market morning

I thought I would post a couple pictures and talk about going to the market.  There is a good market in our neighborhood, about a 10 minute walk from the house.  This is an open outdoor market, kind of like a "farmer's market" in the states.  I went this morning and bought a lot of stuff.  Although everything adds up, the prices at the open market are good, this is where the average Malian gets all of their food.  I get a few things at a supermarket, but things there are pretty expensive and the average Malian never sets foot in there, it is catering to rich and expat clients. 
Sometime maybe I'll take pictures in the market and post them, but here are just a few pics from after the shopping was done.

 Carrots are a seasonal item here.  Sometimes they are in abundance and pretty cheap, sometimes they are few and expensive, and sometimes they are not to be found.  I bought 3 bunches of carrots this morning, each bunch was 200 francs (.40 cents American).  I get excited to find good carrots and I eat a lot of them when they are available.  I never thought much about carrots in America.  Usually I would just buy the bag of baby carrots because that is less work.  Nothing is less work here.

 I took this picture just outside my gate (I asked the guy to wait a minute while I ran inside to get my camera) and you see my groceries in bags sitting in the cart.  Usually I just carry my bags back home from market, but today I bought a lot of heavy stuff and it was too much for me to handle.  In the past I've brought a backpack so I could be stubborn and carry everything home myself, but I've come to realize that it is really worth the .40 to .50 cents that it costs to pay a guy to push my groceries home.  We chatted about the new year's holiday on the walk home. 
Some of the heavy things I bought which are not pictured are:
5 kilograms of flour, it comes in plastic bags of 1 kilo each (about 6 cups each) and costs 450 francs a bag (.90 cents),
6 kilos of wheat - the way to get whole wheat flour is to buy wheat, then wash and dry it and bring it to the mill to have it ground ($6),
1 kilo of sugar for $1,
a big bag of plantain bananas that will be fried up for JP's birthday party tomorrow ($3),
2 kilos of potatoes ($2),
a jar of peanut butter (or peanut paste really, natural pb with no sugar or salt) $1.50, I bought my own container to the market to have a lady fill it up, otherwise they give it in a plastic bag,
a small papaya ($1),
SO, that's at least 35 pounds already, and that doesn't take in to account the vegetables I bought, not all of which are pictured. 

 

This is pumpkin-like squash.  It is possible to buy whole squashes, but it is also sold in wedges.  It is a much bigger job to process a whole squash, so I get about 3 big wedges (you see 3 that have been cut in half) every week and cook it.  I eat it like that and use it for different recipes and then I freeze some too as it is also a seasonal item that isn't always available.  Each wedge sells for .20 cents. 

 

Here are a bunch of veggies that get used all the time at our house.  On the left are small red hot peppers, these go in sauces (1 at a time) and JP actually eats them, I just enjoy the flavor they add to the sauce.  If I eat them my face turns all red and tears stream from my eyes.  Anyway, this size cost 2 for .05 cents.  Green peppers are .20 each.  Tomatoes are sold in piles of 4 and the pile I bought was .40 cents.  The cabbage was .40 cents, same price for the big eggplant, and garlic is .10 cents each.   I also bought a big cucumber for .40 cents (they are expensive right now) and a bag of lettuce for .60 cents.  All of the vegetables have to be soaked in bleach water so that we don't get typhoid or anything weird like that. 


why JP was late

"I almost threw up... I don't want to think about it." -JP's response when I asked him about what he found in the yard.

Our walled-in and gated courtyard is shared by the 4 apartments in our building.  One of the neighbors in our building has a puppy (she is fully grown now but I still think of her as a puppy) that has become more than annoying.  I feel sorry for the little dog, she just wants to be loved, but her way of getting attention is jumping at people and biting ankles.  Some neighbors across the street from us had a wedding party at their house last week.  December is the month for a lot of weddings here, I guess because of the cooler weather and because it isn't time for planting or harvesting.  Very early on Thursday morning the neighbors butchered a cow and it was served up to the wedding party attenders later on Thursday. 
Well, Friday morning we were sleeping and woke up to the sound of the nearby mosque's call to prayer at around 5am.  Usually I don't hear the call to prayer at all, or if it does wake me up I just turn over and go back to sleep.  But this Friday morning we woke up and smelled something foul drifting in through the open window.  "what is that?!" It was pretty awful but as it was still dark out we couldn't see what was out there.  We closed the window and went back to sleep.  When it was light out and we got up, we discovered that the neighbor's puppy must have gone out in the street (sometimes the gate doesn't get latched) and dug through the trash of the neighbor who had butchered the cow.  The puppy had brought a large trash bag full of rotting cow parts into our courtyard and must have had fun tearing open the bag and spreading the stinking guts and stuff around just outside of our bedroom window and next to our front door.
Jean-Patrick realized that this problem needed to be taken care of right away as the smell wasn't improving any and there were already hordes of flies.  We also couldn't let our dog outside until it was cleaned up.  So he was late for school because he was a hero and cleaned up the mess.  After re-bagging up all of the nastiness, he hosed, soaped, scrubbed, and rinsed the paving blocks that make up our yard.  What a guy!  After all of that he needed to get himself cleaned up before he could go to school. 
This is the sort of problem that I just never encountered in my life before coming to Mali.  Maybe the neighbor's dog could poo in my yard, or their cat could leave a dead bird or mouse, but never rotting cow innards.

