I am going to do something stupid. I’m going to try to sleep inside again. Well, now that I’m typing it I might not because I all of a sudden just got hot. But whenever it gets too unbearable, it seriously does not take long to pitch my tent, the beauty of the REI Bug Hut. I would say it has turned out to be a quality purchase and I would probably buy it again. I’ve definitely used it enough for it to be worth it. Though, at the same time, you can buy mesh tents in Bamako on the side of the road. You couldn’t in Guinea, but you can here. So food for thought. I don’t know how much they cost but I’m betting less than the $60-70 I spent on my Bug Hut.
So I did something else stupid the last time I went to Bamako (this past weekend). I tried to go to Raven’s house using a sotrama, which is a much cheaper way to travel than a private taxi. A taxi from the gare to Raven’s is 1 mille (1000 CFA). Each sotrama (there are two) are about 150 CFA, making the trip 300 CFA, making it less than 1/3 of the cost. But that depends on how you look at cost.
So I get there at 9:15 in the morning. I had gotten really lucky with transport and gotten in super early. So I was like I have plenty of time to try and figure out how to take the sotrama to Aci 2000/Hamdallaye. So I ask these dudes standing by this sotrama that always try to get me to take it and I just tell them I’m taking a taxi. This time they’re trying to get me to take a taxi rather than the sotrama but I was adamant. So they say there’s no direct sotrama from this gare so I have to take this sotrama to this other sotrama stop in the market and then get the Aci sotrama there. I’m like ok. So it takes like 45 minutes for this sotrama to leave. If I had taken a taxi, I would have been at Raven’s in about 15 minutes. But I’m thinking: look at all the money you’re gonna save!
So this sotrama finally leaves but since it has to go into the market, traffic is awful and it takes like 30 min to get to this next sotrama stop. I get there and I ask around about my sotrama and they tell me to wait on the benches, that it will be coming up to the space in front of the benches shortly. So, everybody knows where I’m going. Every time a sotrama pulls up I point at it and I’m like, “that one?” And they’re like, “no”. So eventually one pulls up and they’re like, “that one”. I get in it. It takes like an hour to leave.
So we’re going along and everything’s fine until we start LEAVING BAMAKO. I’m like. Dude. This is so NOT the right sotrama. We go up a mountain into this little village where there are NO other cars. Everybody gets out except me. The driver is like…”where are you going?” And I’m like, “back en ville…I messed up.” And after the breakdown I already had last week, this is just getting my goat and I’m wanting to cry and trying really hard not to in front of all these people and this mango woman is making fun of me and there’s NOTHING I can do but stay in this sotrama until it goes back to civilization.
The driver can see I’m kind of distraught and they are LOADING the back up with tons of mangoes, anyway, so he tells me to sit up front. I was really grateful for this. So when we finally leave he asks me where I was going. I say “Aci 2000” and he’s like, “wow…you REALLY messed up.” And I’m like yeah. Well, this village is supposedly called “Lassi”. So either the people at the sotrama stop thought I said Lassi, not Aci (but I said Aci HAMDALLAYE so I have no idea how this could have happened) OR they were playing a joke on me. Real f-ing funny, guys. I tell the driver just to leave me at the first place I can get a taxi. So we get back to town and he drops me with some taxis.
What does his apprentice do? HE MAKES ME PAY THE FARE AGAIN. I was like you little bastard. I go to the taxis and a driver walks out to meet me. I pay 1000 CFA to get to Raven’s. I get there at 12:15pm. So basically I wasted 3 hours and about 500 CFA on this adventure.
I’ll never do it again. For even the simple fact that even if I DID get in the right sotrama, it would still take an hour and a half or two hours to get out to Aci and it would take 15 min in a cab. I think it’s a worthy investment, personally.
So today when I took a taxi back to the gare, I paid my 1000 CFA and then as I was getting out, I found a mille stuck between the door and the seat. So…free taxi! Awesome!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
I HATE FLIES!
So this morning I had a mental breakdown. It occurred to me that pretty much the only thing that could make me ET (early terminate) is this awful, miserable season.
