A Year in Review

As of July 10th I have been in Mali for an entire year. The new group of volunteers is here. They are all done with training, have been sworn in, and are hopefully settling into their sites. It makes me think back to last year when I moved to my site. This would be better if I was a movie director. I’m imagining a nice montage set to music. I’ll see if I can describe some of the stand out moments, and those everyday moments that are my life here.
Picture me sweating and dusty, with a few zits, that is standard. Put me on a dirt streets lined with mud brick houses. Add people in front of most of those houses. Sometimes there are groups of men making tea or women braiding each others hair, but there is also a lot of sitting chatting with neighbors, watching the world go by. It is causal, relaxed and keeps everyone involved in each others lives. I like it. Now fill those streets with kids playing hopscotch, marbles, rolling an old bike tire with a stick, or just running around being kids.
0in;">When the sweaty white girl walks by there is pandemonium among the children (and even some of the adults). Some kids jump with excitement, some run away in terror, some freeze in wide eyed wonder of the pale freak. The boys will try to play it cool and swagger up and say hello, like this happens all the time. Junior high aged girls will look me up and down out of the corner of their eye, whispering and giggling to each other, maybe trying to casually get close enough to touch my hair, hopefully without me noticing.

I will be called tubob, either to my face or as they talk to each other. I will be ask to give them money or a present. Some times the younger ones don’t get the French right and ask how my candy is, instead of how are you, can I have some candy? After another year of this it is going to really strange to go back to Ameri-key, as it is called here, where no one gets excited that I am walking down the street. These are my five minutes of fame. I just pretend that these are my groupies and that my stage name is ‘Tubob’.

Now for the emotion highs and lows, listed in a way that mimic the emotional roller coaster of life. The terror of first being left with my home stay family knowing I can’t talk to anyone and thinking I’m going to do something wrong, just how bad with it be; the incredible frustration of trying to learn a language, and non-US teaching methods; the euphoria of actually being able to talk to people in another language, or maybe even 2 different languages (The look of surprise on peoples’ faces when I speak to them in Bambaran, or use the limited Puehl or Dogon I know never gets old.); the torturous heat, boredom and general discomfort of long bus rides; the comic relief of all the random livestock, but especially donkeys; the stress of never being anonyms; the surprise when the people that use to annoy me on the street stick up for me, or turn into a friend that I look forward to seeing; the guilt that comes from being surrounded by people that are more kind and generous than I will ever be and have much less to share but are much more willing to do so; the profound understanding that comes from being on the receiving end of prejudice; the confusion of experiencing all these emotions plus all the ones I can’t even begin to describe happening in quick succession. I will stop this montage before you become the rapid cycling bi-polar freak I am. But don’t be worried I’m the happy kind of crazy, and pretty mellow for someone who spends most of the time on the manic side of being manic-depressive.

With all the amazing and insane moments I’ve had in the last year there are two that really stand out and are worth trying to tell the story. So here goes......

Mariam My Peanut Lady
On my daily walk between work, my host family and my house I pass by a lot of people selling things on the street. Mariam is only out in the afternoon with her little table of peanuts, and for some reason I like her. She is nice, patient with my horrible language, and treats me like a person. We actually share a laugh instead of her just laughing at me when she teaches me new words.

One day with our usually mix of limited vocabulary, funny faces and strange charades I explain to her that I have a cold. When she finally figures out what I am trying to say, she tells me to take over selling peanuts while she runs across the street to her house. It is really more of a straw shanty, but that’s not really important. The important thing is that she says she has ‘things’ that will make my cold go away. While she is gone the white girl at the peanut table gets a lot of strange looks and questions.

Mariam returns with three things. One is a green seed pod, the second is a piece of black plastic with shea butter on it and before I can figure out the third she has dipped her finger in the shea butter and stuck it up my nose. Yes, my nose, not her’s to show me how I should do this. No, her finger is up my nose! Out of self defense I quickly put shea butter up my other nostril, before she can get to it. She continues on like it’s no big deal to put your finger up someone else’s nose. So I decide, in a way that will soon become habit, that if this Malian is not upset why should I be?

