Coolin' off

Tomorrow night my wife and I board a plane to head back home for the holidays.  We're both really looking foward to our time home, though neither of us can really put a finger on the reason why.  We don't have a lot of things to buy in the states, and we saw most of our friends and family just a few months ago when we were home in August.  I think we're just looking forward to a change of scenery from Bamako, plus it will be nice to be with our families for Christmas this year.  Last year we were in Arusha, Tanzania on Christmas morning and I remember wandering around town, looking for something to do.  I'm excited for cold weather.  Seriously.  People keep talking about how cold it is here, but I still sweat like a toilet during the day.  In the morning it's approaching decent temperatures, at least by my standards.

For the past few weeks my wife and I have been busy with our day to day lives here.  I've been contracting and have a few different projects going right now.  When we come back in January, I'll be subbing again at the American school for a week and a half.  This time, it's for the fifth grade class and I'm already sure it will go a lot better than my last go-round of teaching.  To begin with, I got to meet with the teacher before taking over and he gave me the rundown of his class, some lesson plans, and answered every question I could come up with.  And of course, this time around I'll actually be comfortable with the subject matter.  Rather than fumbling my way through geometry, I can (somewhat) confidently talk about fractions.  Plus, I'll get to teach some science and language arts, too.  I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, happy holidays to all.  I've got to finish packing.

Can cows swim?

My wife and I took a trip outside Bamako this weekend to witness the annual cattle crossing at Diafarabe.  It's a pretty big event for the Fulani people, who are one of the major tribes of Africa.  They're nomadic herders and traders who live throughout most of the continent. For the Fulani in Mali, the cattle crossing at Diafarabe is a huge event on their social calendar.  People come from all over to watch the crossing as they move their herds across the Niger river to the south side for better grazing lands for the dry season.  There's a ceremony with local dignitaries, music, dancing, and they even have a cow-judging contest.  I guess it's kind of like the African version of a county fair.

Our journey began early afternoon on Friday, when we met up with three missionaries who were also interested in going.  We started the long drive out towards Segou, which is about a three hour drive northwest of Bamako.  The drive was uneventful, as far as drives in Mali go.  You have to watch out for stray cattle or sheep on the road, the occasional huge pothole, and any daredevil bus or truck drivers.  At least the roads here are pretty smooth, which was something we never enjoyed in Congo.  We made good time getting to Segou, checked into a hotel for the night, and had dinner at a restaurant on the Niger. 

The next morning we left around 5:30 to drive the rest of the way to tiny town of Diafarabe.  The first half of the drive was on paved roads until we got to a village and were directed, by way of a GPS and a local villager, down what looked like someone's back alley.  This led us to a long, rough road which was pockmarked with lots of hoofprints and had plenty of clouds of dust.  After an hour or so of teeth-rattling and butt-numbing off-roading, we arrived at Diafarabe. A tent had been erected on the south bank of the river, near where the cattle would be going ashore, and a few dozen people were already starting to gather.

We paid a guy to take us across the river in his boat.  I'm sure he made out like a bandit that day, since he spent most of his day transporting tourists back and forth across the river.

Here's a shot of us approaching the bank - the water was very deep on this side of the river, well over eight feet.  The lady with her back to the camera handled most of the driving for the trip, Judy "Crash" Miller.  I was very glad to not have to handle the driving since it's pretty tiring.  To the left, you can see the tent that was put up for all the dignirities to sit under, and on the right you can see people who have already started to gather for the crossing. 

Once we got ashore, we staked out a place to sit and then hung out and listened to musicians playing Malian music, and watched the women dancing as part of the pre-crossing ceremonies.

Girls of all ages were taking part in the dance.

As the time grew near for the crossing to begin, the crowds started to grow.  Everyone claimed a spot on the riverbank. Note that the riverbank on our side was pretty steep, with a drop of a good six or eight feet to the river below.  On the other side of the river, where the cattle were starting from, there was a more gradual slope into the Niger.

One thing that was kind of weird about the event was that the locals were sectioned off from the tourists such as ourselves who came to watch.  Malian security guards were there to keep people in their own sections.  The "white person" section ended just past the white people you see below.

If any locals came up and sat next to us, a guard came over and shooed them away.  I wasn't really fond of this setup, to be honest. The locals were extremely nice and they just wanted to see what was going on, same as us.  In talking to a few people at the event, it seems that things were set up this way out of respect for the tourists, and not because they wanted to keep the rabble away from us.  Still, it was weird and kind of disturbing.  We did our best to let people stay by us, but we also didn't want to cause problems with security.

Here's a shot of our traveling companions - myself along with Alison, Rita, and Judy.  These people know how to travel in style.  They brought camp chairs, a giant cooler, some Twizzlers, Fig Newtons, handi-wipes, plastic tableware... all kinds of great stuff.  Heck, I never traveled this well-prepared in America.

Here's a photo from our vantage point, looking across the river at the cattle getting ready to cross.

The crossing began around 11am or so.  Fulani would gather their herds of cattle on the northern bank of the river and each herd would wait their turn to make the crossing.  Each group would wade in, cattle and herders together, and they would drive their cattle into deeper and deeper water until they were all swimming.  The river's current would carry them downstream and they'd eventually land on the banks near where we were sitting.

Here's the first group in the water - notice other herds lining up behind them on the banks.

The men in the boats would help drive the cattle across, but the guys in the water were doing most of the hard work.

In this photo below, you can see a couple of Fulani in the water with their cattle.  A lot of Africans don't know how to swim, and I would imagine that being a cattle herder provides one with even less opportunities to learn how it's done.  Yet these guys were in there, swimming their way across a river, being careful to not get crushed/kicked/gored by a cow, and they also had the wherewithal to beat the cows with one free hand in order to keep them all swimming in the same direction.

Finally, they made it ashore.  I have no idea why the cow on the right has a blue ribbon around its neck. I'd like to think it was to show that he won the prettiest cow competition, but I learned that was held after all the cattle had crossed the river, so who knows what it was for.

The cattle all made their way up the side of the bank and past the assembled crowd.  They didn't seem too worse for wear beside some annoyed-sounded mooing, and at least they all got a good rinsing out of the trip.

From here it was on to greener pastures, further south.

This little guy was too small to make the trip through the water, so he got to ride over on a boat with one of the herders.  Next year, pal. Just wait till next year.  We'll see how easy your life is when you're swimming across the Niger while a crazed Fulani beats you with a stick.

Finally, here's what I consider one of the best pictures taken of me in Africa.  This little girl had a million questions for us about our cooler, chairs, and who knows what else. I don't speak the local language, so we communicated with a lot gestures.  We took out the camera to get a picture of her but she wasn't too interested in looking at the lens.  Booger, though, who was standing behind her, looks like he's about ready to kill somebody.

We only stayed until about 1:00 - we had a long, long drive back to Bamako and there were still several hundred cows who needed to cross the river.  It was a six hour drive back home (three hours to Segou, and then another three back to Bamako) and we got home just after 7pm. 

In other news, my gig as a high school math teacher is finally over after three weeks.  The school found a retired math teacher who will come in and teach for the rest of the school year.  This week, it's back to looking for contract work online as well as getting ready to come home for Christmas.  It's hard to believe, but I'll be getting on a plane three weeks from Friday.  I'm excited.

Again, I ask myself "How did I get here?"

Over the past few weeks, I didn't have much to talk about.  Apart from working more hours than I usually have, most of my life was the usual day to day routine of running during the morning, seeing friends, making innumerable trips to the store, attempting daring culinary experiments, etc.  I always get a little nervous when life here gets that way because it means that some crazy turn of events is about to come my way.

