16.01.05 - 11:33

OUR TRIP TO MALI
Day One: December 27 Aioun – Koboni

At 4pm, Hectorvieve, Andrew, Brock, Madi, and I headed to the garage. We had arranged to rent a car to Nioro, Mali. Alas!

Problem One: A large piece of car gut was noticeably not in the car
Problem Two: Car will not start. Necessitates running pushes and rolling down hills in reverse to start car.
Problem Three: Our chauffeur is not authorized to drive car.
Problem Four: We have to wait an hour at the police station, delaying departure.
Problem Five: Negotiating price of another car.
Problem Six: Stopping in Koboni for the night instead of continuing to Nioro as planned.
Problem Seven: Getting sold to another car, thus losing our extra places and being squished.
Problem Eight: Having to wait for a store to open so as to buy motor oil for the car before being able to leave the next morning

Day Two: Dec. 28 Koboni-Nioro-Djema

Once we got to Nioro, we ate lunch and found transport to Bamako – a huge bus/truck monster hybrid. The road was shoddy and dusty and found its way into our every pore, wrinkle, and orifice.

Dinner was street food. Mali has wonderful street food! Beans, spaghetti, eggs, meatballs, fried plaintain, fried fish, café au lait, meat kababs, french fries, watermelon, papaya, mango, guava, coconut, carrots, tomatoes, manioc, sesame candy... It is actually well-prepared and affordable! Why can’t we do this in Mauritania?

We spent the night in Djema, a town on our route, on a concrete slab in front of a boutique.

Day Three: Dec. 29 Djema – Bamako

We got to Bamako, Mali’s capital, around 4pm. Bamako has street signs, open sewers, trees, bicycles, mopeds – it’s like Europe, compared to anywhere in Mauritania! We spent the night at the Peace Corps house, which is very nice with TV, VCR, DVD, and lots of PCVs.

We also met some Malian PCVs for a beer (!!) at a bar (!!!), ate street food, and trundled off to bed.

Day Four: Dec. 30 Bamako

An amazing breakfast! Café au lait, freshly squeezed orange juice, apple turnover, and chocolate cake from a REAL patisserie! Expensive? Yes. Wondrous? Oh, yes.

Then we wandered about Bamako, finding a place to get money from our Visa cards, walking through a busy and chaotic market (watch out for motorcycles and open sewage!), visiting a music store, and eating lunch at Appaloosa, a Tex-Mex restaurant(!). I had an extremely passable cheese and chicken enchilada there.

Exhausted, we went back to the PC house to watch “One Hour Photo.” Dinner was hummus and chwarmas at a Lebanese fast food place.

(to be continued...)

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