So let’s start with last night. As usual, after dinner I got ready for bed, pitched my tent, and laid down to read. This was all hunky dory and I even had the thought that it wasn’t so bad tonight and I didn’t really feel the heat radiation that comes up from the ground and that this might be a comfortable night. That’s when the winds came. Normally, wind isn’t such a bad thing especially when it’s a nice cool breeze. But this? This was like hurricane force (ok I’m exaggerating) and all it did was blow a dust storm into my tent, covering EVERYTHING and nearly blowing my tent over. Oh and did I mention the part about these winds blowing in some RIDICULOUS humidity? I was seriously expecting it to start raining, it had to be around 90% or so. In fact, I was PRAYING for rain. So after toughing this out for over an hour I was finally like, it’s not going to stop, forget it, I’ll just go inside! So just as I decide this and sit up, my nose starts gushing blood. This happens due to all the dry, dusty air. I NEVER got nosebleeds in America. This is a Mali thing. And I didn’t have a handkerchief. So I’m holding my shirt to my nose to catch the blood and trying to find my keys and of course once I get out of the tent if I don’t drag it with me the wind is going to have it and take it away so I’m stumbling around, holding my nose, pulling my tent and trying to unlock my door. I push and pull the tent inside, find a handkerchief and try to stop the bleeding. Once the bleeding stops, I take the tent apart and throw myself onto my bed. It is freaking HOT inside the house and I am COVERED in dust so my bed basically becomes a hot, sweaty, muddy mess. And I have to sleep in it.
Oh and did I mention how uncomfortable it is sleeping with the infection on my thigh? Yeah. And of course I am nauseous from the erythromycin and all the blood that went down my throat and now the triple antibiotic bitter taste that’s leaking down the back of my throat and I just wanted to cry. But crying would probably just make me hotter so I just try to sleep.
So this morning I wake up to Setu bringing my bath water and I look around my house and everything is COVERED in dust. It doesn’t matter how many times I wash my table, it is perpetually covered with a not-so-thin layer of dust. Of course all my sheets and pillowcases are disgusting, I’m freaking exhausted and the only thing that makes me feel even a little bit better is washing my hair.
I’m so sick to my stomach I can’t even tough the seri so I make Easy Mac for breakfast because I have to eat SOMETHING or I’ll be even more sick. I tear all through my house looking for a hairtie after tearing through everything looking for shampoo so the house is a freaking wreck. And my face itches all over from this stupid mango allergy and I want to scratch the whole dang thing off my skull.
I can’t take it anymore so I call Scotty. Thank God for reseau. I’m standing on the chair, gripping the window bars, tilting my head in just such a way so that I get the phone signal and like crying and cussing at the top of my lungs about how if one more M-Fing fly lands on me I’m going to freak the f*** out. Whenever a family member comes into view I try to wipe my eyes and put a smile on my face but I think they knew I was having a bad morning. So Scotty talks me down a little and makes me laugh a little which is the best medicine. She says she is feeling the same way and hot season freaking sucks but I hate her because she has electricity and a fan and can get cold water anytime she wants it (I hate you Scotty!!!). But still, she knows what I’m going through. She says I should just come to her site today and we’ll have cold cokes and sleep under a fan and it sounds awesome but I have literally been back to my site for six days and I know I’m better than that. But Katie is passing through BKO on Sunday and it would be nice to see her so I’m going to go to BKO on Saturday and me and Scotty are gonna go to Broadway Café and have strawberry milkshakes and then go to the pool at the American Club. Sweet respite.
Then maybe the latrine money will be there on Monday so Drissa can come down to BKO and we can buy all the stuff and hopefully get started next week. But who knows when the money is actually going to get there? I should call Adama back and see if he’s got any new information.
So after talking to Scotty the only thing I want to do is wash my sheets and all my handkerchiefs which are either filled with blood or dust from trying to clean up the house. So I go buy soap and as I am on my way to the well to wash all this stuff before it gets too hot, even though I suck at washing stuff, especially big stuff like sheets or even pagnes, my first mommy Seli – bless her soul – tells me to bring her the stuff and she will wash it when she is done pounding the rice. This elicits the first genuine smile of the day. I love you, Seli!! So I put my big towel on the ground under my shade hangar and try to get some sleep – everyone tells me to go lay down so I must look like hell. But of course the flies attack me constantly and I don’t have the non-reaction Malians have developed over their lifetimes so I’m constantly twitching, slapping and waving my hands. So basically I don’t sleep. It occurs to me as I’m laying on my towel that what this is like is like being at the beach. Laying on a towel in the heat. Except you have to wear clothes, something that covers your knees, and there’s no ocean to go jump in when you get too hot.
Anyway. Hot season sucks. I hate dust. And flies.