Indeed it did, although it was in a way I never would have expected.  On Sunday, November 1st, I got a call from the American school in Bamako asking me to be a substitute teacher for the week.  The high school math teacher had returned home to the US and they needed someone to cover his classes for at least the week, if not longer.  I said sure.  Every so often, I like the change of pace that substitute teaching gives me although I was a little wary about teaching math for a week, especially high school math.  In all honesty, I have a hard time remembering how to do long division.  I distinctly remember walking out of the last math class I ever took during the first semester of my freshman year in college and thinking, "Never again, math.  I'm done with you forever!"

And yet here I was, sixteen years later - living in Africa, preparing to teach at least a week's worth of Algebra I and II, Geometry, Calculus, Liberal Arts Math (sort of a "practical applications of math" course), and Economics.  The first day or two was rough because the teacher who left didn't provide any lesson plans or hint of where the classes were at their books.  Usually when I sub, there's a lesson plan or basic outline of what's going on in the class.  On Monday, I had to ask every class what they had just learned and if they knew what they were supposed to be working on next.  Some classes knew what was going on, some didn't.  Once I figured out where we were in each book, I tried to figure out exactly what I was going to be teaching for the upcoming week.  I understood some of what I thought I should cover, but who can remember all those geometry theorems or algebra proofs?

My week was filled with math homework each night as I tried to remember the perpendicular bisector theorem, or how to simplify algebraic equations, and then each day I did my best to make it appear as though I knew what I was talking about in class.  The other teachers at school were a great help, and I even got off the hook for Calculus which was huge since it was a course that I've never actually taken.  My first day in Calculus, I just had the students work through some old exercises on their own to review what they'd covered already this year.  After about ten minutes of quiet study, one kid raised his hand and said, "Mr. Moore, do you know anything about derivatives?"  With a blank look, I said, "No.  No, I don't know anything at all about derivatives.  I'm sorry."  He nodded understandingly and asked one of his classmates instead.

By the end of the week, the school had figured out a way to cover four of the five periods of classes I was teaching, and they asked me to stay on to teach two classes until they found a full time replacement to take over.  By this time I had gotten my legs under me and it was a lot easier to handle teaching two classes that I kind of understood, Liberal Arts Math and a remedial math class for some students who needed extra help.  The other day I found out that a replacement teacher from the states has been hired and he should be here in a week or two.  So, my time as a high school math teacher will be drawing to a close soon. 

I've been doing some mountain biking lately as well.  I don't have all the parts needed to get my current bike project going, but since we're going home for Christmas I'll get what I need there and take it back to Bamako in my luggage.  In the meantime, a friend of mine here has very kindly let me use his bike since he's been busy lately.  There's a regular group of guys who go on Saturday mornings so I've joined up with them to see some of the trails in and around Bamako.  I'm very sorry that I don't have any pictures to show.  Every time I've gone I forget to take my camera.  The riding has been good.  Some of the rides have been more difficult than others but they've all been a lot of fun.  I think the highlight is seeing all the village kids.  Smaller kids are fascinated by seeing a white person, but man, watching a bunch of white people on bikes barreling past their huts?  They just about lose their minds.  As our small group made its way through various villages, kids would come running from all over and start chanting "Toubabo!  Toubabo!  Toubabo!" ("White person! White person! White person!") while jumping up and down, reaching out their hands for high fives, or chasing our bikes.  Some even have songs they sing about us Toubabos.  After we've passed through a village, I could still hear them chanting even though we're no longer anywhere in sight.

My wife is continuing to work her way through the variety of diseases Africa has to offer.  She's away on business this week, and called me yesterday to let me know that she has typhoid.  She's receiving treatment (antibiotics) for it and in talking to her this morning she already sounds a lot better.  I can't help but think of a band I used to be in, and how were were considering potential band names.  We had a bunch of names taken from the game Oregon Trail, and one strong contender was "Zeke Has Typhoid."  In case you're curious, here's the list:

• Zeke Has Typhoid
• 99 Pounds Of Meat 
• Stop To Hunt
  
• Caulk The Wagon
  
• Lose Three Days
  
• Jenny Has Cholera 
• Ford The River 
• Lose Two Oxen
  
• Wagon Tongue
  
• Find Berries
  
• Reach Fort Kearney
  
• Four Feet Deep
  
• Buy Bullets
  
• Trading Post
  
• Mighty Columbia
  
• Broken Axle
  
• Hit A Rut
  
• Headstone

All nostalgia for my rock and roll past aside, my wife is feeling better and better and she should be coming home the day after tomorrow.  It will be good to have her back home.

Blood in the streets

It's been a busy few weeks for me here in Bamako.  A few weeks ago (September 20th, to be exact) it was the end of Ramadan, which is marked by a huge feast to commemorate the end of a month of fasting.  Everybody gets dressed up in new clothes that they have made for the fête (French for "party"), and they visit friends and family and share a gigantic meal. I guess you could compare it to Christmas in the States in terms of importance.  Seeing as my wife and I aren't Muslim, it didn't hold a lot of significance for us although she was given Monday off, and Tuesday was Malian Independence day.  Hey, four day weekend for her.  It was cool to see everyone celebrating around town.

The most memorable thing from the weekend was the mass slaughtering of cattle that took place on the Saturday before the end of Ramadan.  Everyone is expected to sacrifice a cow for the feast.  Driving around town that day was a pretty wild scene.  There were people out everywhere slaughtering their sacrificial  cow.  It seemed like every few blocks a couple of guys were chopping up a cow with great vigor, and as the day went on I think I was literally able to smell the stench of death in the air.

It's pretty expensive to buy your own cow, so people will pool their money to buy a cow and then share the sacrifice.  At my wife's office, they were passing the hat so she threw in a few bucks as a show of solidarity.  Of course, that bought us a few pounds of fresh beef for ourselves.  My wife went to the office to pick up our beef mid-day on Saturday and came home with a plastic shopping bag full of our share.  Bear in mind that when they slaughter a cow for food, they use everything.   Some pieces were really, really tough, and we also got a piece of the heart, which we opted to give to our neighbors as I'm sure they appreciated it more that we would have.  We marinated some cuts and grilled them later that night.  The meat was tough, even after some tenderizing and a few hours of marinating, but it wasn't bad.  I can say with confidence that it was the freshest beef I've ever had.

The next day my wife's boss invited us over to his house for the big feast on Sunday.  My wife stayed at home with his wife and family while she prepared the meal, and her boss drove me around the neighborhood to greet various people that he knew.  It was fun, although a little strange.  My French is coming along a bit, yet that was no help since everyone was speaking to each other in Bambara, the local language.  We'd show up at somebody's house, exchange greetings in French, and then I'd sit down and listen to them talk for twenty minutes about whatever until we left and went to the next person's house.  Everyone was super nice and I really felt welcomed in each home.  The meal, which we had later that day, was excellent as well.  They slow-cook the beef in a pot for hours so it's very juicy and tender, and the rice and sauce that go with it are spectacular.  It's like pot roast to the nth degree.

For the trip to her boss' house , my wife got dressed up in a boubou - check it out:

I wore a button-up shirt and khakis.  No picture was taken.

In some exciting personal news, I've started working.  Finding work locally is just not happening, so I've turned to the internet to help me find contract work as a technical writer with some success.  It's a bit strange to be working on a project with someone whom I never see or actually speak with.  The work has been really interesting and a bit challenging.  I'm still trying to figure out how full my schedule actually is, since I'm paid on an hourly basis and and when I finish a project, or part of it, I don't have anything to do until I hear more from whoever I'm working for.  That makes for some short workdays at times, but on the whole I've been enjoying it thus far.

