these folks might just need some help hauling stuff to the dump, but I was told that this was very "East Texas".  Ok.  I kind of prefer to keep it simple. 

This caught my eye outside of some car shop place.  I think its sculpted together with muffler parts.  And then dressed in an old shirt.  God bless Texas.

Beach Day

When I am in Mali I really miss the beach.  I've had a few chances to swim in pools in Mali, and those opportunities have been wonderful and welcome relief from the sweltering heat.  But a pool is not the beach.  I love the sand, the waves, the birds, the nature of it all.  I dream about how I'm going to spend all this time at the beach when I get to the states, but then things get busy, and the beach isn't so close, and it just happens that I haven't gotten to go too often to the beach when I get back to the states.  So when I do get there I want to take it all in, savor the moment, make it a memory in my head that I can think back to on one of those 108-degree-with-no-A/C-days in Mali
. 

I had a really nice time at the beach the other day.  Sun was shining, breeze was keeping it not too hot, the water was... well, its Lake Superior, so the water was absolutely freezing cold!

My mom was a lot braver or tougher than me, and I only got my legs in the water.  In the above picture you can see my mom's head, so she was actually swimming!  Way to go Mom!

Zoo Day

I had a fun last weekend in Texas.  I spent Saturday with my friend and classmate Esther from South Korea.  Here I am in the picture with her and her kids.  We visited the Tyler zoo and saw every animal there.

Hello giraffe!

We just happened to be at the penguin exhibit at feeding time.  So cute.  There was a breeding box area where they make nests out of plastic drinking straws.

Can you see the elephants behind me?  It was really hot out so everyone was trying to stay in the shade. 

in Texas, meeting the world

I love the internationalness of the base here. I guess even my base in Mali is pretty international - quite a few countries are represented by our staff. So maybe I especially notice it here because I am meeting people from other countries that I'm not as familiar with.
The photo above shows the big world map in the prayer chapel, it is covered with post-it note prayers for different places. And below you can see the feast that I got to eat some of last weekend when there was a party in the dorm/house that I am staying in. The family that manages the house is from Brazil. Their mother and brother have been here visiting for a few months, but they will leave this week, so there was a going away party for them - I think around 30 people packed into the house. There was music and talking in Portugese, and more food than anyone could eat. It was so fun. But most enjoyable to me was to notice the way that people from so many corners of the globe could be friends and have a good time together. I hung out with new friends from South Korea and Japan as well as these lovely Brazilians. 

Two times since I have been here I have had the chance to meet French-speaking Africans. Both times were after the Sunday night service that is held on base. There are some staff that work and live off the base and so I don't see them on a daily basis. The first one was a man from Burkina Faso, and he had done a training school many years ago at my base. Talking with him (in French of course) was like a magic salve to take the edge off of my homesickness for Mali. I had the biggest silly smile on my face for quite awhile after talking with him. Then a few days ago I met a woman from Cameroon. She also said she had done a training school in Mali many years ago. (its really a small world after all within our group sometimes) After speaking with both of these people I was thinking about how far my French has come in the past 3 years. I try to encourage myself that one day I could be at a proficient level with my Bambara too.

103 days without JP, day 70

Its been 10 weeks now.
70 days.
And still a month to go.
Too long to be apart.

I think he looks pretty cute in this picture. (its amazing how attractive a man can be wearing an apron and doing work such as washing dishes!)

Completely off the point side note: Here he is actually holding a pig's tail.  He had bought a large slab of freshly butchered pork and hacked it into freezable pieces with a machete.  Me, being not a meat eater and quite sensitive to blood and guts, I stayed out of the kitchen until it was done and all evidence had been thoroughly cleaned up.  JP thought that the pig's tail would be a nice treat for our puppy and kitty, so he cut it in half.  I kind of thought this was weird and funny so I took a picture.  I was going to take a picture of the dog and cat chewing on their bits of tail too, I figured they would sort of play with it and chew on it for some time.  But such photos do not exist - the cat grabbed his piece and ran away so that the dog couldn't steal it from him, and the dog swallowed his in one gulp. 

at school in Texas

(not me in the photo, but this is what one of the classrooms looks like.  The ESL students are almost all from South Korea.)