So let’s start with last night. As usual, after dinner I got ready for bed, pitched my tent, and laid down to read. This was all hunky dory and I even had the thought that it wasn’t so bad tonight and I didn’t really feel the heat radiation that comes up from the ground and that this might be a comfortable night. That’s when the winds came. Normally, wind isn’t such a bad thing especially when it’s a nice cool breeze. But this? This was like hurricane force (ok I’m exaggerating) and all it did was blow a dust storm into my tent, covering EVERYTHING and nearly blowing my tent over. Oh and did I mention the part about these winds blowing in some RIDICULOUS humidity? I was seriously expecting it to start raining, it had to be around 90% or so. In fact, I was PRAYING for rain. So after toughing this out for over an hour I was finally like, it’s not going to stop, forget it, I’ll just go inside! So just as I decide this and sit up, my nose starts gushing blood. This happens due to all the dry, dusty air. I NEVER got nosebleeds in America. This is a Mali thing. And I didn’t have a handkerchief. So I’m holding my shirt to my nose to catch the blood and trying to find my keys and of course once I get out of the tent if I don’t drag it with me the wind is going to have it and take it away so I’m stumbling around, holding my nose, pulling my tent and trying to unlock my door. I push and pull the tent inside, find a handkerchief and try to stop the bleeding. Once the bleeding stops, I take the tent apart and throw myself onto my bed. It is freaking HOT inside the house and I am COVERED in dust so my bed basically becomes a hot, sweaty, muddy mess. And I have to sleep in it.
Oh and did I mention how uncomfortable it is sleeping with the infection on my thigh? Yeah. And of course I am nauseous from the erythromycin and all the blood that went down my throat and now the triple antibiotic bitter taste that’s leaking down the back of my throat and I just wanted to cry. But crying would probably just make me hotter so I just try to sleep.
So this morning I wake up to Setu bringing my bath water and I look around my house and everything is COVERED in dust. It doesn’t matter how many times I wash my table, it is perpetually covered with a not-so-thin layer of dust. Of course all my sheets and pillowcases are disgusting, I’m freaking exhausted and the only thing that makes me feel even a little bit better is washing my hair.
I’m so sick to my stomach I can’t even tough the seri so I make Easy Mac for breakfast because I have to eat SOMETHING or I’ll be even more sick. I tear all through my house looking for a hairtie after tearing through everything looking for shampoo so the house is a freaking wreck. And my face itches all over from this stupid mango allergy and I want to scratch the whole dang thing off my skull.
I can’t take it anymore so I call Scotty. Thank God for reseau. I’m standing on the chair, gripping the window bars, tilting my head in just such a way so that I get the phone signal and like crying and cussing at the top of my lungs about how if one more M-Fing fly lands on me I’m going to freak the f*** out. Whenever a family member comes into view I try to wipe my eyes and put a smile on my face but I think they knew I was having a bad morning. So Scotty talks me down a little and makes me laugh a little which is the best medicine. She says she is feeling the same way and hot season freaking sucks but I hate her because she has electricity and a fan and can get cold water anytime she wants it (I hate you Scotty!!!). But still, she knows what I’m going through. She says I should just come to her site today and we’ll have cold cokes and sleep under a fan and it sounds awesome but I have literally been back to my site for six days and I know I’m better than that. But Katie is passing through BKO on Sunday and it would be nice to see her so I’m going to go to BKO on Saturday and me and Scotty are gonna go to Broadway Café and have strawberry milkshakes and then go to the pool at the American Club. Sweet respite.
Then maybe the latrine money will be there on Monday so Drissa can come down to BKO and we can buy all the stuff and hopefully get started next week. But who knows when the money is actually going to get there? I should call Adama back and see if he’s got any new information.
So after talking to Scotty the only thing I want to do is wash my sheets and all my handkerchiefs which are either filled with blood or dust from trying to clean up the house. So I go buy soap and as I am on my way to the well to wash all this stuff before it gets too hot, even though I suck at washing stuff, especially big stuff like sheets or even pagnes, my first mommy Seli – bless her soul – tells me to bring her the stuff and she will wash it when she is done pounding the rice. This elicits the first genuine smile of the day. I love you, Seli!! So I put my big towel on the ground under my shade hangar and try to get some sleep – everyone tells me to go lay down so I must look like hell. But of course the flies attack me constantly and I don’t have the non-reaction Malians have developed over their lifetimes so I’m constantly twitching, slapping and waving my hands. So basically I don’t sleep. It occurs to me as I’m laying on my towel that what this is like is like being at the beach. Laying on a towel in the heat. Except you have to wear clothes, something that covers your knees, and there’s no ocean to go jump in when you get too hot.
Anyway. Hot season sucks. I hate dust. And flies.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
I'm 26 and Still Here
So yesterday was my birthday. What did I get? Another huge staph infection – this time on my thigh so I can’t walk right – and an allergy to mangoes, which is pretty much the ONLY redeeming factor of hot season.
The only good thing is that this morning when I was taking my bath, I looked at my staph infection and it had come to this huge purple blister of a head. Which promptly popped as I was bathing. Don’t read any further if you’re easily grossed out. So I squeezed out as much pus (this pus was more like sludgy blood than pus) as I could, then went inside and did the hot compress thing a few times, then bandaged it up with a gauze pad and tape, which I then covered with a head wrap tied around my leg so that when I walk there’s some padding. So it’s now slowly draining into the gauze. Why is this a good thing? You might ask. Well, it means that it’s draining on it’s own and I won’t have to go back to Clinique Pasteur and endure another torture session – this time much more embarrassing, BTW, considering the location of this infection. So hopefully with regular bandage changings, triple antibiotic, erithromicin (oral anti-biotic) and hot compresses, it’ll just go away without surgery – WIN!
