Promises, promises

Yeah, about all those forthcoming blog entries...  Well, life has gotten rather busy for me in the past month.  As of the beginning of May, I'm the full-time art and health teacher at the American school.  The previous art teacher had to head back to the states early so the school asked me to step in and cover her classes until the end of the year.  It's kind of nice getting out of the house for most of the day.  The staff and students at the school are great and it's been a cool change of pace for me.  I've also picked up some more local freelancing work that's kept me busy in my free time.

My wife and I have also had a few opportunities to get back out to Siby to go rock climbing on the weekends.  Since we don't have our own gear, we can only go along with friends who have the gear and expertise to help set up the climbs.  Here's some shots of my wife as she's starting a route...

...and as she completes it on her second try.  She was one of the few who successfully completed the climb that day and was suitably proud of herself.

And here's some shots from yesterday, where we climbed to the top of the natural arch before setting up some climbing routes.  We spotted a storm just north of us that would roll in a few hours after these pictures were taken. 

It was a great day to be climbing since it was overcast and breezy.  It's been sweltering here the past few weeks. The rain hit as the afternoon was winding down for us so our timing worked out perfectly.

We've still been playing frisbee on Sunday mornings.  I met an expat who's been teaching Malian kids how to play ultimate frisbee.  Next Sunday, he's set up a tournament on an actual soccer field (or football pitch, for my non-American readers) where expats and Malians will play with/against each other.  Should be fun.

My career as a nascent jazz bassist in Bamako will culminate in a performance with the small jazz group I've been playing with for a few months.  We have a performance coming up at the beginning of June at the annual end of year program that's put on by the French school.  I guess we'll be accompanying the school choir and then doing three songs by ourselves: "Take Five," "Georgia," and "I Do Care" (I can't find a link for the last song - it's by a Swedish singer named Viktoria Tolstoy).

And finally, the biggest piece of news is that after a lot of prayer and discussions, my wife and I have decided to move back to the US this summer.  It's not a decision we came to easily, but my wife and I both feel that it's the right one.  There isn't one big reason compelling us to return - it's a lot of small- to medium-sized ones.  Ultimately, I think it's that we both realized that the expat lifestyle isn't for us and the longer we continue in it, the harder it will be for us to establish a life at home in the states.

In a future post, I'll probably go into our reasons why.  Right now, though, it's after midnight and I have to be ready for a full week of school starting bright and early tomorrow morning.