 

This past week we had our first teaching practicum for the TESOL school.  (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)  We had to prepare a lesson on a certain topic (mine was on "adventure") and then suddenly we were each taking our turns standing alone in front of a class of ESL (English as a Second Language) students.  When I found out that I'd be teaching so soon I felt really nervous and unprepared at first.  But after thinking about all of the speaking I've had to do in front of much bigger groups, and especially doing teaching in French, I realized that it probably wouldn't be that bad after all.  And it wasn't.  It might have even been "fun" if there weren't teachers and some of my classmates filling out evaluation sheets in the back of the class as I taught.
I have a couple more practice teaching opportunities coming up.  I am quite busy with homework.  I am learning a lot and I'm excited to think about how I might be able to use this in the future. 

I don't think these birdies will be in their nest much longer.  They are on one of the buildings I walk past all the time here, and every time I stop to admire them.  Their momma flys back and forth bringing them something to eat, and I usually try not to get too close as I don't want to get my eyes pecked out by the momma, but I really wanted a picture of them.

school's in session

I have been at a YWAM base near Tyler, Texas for 5 days now.  I had seen pictures and read about it on the website, so I knew that it was big (over 350 acres) but its really something else to experience it in person.  There are dozens of buildings all spread out over the campus, and it's dotted with lakes and ponds - I was told that many years ago this was a fish hatchery place. (not quite sure on the terminology on that, a fish farm?)  Then it belonged to David Wilkerson (the Cross and the Switchblade pastor guy) who then sold the ranch to YWAM super cheap.  Now there are something like 250 staff here, with every imaginable sort of ministry, and many different training courses year-round filled with students from all over the globe (but it seems that they come especially from South Korea).  I am here for 4 weeks to earn a certificate in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

My first week of class was great.  A normal day looks like this:  Breakfast in the cafeteria at 7am.  8:30 is group prayer time. 9-12 is class.  We break for lunch and start class again at 1:30.  At 3:30 we have work duties - mine is to clean in my dorm (bathrooms, floors, windows, ect) until dinner at 5.  Dinner at 5 seems so early to me - at home we often eat around 8!  After dinner we have had time to do homework, but we may have some night classes next week. 
Because the campus is so big and the buildings spread out, I get lots of opportunity to get outside for a walk.  It's a good 5 minute walk from my dorm to the cafeteria, and my classroom is a bit further.  I've done some exploring too, and these photos are from my walk last night. 

This dog came barking and running toward me when I walked past his house.  It could have been an intimidating moment, but I love dogs and hoped he wasn't as ferocious as he seemed so I squatted down and talked gently to him and offered him my hand palm-side up to smell, and after that his tail was wagging and I think we're friends now.

Its cool when you can see the moon when its not night yet.  I also love that the little lakes here can be so glassy smooth and they make a nice reflection of the trees.

howdy y'all

I've had a fun adventure over the past few days.
I left Northern Minnesota on Friday to ride down to the cities with a friend.  She is a big blessing to me and an example of how God provides for my needs in ways I couldn't have imagined.  I just met her at church last year, and this was now the second time that she has given me a ride to the cities.  This time I even got to stay overnight at her mom's house, and her mom sent me to the airport with a bag of goodies to eat that she had packed.  Yum. 
On Saturday I flew to Dallas where I got to reconnect with an old friend.  Actually she was one of my youth group leaders when I was in high school, a fantastic lady who gave of her time and effort and made an impact in my life.  I guess the last time I saw my friend and her husband was at their wedding almost 15 years ago.  They took me to see these longhorn cattle statues downtown, I've never been to Dallas before and I thought they were really cool. 

 
 Here's a picture of some pretty awesome kids that I got to hang out with this weekend. 

My final destination was a base a bit out of Dallas.  But I've been thinking about how in travel and in life its good to look at the journey as the destination sometimes.  You know, stop and smell the roses and all that.  Really, I have had a great past few days and I've felt so blessed by my new friend and my old friend. 