Christmas 2013 in pictures

Today I am celebrating my 5th Christmas in Mali!
What is Christmas like here?  You can see my photos that cover some of the activities of the last few days.

We went shopping at a couple shops downtown that sell a lot of expensive imported goods.  Maybe next week I will write a post so you can see what we bought, it's a project that isn't finished yet.  Anyway, you can see me with a huge creepy Santa that I found in one of the stores. yikes.





I got to choose and prepare the songs and powerpoint overheads and play the piano for our English Christmas caroling service.  We were all set up outside and after all the singing and the message there was good food to eat. 

The above picture was taken at the Christmas party for our group.  There were 18 people there to celebrate, sing, dance, eat good food, and spend time together.  Of the 18, we had people from 8 different countries. I love the internationality of our group!

Below is little Grace in her Santa hat.  She, like many girls here, just had her hair braided for the holidays.

 One of my colleagues from English school is scooping popcorn into a paper cone to give to a student at our Christmas Movie Night.  We set up chairs and projected "The Nativity Story" in a big classroom.  Everyone was invited and about 20 students came.  We watched the movie in English with English subtitles.  About 15 minutes into it I paused it to clarify what we had seen, to discuss the setting, answer questions, and make sure everyone was understanding it well enough.

Many people get new clothes made to wear for Christmas.  All of the churches make fabric each year and sell it a few weeks before Christmas.  Many people show up to the Christmas service wearing their new outfits made of the special Christmas fabric.  In America if I went to church wearing the same outfit as someone else it might be kind of embarrassing, but here half the church has on the same fabric and everyone loves it.  This year our church was selling purple and blue fabric and I liked it so I asked JP to buy it for me as a Christmas present.  He did, and then I took it to a tailor to be sewn.  Above is a picture of the tailor putting the finishing touches on my new outfit.  You can see me wearing it in the last picture.

 We went to church on Christmas Eve.  We were there from about 7:45pm until just after 11pm I think.  There was a service that had a lot of music.  We all sang some songs together and JP played the guitar to help lead that.  There were small groups presenting songs and the children did a skit.  JP sang a song in N'Gambaye, a language he knows from Chad, with 2 other Chadian guys in the church.    Last year some ladies from the church cooked up a big meal, but this year everyone was asked to bring a dish to share. 

 The last picture is of me and Masitan, the woman who works for us several mornings a week to help with cleaning, laundry, and food shopping.  She wanted to come to church with us for Christmas to share in the celebrating.

King's Kids and a Sotrama adventure

 This weekend I attended a big event and I got to see the Bamako Kids perform several of their choreographies.  It was a 50th anniversary celebration for the AGEMPEM - this is the organization in which all of the protestant churches and missions in Mali associate together in cooperation.  They held this special evening for the children to celebrate and show their different songs, dances, and skits. 

 The event was held at a soccer stadium, which as you can see is pretty huge.   Actually we were right next to the stadium in a big building that is a basketball arena (bottom photo).  This all was built in 2001 to host the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament in 2002.  I read that the stadium can hold 55,000 people, and like many well-constructed things here, it was built by the Chinese.  I don't know how many people can fit in to the basketball arena, but we were an impressive sized group even if we didn't even half fill it.  Besides me I only saw 1 other white person.

 

To get there I had taken a taxi.  As it is pretty far away the taxi rate was higher than most trips in town, so I decided to save some money and take a Sotrama to get back home.  A Sotrama is a brightly green painted public transportation mini-bus.  Its like a big van that they have taken all the comfortable seats out of and then attached skinny planks of wood around the edges so that as many people as possible can cram inside.  Lots of these green vehicles go by when you are walking or waiting along a main road, and the money collector shouts the name of the neighborhood it is headed to.  I could not at all understand what the guy was shouting because apparently the Sotrama money collectors learn their shouting at the same place as auctioneers, it is incomprehensible.  I had to ask the guy where it was going even though he was shouting the name of the place, and when he told me I still didn't understand, so he asked me where I wanted to go.  I told him and he said "get on."  I got on hoping that everything would be ok.