I've also started playing bass with a few other expats.  I brought my bass guitar back with me after home leave, figuring I'd have the time to work on my skills and maybe find some opportunities to play.  The group I'm playing with is made up of a German drummer and alto saxophonist and a British pianist.  They want to play jazz which means I've had to dig into an old instructional book I have on playing walking bass lines.  I've never really learned how to play bass that way and it's something I've always wanted to do.  With my current situation, I have the time to practice and a good group of musicians to practice with.  So far we're playing some pretty basic songs ("Take 5," "Georgia On My Mind," "The Chicken," and "Caravan") which is fine by me since I have a lot of work to do to get my chops in order.

Finally, I was able to get a bike, or at least most of the parts of a bike.  Thanks to a connection I have here, I got the frame and most of the necessary components of a Trek 820 mountain bike.

The bike is in solid shape, so I just need to find a way to get the parts I need together and have them shipped over here.  Quality bike parts simply can't be found here, so if I can get some decent-level stuff off ebay or craigslist, that will be fine.  It'll cost a little bit to get what I need shipped from the States, but it's no biggie since it will be great to have a bike to get around town with.  There's a group of guys that go mountain biking on Saturday morning in the hills outside of town, too.  I'm sure I'll be able to sell the bike for whatever cost I put into it whenever we leave here.  You just can't find decent-quality bikes in Bamako.

Oh, and today I picked up a package from my Aunt Noreen in the States.  Ah, the delicacies that were found within!  Cheez Wiz, spices for making Italian beef, a box of macaroni and cheese, and a few popular culture magazines such as "People" and "The National Enquirer."  Thanks, Aunt Noreen!

Fun at the ol' swimmin' hole

On Saturday, my wife and I and some friends took a trip outside the city to an area near Sibi, which is about a forty-five minute drive west of Bamako. The trip out there is pretty easy once you get out of the congestion of the city, thanks to a very nicely-paved road. Our plan was to do some hiking in the morning, have a picnic lunch, and then go for a swim at a nearby waterfall.

Upon arriving at the park entrance, we paid a small admission fee and met up with our guide for the day. There aren't any clearly marked trails in the area, so we needed his help to get up the arch and to the waterfall. After exchanging pleasantries with the other men working at the entrance, we were off.

Our friend Lynda drove us all in her SUV, so we used that to get up the road towards the natural arch. The road was pretty bad in spots and there's no way our ACME-provided Toyota Corolla would have made the trip without a broken axle or three. After about a fifteen minute drive, we started our short hike to the base of the natural bridge and our eventual destination - the top of it.

Here's a shot of the natural bridge from below, before we got started the climb:

and here's my wife and I, to offer a sense of scale:

See, it's only about twenty feet tall. Actually, no, I'd guess the top of the arch was several hundred feet above where this picture was taken. The hiking wasn't too difficult and thankfully we were in the shade a fair amount, circling amongst the rock formations as we made our way higher and higher.

We had a little bit of climbing to do, but nothing outrageous.

Once we made it to the top, we had a fantastic view of the Niger river valley stretched out below us.

This shot above is looking east, with the Niger River off to the right and the bluffs on the left stretching all the way back to Bamako. The scenery reminded me of Utah, only a lot greener thanks to the rainy season.

After enjoying the view and the cool breezes atop the bridge, we made our way back down and embarked on the forty-five minute drive to the waterfall. The road was probably one of the worst roads I've ever been on. We drove through small rivers, sand pits, and mud puddles on a deeply rutted dirt road. After about twenty minutes, the novelty of off-roading started to wear off and I think most people in the SUV were wondering if we were ever going to get there and once we did, was it going to be worth it?

When we finally arrived, we were greeted with this view:

It's not really the sort of image I'd associate with hot, dusty Mali. The pool was roughly ten feet deep on the right side and about three feet on the left side, which made it ideal for swimming in the strong current from the falls and then relaxing in the shallows

Apart from some locals who came to watch the crazy white people go swimming, we had the place to ourselves. The falls were running strongly thanks to three days of heavy rain and the temperature of the water was perfect.

We ate lunch on the rocks and swam for a few hours, and then made our way home mid-afternoon, exhausted from a long day outdoors.

Ah, the rainy season

We're in the midst of the rainy season, which means a lot of rain (obviously), mosquitoes, and humid weather. Personally, I enjoy a hearty thunderstorm every once in a while and we've had more than our fair share over the past month. On Monday, I was working on my laptop during an especially heavy rain. Every ten minutes or so, I'd think, "Wow, it's really coming down out there" and then return to whatever it was I was working on. It wasn't until I got up to go get a drink from the kitchen that I noticed some water staring to come in underneath the front door. I quickly moved what few things that were on the living room floor onto the furniture. Once I got the the kitchen, I was surprised to see water seeping in under the back door as well. Again, I took whatever was on the floor and moved it onto some shelves. As I headed back toward the front of the house, the water was steadily filling the room and now covered most of the floor. By this point I started running around the house, grabbing everything I could off the floor, shutting off the circuit breakers, and unplugging whatever was plugged into the wall sockets.

Within five minutes, the entire house was flooded to a depth of an inch or two. Outside, the situation was even worse. All around the house the water was at least a foot deep and the street in front of the house was a fast-moving river. The disgusting part was that all the water that had flooded the house was coming in off the street, so there was mud, leaves, and who knows what else flowing around inside our place. I took some old towels and jammed them under the leaky doorframes in the side and back of the house to try and stem the flooding.

Fortunately, the heavy rain stopped after about ten minutes and the water inside the house never got any higher than that initial inch or two. My wife soon arrived home from work and we started the long process of cleaning up. We spent most of the night clearing all the water out of the house and cleaning up the mud and sediment that was left behind. It made for a long, tiring evening but we got a good start on things. By around 8pm, the house was relatively dry. Thankfully, all our floors are tile so there wasn't any worry about flooring getting damaged, and I was at home when the flooding started so I could clear everything off the floor. We didn't lose anything to water damage. I spent all day Tuesday sweeping and mopping the floors down with bleach to clean it up. Oh, and I escorted a frog out of the house on Monday night, too.

We were pretty fortunate, all told, and things could have been a lot worse especially if there had been no one at home. We got some sandbags to help seal up the leaky doorframes so that should help things from getting bad again in the event of another downpour. I confess that during heavy rainfall over the past few nights, I find myself waking up and checking to see if the house is flooding again. Rainy season should be over at the end of September so there isn't much longer that I'll have to worry about this.

I'm over my bout with malaria, though it's taken a while to get my energy back again. Oddly enough, my wife came down with malaria the week after I had it. Maybe we were bit by the same mosquito. She's just about over her malaria, too, though it did sap a lot of our energy.

I substituted at the American school yesterday. In the morning I taught a middle-school English class about literary hyperbole, then supervised economics and algebra classes, and taught some high schoolers how to play the Beyonce song "Halo" on guitar for their music class. The day finished up with me watching part of "An American Tail III: The Treasure of Manhattan Island" with a class of second graders in the library. All in a day's work for a sub, I guess.

Jungle Fever

Honestly, every time I think to myself, "Boy, I really don't have anything interesting to write about in my blog this week," I end up having some kind of nightmarish experience that proves to be more far more "interesting" than anything else that's gone on in the past few months. This time around, I got malaria. No joke.