Mariam proceeds to explain that I should chew the seed pod, but not eat it. Of course this involves more funny faces and exaggerated spitting on both our parts. The shea butter at this point is self explanatory. The third thing was a little piece of resin incense that I was suppose to burn and inhale the smoke from inside a tent made from my head wrap (which of course I don’t wear). The guys on my street agreed that if I followed her advice I would sleep well and be up running around in the morning.

Because I follow the advice of the Peace Corps medical staff to a T, I bleached the random seed pod before I chewed it. It was a giant fuzzy green bean that was worse than chewing on an aspirin. My lack of head wrap and incense burner kept me from inhaling strange smoke. And maybe it was the shock of having someone else put shea butter up my nose, not the shea butter itself that got rid of my cold. Like having someone scare away your hiccups, whatever it was it worked.

Taxi!
Transportation here is almost beyond explanation. It is such a bizarre experience in so many ways. The vehicles are in such bad condition it is hard to believe they are still on the road, and they have more people crammed than should be physically possible. The passengers always seem a little surprised and annoyed when they are asked to pay, and of course the driver never has change. The exchanges and interactions that go on when you pack people in and dose them with a little too much exhaust is what is really fascinating.

Malians are pretty easy going people in general. There maybe shouting and arm waving but it is just good natured theatrics as they try and get there way. Or there will be blatant ignoring of directions or questions that don’t serve a purpose for that person. But normally they are very easy going happy people.

One morning I took a nine place station wagon, which in other places would only have 7 people in it. But in Mali they pack in 9 passengers plus a driver. There was not the long wait for the car to fill. It wasn’t the usual crowd of women with babies. These were mostly men on their way to work, two of them even had on ties. I chatted with the man next to me about his children who were living in France, and the difference in the weather between Mali and France.

We stopped to let a man out before the usually spot. (These station wagons travel the 12 km on the 1 road connecting where I live and the next closest town.) The man that got out asked for his change, first the driver pretended not to hear, and then there was some shouting. All pretty standard so far. But then things took a bizarre route.

The man demanding his change went and stood in front of the car and challenged that the driver would have to run him over to leave. The driver accepted the challenge and started to drive forward. The man in front of the car had time to hop on the hood. We didn’t get very far with this man clinging to the hood, before the shock of the situation wore off and the stunned silence of all the rest of us in the car quickly turned to shouting. The driver stopped, and the man on the hood then stood up and started stomping his feet, continuing to demand for his change.

At this point the man next to me was the first offers the man on the hood the 100 FCFA that he is owed (less than a quarter). We all start offering money, and the driver finally decided to give in. With a little shoving and a few more shouts (kept to a minimum by the crowd that has gathered between them) the situation is resolved. The driver got back in the car and we drove the last few hundred feet to our destination.

Time Flies

I'm not sure how it got to be the middle of June, but turns out it is. The 2 weeks in May I spent in Morocco with Brian were fantastic. The food was amazing; fat chickens, olives, almonds, apricots, figs, strawberries, cherries, nectarines, spices, fresh squeezed orange juice, oh so many good flavors. We did do other things in between meals.

For starters we met in the Casablanca airport and took a train to Marrakesh. After 3 days of wandering thru the medina, drinking tea, eating great street food, and repeatedly not being interested in buying a carpet, we got on a bus and headed towards the climbing area. (Well actually it was 2 days of that, and 1 day of hanging out at the hotel while Brian was sick.) We spent a night in Ouarzazate just to brake up the trip. 10 hour bus rides are never fun. Ouarzazate has a movie studio and is a wealthy, well kept town. On the bus we met two writers from New York, Harry and Stella. She was doing research for a book on pirates. He was a fascinating character that had been to a lot of places; Vietnam, China, Iran, and had even written travel brochures for Kadafi. I love the random people you meet while traveling.