 When you ride in one of these you are wedged between people, so if it is hot you will soon be getting their sweat on you.  It is cool season so I thought it would be ok.  I was positioned near the door though, so sometimes when ladies were climbing in or out they used my knee as a handle to help them. There was also a little girl on the lap of the woman next to me who thought I was an armrest.  Some of the ladies started arguing with the guy who collects money, they all seemed pretty angry and I didn't really understand what it was all about, but after a few minutes they all started laughing.  It wasn't too sweaty, but the dust is pretty nasty these days.
The price for the Sotrama ride was only 1/10th the price of a taxi, but it took me over an hour to get home compared to the 20 or so minutes it would have taken in a taxi.  It was an adventure and its good to have those now and then.



orphanage

I was recently able to visit an orphanage.  It is the only government orphanage in the whole country and it is located here in the capital city.  There are currently 137 children at the orphanage.  Most are babies.  The few older children have special needs and are less likely to be adopted.  It is not allowed for foreigners to adopt Malian children at the present time.  Before the coup d'état it was possible, but they put a hold on that and it has caused numbers to rise at the orphanage.  There are still babies coming in regularly, but not as many going out.
I know Malian women who have not been able to have biological children (much to their shame and despair), but they would never consider adoption.  Many Malians would never consider an adopted child to be "theirs."  The babies at the orphanage are mostly there because they were abandoned at birth by their unwed mothers.  This is generally the reason for orphans.  Otherwise children are taken in by family members.  I know several children being raised by aunties and uncles after their mothers died (way too many women here die in childbirth).  But again, I often see that the adopted or taken-in child is not treated as "their" child.  While their biological children wear new clothes for holidays the adopted child wears an old hand-me-down dress.  This is not always the case, but I've seen adopted children treated as less than biological children enough times.

 

Before going to the orphanage I was a little worried about what I might find there.  I've seen scary things on tv about horrible places where children are filthy, starving, and 3 to a bed.  While it absolutely touches my heart to see these kids in an institutional place without parents, I've seen plenty of kids a lot worse off in this country.  The babies in the orphanage were all well fed, clean, well clothed, only 1 to each crib, and they even had some toys.  One young man with special needs was scooting himself across a clean tiled floor and playing with a little ball.  I remembered visiting a young woman in a village with similar disabilities.  She was living with her family, but they seemed to want to keep her hidden away, forgotten.  Instead of a clean tiled floor she had a dirt courtyard shared with chickens and a few sheep.  She was not clean or groomed like the young man in the orphanage.  I did feel compassion for the young man, and I stopped to squat down to hold his hand and talk to him for a few seconds.  But I think that he is a lot happier and probably better off than the young woman in the village who lived with her unloving family. 
The babies don't get held and played with as much as they need, its just not possible with the limited staff.  But they get held and played with some, and they all seemed to be doing pretty well actually. 

Seeing all of these beautiful babies got me a bit upset with the mentality here about adoption.  I remember having a friend in the 3rd grade who was adopted.  Her family was pretty rich and she had a lot of expensive toys.  She told me how her parents had told her that they couldn't have a biological child, but they wanted a little girl so badly, and they were so happy that they found her to be their dearly loved special little girl.  I remember feeling jealous and wishing I were adopted too.  When I tell some Malians about friends I have in the states that have adopted children, how those children are really "their" children now, they find it hard to believe.  I wish that the mentality would change.  It is ridiculous that all of those perfect babies are sitting in the orphanage waiting while there are so many women yearning to have a baby but not being able to conceive.

 

I was glad to visit these sweet little ones, and I hope that I'll be able to go there again soon.  I would be open to consider adopting a baby in the future if the situation changes and they allow foreigners to adopt again.  I'm not sure if the Mr. would be as open to that, but its something to pray about. 

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  James 1:27



real ice cream?!