Now, before coming to Africa, I knew all about the precautions one should take to prevent getting malaria:

• take anti-malarial medication (check - I'm on doxycycline, a pill that I take once a day)
• sleep under a mosquito net (check)
• cover your skin while outside after sundown to prevent mosquito bites (check - plus, I don't spend a lot of time outdoors after dark anyway)

While I was on home leave, I made sure to keep taking my pills just in case malaria symptoms showed up, and to also keep the medication levels in my blood at a high enough level so it wouldn't take time to build back them up again when I returned to Bamako.

So, when I had a mild headache last Thursday morning and felt not quite myself, I figured I had eaten some food that was slightly off, which is not an uncommon occurrence. Or maybe I had caught some little flu bug that was going around. I took my temperature throughout the day and it was hovering between 99 and 100, which really isn't that high, and it didn't seem to be going up. Later that day, after a nap, I felt better and whatever trace of a fever I had was gone.

The same thing happened on Friday. Woke up, didn't feel right, had a tiny bit of a fever, just a hint of nausea, a few aches and pains, but that was it. They never seemed to get worse, and the temperature would come and go. My wife strongly encouraged me to go to get tested for malaria, but I thought that if I had malaria, the symptoms would present themselves and get worse. Instead I felt like I was being teased by them. Again, by the afternoon the symptoms were gone. I was on the medication, I'm taking all the steps to prevent getting bitten, so what did I have to worry about?

On Saturday and Sunday, I felt fine. Totally fine. "Well, whatever that was, I'm glad it's over with," I thought. That Sunday night, though, I started having terrible headaches. They were so strong that they would wake me up. Now I started to wonder if something was up because I almost never get headaches, especially ones so bad they wake me up.

So, Monday morning I headed off to the clinic to get tested for malaria. My wife met me there and helped with translating since I was having a hard time thinking straight due to these headaches. The clinic was clean and relatively modern - after a bit of a wait, they brought me into an exam room and took a tiny blood sample to run the test. The nurse asked me all kinds of questions and took my temperature. I didn't have any of the usual symptoms such as the chills, high fever, digestive problems, cough, runny nose, etc. It takes about a half hour for them to do the test, so I met with the doctor while I was waiting.

He was very nice and spoke excellent English which was a blessing. He, too, didn't see many symptoms and was wondering if my eyeglasses were bad, or if there was some other reason why I would be having headaches. While he went to get the test results, I asked my wife if she seriously thought I had malaria. She said no, and I said I didn't think so either. How could I have gotten it? We haven't been back here that long, I take the pills every day, I don't remember being bitten at all in the past few weeks... it didn't add up.

So, you can imagine our surprise when the doctor came back and said that yes indeed, I tested positive. I guess the anti-malarial medication was keeping my symptoms at a minimum, but it was definitely in my blood. He wrote me a prescription for some medicine to take care of the malaria, told me to take Tylenol and Advil for the headaches, and said I should come back on Friday for another test to see if I still have it.

As soon as that night, I started feeling better. I finished taking the medicine last night and after getting up this morning and not taking anything, the only effects I still feel are that my eyeballs are a little sore. Otherwise I feel fine. Normal appetite, no headaches, fever, chills, etc.

What's so strange is that here, malaria isn't treated as a big deal. 500 million people a year are infected with it and one million of those go on to die from it, so it's not some unknown disease. Yet when people in Africa talk about having it, it seems to be regarded about the same as getting chicken pox. I suppose that's because it's so common here and it's so easy to get treatment for it. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly lucky because under different circumstances, I could be in the hospital or worse right now. I'm very fortunate that things didn't get any more serious for me and the cure is as simple as taking some pills twice a day for a few days.

At any rate, I'm feeling much better, and I guess that years from now when I'm seated in my wingback chair, filling my pipe with tobacco, and getting ready to regale my visitors with tales from my life, I can get a faraway look in my eye and say, "Back when I had malaria in west Africa..."

Back from home leave

After a little over a month away, I'm back in Bamako. While surprisingly stressful at times, my home leave was great. I ate a lot of food, did a lot of shopping, and was busy with various social engagements for almost the entirety of the trip.

My wife and I went to Munich for almost a week before heading back to the states. Munich is a fantastic place to visit. The city is very walkable, there's plenty of public transportation available, and lots of people speak English which is pretty handy. We had a nice hotel near the city center and spent a lot of time walking around the city, seeing the sights and enjoying some nice weather. We rented bikes one day and rode around most of Munich which was cool, and we took a train up into the mountains to stay in a small town for a night. After living in Africa for a year, it was a trip to go someplace where everything worked, ran on schedule, and the streets were clean, clean, clean.

After Munich, we spent a night in Paris which was... okay. I've never been super excited about visiting Paris so I guess I had low expectations going into my time there. I saw all the things you're supposed to see like the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc De Triumph, etc, but it was kind of like seeing Washington DC; having seen it all, I don't feel a need to ever go back to see it again. There were also a million tourists there and admission to everything was really expensive. It felt more like visiting an amusement park instead of one of the world's great cities. Later that night we went to Montmarte and had dinner in a less touristy area of the city which was better, but still - I wasn't as entranced by Paris the way that so many other people are.

A week after leaving Bamako, we headed back to the states. There were doctors to visit, mail to open, shopping to do, friends to see, and food to eat. Boy, did I eat. I gained ten pounds in the last month which is no small feat for me. Yes, I had White Castle (thanks, Nora, for bringing me some on Saturday) as well as a lot of other trashy food. It was really good. Even things like Cheerios, ice cream, or PB&J on wheat bread tasted amazing.

Other highlights from my time at home, in no particular order:

• going to a White Sox game (thanks Kevin)
• playing hockey a handful of times
• spending some time with my wife in downtown Chicago
• going sailing with my in-laws
• seeing my old house in Chicago - it's been foreclosed on! Whoa.
• enjoying sub-70F temperatures
• scoring a ton of great shirts for cheap at Village Discount in Chicago

And, of course, it was great to talk to and spend time with everyone that I did. Sorry to those that I didn't get to see or spend a lot of time with while I was home. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I was busy just about every waking moment while in Chicago.

We're looking to come back home this Christmas, and the next time we're back I hope to do a better job of setting up times to visit people so my time can be more relaxing than stressful.

If you'll excuse me, I think it's nap time. Getting over this jet lag can be rough.

Random Thoughts Before Embarking

We leave tomorrow night for our home leave, and my wife and I are pretty jazzed. Mali has been a great place to be these past three months but we're both looking forward to time in Europe and the US. We've both been online shopping up a storm, purchasing things we need (and want) so they'll be waiting for us when we arrive back home in just over a week.

What follows are the thoughts and experiences I've had over the past two-ish weeks:

• Last Friday was my last meeting with the students from the YES program. I was working intensively with a few kids who needed help with their English and we focused on lots of reading and listening exercises. It was cool to get to know them a little more personally over the past few weeks. It's possible that I'll see all of the students in the airport since they're flying out to the US on the same day that I return from home leave.
  


• I've begun experimenting with making my own pad thai. There's lots of Asian food to be found in the grocery stores here - key ingredients such as fish sauce, rice noodles, and tamarind aren't too tough to locate. I bought a cheap wok for around $10 from the Chinese supermarket located downtown. The first batch of pad thai I made almost killed my wife and I. We both lapsed into sodium-overdose comas about twenty minutes after we ate and I drank enough water to drown a fish once I woke up. The next batch was better, but I still have a ways to go before I'll go around telling people that I can whip up a mean pad thai.
  


• In other food-related news, a Vietnamese sandwich stand has opened up not too far from our house. For 500cfa (about $1), I can get a pretty tasty sandwich. It's made on French bread and has a little ground beef, a few cold cuts, some lettuce, tomato, and onion, and it's seasoned with ketchup, soy sauce, hot sauce, and a few other ingredients that I can't readily identify. For a buck, it's pretty filling and I have it at least once a week for lunch.
  


