What's different?

Besides the most common question we receive, "where the hell is Mali?", we are often asked if life is similar to home. Yes and no. While life here is ultimately the same as anywhere, people raising the next generation to raise the next generation and so forth, there are some things we do here regularly that we didn't do often in our lives a lot back home. Some examples:


We wear funny clothes.

We sleep under mosquito nets.

We feed small animals.

We hand wash clothes.

We wear plastic bags on our heads.

We hold babies.

We check out the mummifying cat.

Sam cooks.

Mark builds houses.

We watch policemen assist children to urinate in public.

We eat from communal bowls.

We read many, many books.

We open care packages!

We throw kids in the air.

We look at Mauritania.

We re-check the cat's mummification process.

So there you have a few things that we do in country that we did a limited bit of back home...

Another Roadside Attraction

Oh, we forgot to mention that across the street from the Zoo is a set of three caves that were once inhabited by cavemen, apparently. They have since been transformed into a instructive little jaunt through evolutionary time.

In the first grotte, there is a brief explanation as to why one might dig here.

The sign reads: "L'Archeologie, C'est Qoui?"

The second cave has a fine display explaining human evolution, complete with a skull of an australopithecine from Kenya.

The third cave contains a mock up of life for the average caveman.



There was a nice painted evolutionary timeline that had a surprising degree of, brace yourselves, accuracy.


The exposition finishes up by undermining all the pretty good information which had been disseminated in the previous exhibits. It has a few cavemen living alongside what we believed to be a brontosaurus, although its been a while since any of us were in the second grade so we could not be sure. This is obviously misleading for little kids who might be learning about dinosaurs (or cavemen, for that matter) but it provides a great opportunity for the toubabs to pose infront of a dinosaur and act terrified. The security guy must think this is some sort of european tradition, as we were followed by others doing the same. He probably sees a good bit of this:





FYI: Sam is the one who has not been pooped on by birds...

Offroadin'

We have been doing a bit of driving lately. We took the road between Kayes and Bamako three times in just over a week. There is a new road, which is beat up by American standards but one of the best roads in Mali, that gets you there somewhere between eight and eleven hours later. Had we taken that road three times there would be nothing to report. Alas, we did not. There is another, slightly more tiring way to go. The back way takes a bit longer (i.e. two days) and is on a more, shall we say, traditional Malian road. A traditional Malian road is one that can make even riding in a Land Cruiser uncomfortable.


In rare spots the road is paved...


In various spots it was once paved...


In many spots it simply a jeep track...

And in some spots it disappears and you pick your own path.


Don't get us wrong, it is a prettier ride and there are actually things to look at as opposed to on the paved road. There are plenty of cute little villages, as seen in National Geographic.

There is also the "world famous" dam at Manantali. This is a relative term reserved for those whose world is confined to its shadow. It is likely none of our readers has ever heard of it although it does power those parts of West Africa which have been "electrified" as we would have said about a hundred years ago.

All in all, we recommend this ride to anyone, just not more than twice a week if it can be avoided. Your neck and back will thank you.

At the Zoo

We decided years ago that a good way understand countries more might be by visiting their zoos. We figured that it is quite telling how a society treats their animals. Not sure if this is true but it sounds like a deep insight. Some places we felt treated the animals well, some not so much. Then there are places like the zoo in Bamako. We have no idea what the conditions in this zoo indicate, as we had never encountered anything quite that surreal.

Sam, Mark and their friend Kelly (many of you Jackson Hole folks remember Kelly as the bubbly girl from the Apres Vous lift) headed out for an excursion to the Parc Zoologique. They saw a few big ticket animals like lions and chimps,

some regional favorites like the hyenas and the jackals (although there was a glaring abscence of the country's namesake, the "mali" or hippopotomus), as well as the famous Bamako zoo donkey exhibit. They were allowed to get much closer to these large animals than any of them really should have felt comfortable with, as you can see from the photos (Kelly's hand pictured with the banana for scale).

In fact, Sam almost fell into the used jeans exhibit!


There was also a rather interesting (read: horrifically bloody and foul smelling) butchering area where the meals for the attractions were prepared fresh daily. This was a pretty unique sight, as dead animal body parts of any description are generally discouraged at many of the world's finer zoos.

They were intrigued by a sign for the rare african manatee.

Not getting out to the ocean all that often they figured that they should check it out. Alas, it was not to be. The pen, pictured, appeared to have been abandoned a while ago.

It was only later in the day, out past the cheetahs, that they made a gastly discovery. It appeared that what remained of said manatee was to be found in what remained of a glass case. The case had been broken open to expose the corps to the effects of the harsh african climate. This resulted in a curious mix of decay, mummification and outright scavenging by various carrion feeders. Needless to say, a bizzare sight in the extreme.

Our town

We don't actually live in Kayes proper. We live in a little town a few hours north of there. It is a dusty spot with lots of animals and not many trees. It tends toward the warm side. The folks in town are a bit more conservative than many other places in Mali. Sam often goes without a headwrap but that makes her the only woman in town without one. The men typically wear boubous, more so than in other places. That is by way of introduction for these pictures: Mark thinking "I can see Mauritania from here" and Sam with her counterpart walking down the main street of our town (young Luke Skywalker "bullseye"ing womp rats in his T-16 not pictured).

Ablo is O.K.