I saw this real ice cream at a supermarket here in Bamako!  Most of our food shopping is done in small neighborhood shops and at the outdoor market.  The outdoor market sells everything fresh - vegetables and fruit and fish, though you can find things like packaged spaghetti, tomato paste, and salt at stands within the market.  I stock up on "dry goods" once a month at a shop that has especially good prices.  I know, I said "dry goods" and sounds like this store is from the 1800's or something, but really it is just an African version of one of those old stores you'd see in a movie or TV show set back then.  There is a long counter with a guy working and shelves of goods behind him.  They scoop flour and sugar out of huge sacks to measure it out to sell.  It has charm.
There are a couple of modern supermarkets here in the capital city, and they have imported things that the average Malian could never afford to buy as well as things that the average Malian would not recognize.  I don't buy much in the supermarkets because we can't really afford to buy most of it, but I find a few things there that are special treats.  They sell expensive imported cheese!  It is so good to have a pizza night once or twice a month with the mozzarella cheese that can be found at the supermarket.  I'm getting pretty good at making it all from scratch - the sauce and the crust.  Other special things I get at the supermarket from time to time include: a jar of pickles, a bag of dried lentils or chickpeas, a can of tuna, hair conditioner.  Once I bought a can of black olives for pizza night, but I have a hard time paying 3-4 times the price of what it would be in America, so we really mostly use local foods.
I noticed the ice cream last time I was there and decided to take a closer look.  The apple sorbet that you see in the top picture, 1 liter size, costs at the current exchange rate a whopping $19.  Yes really, $19!  The Haagen Dazs is half the size but costs $17.  Who is buying this stuff?  Certainly not me!  I guess its people who work for different embassies or do international business or something. 



 

On the bottom you can see the Yoplait that is sold in any local corner store that has refrigeration.  These yogurt pouches cost 30 cents each.  It is not actually "yogurt" but "lait caille".  I don't know if we have a word for that in English but basically it is thin drinkable yogurt stuff.  It comes in plain, vanilla, and strawberry flavors.  We often put these in the freezer and then eat them frozen.  Its not quite ice cream, but it is a good cold treat. 

 

 

river at sunset





 

The Niger River is a 5-minute walk away from our apartment.  The river flows through the city so a lot of people live pretty close to it.  There is a cultural center with riverfront property in our neighborhood, and everyone is allowed to walk around the grounds.  Even donkeys, so you have to watch where you step!  I've gone down there a few times recently at sunset.  It is between 2 of the city's 3 bridges.  I can see cars and motorcycles crossing the bridges, but from the grassy river bank I can't hear the noise, and they are far enough away to look like toys.  The buildings downtown across the river seem shrouded in a magical mist, of course it is really only gross pollution smog, but I like to imagine.  If I wait for a bit a pirogue will pass by (that's what those long skinny boats are called.)  There is an ethnic group called the Bozo people who fish.  The guys in the pirogues are sure to be Bozo fishermen.  One throws a net, but no fish.  In the middle of a fast-paced and crowded city it is calm and open on the river.

  

walking with a camera

Here are a few pictures I took while out on the street with camera in hand.  The kids usually love getting their picture taken, but the man I took a picture of was excited to have his picture taken too. :)

 

we're awfully low

I've been looking at some information online lately.  Its like I'm doing a research project or something, only I don't need to.  It's completely self-imposed and out of my own interest - yes, I guess I'm a bit of a bookish-nerd.  This started when I asked myself, "Where does Mali rank among the poorest countries in the world?" The answer I found is that Mali is certainly among the very poorest countries in the world, but there is more than one way to measure poverty.  Anyway, I've been especially fascinated with a couple of lists and I thought you might find this stuff interesting too.  Or maybe not.  But by giving this little report its like I'm finishing with my project and now I can start studying up on other intriguing topics.  Hey, it's what I do for fun.

The first list is the United Nations' HDI list.
"The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare."
So this list rates each country's development and isn't a measurement of money per se, although there is of course a big connection between the monetary wealth of a country and the level of development.
Countries are measured and put into 1 of 4 lists of 46 or 47 countries each. The lists are:
1. Very High Human Development
2. High Human Development
3. Medium Human Development
4. Low Human Development. 
On the most recent bottom list (the least developed countries in the world,) of the 46 countries listed, 36 of them are in Africa.  And the 10 lowest (worst) countries on the list are all in Africa.