• On Saturday my wife and I went on a canoe trip down the Niger River with a few friends. It was nice to get out of the city and the heat wasn't too oppressive. One stretch of the river has some rapids which were fun to navigate our way through. Lots of locals said hi and waved as we passed by. Man, most everyone we meet in Mali is super nice. It's great.
  


• The dry season is winding down here - it seems like it rains at least every other day and the dirt roads are getting pretty rough. Hopefully by the time we get back from our home leave, we'll have missed out on the humidity of the dry-season-to-rainy-season transition.

Counting down the days

Things have been pretty slow for me the past few weeks in Bamako. I don't have much in the way of exciting news to report - sorry. I'm still trying to find full-time work out here. I was hoping to find work at the US Embassy but they're in a time of transition this summer. From what I understand, US foreign service workers change their posts every two to three years and the way the schedules have worked out here, there's a turnover of 70% of the embassy employees. They're all leaving for new posts soon or have already left. That means that lots of programs are finishing up and no new ones are starting. Most departing employees I talk to say that there will be positions opening up in the next few months once the new staff arrives and settles in. If nothing comes through at the embassy, I'm also looking seriously into working remotely doing contract tech writing, web design, instructional design, etc. The web connection here has been solid and the speeds are good enough that I would feel comfortable working with customers on some projects.

In the meantime, I've been spending some time working with a group of Youth Exchange and Study (YES) students. The YES program is run by the US State Department and offers students from significantly Muslim countries such as Mali the chance to study in America for a year. Almost every Saturday for the past few months, I'll talk with the 15 or so students who have been chosen for the program about life in America and what they can expect when they arrive in the US in August.

It's been pretty cool. All of the students will be in the US for their junior year of high school and they're all bright kids. Their English is excellent, to the point where I'd never guess that some of them weren't native speakers. So far we've talked about food and restaurants, sports, life in high school, American cities, as well as going off on countless tangents. There isn't a set curriculum that I'm teaching from - I'm more providing them with the opportunity to ask questions about America and get used to listening to an American speak in English for a few hours at a time.

This Saturday I'm going to talk with them about music in America and what happens when kids "go out" with their friends on the weekend. Starting next week, I'll meet with the students three times a week and in addition to covering the nuances of American culture, I'll go over basic American history and government. There was a good documentary out last year called "American Teen" that was shot in Warsaw, Indiana. I'd like to show them parts of that so they can get one (very Midwestern) perspective on what high school in America is like.

In the back of my mind, though, my wife and I are thinking about our upcoming home leave. We've finalized our travel schedule and will be spending a week in Munich, a night in Paris, and then heading back home for several weeks. There's shopping lists to put together, doctor and dentist appointments to be made, and dining options to be considered. Will I go to White Castle just once, or multiple times? Will Buona beef taste even better than I remembered it? Will my body go into shock from ingesting so much trashy food? In a little over four weeks, I'll find out.

Mail call

Not much in the way of big news to report these days. The highlight of the past week was that we have successfully received a package through the mail here in Bamako. My family sent us a small flat-rate box that arrived here after being in transit for about two weeks. It included such necessities as an oven thermometer, Ziploc bags, cleaner for my electric razor, and some packages of Kraft macaroni and cheese sauce. Exciting stuff, I know. If anyone would like our mailing address here, send me an email (charliemooreiv AT gmail.com) and I'll pass it along. After not being able to get any packages while we were in Kinshasa, this is pretty exciting for us.

It's hard to believe that we'll be going on vacation in just over a month. We're spending a week in Europe before we go home, and are strongly leaning towards spending several days in Munich. Anyone have recommendations of places to visit in or around Munich? After our time in Europe, we'll be in the states for a few weeks.

Finally, in lieu of taking a million pictures of our house we shot a few quickie videos instead and put them up on YouTube. Send me an email and I can pass along the link if you'd like to see them.

A trip to the suburbs

Last Sunday, my wife and I made the hour-long drive out of town to her manager's village outside Bamako. There was a memorial service that day for his aunt which was being held in his village and he graciously invited us to attend. In Muslim countries, there's a tradition where forty days after someone is buried there's a sacrifice and prayer, and then everyone stays to eat the sacrifice. In this case, there were two cows and some goats which were sacrificed, which was kind of a big deal. My wife said that in two years in a village in Senegal, she never saw anything more than a goat being sacrificed for this kind of thing.


We got on the road early Sunday morning before it started to get too hot and made it to the village without incident. The roads here in Mali have been fantastic, by the way - so much better than what we saw in Kinshasa. We averaged around 60 mph most of the way. I don't think I was ever able to go that fast in DRC thanks to all the potholes and traffic snarls.


Once arriving at the village, we were welcomed warmly by my wife's manager and his extended family. His father had four wives, and this service was for one of his wives, though the deceased was not the birth mother of my wife's manager. More like a stepmother, I guess, though he referred to her as his aunt. I hope that all makes sense. The mood was far from somber. It felt more like an Irish wake, though without all the booze (these people are Muslim, after all). There were groups of people sitting everywhere, and I can't count how many hands I shook and greetings I exchanged with them. Everyone was incredibly kind and welcoming, and I didn't feel out of place or like an outsider at all.


We spent most of the day sitting around in the shade. The primary focus of our energy was moving our chairs from shady spot to shady spot as the sun made its way across the sky. While the men sat and talked, the children looked after each other and played, and the women prepared the food which was rice and meat from the animals killed earlier that day. People were also eating rice and beans, and there was lots of strong tea being served througout the day. I was up late the night before and must have had five cups of tea. Despite the heat, my wife and I both had a great time. The food and the company were both top-notch, and it was refreshing to get out of the city and be a part of what most of the country of Mali is really like.


We had to be careful when we took out our camera because all the kids would come running over and want to have their picture taken. This never got old to them. We did get a few shots of the rest of the goings-on that day.


Here's some of the women cutting up onions for the meal...




and cooking up giant pots of rice...





and here's some of the meat, cooking in a pot (note the spare parts at the top of the picture).





Most people sat under a large tarp that offered protection from the sun...





while a few fortunate souls were able to cool off in a bucket.





We took a short walk around the village where I helped a girl pull water from the well...





and showed off my rippling muscles.





And finally, here's a shot of my wife with her many adoring fans.

Furnishing

I think we're just about done getting the things we need for the house. We still need some curtains, but I bought a rolling computer chair while walking around downtown this morning, and on Sunday we picked up a living room set. We opted to buy it from a roadside stand rather than a regular furniture store. These are all over Bamako - someone sets up a little stand on the side of the road and starts building and selling furniture.

Here's one selling wicker furniture...

And another with tables and wardrobes...

Most of the furniture that these places sell isn't anything that stunning, but we did our best to find something that was reasonably comfortable and not covered in animal-print upholstery. We settled on a four-piece black pleather set (two chairs, a loveseat, and a couch) for the princely sum of 230,000 CFA (about $475). The salesman encouraged us to go for the white pleather over the black, noting that the white would match the beautiful white of our own skin (his words). A good point, but we ended up going with black since the white would have lent our living room a Miami Vice sort of look. The price even included delivery, which was the most exciting part of the transaction.

As you might suspect, a low-fi roadside operation such as this didn't have their own fancy delivery truck. Instead, all four pieces were piled on top of a beat-up taxi that resembled a 1988 Ford Escort. All four pieces of the furniture set were roped into place, and we guided the driver and the furniture salesmen to our house which was about a mile and a half away.

