My trip into Bamako was successful in that I was able to watch the Kentucky Derby and while I didn’t pick the winner I had Super Saver in second so I was pleased. I also managed to eat 12 scoops of ice cream in three days…it was delightful! Malians tend to be some of the most passive aggressive people I’ve ever met and I experienced a classic case of this when trying to get transport home. We called the bus and reserved four spots to leave on the 4 o’clock bus. When we get to the station we learn that all the tickets are sold out so we go talk to customer service with the woman with whom we had made the reservations. She said to would find out what was going on, so we waited. We waited for 20 minutes and finally went to go find her because we hadn’t found out anything. She left. Apparently our seats had been sold and she didn’t want to tell us so she went home. Oh well. So we had to stay an extra night in Bamako before catching the more reliable 6am bus to San.
On Wednesday we had a spring cleaning of the stage house…much overdue. It was preparation for my birthday which was really fun despite being so far from home. We ended up having about 12 people in san for the festivities and ate a delicious cake to celebrate. I had saved my presents mom sent so was able to open them on the night of my birthday.
My time at site before I left was brief but pretty productive. My homologue, Bah, took me around to several associations to see how the work and try to figure out some ways that I can help them. We met with two of the women’s associations, the road building association, animal raising association and the millet saving association. I spend at least a day each week at the second cycle school and have a date set in mid May to work with 20 of the girls about decision making and like skills. The female English teacher has proven to be extremely helpful in helping me work with these girls. She helped me pick the 20 girls she thought would get the most out of it and be willing to open up. It’s kind of taboo for women to speak openly here so I wanted some strong young girls for these first sessions. If this goes well then I hope to have these sessions each month.
Bah has officially finished his house and had a “welcome home” party of sorts. They made a huge dinner and had about 25 of his closest friends come over. It was a fun party but I stayed up until 11:30…a record for me at site where I’m normally sound asleep by 10pm. The donkeys have been walking through my concession at night keeping me up and creating some hostility in how I feel about them, but other than that, I’ve adapted really quite well to sleeping outside.
Love,
Cait