After 4 days of great climbing in the Tadra Gorge we hopped in the back of a truck with a donkey, a horse and a lot of Moroccans and headed into the Atlas mountains. The trip was just long enough to be an adventure and not so long as to be a painful epic. The town we ended up in was on the map in the guide book, but the roads to get in and out of it were not. So we weren't exactly sure how to get out of town or even which way was out. But with a lovely twist of fate the nice man that owned the hotel we were staying in figured out that I was a Peace Corps volunteer and told us about the volunteers in the area. With a little help from some locals, we showed up at one of the volunteer's door. She was increadably helpful and gave us a wealth of information on things to do, drew maps and wrote down transport schedules and prices! We went and had tea with her host family and watched her host Mom and another woman weave. Amazing! Yeh Peace Corps network, and thanks to her for being so nice, and helpful.

After some uneventful transport, things run on schedule in Morocco, we eventually ended up in Fes. Here there was more eating, medina wandering, tea (and coffee) drinking, tannery visiting (they smell bad!), and further resistance to carpet sales. We might be the only tourists to have ever visited Morocco and not bought a carpet.

We also a went to Voulibus outside of Fes, a very mediterranean looking area with rolling green hills, olive orchards, vineyards and roman ruins. The ruins were a beautiful dork paradise. We tried to figure out what every column, channel, tile and divot had been used for. We crawled thru aqua ducts and I especially marveled at the covered sewers. But sadly it was time to go. So we got on the train back to Casablanca.

Brain flew out in the morning and I had a day to wander thru the streets and parks being hit on by Moroccan men in creatively creepy ways. (I'm not sure why anyone would respond well to be hissed at and then offered ice cream. He was trying to work it from every angle with that.)

To escape the streets I took myself to the local hammam, or spa. Brian said it sounded terrifying and didn't want to go. He is a smart man. At the hamman I paid a woman to scrub off all my dead skin, and part of my live skin. To give you the play by play, I first left all my clothes at the door. I was then led (naked) into a dimly lit hot room where this women threw me on the floor, poured buckets of water over me and did a variety of other things to me that would make the guards at Guantanamo cringe. Since this was the local hammam I was surrounded by the ladies of the neighborhood torturing themselves or each other in the same way, or waiting for their turn with the torture master after she was finished with me. There was even a kid playing in the corner. No big deal, no need for me to be tramatized, it's just bath time. After I staggered out of the torture room my clothes were returned to me by the front desk lady. She was a wonderful round matronly figure who kissed me on each check and sent me on my way back to Mali. I have never been so clean.

The flight from Casablanca arrives in Bamako at about 3 a.m., a confusing time to be anywhere, especially Mali. On the way from the airport the wheel feel off the taxi I was in. The driver seemed more surprised that I refused to pay until I got to my destination than at the wheel falling off. I guess the horrible noises and smoke filling the car made the wheel falling off less of a surprise and more of a grand finale. After a nap and some food I got on the afternoon bus to head home. Since it was over 100 degrees I thought this would be a good way to make the trip a little less painful. Silly me. As I said earlier a 10 hour bus ride is never fun, especially when it takes 18 hours. There isn't even a good reason that it took 18 hours. We didn't have 3 flat tires or have the brakes catch on fire or any of the other hundreds of things that can, and do, go wrong with transport here. I was sitting across from the door, so there was a nice breeze, but a crap load of dust. I finally made it home, but I don't think I have every been so dirty. All that torture to get clean wasted.

Soon after I got back to my site, I left again. The annual mudding of the Djenne mosque was taking place. So a bunch of us went to see what it was all about. After a night that involved a lot of wind, thunder, rain, muggy heat, bugs, hard floors and not a lot of sleep we were ready for the festivities to begin. Just so you know, scrambling off a mud roof, down a set of mud stairs during a thunderstorm in the middle of the night is not easy.