Here they are, posing in front of our house. The salesman is on the left, and the taxi driver is on the right. The taxi driver was a pretty tall dude.

And here they are again, posing again from a different angle...

The furniture isn't too bad - I've already logged a couple naps on the couch. If we get two years out of it, I'll be happy.

No luck in finding any furniture at the embassy garage sale a few weeks back, although we had some major scores such as an ironing board, a few sets of bedsheets, a toaster, and a brand new pair of Levi's 501 jeans in 31/32, which is a size I can never find in America, let alone at a garage sale in Africa. That toaster was key - there are no toasters to be found around Bamako. Don't people want toast with their eggs in the morning? Or a tuna salad sandwich on toast?

Once we get some curtains up in the next week or so, we'll have pictures of the house.

All about malaria

If you'll allow me to take a public-service-announcement turn with this blog entry, I thought I'd talk a little about malaria since tomorrow is World Malaria day. Malaria is a huge concern in Africa and it's not something that just affects tribespeople in the middle of the jungle. Off the top of my head, I can think of six people I knew in Kinshasa who have had malaria (three of whom came down with it during the eight months we were there). Even here in Bamako, where I've only met a handful of people, someone I know came down with it a few weeks ago.

Bear in mind that the people I know who are getting it are not taking anti-malarial medication for whatever reason. I guess the one saving grace is that people here are on the lookout for it, so it's not dismissed as the flu. Doctors here know how to treat it since they see it so often.

Yes, mom, I sleep under a mosquito net every night and take my malaria medicine regularly.

This article is copied from http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/22/atoz.malaria/

LONDON, England -- Malaria is one of the world's worst health problems and one of its biggest killers, with half a billion people affected every year, according to the Roll Back Malaria partnership.

Around half a billion people are infected with malaria every year. Ninety percent of those cases are in Africa.

Saturday marks World Malaria Day, when the world commemorates global efforts to eradicate the disease.

Below CNN's Vital Signs has produced a complete A - Z guide to how malaria spreads, the symptoms to look out for and how to protect yourself.



A is for Anti-malarial drugs

The history of anti-malarial medicine has been marked by a constant struggle between evolving drug-resistant parasites and the search for new drugs. Currently, anti-malaria experts are focusing on therapies that combine several drugs for better effects.


B is for Blood stream

Once a mosquito has bitten and the malaria parasites reach the liver, the parasites divide and create thousands of mature parasites. These are released into the blood and infect red blood cells. At that point, typical malaria symptoms such as fever and anemia develop.


C is for Chloroquine

Until recently, Chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, was the first option for many people because of its relatively low price and effectiveness. However, resistance to Chloroquine in many parts of the world has rendered the drug ineffective.


D is for Diagnosis

After noting your symptoms and travel history, your doctor will likely obtain a sample of your blood for observation. Two blood samples, taken at six- and 12-hour intervals, can usually confirm the presence of the malaria parasite and its type. It is possible to be infected by more than one parasite at the same time.


E is for Epidemic

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), large and devastating epidemics can occur when the mosquito-borne parasite is introduced into areas where people have had little prior contact with the infecting parasite. These epidemics can be triggered by wet weather conditions and further aggravated by floods or mass population movements driven by conflict.


F is for Fever

The most common symptom of all types of malarias is high fever, which is why doctors often misdiagnose malaria for flu. The fever is a reaction to toxins in the blood. It is therefore advised to tell your doctor you have been to a malaria affected zone, even if symptoms arise months after the trip.


G is for Genome

In 2002, -- hundred years after it was discovered that mosquitoes transmit the malaria parasite -- the complete genetic codes of both the human malaria parasite and the mosquito that spreads it was cracked. This development brought scientists a step closer to developing drugs and vaccines to fight the disease, Nature magazine reported.


H is for Hotspots

Most cases and deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, many of them occurring among children. However, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Europe are also affected. In 2006, malaria was present in 109 countries and territories.

I is for Immunity

Travelers from malaria-free regions such as Europe and the United States, with little or no immunity, who go to areas with high disease rates, are particularly vulnerable. It is essential to take precautions by taking anti-malarial drugs prescribed by your doctor.


J is for Julius Wagner-Jauregg

Julius Wagner-Jauregg, a Viennese doctor, was the first to intentionally infect syphilis patients with malaria parasites. By controlling the subsequent malaria-related fever with an anti-malaria drug, the effects of both syphilis and malaria could be minimized. Jauregg received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1927.


K is for Killer

Malaria is a life-threatening disease but it is preventable and curable if the right steps are taken. Education in recognizing the symptoms has reduced the number of cases in some areas by 20 percent. Recognizing the disease in the early stages can stop the disease from becoming a killer.


L is for Laser gun

U.S. scientists say they are developing a laser gun that could kill millions of mosquitoes in minutes. The laser fires at mosquitoes once it detects the audio frequency created by the beating of wings, the lead scientist on the project told CNN. The project is being funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


M is for Mosquitoes

Malaria is caused by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquitoes. The mosquitoes bite between sunset and sunrise and parasites from the mosquito are then injected into the person's skin and transported to the liver. About 170 species of such parasites exist, but only four cause malaria in humans.


N is for Nets

The distribution of mosquito nets with insecticide is a very effective method of malaria prevention, and it is also one of the most cost-effective methods. These nets can often be obtained for around $3. Earlier this month, actor Ashton Kutcher won a Twitter race against CNN to reach 1 million followers. Kutcher had pledged 10,000 mosquito nets to charity if he beat CNN, and 1,000 if he lost. CNN agreed to do the same.


O is for Obstacles

In many endemic areas, access to health facilities, as well as drug costs, still present major obstacles. Humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres estimates that the cost of treating a malaria-infected person in an endemic country was between $0.25 and $2.40 per dose in 2002.


P is for Pandemic

For malaria to become a pandemic (plague) in an area, several factors have to be present: high human population density; high mosquito population density; high rates of transmission from humans to mosquitoes and from mosquitoes to humans.


Q is for Quinine

Quinine was the first effective treatment for malaria in the 17th century. Since the 1940's, many other anti-malarial drugs have appeared on the market and have taken precedent over quinine. But quinine is still being used to treat malaria in some cases.


R is for Repellent

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says inspect repellents with DEET (most common active ingredient in strong insecticides) in them should be used on exposed skin and flying-insect spray can be used to kill mosquitoes in the sleeping area. DEET may be toxic, however and should be used with care.


S is for Symptoms

Fever is not the only symptom of malaria. Other symptoms can include shivers, headaches and nausea. Sweating and exhaustion is also common and in some cases, it can affect the brain or kidneys.


T is for Tablets

Malarone is a common anti-malaria drug among many travelers. It is said to have a 97 percent efficacy with relatively few side-effects. It can be given just one day before arrival in a malaria endemic country and only needs to be taken for another week after leaving.


U is for Unborn child

According to the WHO, pregnant women are at high risk of contracting malaria. The illness can result in high rates of miscarriages and cause more than 10 percent of maternal deaths annually. This figure can rise to 50 percent in cases of severe disease.


V is for Vaccine

Despite intensive research, no effective malaria vaccine has been developed to date. But according to a report in April's New Scientist journal, a unique vaccine taken from the saliva of infected mosquitoes has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be tested in people.


W is for World Malaria Day

April 25 has become World Malaria Day to provide a global effort to control malaria around the world. The international malaria community only has two years left to meet the 2010 targets of delivering effective protection and treatment to all people at risk of malaria, as called for by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.


X is for X-ray

X-ray microscopes are used to find the presence of malaria in red blood cells and see how they interact with healthy cells. One of the advantages of this type of microscope is that it produces very-high-resolution images of the cell structure.