 The World's 10 Least Developed Countries
(#1 being the very least developed country in the world):
10. Burundi
9. Guinea
8. Central African Republic
7. Eritrea
6. Mali
5. Burkina Faso
4. Chad
3. Mozambique
2. Democratic Republic of the Congo
1. Niger

So from one perspective, we could say that Mali is the 6th poorest country in the world (or technically the 6th least developed country, but I see these as being kind of the same thing.)  I noticed that Chad (Jean-Patrick's home country) was very low on the list too.  If you want to see the whole thing for yourself you can check it out here:  LIST of countries
The other list I want to share is the World Bank's list of poorest countries in the world, this one can be seen here: 2nd LIST  On this list the countries are ranked according to GDP (gross domestic product) per capita.  The GDP is not a exactly a measure of personal income, but it is "often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living."  The GDP for America is about $50,000.  Obviously there are lots of people in America with an income less than that, and lots of people making more.  Somehow the big brainy folks average things out or whatever so that we can scientifically compare countries, and that is as much as I need to understand.  I have a degree in Sociology, but I hate math, so I don't want to think any deeper about all the calculations.  I'm happy just to look at the data once it has been calculated.
The World's Poorest countries
(based on GDP, #1 is the poorest)
1. Democratic Republic of Congo  ($422 GPD per capita)
2. Burundi
3. Eritrea
4. Liberia
5. Niger
6. Central African Republic
7. Malawi
8. Madagascar
9. Mozambique
10. Togo
11. Guinea
12. Ethiopia
13. Guinea Bissau
14. Mali  ($1214 GPD per capita)
----
22. Chad  ($1493 GPD per capita)

And FYI, USA has the 7th highest GPD in the world.  Did you think it was #1?

According to this 2nd list, Mali is the 14th poorest country in the world.  Whether it is 6th poorest or 14th poorest, it is still awfully low on the lists.  I guess that what makes both Mali and Chad look a bit better on the 2nd list is that there are natural resources that boost the economies a bit (gold in Mali and oil in Chad.)  The average citizen has not benefitted at all from the money these resources have brought in.  Mali and Chad both have some serious problems with corruption, but that is another list for another day.

English School update

Here is one of the signs pointing the way to our new and improved location.





For the past year I have been teaching English classes a couple nights a week, and I love it!   The school was started a few years ago by some people here, and it has really grown.  Today there are 10 of us involved in some way as staff, and we represent 5 different organizations.  I love that it is a cooperative effort between groups!  There are now 100 students spread out in the different classes, usually 10-15 students in each class, plus there is a conversation café night once a week that brings another 25+ students to the center.

The teachers are not paid, we do this work as volunteers.  Beyond teaching English, we hope to build friendships with the students. 
The students pay a low fee to take classes, but it is enough to cover rent and utilities for the building, and for books.
WE RECENTLY MOVED TO A NEW BUILDING!  We were in a house in which we used the living room as our classroom.  The location of that building was great, especially for me as I could walk there, but there was not enough space for any more students or classes.  It also was having some issues with a leaky roof, so it was time to find a solution to these problems.
The building that we have moved to was used before as a small elementary and high school for missionary kids up until the coup d'état happened. After the coup and up until we moved in, the building was not being used, so we were happy to move in and put it to good use.  It is possible that in a couple years the kids' school will be able to start again, but for now this is a great solution.
The new place is in a different neighborhood, so I have to take a taxi to get there, but that is the only negative and there are many positive things about it.

You can see some students in the 2 classrooms I teach classes in.  The new building has more rooms so we can hold multiple classes simultaneously.  The rooms are brighter because of more windows and they get more air circulating.  When the power cuts (as it often does), there is a generator we can start up so we can continue class with lights and fans on.  It is also at the end of a quiet street, so we don't hear noisy traffic like we did in the old place.

garibout boys: modern day slaves

The boys carry old tomato paste cans or small plastic buckets to receive food or money as they beg on the streets each day.  Here you can also see a couple of cheap plastic shoes that belong to someone lucky - many of the boys don't seem to have shoes at all.

