The final three:

One was from our friends Zack and Shannon, which apparently took much longer than normal to arrive due to it being strangely shaped like the elusive Wyoming Jackalope.




Another came from our PCV friends Karmen, Joelle and Jessica, who managed to find an amazing likeness of Sam and Mark on a card in Ghana.










The final card we ever received in Mali came from Belfast, Maine. We sent it ourselves.

Goodbye to Yelimané

We visited Yelimané for the last time this past weekend. As much as we realize things have changed since we first set eyes on that place, we also realize that nothing really does change. Kids get bigger, new ones arrive, older people leave, mud buildings are replaced with concrete, temporary markets are replaced with more permanent structures, true, but one could return there in twenty years and the same lives will still be going on. The spirit of the place will remain the same. The lives will no longer be lived by the current parents but by their children and they will continue much as before. Prayers will still be said five times a day, fields will still be hoed by hand, women will still give birth aided only by other women whose qualifications are that they have survived all their deliveries. The same food will be eaten, the same transport will be taken (this is meant in the most literal fashion – the same vehicles will be in use), the same villages no more than an hour’s walk away will be the furthest some of the women will ever travel in their lives. Children will still be cute and their lives will still be difficult ahead of them. People will take time for people. Tea time will remain the most important time, the only real time. The joy in life will be, as ever, chatting with family and friends. Nothing will ever be more important than properly greeting people. We hope to take some of these last bits home with us…

Postcard Wall Is Complete

A few final cards have joined the wall. These will likely be the final additions, as our time here comes to an end in less than 2 weeks. If you sent us one (or many) we thank you, if you are planning to send us one you are too late, if you sent one that never arrived don’t worry about it as that is pretty common, if you never sent one shame on you. There are kids in Africa starving for news from their friends.

Jay Oleson from Sam’s high school class sent one from his home in Bretton Woods, NH. Good to hear from him and great to get an antique postcard through the mail (it must be about 100 years old). Very Brewster’s Millions.


J.B. Boyd sent us a card from South Carolina rather than make good on his claim to come visit us in Africa. We think he was just trying to get out of the deal where he stayed with us in Africa in exchange for a painting, or maybe he was just taunting us because he lives in a "real" tropical paradise.

The Wandering Wallaces of Dialafara, Kayes region fame seem to have had a pretty good year. They spent it teaching English in France and then worked at summer camps there before touring Italy where they sent us a card from Pisa. They are now off to China for a year to teach English there. Exciting.


Emily Doerr continued her impressive postcard sending rate. She has a new job and they seem to be sending her all over the globe. She checked in from Belgrade (which looks just like it did back in the ‘40s) and from Skopje, Macedonia (or at least we think that is what it says but we are pretty sure they spelled it wrong). She was wondering if she had sent cards from the most bizarre places and normally she might be in the running (although Finland and West Virginia are hard to beat) except that we both agreed that the random card from a stranger in Malaysia who just happened to read our blog was hard to top. Emily was just in South America and we hope to get some from there before we go but it is likely too late.

We listed at one time or another all the cards we received. As we said, if you did send one and it never got here don’t sweat it. We sent ones to ourselves from the USA and they never arrived, so we know it does happen. We just want to say to those that did send us cards, thank you. Life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa is not always easy and we didn’t always want to be here. Looking at that wall and seeing all the support we get from great people made it bearable at times when it really wasn’t. So, thank you all for reminding us what we left behind and who awaits our return, you helped us through this more than you know.

Team America

The World Cup is on. Africa is quite psyched to be hosting its first tournament and, truthfully, its last for many, many years. It doesn’t really matter how well the South Africans pull it off or how well the “home” teams do (that would be all African teams except Algeria, who would be the first to tell you they are not African), it is just how the tournament is set up. The next time it will be back on this continent is like 16 years from now. Judging by how this development thing is going, maybe not even then. We will enjoy it while we are here.



As it is, African teams continue to underwhelm. The entire continent is disappointed with them. Players not giving it their all despite being some of the best players in the world, coaches not coordinating well, ministers interfering with rosters (see: Cameroon). The last day of the second games was pretty good for them, as none of them were playing and could not, therefore, deliver a disappointing result. Hopefully there will be some amazing results out of South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria in their last games.