So mango allergy. I’d just started eating mangoes again a few days ago after I got back because we are in mango season swing. In Guinea, I used to eat mangoes with a knife. Here I just do what the locals do and bite the skin, peeling the skin off strip by strip with my teeth, and then plunging mouth first into the fruit. I started to get an itchy red rash around my mouth and I was like WTF. At first I thought it was heat rash. But then it dawned on me – mango allergy! Awesome. A lot of volunteers have it. Some can’t eat mangoes at all. Others are just allergic to the skins/sap. I think I am a skin/sap allergy person so if I start eating them with a knife again I should probably be ok. I’m holding off on mangoes for a few days until my rash goes away to be sure that’s what it was, then I’ll start eating again with a knife and see how it goes. It would SUCK to be 100% allergic to them as opposed to just skin/sap. So cross your fingers for me.
In other news, Magellan is officially a “she” and she eats a lot more than she used to! She stays inside at night while I sleep outside. I hope she spends her evenings killing wayward mice and cockroaches, but who knows.
Oh yeah, remember that time I said it wasn’t that hot so I was going to try to sleep inside? EPIC FAIL. I woke up in a swimming pool of my own sweat about midnight and had to get up and pitch my tent in the middle of the night. But then I slept pretty well once I was outside. Drissa said it’s gonna be like this until June. I’m gonna need a massage when this is over.
The puppy sometimes sleeps with me outside my tent. But then when he hears something he barks and wakes me up. Apparently it is Oumarri’s job to see what the dogs bark about when they go off. Because every time the dogs bark, Oumarri gets up with his flashlight and goes and looks out into the field and into the animal pens. Apparently that is the role of the dogs: to tell the family when there’s something moving around that’s unusual at night – something that could potentially hurt one of the animals.
Today when I woke up there was a tiny baby donkey staring into my tent at me. I was like, “good morning.” Then he went away. I <3 baby donkeys.
Oh yeah, Adama called me yesterday and said the funding for my latrine project had been approved. Yay! He said he didn’t know when the money would actually be there yet but the good news is that the latrines will get built before rainy season. Now to see if I can get the pump funding in time, too!
Well, I think that’s all from the home front. By my birthday next year (27 – one step closer to 30!! But I decided my thirties are gonna be a rockin decade so I ain’t that distraught over it) I should be back in LA. But you never know. Shit happens.
The only good thing is that this morning when I was taking my bath, I looked at my staph infection and it had come to this huge purple blister of a head. Which promptly popped as I was bathing. Don’t read any further if you’re easily grossed out. So I squeezed out as much pus (this pus was more like sludgy blood than pus) as I could, then went inside and did the hot compress thing a few times, then bandaged it up with a gauze pad and tape, which I then covered with a head wrap tied around my leg so that when I walk there’s some padding. So it’s now slowly draining into the gauze. Why is this a good thing? You might ask. Well, it means that it’s draining on it’s own and I won’t have to go back to Clinique Pasteur and endure another torture session – this time much more embarrassing, BTW, considering the location of this infection. So hopefully with regular bandage changings, triple antibiotic, erithromicin (oral anti-biotic) and hot compresses, it’ll just go away without surgery – WIN!
So mango allergy. I’d just started eating mangoes again a few days ago after I got back because we are in mango season swing. In Guinea, I used to eat mangoes with a knife. Here I just do what the locals do and bite the skin, peeling the skin off strip by strip with my teeth, and then plunging mouth first into the fruit. I started to get an itchy red rash around my mouth and I was like WTF. At first I thought it was heat rash. But then it dawned on me – mango allergy! Awesome. A lot of volunteers have it. Some can’t eat mangoes at all. Others are just allergic to the skins/sap. I think I am a skin/sap allergy person so if I start eating them with a knife again I should probably be ok. I’m holding off on mangoes for a few days until my rash goes away to be sure that’s what it was, then I’ll start eating again with a knife and see how it goes. It would SUCK to be 100% allergic to them as opposed to just skin/sap. So cross your fingers for me.
In other news, Magellan is officially a “she” and she eats a lot more than she used to! She stays inside at night while I sleep outside. I hope she spends her evenings killing wayward mice and cockroaches, but who knows.
Oh yeah, remember that time I said it wasn’t that hot so I was going to try to sleep inside? EPIC FAIL. I woke up in a swimming pool of my own sweat about midnight and had to get up and pitch my tent in the middle of the night. But then I slept pretty well once I was outside. Drissa said it’s gonna be like this until June. I’m gonna need a massage when this is over.