Rascal the WonderDog

I've been taking my dog Rascal (he is my dog in America, my dog in Mali is Teddy) out to play every day that I'm here in Minnesota.  I got Rascal from an animal shelter when I lived in California.  When I left for Africa he became my mom's dog, but I think he still knows deep down that he is my dog.  He is good amusement for my grandma who lives at my mom's house and is always at home.  Its good for her to have Rascal's company, she talks to him and throws toys for him, and they will even play a mild game of tug-of-war now and then.  Grandma gives Rascal a lot of dog treats and bits of food, and my reaction on seeing him when I first got here was "oh no, you've turned him into a sausage!"  He is still as energetic as ever, but I think he needs more exercise to work off all those treats.  So I've been getting out a lot with him.
Sometimes I walk him on a leash or I'll ride my bike and he runs beside me on his leash, sometimes I throw the ball for him off leash in the park, and there are a few nearby trails where he can go off leash and even jump in the river for a swim.  Last Saturday I went to this trail on the river, about 1/2 mile from mom's house with Rascal and my mom.  You can see in the picture that he likes fetching and running around with a big stick, and in the video he jumps and jumps for the stick my mom is holding.  Maybe you think he isn't that amazing, but Rascal's a WonderDog to me. 

cool things I've done

A morning at the zoo with a friend and her two little ones. 

How fun is that?

                                                          Looking at the polar bear.

 My favorite were the lemurs. (a kind of monkey from Madagascar)  There were three little baby lemurs that were only about a month old.  They would just grab on to thier momma and she would hop around and they'd go for a ride.  When the momma stopped they would climb off and play.  The babies were so tiny and cute.  
Above you can see the baby on the raised log thing, and below he is peeking out from under his momma. 

cool things I've done, part 2

I met a really nice veterinarian lady and I asked her, completely expecting her to say no, if I might be able to observe a dog neutering surgery.  Well, she said yes. 

Why would I even want to observe a dog neutering surgery?  Good question. 
Normally this isn't the sort of thing that would interest me at all. I am not good with blood.  I donated blood once in college, and after nearly throwing up and passing out, that dizzy, sweaty, hyperventalating experience left me never wanting to donate blood again.  And I haven't, although I think that at this point they wouldn't even want my blood because I've had malaria.  Even getting a shot in my arm makes me feel pretty woozy.  When I watch Jean-Patrick clean and bandage wounds I sometimes have to take a seat because things start to go fuzzy in my head.
I wanted to watch a dog neutering surgery to see what it should look like.  We have a pupy and a kitty in Mali that I would like to have neutered, but there just aren't any nice animal hospitals in town.  There are a few veterinarians who make house calls - we had one come and give shots to our chickens, and one came to give our puppy rabies shots.  But it is very hard to find a vet that will neuter a dog or cat.  I have a phone number for one guy who can do it, but I guess he will come to the house and expect a few people to help hold down the dog or cat, no anesthetic, and snip snip.   I have friends who work at the hospital who can get some kind of medicine to give them to make them at least drowsy if not asleep, and I'm sure we can work out a clean table to work on (might feel weird to eat lunch on the same table later).  But it will not be like what you see in the photo, a nice sterile animal operating room, with all the right medicines and tools and experienced vets. 
So I went to observe vet surgery.  It was really a very interesting morning.  I got to watch a neutering, a spaying, a teeth cleaning, and a cat declaw.  I did get pretty hot and dizzy at one point  (I think it was when a dogs insides were pulled outside of him) and I had to leave the room for a few minutes to sit down.  I thought about saying "well, thanks, I guess I've seen enough" but I stuck it out and stayed to the end.  Kind of a strange thing to be proud of, but I do feel some sense of accomplishment or conquering of fears for having watched all of those surgeries. 

