Vistor from the states...soon!

June 18


Doctor Dawn, Malian PC staff, called me today. Washington would like me to see a local Bamako ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) as long as I’m in the neighborhood. I guess that’s a good thing although I feel like an idiot going to the doctor with a fluttering bug like noise in my head. It sounds just ridiculous to say it. And knowing now that if it Tinnitus there’s nothing they can do about it. But better to be safe than sorry, that’s the PC policy. So I am scheduled to go Monday afternoon. Stand by for results.

*I have a wonderful friend that was in the Peace Corps several years ago in Mozambique. Since then she has worked in the states for Americorps at the Red Cross, which is where we met, and now she is doing her second PC Response trip. PC Response is when you go into a developing country for a specific short term need. She went last year to Brazil for 3 weeks…adding another 3 weeks for vacation time. Yesterday she left the states for 2 months in Ghana. Ghana just happens to be 2 small countries away from Mali. She has added 4 weeks onto this trip to travel and hopefully, inshallah (god willing…I know funny coming from me), be in Mali around September 1st or 2nd to visit and travel with me for a week or so. I wasn’t sure I was going to get to do any traveling around Mali. The trips that the whole group goes on all together seem to daunting for me. They wind up turning in to big drunk, orgy fests…from what I heard. I have no desire to participate in that. And to travel alone…the buses and the time it takes to get around does not sound appealing. That being said there are a couple of places I really do want to see. So I am going for it. I will plan to meet her in Bamako, or Segou depending on what I figure out in between now and then. Then we will spend some time in Segou, head to Mopti which is the home to Djenne (pronounced Jenny) the home of the largest mud structure in the world, a mosque. And from there check out Dogon Country. Where the cliff dwellers used to use. Also, one of the few (or was it one of the two) places on earth where you can see the actual curve of the earth as you look from the cliffs down onto the desert. Regardless of how much I am dreading getting on a bus for 10 hours at a time I am actually looking forward to her visit and traveling a little. If I can survive with these bugs, creatures, frogs and rain until she gets here.