The puppy sometimes sleeps with me outside my tent. But then when he hears something he barks and wakes me up. Apparently it is Oumarri’s job to see what the dogs bark about when they go off. Because every time the dogs bark, Oumarri gets up with his flashlight and goes and looks out into the field and into the animal pens. Apparently that is the role of the dogs: to tell the family when there’s something moving around that’s unusual at night – something that could potentially hurt one of the animals.
Today when I woke up there was a tiny baby donkey staring into my tent at me. I was like, “good morning.” Then he went away. I <3 baby donkeys.
Oh yeah, Adama called me yesterday and said the funding for my latrine project had been approved. Yay! He said he didn’t know when the money would actually be there yet but the good news is that the latrines will get built before rainy season. Now to see if I can get the pump funding in time, too!
Well, I think that’s all from the home front. By my birthday next year (27 – one step closer to 30!! But I decided my thirties are gonna be a rockin decade so I ain’t that distraught over it) I should be back in LA. But you never know. Shit happens.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Hot Season. Definitely.
So. It’s freaking hot. Today wasn’t that bad but that is due to drizzle this morning and blessed cloud cover all day. In fact, I might even sleep inside tonight. It’s more comfortable than the gound outside, where I slept last night but still sweated all night long.
My first night back was Saturday night. Back at site, that is, I was at a Regional IST all last week and before that I was in BKO for a few days after I got back trying to get my funding proposals in. Anyway, Saturday night was BRUTAL. I think I soaked through my mattress. It was awful. I think I got like an hour of sleep the whole night. Last night I pitched my bug hut out under my shade hangar and slept on the ground. Interestingly enough, the ground is HOT. Like, it felt like I was laying on a hot plate. Definitely need to find something to go between me and the ground for future reference. But tonight I think I might sleep inside. I’m not really sweating right now, so that’s a good sign. My mattress is more comfortable than the ground. My back hurt all day today. Ugh.
So my family built a wall next to my house while I was gone. Basically it really makes my house a part of the concession and gives me more privacy. Like, you now have to come IN to the concession to see me, which is what made me feel ok about sleeping outside last night, but I was paranoid every time I heard hoofs nearby that a donkey was going to come step on my head. It was only goats, though. Not that GOATS couldn’t step on my head, but…they weigh less than a donkey.
So I had been gone for almost two months. When I got back even the mean guy at the boutique was smiling. As I walked down the path towards our concession, I saw a bunch of little boys running towards me. They must have spotted me while they were out playing soccer, because they had a soccer ball. I mean, it was freaking HOT out, I have no idea how they managed to sprint all the way across that field to me, but they did! And then they carried all my stuff! Yay! Shaka told me that the puppy was really big now and babbled on in Bambara. The puppy IS really big now. He’s almost as big as the lady dog who has been here the whole time. But he still likes to jump up and put his paws on me and he is FILTHY so I gotta try to break him of that.
So the biggest hit of all the gifts I brought back were the pictures. In fact, the pictures were SO loved that I didn’t even give the rest of the gifts. I’m saving them for later. The whole neighborhood turned out to look at the pictures. I felt bad I hadn’t printed more! People who I don’t even have pictures of were like, “where’s my picture???” So, for any of you wondering what to bring back from America, here’s the answer: pictures! Of course, they don’t know how to handle or care for pictures so there are fingerprints and dirt all over them already and they let the little kids put them in their mouths and they’re all folded and whatnot but hey, at least they freaking loved it! Even my host dad Moussa, who should be too cool for school, could be seen laying in his hammock staring at the pictures for hours. WIN!
Of course the mice took over my house while I was gone. And the spiders. My house was a WRECK when I got back and I got soaked in sweat just trying to straighten it up a LITTLE bit.
Little Aside: So just now I went to give my dinner bowls back to the family and just as I turned to go back to my house, Hawa called my name from across the courtyard and came running up with my cat! I was like sweet! Magellan! So I took him/her back to the house. For some reason they always take a couple of days to give my cat back when I come back. I knew it was Magellan because the second he/she was in my arms he/she started purring. So Magellan explored the house a little to reacquaint himself. I was brushing my teeth. He wasn’t in here even five minutes before he ran under the bed and I heard a little skirmish. I expected to see a mouse running for its life to the mousehole next to my bed. But no mouse appeared. What did appear was Magellan, with a huge mouse in his mouth. Like, the mouse is easily 1/3 the size of Magellan. And to think moments before I was worried I didn’t have any food for him tonight. He is still eating it under my bed. There’s blood on the floor. Gross. Luckily he didn’t play with it before eating it, he just killed it and started crunching. Good kitty.