In Mali there is a form of modern day slavery which involves parents giving their young sons to Muslim teachers, or Marabouts.  The families seem to think they are doing a good thing and that they deserve to be blessed for sending their sons away like this, for the cause of Islam.  The boys study the Koran, and eventually they will be able to recite most if not all of it by heart in Arabic.  They are not given any other sort of formal education.  The don't learn to speak or read or write in French.  They don't study history or science or math.  Instead they spend a lot of time begging on the street.
A Marabout (Muslim teacher) may be responsible for several dozen boys.  By responsible I mean that he sees to it that they learn the Koran, and beyond that he is basically their slave master.  The boys are generally not provided with food or clothes (or medical care, or...anything).  They are sent out each day to beg for something to eat (I've never seen a fat garibout!) as well as for money that they must bring back at the end of the day to give to their Marabout or else they risk a beating.
Any time I go out on the street, and especially if I am going to a store, a restaurant, or traveling by bus, I am confronted by these boys begging for money.  I do not give money because I know it will just go in their Master's pocket and I do not want to support the system.  I have sometimes given them food if I have something to give (a banana, a leftover half of a sandwich, a piece of candy) and they are quick to share with their buddies and gobble it up.  The problem is that there are always a bunch of these boys and it can be really overwhelming to be surrounded by 5 or 10 beggars when I have nothing (or only 1 or 2 bananas) to give.  But I make it a point to smile at them and say hello, sometimes ask their names.  I refuse to ignore or look past them, to treat them as worthless.  Though they may be dressed in dirty ill-fitting clothes, (likely the only set of clothes they have), and they spend their days as poor beggars, though they sleep wherever they can find a space, and eat whatever they can get their hands on, these boys were created in the image of God and they are absolutely precious to Him.  These are human beings with incredible potential in each one. 
I have a hard time trying to fathom how a mother could willingly give her little boy away like this.  And how anyone could treat a fellow human being (a child no less!) in such a despicable way.  Frankly, it makes me very angry.  It's just not right!  Where is the justice?  How is this legal and accepted?!

I know a few people that have ministries to care for garibout boys.  One friend brings boys needing medical care to the hospital and sees to it that they are cared for, even if they need surgery.  Another friend works with an organization that runs a center for the boys.  I got to go with her last week to see what it was like. 

We arrived around 6:30 and shared a breakfast of bread and beans with the boys.  You can see I'm dipping my bread in the same bowl with the boys.  Are you ready to eat out of the same communal bowl with street beggars?
The center gives the boys bread for breakfast each morning, but my friend bought the beans for them and this is a special treat that they really appreciate as it helps their bellies feel full longer.

I can't tell what ethnicity most Malians are just by looking at them.  But Fulani people can sometimes be easier to identify.  This beautiful Fulani boy's name is Ali.  What a horrible crime that innocent Ali has been sentenced to spend his youth begging to survive.  He should be going to school and playing with little siblings and getting hugs from his mom.  When he finishes his time in the garibout system, what kind of life will he be prepared for?  Either for treating other boys the way he was treated, or for a life on the street as a mobile salesman, or for a life of crime I imagine.

There are thousands and thousands of boys like this here in Mali.  Pray with me for the end to this system of slavery.



squalor and luxury

My neighborhood contains some dramatically contrasting views.  I take my dog out to walk or run most days, so I've had a good chance to observe the disparity everywhere around where I live.  In the top picture you can see a ramshackle "house" (left) an inadequate "bathroom" (middle) and at right is a tipped up donkey cart.  This isn't a typical residence here, it seems to be a squatter house.  Well, if you can call it a house.  It looks to be  built with scraps of old materials, and the roof is covered in plastic that is held down by rocks to keep the rain out.  This place is a on a small strip of land between 2 roads. 
Just across the street and about 2 houses down you can see the big white house (palace? mansion?) in the  2nd picture.  They are well equipped with air conditioning and a generator that kicks in whenever the power cuts.  The white house people and the shack people are neighbors, isn't that crazy?

A few streets over I took a picture of a a disgusting gutter.  They are often like this- open and filled with rotting trash.  Sometimes rats can be found running across the sludge and disappearing into a pipe or hole in the concrete.  My dog once jumped into a gutter to chase a rat and I had to shampoo him twice to get the stinky black stuff off of him, so gross.  Since then I don't let him off leash near gutters.  Once in a while I will step out into the street and wonder why it smells like an outhouse.  I have to remind myself that its because of the open sewers all over the neighborhood.  Without these gutters we would have flooded roads whenever it rains.  I know this because there are neighborhoods I've been to that don't have gutters and the roads turn into giant puddles and lots of mud.  So the gutters are much preferable to that scenario.
In the bottom picture you can see the garden of  a rich person.  It is in front of the wall and gate to their house, I imagine they probably have nice gardens in their yard as well.  They have full time guards watching their house and watering the plants a few times a day.  Whenever I walk past here I slow down to try to take in this patch of beauty.  I would really like to step in and lay down in the shade on the nice grass for awhile, but I don't think the guard would be cool with that.

