more stories from Bamako...petit à petit

When I arrived in Bamako, there was a guy waiting at the bottom of the stairs exiting the plane with a sign for FAS. Apparently there were a number of people on my flight attending the conference, several of whom were VIPs and I had no idea. When we all had gotten off the plane, he shuffled us into a van directly from the runway and brought us to a special VIP customs area, where we filled out or landing cards while sitting on plush leather couches in an air-conditioned room decorated in traditional art. Unfortunately, since I didn’t have a visa and I was the only American in the group, the VIP system didn’t work for me. I had to be escorted back to the regular customs office, where they searched for my name amid stacks of papers to verify that I was supposed to be there. It was one of the first times I felt like my American passport was more of a hindrance than a help (though I’ve never tried to go to Cuba)…Luckily they found my name eventually and let me in. I then went back to the VIP room to join my fellow African travellers and we were driven to the hotel.

On the way to the hotel, I tried to take in some of Mali and make some comparisons between it and Senegal (and Uganda, for that matter). The first thing that struck me was that the dirt was red, just like it had been in Uganda, rather than brown and sandy as it is here in Dakar. It’s kind of weird to say, since I was only in Uganda for a few weeks and I’ve been in Dakar for a month, but the red dirt kind of made me feel at home; it felt familiar. Maybe it’s because I brought so much of it home with from Uganda on my clothes and shoes!! But it is such a bright, beautiful color. My other first impression was that things seemed more orderly and a bit more developed than in either Dakar or Kampala. We drover over the newly constructed bridge, which had a separate lane for motorcycles – amazingly orderly from what I’ve seen of Africa so far!


It wasn’t until Thursday that I got out into the city again. I spent Monday through Wednesday at the hotel working at the conference. But Thursday, I went into town twice. The first time I was accompanied by the chauffeur I had befriended (he’d been driving me and all of my documents back and forth from the hotel to the conference center for the past three days - they’re only 5 minutes apart, but as I alluded to in a previous posting, walking required that I pass by the President’s house in front of several armed guards. It was also unbearably hot during the day, so for both of those reasons I chose to be driven.) He took me into town to help me purchase a new cell phone. It’s been pretty hard to adjust to the fact that to do something as simple as buy a cell phone I have to have an escort because if I don’t I’m bound to get both ripped off and lost. But, thankfully, he was willing to help me out and I got a new cell phone, which I am going to try very hard not to let out of my sight.

My second trip into town on Thursday consisted of an ill-advised trip to the market with a group of my co-workers. I say ill-advised because the chauffer I just spoke of was going to take us there but said that it was a really busy time of day and that it might be better to wait until the following morning. But when I got back to the hotel, a group was heading out and since I was pretty sure I’d have more work to do Friday before we left (which I did), I decided to go. The market was huge and exhausting, but I’m glad I went. It was interested to see the different crafts and products they sell in Mali. Soap is very big there, and apparently the dyed fabrics are of a higher quality for a much lower price there than in Dakar. According to my host mother, you can by fabric there for 30-50 dollars and sell it in Dakar for 100-150 dollars!! That may explain why the women I returned to Dakar with on Friday evening had so many heavy suitcases with them!