Y is for Yellow fever

Yellow fever is another disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Some countries, such as Peru, require a certificate showing yellow-fever vaccination before you can travel there.


Z is for Zanzibar

Zanzibar, part of the African republic of Tanzania, has had relative successes in combating malaria; Africa's biggest killer according to the New Scientist journal. The achievements are due to the widespread use of treated bed nets, along with the switch to new anti-malarial drugs instead of Chloroquine in 2004.

A place to hang my hat

After almost four weeks in Bamako, I'm finally beginning to feel a little more at home here. The people here have been fantastic and I'm getting used to the notion that the power will not go out several times a day, nor does someone expect a bribe from me just because they're sitting in a chair near where I've parked the car.

We moved into our house which is really nice. It's in a newer section of town and the house itself can't be more than ten or fifteen years old. It has two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living/dining room, and a kitchen. The second level has a nice terrace overlooking the street, and there's even a small guest house attached to the back of the house that has a bedroom and bathroom.

There are tile floors, AC units, and ceiling fans throughout the house. The house is furnished which worked out great for us since we don't really own any furniture and weren't thrilled about the prospect of shopping for it in Bamako. Most of the furniture in the house is really nice with the exception of the couches in the living room. They look nice but have got to be some of the most uncomfortable things I've ever sat on in my life. The back is at a 90-degree angle to the seat so you have to sit perfectly upright, and the seat is very shallow so you can't lay back and relax either. Honestly, when I want to sit down and read I look at those couches and shake my head in disgust and then head to another room in the house.

There are furniture stores to be found in Bamako, but unless you want to spend upwards of $1000 for a couch of dubious craftsmanship, you're better off patronizing one of the many roadside furniture salesmen. There are lots of people making couches, desks, beds, tables, and other assorted furniture right on the side of the road. I wouldn't expect this stuff to last more than a couple years, but to get an entire living room set for a few hundred bucks, why not? My wife and I are debating whether to get some couches and chairs from a roadside shop, or else try our luck at the embassy rummage sale this weekend. If you think some Americans are asking crazy prices for the junk they're selling at garage sales, wait till you shop at an embassy rummage sale. Most merchandise is old, ugly, and you have to compete with various Middle-Eastern businessmen who are prepared to overpay for that pleather ottoman so they can resell it for twice what they paid for it.

Anyway, I got a lead on a good local guy who will be making a desk for me for about $100. In the meantime, I'm using a spare nightstand to perch my laptop on while I type. We bought a new clothes washer, refrigerator, and stove from the local appliance store. Our stove is gas and runs off a propane tank that we keep in the kitchen. We have to light the burners ourselves but I like having a gas stove again. After contending with the sketchy power situation in Kinshasa for eight months, this is a dream. No more burners that barely get past warm, or ovens that scorch the top and bottom of our food while leaving the middle uncooked. And there's the added excitement of using a match to light everything.

We have a guard as well. He's not really needed, but ACME pays for security services so whatever. During the day, our guard is Mamadou. He's a pretty cool guy. He speaks some English and likes to practice with me, and I practice French with him. He's pretty big on making tea and has it several times a day. It's kind of strange to see him sitting in the 100 degree-plus heat, sipping a piping-hot glass of tea, but different strokes for different folks, I guess. At night our guard is a guy named Adama, and he's a soccer player as well. He invited us to one of his games - they charge admission and he plays in the big stadium in town, so I wonder if he's playing for some kind of semi-pro team.

My wife took the camera with her on her trip upcountry this week, so I'll try to get some pictures of our place soon.

Hello from Bamako, Mali

Dodgy internet connections and a number of other events have kept me from my blogging duties, but I’m back online. Yes, my wife and I have moved to Mali. We made the decision about a month ago. She was offered a position from ACME out of the blue – literally, within hours of finding out that the position was open, ACME made the offer – so after a few days of prayer and deliberation we felt that it was the best thing for us to do. The next few weeks were full of work as we had to finish up work in Kinshasa, get rid of the few possessions we’ve accumulated over the past seven months, and get ready to move to Bamako.

We got just about everything taken care of although, as previously noted in this blog, not having an internet connection for those last few weeks threw a spanner in the works for me. I was able to successfully get most of my work done before we left, and I can work remotely from Mali to polish off the last few tasks I need to wrap up before I can effectively hand off my work to whoever will be taking care of it next.

Getting out of Kinshasa was a headache. First, we weren’t able to get a flight on Saturday as we had originally planned so we took a flight on Sunday instead. Arrangements had to be made to take care of that, but having an extra day to prepare for our departure wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The bigger problem was that my visa for DRC had expired in early March and without a valid visa, I wouldn’t be able to leave the country. You’d think that for a country as tough to get into as DRC, they’d be anxious to kick you out. Nope. We initially thought they’d just let me leave and not let me back in, but after talking with a few other expats in the days leading up to our flight out, we learned that there was no way I was getting out of the country, at least not without greasing the palm of an official. The travel company that took care of getting us to the airport and handling our bags worked out an “arrangement” with an official to the tune of $80. I sat in the airport waiting area and sweated it out for a couple hours while that was all taken care of. The official waved me past the immigration officials when it was time to board the plane, and that was that. I was leaving Kinshasa after almost eight months.

The flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was uneventful and we spent a low-key evening in a hotel before we boarded a plane to Bamako the next morning. It was a six hour flight from Addis to Bamako – not much to speak of besides another rather poor selection of in-flight films.

How is Bamako? Hot. Hot, hot, hot. Everyone I talked to in Kinshasa who had been to Bamako said it was going to be hot. Indeed, it sure is. I started to get a sense of what I was in for as the plane descended into Bamako. You know how they display the plane’s altitude, time of arrival, and outside temperature on the monitors in the cabin as you’re flying? When the plane was about 3000 feet above ground, the temperature was at 75 degrees and it just kept climbing as we descended until it was nearing 100 as we touched down. The terrain was on the barren side with lots of dust, a few scrubby-looking trees and bushes, and not much else.

I will say that the Bamako airport is much nicer than Kinshasa – no hassles from security, no problems in immigration, and local men looking to make money assisting you with your baggage were helpful and yet not overbearing or pushy.

I’ve been here for a week now and besides the searing heat (it was 104 at 5:00 in the afternoon yesterday), Bamako is a nice city. It has less of an international feel compared to Kinshasa. There’s a fairly large American presence here, but I don’t get the impression that the expat community here is made up of people from all over the globe. I think there’s more Americans and especially French here than anyone else in terms of foreigners. Could be wrong on that, though.

The roads here are way, way nicer than in Kinshasa and drivers are much more polite. However, I now have to contend with the swarms of moto riders infesting the roads. It appears to be the primary mode of transportation in Bamako. It’s common to see a pack of 20 motos in your rearview mirror, or six of them lined up at an intersection waiting for the light to turn green. What’s more maddening is that they drive all over the road and sidewalk and pass cars any which way they can.

At first, I was constantly watching every moto on the road, making sure they were watching what they were doing and not about to run into me. After a short time driving, though, I realized it’s best to take a more zen-like approach where I almost ignore them and just go with the flow. It’s almost like swimming in a school of fish – even though I’m surrounded a dozen motos, they always stay a foot or so away from my vehicle. I could be changing lanes, turning, speeding up or slowing down, and they successfully maintain that one-foot buffer.

Next week we should be moving into our permanent residence, a small house in the northeast corner of town. This week will involve shopping for appliances and housewares, getting an internet connection at our new place, and becoming more familiar with the city and streets.

