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.