New Years on UP

New Years on up.

 

New Years I went to Bamako. It was interesting to say the least. It started out at the hotel Daphina with Amy. Amy and I spent the better half of Dec. 31 deciding if we were going to head to Bamako or not. I was kind of in a slump and really just wanted to go back to site. We eventually talked ourselves into going to Bamako, promising that we would just stay one night. We wanted to avoid getting sucked into the big city. Well we flaked because we stayed two nights. Jan 1^st is apparently not a very good travel day.  But  a good recover day instead.

 

Rewind now though. We ended up at a friend of a friends house on New Years Eve. An Ex-Pats house maybe. Really nice house. With shag carpet and a huge flat screen TV. It was  beautiful but weird also in the fact that there were only 3 of his friends there, and around 16 or so Volunteers. So where were all this guys friends? But he had drinks and food and it was awesome. We finished the night up at a dance club next to the Famous Relax Cafe, where we scarfed down a cheese and onion pizza before we got to the hotel.

 

We returned to the Hotel late, errr or Early rather. We all got up around noonish and headed to Broadway Café to eat lunch. It’s an amazing Café with American food. Pancakes, cheeseburgers, salads, milkshakes and everything good, but expensive. Then the next day we headed back to Segou with a couple of people.  The next day I bought a sewing machine table with the foot pedal that I have yet to figure out how to work and then the next Sunday the 4^th I got back to site, which just happened to be my market day which made the transition easier. It was nice to only be there for a week and then I came to Tubaniso where I am now.

 

It’s the worst place ever. Never in my life have I felt less productive. I could be out learning language, talking to people, working on this project that is going to start soon, but I can’t because I’m here. The only good thing is that I have email contact and am able to talk with the people from Engineers without Boarders about them coming in May. 

 

Interesting things that have happened while here:

We had a picnic Saturday the 17^th that was pretty neat. All the americans and RPCVs from the Bamako region came to Tubaniso and we had burgers and French fries. It was amazing. Then I flew kites with some of the kids. The kids were probably the coolest part because they grew up all around the world and could speak so many different languages. Then a couple of us went to the Bar down the road to hang out for a little bit.  We met a chimpanzee that was tied to this tree in the middle of the bar. We shook it’s hand and it was scary. It’s name is Rouge Keita. It was about 5 years old and it was found in the forests of Guinee.

 

The Other (only) exciting thing that has happened was the Inauguration that we spent at the American Club in Bamako. We watched it on a projector and ate a cheeseburger which was really good. 

 

This is all I have for now. And a CD that I made for Caroline that I might also post.