As for Algeria, it is appropriate that they don’t consider themselves African because then we don’t have to root for them. We were not going to do that anyway because they are going to try and knock the U.S.A. out of the tournament. This will not happen. We were knocked out by a real (West) African side in the group stage last time. Not this time.

Appropriately, we will dress up in our away jerseys and cheer them on. Mark will continue to wear his U.S.A. world cup mustache until their final game, which will be on July 11th, insh’allah! If all goes well, the U.S. will top the group and exact revenge on that same African side from the last world cup, Ghana, paying them back with interest in the round of 16.



(Team America are ready to win this thing!)

Ghana

On to Ghana, the whole point of the trip. We got to Accra and headed to, brace yourselves, the mall. We know this sounds strange to you all back in civilization but it is hard to understate how relaxing it was to escape Africa for a day by going to a western style shopping complex. There was a super modern movie theatre there which we hit and then, being starved for big screen movies in English as we are, exited only to turn right around and go in for second film. It felt like being in America until we picked up Brian at the airport when the plane was hours late. Oh wait, that feels like America too.

The next day we hit the beaches that were the whole point of the trip. We went straight to a place on the western coastline called Butre because it looked a bit more isolated. It was. It was deserted, in fact. We stayed for three nights in treehouses sipping beer and eating fish, you can’t get much further away than that.

After the beaches we saw the slave castles at Elmina and Cape Coast (where Barack Obama had been last year), which was another sobering affair. Again, it was difficult to comprehend the depths of misery that occurred in such a beautiful place.

North of Cape Coast we went to Kakum National Park and walked the canopy walk. That proved a welcomed bit of levity after the coastal forts. It was incredible. We were 100 feet in the air over the rainforest canopy looking through and down on the jungle. Predictably, we did not see elephants tromping below since it is a crowded tourist attraction where people make plenty of noise but it was still fantastic.





Did we mention that most of our food was out of plastic bags or on sticks? (Susan's boyfriend, Brian)




Up to Kumasi. We ran into some Peace Corps friends in the Kumasi Zoo. West Africa is a small place. We looked for the rotting manatee exhibit there but they do not seem to be as progressive as the Bamako Zoo. It was actually pretty good.

Then we walked through the biggest market in West Africa. We had to do this just because Mark would point out every market he saw. Why? If you have ever read a guidebook for West Africa, the markets take center stage as they are the only attraction in most spots. Reading the myriad ways to describe the same old thing which we are forced to endure every time we want to buy tomatoes was kind of annoying. We wanted to read about anything but markets. Alas, there are few sights. Suffice it to say that the Kumasi marche it was, as billed, a buzzing hive of activity, vibrant and colorful as ever with a pulse and electricity found in few other places in the world. Ugh.

On to Mole National Park. It was a really sweet experience, like how you picture Africa in your head. We stayed for two nights and saw more monkeys, baboons, warthogs and antelope than you can shake a stick at as they walked through the camp. Pretty cool. The only drawback was that it was crowded with loud students from the U.S.A. Gapers.

We did not have that problem up at the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary, in the northwest of the country. We had been told that this was a less travelled part of Ghana and that was accurate, we had it to ourselves. We were out for hours in a canoe looking for hippos but it seemed like we would have no luck until the very last second. We checked one more spot and there they were, seven big ‘ole hippos. It was a pretty good sighting since the population in that part of the Black Volta is only eighteen. That's actually the second biggest population in Ghana, soon to be first when a new dam drowns the others.

We were all quite road weary at that point and after another night in relaxing Bobo, we went our separate ways. Susan and Brian went on to Mopti and Sam and Mark returned to Bamako. With two laps of West Africa now in the books, we were ready for our own bed and some clean clothes.

The Long Way to the Coast

For our second year getaway trip we decided to head east, to the beaches of Ghana. We went with our normal plan, which is to have no plan at all. Our travelling companion was our friend Susan and our only fixed date was to meet her boyfriend, Brian, at the airport in Ghana two weeks after we started our trip where he would join us for the remaining two weeks. In certain places having that much freedom might lead to distraction due to not having time to do everything. Not a problem here.

We entered Burkina and stayed in Bobo Dioulasso for a few days. We found this to be one of the nicest spots in West Africa, actually. With its tree lined streets, its relative lack of motos and harassing locals and a sleepy pace of life, this town was a real nice change from Bamako. It is also a hotbed of Christianity. The Jesus part is less alluring than the real reason we liked the heavy missionary presence in the area, the profusion of little open-air bars. They were on every corner. There is nothing like a frosty local brew in the middle of the day during the hot season, especially when they are practically giving them away. This was a recurring theme for the trip.

