Father's day...not in Mali though.

June 19


This morning, after a week of sector classes, we had a field trip for shopping into Bamako. I went with a group to the tubob store where they sell normal people stuff…stuff you can’t get anywhere else in Mali. Olive oil, good vinegar, cans of beans and corn, popcorn (god I miss good popcorn), CHEESE…no such thing as cheese outside the tubob store. Whatever you get you have to eat that day though without having a place to store it. Except for laughing cow cheese. You know which cheese I’m talking about. It comes in a round shaped cardboard disk. When you open it there is eight wedges of individually foil wrapped cheese…cheese like product. It is a processed product much like Velveeta. Not real cheese so it doesn’t need refrigeration. It amazing what you come to appreciate when there is nothing else. They even had a butcher. I don’t buy uncooked meat here and I’m leery even about the already cooked stuff. I am damn near a vegetarian. If you saw the uncooked stuff in market you wouldn’t eat it either. It is covered entirely in flies. And I just learned, that the meat that has no flies on it is even worse. It doesn’t have flies on it because the meat vendor sprays it with insecticides to keep the flies off of it. I guess they think that the poison is better for you than the fly mung.

After the tubob store we had a nice lunch at the restaurant next door and then back to Tubaniso. Today is the day our homologues are coming. I didn’t want to stay out too long just in case my homologue got their early. I actually miss the guy. I took another shower (I average about 3 a day) and then went to the refectoire to look to see if Solomane was here yet. And he was. Glad I didn’t stay longer. He gave me a big hug, which is unusual for Malians, and we went through the usual greeting process. It was nice. We “talked” for about 2 hours then had dinner. I am now back in my hut. I like to read for an hour or so and then maybe watch an hour of TV or a movie that I have on my external hard drive. It makes it easier to sleep if I cool off in my room for a little while before even trying to fall asleep. Tonight it is really hot and humid. I felt a few sprinkles earlier but nothing yet. Usually there is wind and thunder and lightning right before it rains. We’re getting nothing! It will stay sticky all night I’m afraid.

I just heard a terrible scream coming from the hut next door. I can only imagine what happened. A tarantella, a locust, millipede, or lord knows some unidentified creature. All I can hear is someone yelling “what is that?”….”where the f#&K is it?”. I want to know and yet I don’t, Some things are better left a mystery.