To cover the largest mud structure in the world with a fresh coat of mud you have to start early in the morning, I think is was 6:00ish. I'm not sure how to describe this event. Ancient Islamic architecture at Woodstock maybe. There were old men with whips, troops of young men chanting and running around with baskets of mud, women hauling water, rickety ladders, men climbing walls, and mud flying every direction. There was even a BBC documentary film crew to record it all. It was tons of fun, and one of the most organized events I've seen in Mali. We even had time to clean up and take a nap before lunch.

After all this fun I headed to Bamako to meet friend who were all coming back from different vacations. (Yes, there is a bit of a mass exodus of peace corps volunteers from Mali during hot season. Please don't judge us.) We went to the Mali versus Ghana soccer game. A World Cup qualifier match. Sadly Mali lost, but it was a great time and there was no rioting, always a plus.

Someday in the not too distant future I will hopefully post pictures of all the fun I've been having, and our amazing sand storms.

Random Tidbit

Just a short post, I promise I'm working on a long boring one. It is the start of hot season. So far it has only got to 100 degrees inside my house once. I don't count all the times it has been 99.9, or 99.7. That is not 100! By the way I love my little thermometer, thanks Mom and Dad. I have no idea how hot it is in the sun. I wouldn't want my little thermometer to melt, or burst into flames. A lot of times when I am walking down the street in the heat of the afternoon, with no shade in site, I'm not sure if I'm going to melt or burst into flames. Then I wonder if both are possible at the same time. Cooking dinner, even if it is a tuna sandwich makes sweat drip off my face. More physical things, like doing laundry (which I do in a bucket by hand) causes rivers out of every pore. I really didn't know I could sweat that much. The things you learn about yourself when you join the Peace Corps. But my absolute favorite (read in lots of sarcasm) thing, is back-of-the-knee sweat. What pray tell is back-of-the-knee sweat. Well if you are brave enough to keep reading you will find out. When I have parked myself under a good strong ceiling fan in a standard Malian, a.k.a. butt floss chair I can be mostly sweat free. The butt floss chair is something close to a hammock made out of cloths line with a chair frame thrown in the middle. What they lack in comfort they make up for in air flow. In a regular chair butt sweat can be so bad it looks, and feels like you have wet your pants. That is all you can think about and the more subtle back-of-the-knee sweat goes unnoticed. Sorry, was that too much? I have no concept of gross anymore. So when I sitting enjoy the invention of ceiling fans, feeling bad for all the volunteers who live in houses and/or towns without electricity; or maybe I'm trying to conjugate some verb in french; or trying to figure out what language is being spoken, and are they talking to me or just near me; or maybe I'm reading a book. These are the times that back-of-the-knee sweat strikes. When I am quiet, relaxed, or just haven't moved my legs in 10 minutes. That is all it takes for the 3 square inches where the bottom of my thigh and the top of my calf are touching to produce a surprising amount of sweat. (nerd note: your leg has to be bent more than 90 degrees) In this small little pocket at the back of my knee enough sweat is produced, and when the hydrostatic pressure is great enough, the sweat escapes, bursts free, and runs all the way to my ankle. Yes, ankle! Or if I am laying down, yep, all the way to the other end of my leg. Maybe this doesn't sound like much to be complaining about in the land of starving children, scorpions, spitting cobras, sand storms and everything else Mali has to offer. But every time it happens it freaks me right out. It's like not noticing you have burst into tears or wet your pants until you feel the liquid running down you. My first thought is always, "where did this water come from, and how did it get here?" But it's not water, no, it is back-of-the-knee sweat. It's not a silent killer, or anywhere as uncomfortable as heat rash, but it is something I had never experienced before. I'm not sure my life is any richer/fuller or I'm a more interesting/better person now that I have experienced back-of-the-knee sweat. And thanks to the magic of the internet now you have just wasted how long reading about it? Best not to think about that. On a more positive note; with the searing heat that causes back-of-the-knees sweat, come mangoes. They are amazing! Every day they become more plentiful, bigger, tastier, and cheaper. And according to the Malians, they aren't even good yet. These giant, juicy, delicious buttery fruit are going to get me thru hot season. Well that trip to Morocco is going to help too. But I'm rambling. I think I'll go make a mango and laughing cow cheese sandwich before my back-of-the-knee sweat gets the best of me. More later.

