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.