Onward to Ouaga where we decided, if we could get the right visa, that we would take the long way around to Ghana. After brief discussion of the bribe (our only one this whole trip!) and an afternoon of waiting, we had our five country visa. That decided it for us. We were off to Niger.

Naimey is a pretty nice capital city, as West African capitals go, albeit less fun to say than Burkina's capital Ouagadougou. It is cleaner than most, maybe because of less people. Of course it is also much further away than most, on the edge of the desert, making it also much sandier than most. The Niger river flows through town and still has, as we saw, hippos right there in the middle of town. This is not the case in Bamako (even though the country’s name, “Mali”, means hippo in the local language). In Bamako the river is so dirty that the only creatures you see in it are women doing their wash, yuk.


Why go to Niger at all? Well, we had heard there were giraffes, the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa. We were shocked at the ease with which we arranged everything to find them. In Niger, they actually understand the tourist thing (in this case, at least) and try to make it easy on people! This was a serious departure from the West African norm. It did take a bit of effort to find them but nothing compared to our ordeal looking for elephants in Mali (which was long and uncomfortable but still recommended). The giraffes were not far from the capital and not too far from the road. They were fantastic. None of us had any idea how cool they were until we saw them in the flesh. It was worth a five hundred mile detour.


Then it was on to Benin. Why go to Benin at all? Well, we had heard there were giraffes in Niger. We traveled Benin from north to south, stopping for a few days in the beautiful hill town of Natitingou to laze by some waterfalls and just chill out. We made it to the coast at Cotonou but headed directly to the old voodoo capital of Oudiah. We actually spent a day walking from town, down the slave walk, to the point of no return (where the slaves were packed into the holds of the ships waiting to take them across the ocean, never to return) and back. It was such a nice tropical walk and so picturesque and peaceful at the monument that it was hard to get your mind around the fact that some of the more miserable moments in human history occurred right where you were standing.

On to Togo. Why go to Togo at all? Well, we were in Benin because we had heard there were giraffes in Niger. We spent a few days on the beach to recharge our batteries. The beaches were, unfortunately, too dangerous at which to swim. While being very scenic, they were also so steep and the current is so strong that we were warned against going in: severe under toe. We were, however, impressed by the profusion of good beers (read: four passable varieties) thanks to Togoland having at one time been a German colony. Therefore, it was probably a good thing that we were not swimming in dangerous waters while sampling these.


(Believe it or not, these are very dangerous waters.)

Eastern West Africa lap complete

The sights in West Africa are “few and far between.” This saying is usually an exaggeration meant only to add emphasis to a story but not altogether true. It is difficult to express how literal it is here. The countries here are pretty big and the distances are made almost impossibly far by grueling transport but there is almost always something along the way in a journey, right? Not so much in West Africa. There are very few “tourist” sights per nation. In fact, after our recent lap of eastern West Africa, another saying comes to mind. In West Africa, "the journey is the destination."

We took a month long tour which brought us from Mali, through Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, back into Burkina and eventually returning to Mali - all on public transport. What is that like, you ask? Well, if any of you happen to have a sauna in your house (maybe you are Finnish or maybe just eccentric) you should invite twenty to twenty five of your buddies over, heat up the sauna and all sit in it together for about twelve hours. Provided that your sauna is no larger than a cargo van, you will get the idea. For those of you who do not have a sauna available in your house don’t fret, you can head on down to the local YMCA and perform the same experiment. They have suanas there and you will probably end up with a more authentic experience anyway, what with the locker room smell, the others being complete strangers and your strong desire to be somewhere else after about ten seconds.

In reality, the transport in places like Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast made our transport in eastern West Africa look like a couple of recent grads backpacking Europe. It is difficult to describe those transport experiences without developing a nervous twitch or tick, so we will leave that in the past.

Anyway, you will all hear more about those travels. We will fill everybody in on the highlights soon but for right now we are off our Close of Service (COS) conference. Once we have been taught how to be Americans again we will get to the trip tales. For now, just know we are safe “home” in Mali.


(Mark outside of the car, resting on the curb, as is the radiator...)