They Were Riding Six Wire Horses

If I was a poet I would write this to the tune of "Comin' Round the Mountain", but we all know that I'm an engineer not a poet.  So this will be a dry technical description of my bike trip in Dogon country.  First to explain the title.  In most, if not all, the local languages the word for bike literally translates as wire horse.  So Rabayah and I took our wire horses and put them on top of a bashee, along with about a ton of fresh fish, and went to Bandiagara.  There we met 2 other volunteers, toured the traditional medicine center, and did a little grocery shopping.  So I guess we were actually only riding 4 wire horses.  But anyway..  We started the trip with a nice 5 km ride to the other 2 volunteers' site (which the government prefers I don't name).  Here we met the chief, gave him the traditional gift of kola nuts, and spent the next day working on building a concrete cistern.  To built this cistern we needed sand, and a lot of it.  To aquire this said sand we enlisted the help of the local donkey cart, and a boy about 10 years old to help us.  This boy (I think his name was Surlyman, or that's what it sounded like anyway) harnessed up the donkeys, took us to the dry creek bed where he found the best sand, loaded it up and drove it back up into town before I could correctly pronounce his name.  But I got to ride a donkey cart, and that makes me happy.  As a side note we were passed by a very pregnant woman carrying a load of wood on her head.  Donkey carts are a novel form of transport, but not very fast.  And Malian women are tough.  But enough about concrete cistern making.  

The next day we started out on the bike trip after a nice hearty breakfast of rice and onion sauce.  Dogons are known for their onion farming.  When we passed a large field of them Joe 

and Rabayah went to take pictures.  Ashley started laughing when she overheard Joe accidently tell the women working the fields that Rabayah was his child.  He meant to say friend, but and e became an i or something along those lines and friend was turned into child.  Ah, fun with language.  Since this was a casual trip we had a nice long lunch and napped under a tree.  After that it was back to biking into the breeze as Joe called.  It was closer to a minor hurricane or at least a Wyoming style breeze.  We did make it the 30 km to another volunteers site where we spent the night.  Of course we had to meet the chief and I think every other man in the village too.  Not complaining, just saying, it was a lot of fun, and included seeing the man running the local loom.  The loom is simple (made of twigs) and makes a strip of cloth about 4 inches wide.  These strips are then sewn together and dyed with indigo to make Dogon fabric.  On our village tour we also passed by the mud mosque (3 or 4 times) which was complete with an ostrich egg on each minerette.  

Day 2 of the trip was not as casual as the first since we had 50 km to cover and straight into the 'breeze' the whole way.  The thermometer on Ashley's backpack said it was 100 degrees.  More then once Rabayah ask to be left on the side of road.  Needless to say, it was not an easy ride, but it was interesting and we saw some great sites.  We also managed to make it to Borko just minutes before it got dark.  Borko is an oasis complete with springs (somewhere between 2 and 30).  The first person we meet offered to let us stay at his house and fed us 3 great meals.  In the morning we saw the sacred crocidiles, fed them a chicken and even touched them; visited one of the many springs and wandered in the expansive gardens made possible by all the springs.  

Before I paint too rosie a picture of the serene time we had in this beautiful town here are two pictures of us at the sign in town.  This one is where we have literally beat the children off with a stick so they aren't in the picture.

  Don't worry, we didn't hit them hard, as always just having a stick works well, and is standard Malian discipline.  I promise no one was harmed or even really scared in taking this picture.  Here we let the kids do what they want, and be the midget mob scene they are; overwhelming us and the Borko sign.  