kicking and screaming

There wasn't actually any screaming, but I kind of felt like I wanted to scream.  I have just experienced frustration of a sort that I feel a need to write about it to let it all out.
It is the morning.  First I got myself all dressed up in a nice outfit - that is, an ankle length wrap skirt and a matching top sewn from brightly colored and not at all stretchy African cloth.  Then I spent time putting on makeup and doing my hair in the hopes of looking nice for my meeting.  After packing my purse with the long strap that can be worn across the body, I grabbed the key to our motorcycle and locked the door of the house.  This is when the trouble started.  Our motorcycle has a nice little start button (not what you see pictured, I just pulled that off the internet) but it hasn't been working for a while.  So it needs to be kick-started.  However, that is certainly easier said than done while wearing an ankle length non-stretchy skirt and a pair of plastic flip flops, even under normal circumstances.  The motorcycle hasn't been used a lot since JP is out of town, but even if I am not going to ride it I make sure to start it and let the motor run a bit every few days. The last time it was started up, a few days ago, a friend was over so he started it for me.  He commented that it was hard to start and the battery seemed weak.  He did manage to start it though.  So this morning I hiked up my long skirt and tried my very hardest at kick-starting the motorcycle.  Over and over again.  I gave it all my effort.  I think I may have discovered a new exercise routine!  Attempting to kick-start the motorcycle was actually very physically demanding.  And the temperature, even at 10am, was at least 80 degrees, and right now the humidity level is also at least 80%.  So after many minutes of failed attempts I had sweat streaming down everywhere, including my face, making the nice fresh makeup look I had applied only a memory.  The meeting is only a 20 minute walk away, but by this point if I walked I would have been about 30 minutes late.  And I would have gotten there dripping with sweat.  Yuck.  And I was really too frustrated to be able to calmly sit for a few hours in the meeting.  So I went back in the house and took a shower.  I think that the motorcycle just needs a new battery.  I hope that is all it needs.  What I need is to wear a stretchy t-shirt and a pair of shorts while I stay in the house and read a bit, and then maybe I'll even make a cup of tea.  Yes, that sounds calm and soothing. 

big rain and my post office tour

We aren't out of the rainy season yet.  It isn't raining every day now though, so there will be a few very sweaty humid days between rains.  This morning it RAINED.  Here is a picture I stole off my friend's fb page from when they went out to drive somewhere this morning in the big rain.  Usually you can see a paved road where all that brown muddy water is.  On the right side there is a gutter, but it has overflowed. A lot. 
We stay home when it rains if at all possible.  To get a taxi I have to do a 5 minute walk out to a main road, and before today I didn't even have an umbrella.  Besides, its pretty hard to find a taxi when its raining, so its just not a good plan to go out.  Sometimes there will be light rain for a while, but typically when it rains, it really comes down hard.  And you can see in the picture what a lot of roads here look like when that happens.  So its just better to wait out the rain like most Malians do. 
Well, the rain stopped this morning by 11 and it was still clear at 3pm when I decided to go downtown to the post office to get the package that my mom sent to me.  She sent it 2 weeks ago and I figured it must be here by now because previous packages she sent to us here in Bamako had arrived in 8-10 days. (there are dates stamped on them when they arrive at the post office)  When we lived in the small town the postman knew my name and he would give me a phone call if a package came for me.  That's pretty good service - not as good as home delivery like in the states, but I was quite happy with that system.  Here in Bamako they put a notice in your post office box when a package arrives.  The problem with that is that the post office box is for my group and I might not get the notice for quite some time.  Someone from the group (not me) checks the box periodically.  If there was a notice they would bring it back to the base with them and give it to me the next time they saw me I suppose.  I knew when my mom sent the package and I thought it must be here already.  Plus, there are some things in it for my English classes that start on Monday. 
So I got dressed in a nice Malian outfit and walked the 5 minutes to get a taxi.  The rain started up just after I got in the taxi and we started heading downtown.  The rain continued until I was in the 2nd taxi to head back home again. No joke.  The whole time I was downtown it was pouring rain. 
I got dropped off across from the Central Post Office.  It was my first time there.  I ran across the street and up the steps and I was basically soaking wet just from the few seconds it took to do that.  Inside the post office there was some random man who asked me a lot of questions and then told me to follow him to the package place.  I ran behind him, jumping over puddles and getting even more wet, to another building.  In that building a woman looked in a register book to see if she could find my name/my package listed.  This is the Central Post Office in the capital city of a country with 16 million people, and the woman is looking at a hand written ledger to try to track my package.  I guess there are bigger problems here that need to be tackled before getting a computerized postal system, but still...  The woman said that my package hadn't arrived yet.  The random man (who was waiting there with me) told me to follow him to another building.  I had no reason not to, so I ran through the rain again with him.  He asked where my umbrella was and I said I didn't have one, that I needed one.  We entered a door and could see nothing but P.O. boxes.  I've never seen so many P.O. boxes.  Then we went upstairs and there were more.  He found a worker behind a little window and I talked to him.  His name was Augustine and he was really nice.  He told me he was Catholic.  I don't know if that was to explain where his name came from or if he is just really proud to be Catholic or what.  He looked in our box to see if the package notice was there, but it wasn't.  He gave me his phone number and took mine and said that he would call me when my package came.  Isn't that nice?  The random man told me we could go check somewhere else, but I figured it was pretty sure that my package has really not arrived yet, and I didn't really want to keep running around in the rain.   Back on the first floor of the P.O. box building, random man found some guys sitting around seemingly doing nothing.  I guess they were waiting for the rain to stop, but I bet they do a lot of sitting there seemingly doing nothing even when it isn't raining.  One of them was wearing a uniform and the others were in regular clothes.  Random man started telling me about how he has some lovely umbrellas to sell to me for a good price, then he stepped out in to the rain to go find them.  I was left with the doing nothing guys and I waited there and wondered why random man didn't think to try to sell me an umbrella before we did all of that running around in the rain.  Random man came back with a small selection of umbrellas and quoted me some ridiculous prices.  I told him I simply didn't have much money with me today so I couldn't buy an umbrella.  There was then, of course, a whole lot of discussion and negotiation interspersed with some joking between me and my new "friend" random man.  I kind of felt obliged to buy an umbrella from him after he had given me such a nice tour (though in the rain) of all of the post office buildings.  Beyond my feelings though was the fact that I could really use an umbrella!  I finally bought one for about 40% of his original asking price, and I probably still overpaid a bit. 
By this point it was only drizzling, so I didn't even open my new umbrella as I went outside and found a taxi to take home.  (I did open it to test it before buying it though, I didn't get here yesterday after all.)  Once I was in the taxi to come home the rain stopped.  But I got to see all the puddles, or rather small lakes and rivers, that were now the road.
I could be upset that I made a trip across town and back and didn't achieve my purpose of collecting my package.  But honestly, it was kind of a good time.  I have been doing too much work with my books and papers and computer in the last few days, so it was a nice break for me to get out and have some interaction with some interesting characters.  My mind needed a chance to think about other things for awhile.  Things very often don't go as I plan or as I wish, that's just life, and maybe especially life in Mali.  If I can accept it with a smile and find something good in the situation, I think I'm coming out ahead.  After all - I got myself a nice new umbrella today!

