Bougouni bound

I traveled all day in the rain. Which actually was pretty good. The rain made it so that the bus was very cool inside. There was thunder and lightning the whole way and my seat mate was a nice, good smelling gentleman that only laid his sleepy head onto my shoulder once throughout the whole three hour ride. The only unsettling thing about the whole trip was when I realized the windshield wipers didn’t work and someone was standing up front with a rag to wipe the fog the front window in front of the driver. That’s never a good thing. I was only three seats back. My thought most of the way is that if we hit anything I’d be one of the first ones out the windshield. At least I would have to worry about the windshield wipers bludgeoning me to death.
When I got to Bougouni it was getting dark and the mud at the gar was ankle deep. Only imaging what the walk to the house would be like I decided to take a cab. I’m not sure how this particular vehicle made it the whole mile or so to the house but as usual, without ceasing to amaze me, it did. It was only me and one other volunteer for Monday night. But soon learned that others were coming the next day and the next. As it turns out most volunteers weren’t ready to go back to site. There was a lot of us that were going right from camp out to Manateli, an area of Mali that is supposed to be beautiful and the last place in Mali where you can see hippos in the wild. As appealing as that and the 10 hour bus ride sounded from what I understood it is more a drunk fest that an outdoor adventure. If this was the 80s I would have been all over that, but in my older age I thought it best to stay my distance. I would be just fine with a few people eating, watching movies and relaxing in our transit house.

I stayed until Friday. Waati sera (it’s time). I got back to Bougoula by early afternoon. Enough daylight left to clean up a mess I knew there would be in my house. If nothing else there would be some lizard droppings and dust from the wind blowing through the windows. I had put my bed and tent up and I was sure it would be covered as well. I was hoping nothing moved in to my house in the 3 weeks I had been gone but I got some folks to go in before me, shake some stuff around and make sure there wasn’t anything in there for sure. After they were done I went in with a broom. It wasn’t too bad but still need everything to be moved and a good cleaning and sweeping. There was dust from the wind, there were dirt tracks up and down the walls that are left by termites that needed to be scraped off, which makes a mess, some lizard dropping, termite droppings and piles of very fine saw dust. As it turns out there are small bugs, supposedly not termites, that eat the wood ceiling beams. When they do they produce this fine saw dust that piles up around the floor and all over my stuff. I’ve noticed it before but not in such magnitude as I sweep every morning when I wake up and throughout the day when I am in and out of the house. It took about 2 hours but I was finished before dark and ready for my own “bed” for that evening. I went around and greeted everyone and let them know I was back. They seemed genuinely happy to see me. Hmmm…

The Matrone and my homologue were telling me that it had not been raining. It is rainy season. It should rain every day, but it has not been. This is very, very bad. They wait to plant the fields until rainy season comes since they have no other way of watering. But it has to rain for everything to take root and start to grow. It rained this afternoon. The whole village was sure it was because I was back. I am the best!!



This is what it looks like when it's getting ready to rain in Africa.