So the kids seem skinnier for some reason. Like I feel like I can see their ribs more than before. But they don’t really seem to be eating less at all, in fact they are eating all the time, so I don’t really get it. It’s mango season right now and there are SO MANY MANGOES. In fact I have eight of them sitting on my table. But six of them are already soft so I’ll probably give them to the goats tomorrow and eat the other two for breakfast. There are so many mangoes that every day one of the women in the compound makes TWO trips (one in the morning, one in the evening) out to wherever the trees are and brings back a HUGE bowl of them on her head. Like, there must be at least 40 mangoes in each bowl. Maybe at least 50. There are mango pits all over the concession. Sometimes the cows eat the pits. The goats and sheep eat the skins. Mangoes are delicious. Ricardo – you would love this time of year! Except for the heat, anyway. So yeah I don’t get why the kids look skinnier when we are still eating three meals a day, they eat until they’re full at all the meals, sometimes have 1-2 other smaller meals (leftovers) throughout the day and at least 5 mangoes/day each. And I brought back loaves of bread and bananas with me so they had that, too, this weekend. I dunno.
Everybody says hungry season is coming up. Apparently Malians usually are only able to grow 9 months worth of food and June – September are lean months where they have to buy the cereals at inflated prices. But if that’s the case with my family you wouldn’t know it because they do not seem to be slowing down with the meals at all.
One of my grandmas asked me about macaroni today so I’m gonna buy a bunch of spaghetti tomorrow and we can have that, too. Also, Seli came back from market today with a big old bag of rice. So I don’t really know what the deal is. If it does get to be “hungry season”, I don’t mind pitching in more and buying rice at the market on Mondays and some meat. I mean, they feed me all the time, so the least I could do is pitch in and buy some food during the lean times.
So when I left, Abi had just gone to BKO for medical treatment. I think it has something to do with headaches. She is still not back, which means she’s been gone almost 2 months. I hope everything is ok. I was hoping her headaches were just, like, migraines or something but maybe it is something much worse. So if you’re reading this, send some thoughts Abi’s way!! She has a teenager and two young kids (maybe 10ish?).
I think Magellan has fallen into a food coma. His belly was all bloated when he came out from under the bed. He managed to eat that whole thing!!
Well, I think that’s about it. Tomorrow is my 26th birthday. I think I’ll celebrate by eating a bunch of mangoes and spaghetti. Maybe I’ll give Skittles to everyone in my family. We’ll see.
My first night back was Saturday night. Back at site, that is, I was at a Regional IST all last week and before that I was in BKO for a few days after I got back trying to get my funding proposals in. Anyway, Saturday night was BRUTAL. I think I soaked through my mattress. It was awful. I think I got like an hour of sleep the whole night. Last night I pitched my bug hut out under my shade hangar and slept on the ground. Interestingly enough, the ground is HOT. Like, it felt like I was laying on a hot plate. Definitely need to find something to go between me and the ground for future reference. But tonight I think I might sleep inside. I’m not really sweating right now, so that’s a good sign. My mattress is more comfortable than the ground. My back hurt all day today. Ugh.
So my family built a wall next to my house while I was gone. Basically it really makes my house a part of the concession and gives me more privacy. Like, you now have to come IN to the concession to see me, which is what made me feel ok about sleeping outside last night, but I was paranoid every time I heard hoofs nearby that a donkey was going to come step on my head. It was only goats, though. Not that GOATS couldn’t step on my head, but…they weigh less than a donkey.
So I had been gone for almost two months. When I got back even the mean guy at the boutique was smiling. As I walked down the path towards our concession, I saw a bunch of little boys running towards me. They must have spotted me while they were out playing soccer, because they had a soccer ball. I mean, it was freaking HOT out, I have no idea how they managed to sprint all the way across that field to me, but they did! And then they carried all my stuff! Yay! Shaka told me that the puppy was really big now and babbled on in Bambara. The puppy IS really big now. He’s almost as big as the lady dog who has been here the whole time. But he still likes to jump up and put his paws on me and he is FILTHY so I gotta try to break him of that.
So the biggest hit of all the gifts I brought back were the pictures. In fact, the pictures were SO loved that I didn’t even give the rest of the gifts. I’m saving them for later. The whole neighborhood turned out to look at the pictures. I felt bad I hadn’t printed more! People who I don’t even have pictures of were like, “where’s my picture???” So, for any of you wondering what to bring back from America, here’s the answer: pictures! Of course, they don’t know how to handle or care for pictures so there are fingerprints and dirt all over them already and they let the little kids put them in their mouths and they’re all folded and whatnot but hey, at least they freaking loved it! Even my host dad Moussa, who should be too cool for school, could be seen laying in his hammock staring at the pictures for hours. WIN!
