Where doth the time go? Hard to believe but February 2nd will mark my first year in country. I suppose I'm now one of the old heads in country as two classes of volunteers have been sworn in since I've arrived in Mali. Weirder yet, in 6 months my class will be the oldest one left in Mali. Anyways, let me catch you up on the last month or two.
I spent the holidays up in Mopti region which lies on the southern edge of the Sahara. Three fellow volunteers and I did a three day hike through the Bandiagara escarpment. The escarpment is part of "Dogon country" where the Dogon people, one of the most distinct ethnic minorities in Mali, have historically dwelt. This is my second trip up to this part of the country and it's undoubtedly my favorite part of Mali. I believe we covered about 35 k's over the 3 days. We started at the top of the Dogon plateau, hiked down through the escarpment, and then worked our way back up to the top. A man named Bebe, one of the locals, served as our guide. We spent our 2 nights sleeping in campements within villages we passed along the way. This area is Mali's biggest tourist attraction so it was quite easy finding a guide, who spoke English no less, and places to sleep. Campement is French for encampment and that's more or less what these places were. The word, however, is often used to describe hostels, eco-stays, and even hotels. The campements were quite basic in amenities, lacking even electricity and running water, but more than made up for it in character. Besides, fancy things like electricity would be more than out of place in this little corner of the world. It's a beautiful part of Mali and I hope I'll have another chance to hike through the area again.
New Year's is a big holiday here and we celebrated in fashion. About a dozen volunteers, myself included, rented a traditional river boat and floated around the Niger for a few hours, drinking beer and whiskey, shooting off fireworks, ringing in the new year, and of course almost blowing each other up. Nothing goes together like booze and explosives.
I suppose the biggest news I have to share is that I'm getting a new site on Monday. Site changes are quite common in Peace Corps as initial sites often don't work out for one reason or another. I realized when I first got to my old site back in April that it would provide more challenges than most volunteers encounter. I stuck it out until about mid November, but finally had to request a new site. Among other issues, my old site was a 46 K round trip (on my bike) from food, 4 K's from drinkable water, 23 K's from transport 15 K's from the next volunteer, and the water wells were empty for about 5 months out of the year. The final straw was when my counterpart moved to a different village to be with his wife and kids. Of course, I didn't come to Mali to keep anyone from their family but he obviously shouldn't have been my counterpart to begin with. So it took about two months from my initial request to actually get a new site, which is pretty standard. I'm moving to Kolondieba which was my market/post town. My best Malian friend lives in this town as well. All in all, I think it's a great opportunity and I'm excited to get a project or two underway before I'm out of here.
You may recall I had been planning a trip to Senegal for January but I've decided to scrap that even before I got a site change. Big events coming up though include the Festival sur le Niger; an annual, five day, West African, music and cultural festival in the old capital city, Segou. Some of the bigger acts include Babba Salla, Vieux Farka Toure, and Amadou & Miriam. That starts on February 15th. Then in April or May I'll be spending a couple weeks in Morocco. It's been far too long since I've seen an ocean and it'll be more than welcome come hot season. I'm currently savoring the last month or month and a half of cold season. It's generally in the low 80's during the day and drops down to the mid 50's at night. These days mid 50's is frigid for me.
Another bit of unfortunate news, I had my wallet stolen in Bamako about ten days ago. Most of the volunteers were at a bar called La Terrace for the newbies' swear in party. I had my wallet in a friend's purse which she left laying around somewhere. I lost about 27,000 cfa (about $50) some bank cards, ID, and what not. The worst part was having to file a police report and getting the bank cards and ID replaced. All in all, I didn't lose that much and worse things could happen. So, not that big of a deal.
Finally, for all the Steelers fans out there, I want to share a post with you from my fellow volunteer and good friend, Cary Fontana. All though he's from South Carolina, his family roots are in Pittsburgh and he's as big a Steeler fan as I've ever met. I know we're all still lamenting our early playoff exodus, but hopefully this story of Cary's attempts to extend Steeler Nation to West Africa will ease the pain. http://www.steelersdepot.com/2011/12/steeler-nation-steeler-world/
p.s. here are some links to the photos from my Dogon hike:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2955767779547.153124.1422031646&type=3&l=cfabde922d
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2957199775346.153160.1422031646&type=3&l=98d5b1882d
That's all I got for now. Uhhhh see ya.
P&L,
Rege