Internet is back up

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for me due to a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was the internet being down at my house. We're supposed to leave soon to move to Mali (probably next week) and I've been scrambling to get some of the websites I've been working on up onto the internet before I leave Kinshasa. Kinda hard to do when you don't have internet access. Thankfully, I'm back in the game and have gotten the ball rolling on getting these sites live soon.

Big week here in the DRC - the national team won the African Nations Championship. Last Sunday afternoon I was at our usual game of ultimate frisbee at TASOK. Right after we finished the game, we heard a tremendous roar from the army base that's just on the other side of the wall from TASOK. Someone mentioned that the Congolese football team had a big game that day and we figured they must have won.

After the game, I hung out at TASOK for a while. As an hour or two went by, a few friends sent me text messages saying that there were crowds of people celebrating out in the streets and I should be careful driving home. As I started making my way home around 7:30, I came upon a mob of a couple hundred people filling the street. They were a little rowdy, but a happy kind of rowdy, at least as near as I could tell. Following the advice that was sent to me in the text messages from earlier that night, I drove extra slow as the crowd parted around my car. I honked the horn in a celebratory way, smiled a broad, congratulatory smile, and flashed victory signs to everyone. I guess that convinced them I was celebrating too, except I was just on my way to meet up with a different mob of joyful/rowdy people. They all pounded on my car and yelled "mundele" at me (the local term for white person) and walked on, cheering and smiling. I passed through without incident and made it home in one piece.

The next day, the president declared that Monday was a national holiday so the city effectively shut down. Nobody went to work, meetings were cancelled, stores were closed, etc. The streets were empty. And then Wednesday was declared a half-day in Kinshasa because the Congo team was returning from the tournament and they wanted to have a big parade to celebrate their return. I was at TASOK for some meetings that morning. Around 9am, I was informed that the school would be closing at 11:30 and everyone should get home as quickly as possible and stay out of the streets for the rest of the day in case things got rowdy. Whoa. I had to fight an incredible amount of traffic to get home and spent the afternoon and evening working and watching a few movies.

At any rate, congratulations to the DRC team and the people of the DRC for their victory. It's always good to have something to celebrate, especially in a place that can be as difficult to live as this, and it's great to see people so proud of their country.

Sorry...

Sorry for the lack of updates. The internet has been out of service at our place for almost two weeks now and I don't know when or if it will get back up before we leave. I'm still around, trying to finish up stuff for work and prep for a move, and I hope to be updating again at some point soon, either from Kinshasa or in Mali.

Onward and upward

Life is very busy for me at the moment so I can't write the lengthy blog entry that this news deserves, but my wife and I are moving to Bamako, Mali in a few weeks. She's accepted a position with ACME and they want her to start right away. This came up out of the blue and caught us off-guard. After some lengthy discussion and prayer, we decided to go for it, so we leave Kinshasa in a few weeks. Everyone we've talked to says that Bamako is a fantastic city with wonderful people, so that's encouraging to hear. Bamako is a very safe country and it seems like there's a lot to do there which is a change from Kinshasa.

When I have time I'll write more. Guess I'll have to change the title of my blog site to "Seven and a Half Months in Kinshasa."

Working for Uncle Sugar

I thought I’d write a bit about the work that I’m doing here in Kinshasa. I was quite fortunate to be hired as a contractor at the US embassy, as I mentioned back in September. Since then, I’ve been working with a variety of organizations around Kinshasa that are affiliated with the US Embassy in some way and helping them create websites. I didn’t expect to come here and be a quote-unquote webmaster, but the work has been interesting and definitely more diverse than anything I’ve done prior to arriving here.

At present, I’m working on about seven different websites as well as working on the US Embassy-Kinshasa site. Only one has gone live – it’s a site for the Kinshasa Hash group. The other six are mired in the bogs of development and the work comes in fits and starts for a number of reasons:

The internet is slow and flaky here and the power goes out a lot. This means my productivity is way below what I would be able to achieve with a stable electrical supply and a non-flaky internet connection. It can take all day to upload content to a site if the connection doesn’t die on you in the midst of the data transfer. The electrical current varies from flickering to non-existent to normal, and there will be days where it’s fluctuating between flickering and non-existent for hours at a time.

Web sites are a new concept for a lot of people here. Well, they aren’t a *new* concept, per se, as much as they don’t really know what they’ll use a web site for once they’ve been given one. For example, I’m building a site for an alumni organization that’s made up of Congolese who have been to school in America in some capacity. A web site would offer them a great opportunity to network with other alumni, the universities they attended in the states, other Congolese, etc.

Initially they were most interested in what kind of logo they would have for their organization, and if it was possible to animate the words in the logo so they could spin around. They also gave me a lot of personal photos that, while nice, really don’t belong on a professional website.

Last week we had a workshop at the US Embassy and talked about what a website is for and what should be on it. We were able to scrap such requests as a live webchat option for members, a directory of all US Embassy locations and addresses worldwide, and a comprehensive list of US policy statements on any and all international matters. Now, we’ve narrowed it down so that we’re just looking to get news, calendar, history, donation, and contact sections on the site.

I guess what I’ve had to get used to is the way the internet is seen here. It’s not seen as a business tool as much as a bit of a novelty. It’s kind of like the way the internet was seen back in the late 90s, where people weren’t exactly sure what it could do for them. The web is here – people just don’t use it in their day-to-day lives like most of those in the West do. Here, most users have to go to internet cafes to access the web so they can read email, look at their Facebook pages, or check on football (soccer) news. Rather than use the web to communicate to Congolese here in the city of Kinshasa, it will be more helpful for these organizations to communicate with Congolese spread across the DRC via a website and, by extension, those who have left the country and are now living in North America or Europe. It’s a great way for them to reach the rest of the world.

Payment is not easy to come by. One of the conditions for me working on these websites is that these organizations will have to pay for the hosting of their sites themselves. I’ll create the site, but they’ll have to find a way to pay a web hosting service to host the site. Web hosting isn’t that expensive, maybe $100 a year, and the cost isn’t the hangup. The problem is that nobody around here has a credit card. Everything in Kinshasa is paid in cash, and web hosting services accept payment via credit card. When pressed, people around here can find a way to pay for something with a credit card, but it tends to take a while to scare up those connections.

Things just move slowly here. The tired old joke here is about how so-and-so is late because they’re on “Africa time” and while it’s tired and not funny any more, it’s true. People show up for meetings hours late or don’t show up at all, and despite countless emails and phone calls, I’ll go for weeks without hearing from someone I’m working with on a website or need content from. At first it was frustrating for me, but after a while I learned how to deal with it. It might be tricky for me to handle developing six different websites at once in a faster-paced environment, but when I’m only hearing from my collaborators twice a month (if that), it gives me a lot of downtime to switch between several projects.

Most days I start work around 8am. Working from home has its advantages as there’s no commute time, I can wear whatever I like, and lunch is whatever I feel like cooking up. Today I have a sort of Andrew WK getup on (white shorts with a white t-shirt and I’m a little unshaven – no long hair, sadly). I spend my days playing around with software to develop websites, meeting with people, making phone calls, emailing, and researching. Last week I spent a couple days taking pictures at a local school to add to a site I’m working on. Once a week I go to the US Embassy (not dressed like Andrew W.K., of course) to meet with my boss and spend the day there. I really like my boss a lot – she’s been a big help in connecting me with people around town, getting me supplies I need to do my job, and helping me with advice and problems I run into.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve actually come across a few other job opportunities but I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing now. The work is interesting and varied, I’m learning new skills and using my work experience, and I get to work with locals and help them help themselves. I’m sure that all sounds like it came out of a Peace Corps brochure, but it’s the truth.