Of course the mice took over my house while I was gone. And the spiders. My house was a WRECK when I got back and I got soaked in sweat just trying to straighten it up a LITTLE bit.
Little Aside: So just now I went to give my dinner bowls back to the family and just as I turned to go back to my house, Hawa called my name from across the courtyard and came running up with my cat! I was like sweet! Magellan! So I took him/her back to the house. For some reason they always take a couple of days to give my cat back when I come back. I knew it was Magellan because the second he/she was in my arms he/she started purring. So Magellan explored the house a little to reacquaint himself. I was brushing my teeth. He wasn’t in here even five minutes before he ran under the bed and I heard a little skirmish. I expected to see a mouse running for its life to the mousehole next to my bed. But no mouse appeared. What did appear was Magellan, with a huge mouse in his mouth. Like, the mouse is easily 1/3 the size of Magellan. And to think moments before I was worried I didn’t have any food for him tonight. He is still eating it under my bed. There’s blood on the floor. Gross. Luckily he didn’t play with it before eating it, he just killed it and started crunching. Good kitty.
So the kids seem skinnier for some reason. Like I feel like I can see their ribs more than before. But they don’t really seem to be eating less at all, in fact they are eating all the time, so I don’t really get it. It’s mango season right now and there are SO MANY MANGOES. In fact I have eight of them sitting on my table. But six of them are already soft so I’ll probably give them to the goats tomorrow and eat the other two for breakfast. There are so many mangoes that every day one of the women in the compound makes TWO trips (one in the morning, one in the evening) out to wherever the trees are and brings back a HUGE bowl of them on her head. Like, there must be at least 40 mangoes in each bowl. Maybe at least 50. There are mango pits all over the concession. Sometimes the cows eat the pits. The goats and sheep eat the skins. Mangoes are delicious. Ricardo – you would love this time of year! Except for the heat, anyway. So yeah I don’t get why the kids look skinnier when we are still eating three meals a day, they eat until they’re full at all the meals, sometimes have 1-2 other smaller meals (leftovers) throughout the day and at least 5 mangoes/day each. And I brought back loaves of bread and bananas with me so they had that, too, this weekend. I dunno.
Everybody says hungry season is coming up. Apparently Malians usually are only able to grow 9 months worth of food and June – September are lean months where they have to buy the cereals at inflated prices. But if that’s the case with my family you wouldn’t know it because they do not seem to be slowing down with the meals at all.
One of my grandmas asked me about macaroni today so I’m gonna buy a bunch of spaghetti tomorrow and we can have that, too. Also, Seli came back from market today with a big old bag of rice. So I don’t really know what the deal is. If it does get to be “hungry season”, I don’t mind pitching in more and buying rice at the market on Mondays and some meat. I mean, they feed me all the time, so the least I could do is pitch in and buy some food during the lean times.
So when I left, Abi had just gone to BKO for medical treatment. I think it has something to do with headaches. She is still not back, which means she’s been gone almost 2 months. I hope everything is ok. I was hoping her headaches were just, like, migraines or something but maybe it is something much worse. So if you’re reading this, send some thoughts Abi’s way!! She has a teenager and two young kids (maybe 10ish?).
I think Magellan has fallen into a food coma. His belly was all bloated when he came out from under the bed. He managed to eat that whole thing!!
Well, I think that’s about it. Tomorrow is my 26th birthday. I think I’ll celebrate by eating a bunch of mangoes and spaghetti. Maybe I’ll give Skittles to everyone in my family. We’ll see.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sad Story
So you wanna hear a really sad story? I was on my way back from America (more on this later) and I was in the Atlanta airport. I passed a Duty Free shop and on impulse went in thinking I might get a bottle of good tequila for the forthcoming celebrations of the next year. I perused the Patron, but Patron is expensive. Like the cheapest one was $42. Jose Cuervo? $18. What do I do? I splurge. I buy the Patron. This turns out to be a heartbreaking mistake.
So they deliver the bottle to my plane going to Paris. No big deal. But I remember the bottles me and Jess bought in NYC when we were on our way to Africa for the first time and they had put them in these clear, sealed bags that you weren’t allowed to open. My bottle was just in an open yellow bag.
They do the Duty Free sale thing during the flight and they say that if you are connecting in Paris, you need that TSA-approved bag I was just mentioning (which they have on board for any purchases). I stop the flight attendant and show her what I have and tell her I am connecting in Paris. She says if I bought it in a Duty Free shop and have the receipt (which is stapled to the bag), that is fine. Deep down I don’t believe her, but she should know, right?
Well, she didn’t know. Because I have to go through security again in Paris. Which seems stupid because America’s laws are stricter than France’s, so there should just be a secure hallway taking you to the connecting gates. But there isn’t.