three years

We just celebrated 3 years of marriage!

Since JP is away doing his school internship now, I made the long bus trip to go visit him for a few days.  I hadn't been there since Easter, so it was nice to see a lot of our friends and colleagues again too.  One friend let us stay at her house for my visit, and that was so nice.  Jean-Patrick is living at the mission base and it is kind of like dorm life, so I was thankful to stay in a house with all its amenities. 
If you've read this blog for a while you might remember that we've had some challenges trying to celebrate our anniversary well the past 2 times.  I hadn't wanted to do difficult travel again this year, but it was unavoidable.  To read about what last year was like, or just to get a good description of what a bus trip is like here, check out this post:  a nice relaxing weekend away   
This year I spent around 11 hours traveling each direction!  Exhausting!



Here is a picture of what can be seen from a bus window when the bus makes a stop at a small station.  You can see a couple trays of yellow apples (imported) and a lady with bananas on her head, bottled beverages (sometimes real Coke and Sprite, sometimes reused bottles filled with juice), there is a man with a cart trying to sell random plastic goods, and in the middle there is a woman who has a tray of meat, fried potatoes, and bread and she is ready to put it together to make a quick sandwich.  Its always a crowd of people waiting there.  Usually there are a couple of beggars too.

On this trip there was a guy at one stop who asked me where I was from - I was the only white person to be seen, so I guess he did see me!  I said America, and he said he was from America too.  Clearly he was not, but this is typical of the friendly Malian joking that I enjoy with strangers on a daily basis.

I got to spend 4 days visiting JP.  On our actual anniversary day (September 3) we enjoyed a dinner out.  We borrowed a friend's motorcycle and went to a roadside shop.  In the evenings they serve roasted lamb and rotisserie chicken with all the fixings.  You can choose to fill your plate with fried potatoes, fried plantains, beans, onions, tomatoes, and hot peppers.  Then you sit outside at a plastic table and enjoy the food.  It wasn't fancy but we enjoyed it!
JP will still be gone for quite a few more weeks and I've come back, still home alone.  I'm keeping pretty busy though, so I think the next 3 weeks will pass quickly and then JP will come home to visit for a long weekend.