cool things I've done, part 3

I met a nice man who is a Professor of French at the University that I went to.  I was allowed to sit in on 2 of his classes.  It was cool to have a reason to visit my Alma Mater, but walking into those halls made me feel pretty old.  Is it really 9 years since I graduated from college?  Some of the students, kids, didn't look old enough to be in college.  And then I have another birthday coming up in a few weeks.  How did I get this old already?
First there was a first year French class.  It was review on food vocabulary.  The teacher would ask a question and it was like I could almost see wheels turning in their heads, tongues wanting to spit out a response but the words not quite forming or coming out.  I can remember being at that level.  In fact I am still at a painfully frustrating level with my Bambara study.  But thankfully my French has come a long way, and although I don't necessarily sound intelligent speaking French, I can understand most everything and I can express myself without much effort.  
I also got to see the advanced French class.  And I even got to talk a bit about Mali with the students (in French).  I gave a little warning that my French is goofy.  In school one studies regular old France French, real proper.  Well, I studied in school some, then did a few months in Quebec listening to the Canadian French accent, and now I live in West Africa with its own distinct accent.  Sometimes there are even words that aren't understood across the different Frenches.  Like in English when an American is trying to have a conversation with a British person.  I remember my British roommate once asking me to pass her a "biro" and I said "sure, just tell me what it is." (its a pen)  And if they want to give you biscuits but you don't want a salty snack, don't worry because you are getting some cookies!  So I got to talk in French a bit here in Minnesota - who would've thought?  And I think they even understood my goofy French.  It was really a fun day for me. 
Another time after that I got to go along with the French Professor to a local elementary school to see the after school French Club that he runs for the kids there. 

Visiting Mom at Work (Happy Mother's Day!)

I'm proud of my mom, and I think she has been a good example and an inspiration to many, myself included.  She didn't graduate from high school, but got a GED and then started nursing school when I was about 10.  She became an RN but didn't stop there.  A few years ago she decided to go back to school to become a Nurse Practitioner (and she did NP schooling while working full time, wow!)  Now she is working as a Nurse Practitioner at Essentia Health of Duluth.  She does psychiatric nursing for kids with behavioral and neurological problems. 
A couple of weeks ago I was able to visit my mom at this job that she's been working in for about 6 months now.  I rode into town with her in the morning and then was going to drop her off and use the car for the day and pick her back up at 5, so I walked with her to see her office and know where I needed to find her again at 5. She has to park in a ramp a bit far from her office. The medical center takes up at least 3 city blocks, and its all connected by skywalks. It was a maze, and I was concerned that I wouldn't find my way back to the right parking ramp again.  Somehow I did, but then at 5 when I went to pick her up I got pretty lost (and I didn't have a cell phone).  I knew that I needed to go up to the 5th floor, but when I did I found myself in the maternity section.  I asked someone how to get to neurology, and they said it was on the 8th floor.  Hmm, I really thought I was supposed to go to the 5th floor, but maybe I was wrong.  So I went up to 8 and it was neurological surgery or something.  I figured out that I wasn't in the right building, so I went through another skywalk and up to the 5th floor in that building and found my mom. :)

Mom's office has nice big windows with a view of Lake Superior.

"home" in Minnesota

 I've been "home" in Minnesota for almost 4 weeks now.  Wow, how did that much time go by already?!  I write "home" in quotes like that because I really feel that Mali is my home now.  I haven't actually lived in MN for about 7 years. (I've been in Mali about 3 years, but I lived in California before Africa)

So the questions I am asked a lot now are: 1) what have I been doing, 2) when will I go back to Mali,  3) how is JP, and 4) how are things going in Mali. 
Here are the answers: 1) stuff, 2) I'm not sure, 3) fine, and 4) not so good. 

Ok, I guess I could give a little more information in my answers.  For now I'll work on answering #1: What have I been doing?

The very first thing I did when I arrived was to enjoy a sunny warm mid-April walk with my dog Rascal.  It was over 70 degrees and I was happy to see green grass and throw the ball for him in the park.  Two days later I woke up to see that it was snowing.  Thanks Minnesota.  Its been pretty crazy like that ever since - one day I can go out in a tshirt, the next I wear a hat and 4 layers. 
I have been trying to get outside (even when its cold) with my dog everyday.  And I've seen lots of friends - old and new.  People have been so encouraging to me; I can't even count how many people have come up to me and said that they have been praying for me and JP and Mali. 

I've had time to go to the library, sort through my things that remain in my mom's basement, chat with my grandma, bake some bread, go to special prayer and praise services, and shop at thrift stores.  I've been keeping busy with this and that, nothing monumental, but its been enough to give me some good things to think about besides my husband an ocean away and the upheaval in Mali. 

The photos were taken from a window of the hotel I stayed at in Minneapolis a few weeks back.   My mom had a conference to attend for her work and I went along to enjoy the hotel pool and some quiet time to myself.  (yes, that white thing is the Metrodome)