So of course security is like, this had to be in the TSA bag. Your only option is to go out of the airport and go to the Air France desk and check it. I’m like ok. I have like 3 hours before boarding so I have plenty of time to do this. This airport is really confusing, by the way, so I got yelled at for going the wrong way a couple of times and finally just followed my nose.
So I see an Air France customer service desk with no line so I just go to ask him what to do. He spoke perfect English which was good because I didn’t feel up to explaining my predicament in bad West African French to some cute French dude. Let me preface by saying he was really nice and really sympathetic. But since I had already checked 2 bags, and couldn’t get access to them, I would have to pay 200 Euros to check my frigging bottle of tequila as a third bag – even though I still had plenty of weight left in my checked bags. I was like fuck. DAMN YOU ATLANTA DUTY FREE!! AND DELTA FLIGHT ATTENDANT!
He was like there really is no other option. If you take it back to security they will just throw it away. So I asked him if he drank tequila. Then he felt REALLY bad. But I sure as shit wasn’t going to pay 200 Euros for it when it only (only? Ha!) cost $42. So I gave it to him. It was Cute Air France Customer Service Agent’s lucky day. I was like if I’m not too depressed I might buy another bottle at the Duty Free shop here. And then have an $84 bottle of Patron for some (what would now have to be) VERY special occasion.
I do stop in the Duty Free shop but they only have one kind of tequila and it’s some no name brand that didn’t look any more impressive than the bottle of tequila you can buy in Bamako for 10 mille, which is like $20, and it cost almost 17 Euros. So I was like fuck it.
Basically I wasted $42 giving a gift of really good tequila to some dude I don’t know who will probably celebrate by getting drunk with his hot French girlfriend and having wild tequila sex. So you’re welcome.
But he’ll probably never forget me! I’m sure he’ll be telling the story about how he once got a brand new unopened bottle of Patron from some poor Peace Corps volunteer who spent ¼ of her monthly salary on it.
But I’m not bitter. After all, I got a France customs stamp on my passport out of it.
Epic fail.
So they deliver the bottle to my plane going to Paris. No big deal. But I remember the bottles me and Jess bought in NYC when we were on our way to Africa for the first time and they had put them in these clear, sealed bags that you weren’t allowed to open. My bottle was just in an open yellow bag.
They do the Duty Free sale thing during the flight and they say that if you are connecting in Paris, you need that TSA-approved bag I was just mentioning (which they have on board for any purchases). I stop the flight attendant and show her what I have and tell her I am connecting in Paris. She says if I bought it in a Duty Free shop and have the receipt (which is stapled to the bag), that is fine. Deep down I don’t believe her, but she should know, right?
Well, she didn’t know. Because I have to go through security again in Paris. Which seems stupid because America’s laws are stricter than France’s, so there should just be a secure hallway taking you to the connecting gates. But there isn’t.
So of course security is like, this had to be in the TSA bag. Your only option is to go out of the airport and go to the Air France desk and check it. I’m like ok. I have like 3 hours before boarding so I have plenty of time to do this. This airport is really confusing, by the way, so I got yelled at for going the wrong way a couple of times and finally just followed my nose.
So I see an Air France customer service desk with no line so I just go to ask him what to do. He spoke perfect English which was good because I didn’t feel up to explaining my predicament in bad West African French to some cute French dude. Let me preface by saying he was really nice and really sympathetic. But since I had already checked 2 bags, and couldn’t get access to them, I would have to pay 200 Euros to check my frigging bottle of tequila as a third bag – even though I still had plenty of weight left in my checked bags. I was like fuck. DAMN YOU ATLANTA DUTY FREE!! AND DELTA FLIGHT ATTENDANT!
He was like there really is no other option. If you take it back to security they will just throw it away. So I asked him if he drank tequila. Then he felt REALLY bad. But I sure as shit wasn’t going to pay 200 Euros for it when it only (only? Ha!) cost $42. So I gave it to him. It was Cute Air France Customer Service Agent’s lucky day. I was like if I’m not too depressed I might buy another bottle at the Duty Free shop here. And then have an $84 bottle of Patron for some (what would now have to be) VERY special occasion.
I do stop in the Duty Free shop but they only have one kind of tequila and it’s some no name brand that didn’t look any more impressive than the bottle of tequila you can buy in Bamako for 10 mille, which is like $20, and it cost almost 17 Euros. So I was like fuck it.
Basically I wasted $42 giving a gift of really good tequila to some dude I don’t know who will probably celebrate by getting drunk with his hot French girlfriend and having wild tequila sex. So you’re welcome.
But he’ll probably never forget me! I’m sure he’ll be telling the story about how he once got a brand new unopened bottle of Patron from some poor Peace Corps volunteer who spent ¼ of her monthly salary on it.
But I’m not bitter. After all, I got a France customs stamp on my passport out of it.
Epic fail.
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