So, this is Ablo. He is the cutest kid to ever visit our training center. He is pictured here doing what he does best when he is not filling everyone's water bottles, washing his hands. So he has had a bit of a mishap. We returned to site the day after he and his mom. Before we got back he managed to sit down on a pot of sauce over an open fire and burned the hell out of his ass. One would think that this would mean he was lying around, crying a lot and being waited on hand and foot, having ice cream brought to him on the hour like King Midas and in the states one would be correct. This, however, is Mali. There neither any ice cream nor is there any compassion for pain to go around. He just limps around and asks where all the friends he made at Tubaniso are. "Where's Abdullaye? Where's Kadja? Where's Oumar? Where's Nana? Where's Aminata? Where's Kadi?" You get the picture. He has the incredible memory skills of a Malian child and names off everyone, or at least we think he does but since we can't remember everyone's Malian names, not having the memories or Malian children, we are not sure. His smile is, of course, just as big as always even when hauling his pants down around his ankles and sticking his butt out to show you his burns. Nothing phases this kid!

Sam's birthday

Sam is now a year older. She had her birthday while we were at in-service training just outside of Bamako. You might be tempted to think this would mean a less than memorable birthday (if you have ever gone through a Peace Corps in-service training this temptation is nigh on irresistible. Any Muppet fans that have seen the pod people of The Dark Crystal having their very essences sucked out of them through their blank staring eyes will be able to envision it clearly as well) but it had its moments. Those moments occurred during a trip to the “trashpile”, the bar down the road from the training center, Tubaniso. It is, essentially, the only option for the adult beverage seeker marooned there. Sure, a truly motivated person or group might head across the river for a few more options or jump a ride into Bamako proper. This type intrepid drinker might be discouraged by any number of factors. It could be dark, the transport could be notoriously unreliable, they could be broke or, worse, somewhere in West Africa and broke. However implausible it might sound, in the perfect storm that was Sam’s birthday, we were facing all these factors simultaneously.
We started off and quickly managed to flag down a car. There was room for four people. There were eight of us. Sam naturally got a spot being the birthday girl. That meant the hubby got one as well. The married couple was in the uncomfortable (for others) process of giving each other the silent treatment, for one reason or another. Needless to say, volunteers weren’t exactly falling over each other to get in on that scene. Jake and Susan drew the short straws, apparently, and started to climb in.
Here’s where it got fun. Sam slid across and gave Mark the thousand yard stare. He tried to escape the evil eye by looking for something, anything else to focus on. He saw a briefcase in the seat (two, actually, but he never got his hands on the second, as we will see) and grabbed it to move it out of Jake’s way. It was heavy. It required a bit of a heave. Smiling because he had found a way to help his friends and not have to look into the cold glare of his wife at the same time, Mark swung it out of the way. It connected squarely with Sam’s nose.
The smiling stopped. So did the silence. Sam was not pleased. She had some choice words for her beloved. They need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that pirates would have admired her colorful mastery of the English language at that moment. Truck drivers across the world blushed in unison. Mark flinched away, not from the myriad blows raining down on him but from the expected geyser of blood coming from her nose. It never came. Unbelievably, neither Sam nor Mark’s nose was broken. This fact did not make it any better for Jake, Susan or the two guys in the front who were nice enough to pick up a bunch of crazy toubabs. Thank god we dispelled any idea that these guys might have had about insane white people.
The doors to the car opened. Out came Susan and then Jake looking as if they had just escaped a pack of crazed zombies in the movie I Am Legend. Mark slinked out after with the look of a man who had just inadvertently hit his wife in the face on her birthday and, lastly, the battered birthday girl herself with the understandable displeasure of a woman who has been hit in the face by her husband on her birthday. The others arrived not long after, clearly debating whether they wanted more to find out how the ride ended or to flee. The celebration was going badly.
Then something unexpected happened. It came on the airwaves of Mail Orange. The fact that anything would get through on the completely unreliable airwaves of one the planet’s worst cellular carriers was amazing in itself, that it would be perfect timing to take Sam’s mind off her aching nose miraculous. Sam’s brother-in-law Brian called to wish her a happy birthday. He made her smile. Mark got on the phone with him and managed to loudly tell the story of how ridiculous their ride there had been which, in turn, made her laugh. He, of course, got cut off quickly but not before saving the evening. Mark owes him a beer.
A splendid time was had thereafter. Spirits were high as we left. The crew was ready for the walk, all fueled up on boxed wine and Castel beer. Mark, however, fancies himself really good at catching rides when he has no business getting one. This was certainly one of those times. When the driver of the massive mining dump truck saw the toubab on the side of the road pointing at the cab and then at the ground emphatically in front of him he must have been thrown for a loop. He likely stopped out of mere curiosity but by the time we had all climbed up the ladder and into the bed he was game. He probably figured that if a girl in a skirt, Kelly, was willing to straddle the side fifteen feet off the ground then she deserved a ride. Sam was thrilled. For the final movie allusion of this incredibly long entry, you should picture Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic yelling, “I’m the king of the world!” Yes, this is a bit of a stretch as you will have to substitute a movie star on the bow of the world’s most famous passenger liner on the open ocean with the wind in his hair for a Peace Corps volunteer in the back of a colossal dump truck driving down the trash lined streets of Mali. Hey, at least there was wind in her hair…