Since our work as Peace Corps volunteers was obvisouly done, we once again loaded our wire horses onto a bashee, this time full of onion and garlic, and went home.  If you are not yet in a coma from my great engineering style story telling all the pictures from the trip can be seen here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/saprilrain/BorkoBikeTrip#

What's This All About

I'm starting to have a routine and sometimes I actually know what is going on. So I thought I would try and summarize what I do.
My day starts with the morning call to prayer. Usually I sleep though this 4 a.m. wake up call. I am a little confused why the call to prayer for an event that takes places at sunrise (approximately 6:30 a.m.) happens so far in advance. But I have learned to be OK with a lot of things that confuse me, and this is a minor one. After a breakfast of bread from the bakery a block from my house, I head to 'work'.
Work involves me sitting in what we would consider an empty office; a desk, a table, two chairs, a mostly empty bookcase. Sometimes people stop in; fun when I'm the only one there. I can tell my language skills have improved at least a little. Now I usually know what people are asking for, and can sometimes even point them in the right direction. A month and half ago I just smiled and looked at them really confused (because I was really confused). Oh, I forgot to mention, this is the public works office/city hall. The marriage ceremonies are a fun. A lot of my time is spent just hanging out. Usually Amadou is there, and we have great discussions; about politics, pollution, the price of rice, religion, geography, disease, polygamy, all sorts of things. It is great French practice for me. He is incredibly patient because our discussions always involve a dictionary, and sometimes drawing pictures, or acting things out. We have to draw fewer pictures now to understand each other, but I still have to look up a lot of words. Occasionally my dealer stops in, no not drugs, plantains. I have a serious addiction and she knows it. She shows up with a tray full at least once a week.
After a few hours of this 'work', I head to my host family's house for lunch. Lunch is rice and sauce eaten out of a common bowl. My host mom makes a great tega dega na (peanut butter sauce). The bowl sits on the floor in the middle of the room and we all sit around it eating with our hands. I get the one chair; everyone else sits on stools, tomato cans or the bed. My host family is a-typical because men and women eat out of the same bowl. After lunch we watch some television. The Belle-Mere (The Mother-in-Law), was a great Brazilian or Mexican soap opera dubbed in French. It was incredibly cheesy, and fantastically bad. At the end of the show when things were getting exciting I think there were over 20 of us packed in an 8'x12' room with wall to wall furniture. This leaves about 4'x8' to pack 20 some people into, very efficient and adds to the air of excitement.
After this action packed 30 minutes of television, I drink some tea. Tea drinking and making is a national pass time in Mali. The tea is made super strong, incredibly sweet, and sometimes with mint (my personal favorite). It is served in a shot glass, and has been poured back and forth between the tea pot and glass until it has a cappuccino like foam on top. It is standard to drink two glasses of tea, the second glass being the second brewing. This second glass is less strong, therefore less bitter, and I think better. My host dad calls it Malian whiskey, and I like Malian whiskey.
Around 3 or 4 p.m I make my way to my house. The walk home includes some form of being mobbed by children (from mild to so serious I might have to hit you, or at least act like it). My walk also involves a lot of greeting. Sounds easy enough right, hello, goodbye. No, it is an exchange that takes several minutes. Hello involves how's your family, how did you sleep, how are your friends (if they actually know your friends you might go thru them one by one), how's everyone in your town (really)? Goodbye is along the lines of why are you leaving so soon, tell your family hello, tell your friends hello. There might be questions in the middle of hello and goodbye. These cover what is your name, where are you from, where is your husband, do you have kids, would you like something to eat. And then there are blessings, they are fun. May Alah grant you what ever you want and/or may Alah remove what ever is wrong. This makes walking down the street a little time consuming, but never boring. I do this in Bambaran with a little French thrown in, but this can also go on in Peuhl or a few other less common languages. I'll work on Peuhl next (maybe), I'm still trying to get the Bambaran down.

Pictures and the Name Ninja

I think I have figured out a better way to post pictures; one that doesn't involve secret handshakes, long e-mail chains, or having to mortgage my kidney. Please let me know if this doesn't work. And if you didn't get the giant e-mail with the secret handshake code that lets you access my homestay pictures, please let me know that too.

http://picasaweb.google.com/home?tab=mq

I'm going to go with the whole 'a pictures worth a thousand words' thing and not write much.

The climbing porn pictures are to taunt all the climbers I know and hopefully sucker a few of them into visiting. I didn't take those pictures and haven't been there yet.

The Bandiagara b-day was a night of tubob (white person) fun with a bunch of Peace Corps people and some local aid workers. We had great food (kabobs, fries, salad and cake), good drinks, and bad dancing.

Swear in is when I took the oath and became an offical volunteer. The pictures shows what great clothes you can get made here. There is one picture in this group that does require a little back story. If your are bored with my rambling at this point just check out the pictures. If not, keep reading and I will explain what a name ninja is.

The Name Ninja

During training I lived in a town with a population of about 7,000 Malians and 8 Peace Corps trainees. The children here find us tubobs to be a bit of a spectical so there is shouting, crowding around and handshaking when they see you. Mark, a fellow trainee, lived as far away from the school as you can get and still be in the same town. He got to meet a lot of kids on his way to and from school every day. One girl did not have the standard reaction to him. Instead of jumping and shouting, she would come tiptoeing up, crouched like a cat buggler, with a finger to her lips like she had just shhhed you, (the pictures explains it better than I can) and in a whisper ask, "comment t'appelle tu?" ('what's your name') If Mark crouched down to meet her, she would get nose to nose with him. If he backed up, she backed up. If he moved forward, she moved forward. Never breaking eye contact of course. How do I know this you may ask yourself. Well by week 6 of our 8 weeks in this town, Mark could get her to follow him across town and into school, in the crouched position. They would then go around and ask all of us are names. And that is how I got to know Iassata Djarra, a.k.a. the Name Ninja.

Velo

I have a bike, finally. Our bikes were caught in customs, I guess, but mine arrived at my door Wednesday evening. A total surprise, brand new, shiny and....pink?!? I've never had a new fancy bike, and this is a nice Trek bike. But it is a girl's bike, a concept I don't really understand. Maybe after biking in a skirt I'll appreciate a "girl's" bike, I'll get back to you on that. Why pink, is my real question? Well, it is more white with pink and grey highlights. I'm already fairly noticeable as one of the few white people around, add in a white bike and a white helmet, and I look completely ridiculous. There is always a fair amount of staring, and surprise when I say hello in Bambaran from the people on the street. Now I have taken ridiculous to a whole new level. Today I couldn't help but laugh at how silly I must look, and I noticed I wasn't the only one laughing. I did convince Rabayah, the other PCV here with me, that we should use our new pink bikes to go the 12 K to the bank and better internet. I had to bribe her with my homemade ginger lime-aid, but it worked. Don't get me wrong, I love Mali public transport. Normally for this journey we would take a bashee. This involves packing 18 or so people (not counting kids sitting on laps) on benches in the back of a truck; get a push start; belch a lot of smoke; probably stop for gas, only enough for the trip; and trying to pay the 275 CFA somewhere in the middle of the trip when we are packed in so tight no one can reach there own pockets, and of course no one has exact change. So as much fun as that is, I decided we should try out or new pink bikes.
As is everything here, our trip was an adventure. It started with a herd of cows in the road, we let them have the right of way. In the middle of the trip we stopped for a lime-aid break, and I was, well, um, sort of in Rabayah's way when she got off the bike and well, she sort of fell down the shoulder of the road..but just a little. I fell horrible, but she was laughing as she rolled in slow motion, down the hill. Luckily she wasn't hurt, but the chain did come off her bike. While I was trying to put it back on two nice guys, both named Ibrahim, stopped and helped us. Hopefully I haven't scarred her for life so that she won't ever want to bike again. Here she is showing of her war wounds.