Espace Bajidala Segou

... at around 4.30 pm.

Which, yes, means it's very late and very dark by the time we reach the border. There's also a great big storm. Not just a little bit of rain and a few flashes of lightning, I'm talking how-does-that-much-water-not-weigh-down -the-sky style, TORRENTIAL rain, the sky lighting up so brightly it dazzles your eyes, thunder coming from every direction all at once, wind so strong it's making teh bus swerve. Oh ...

... not have those bags before we leave the country. It is crazy. Before dinner tonight, we took a drive to see Anko and Ewien's cook's house under construction. This neighborhood was on the outskirts of town and the kids were not used to seeing white people (they called us Baboo) in their neighborhood. When we handed out inflatable balls we created quite a comotion. This view of this neighborhood really gave me an idea of how hard it is for the Malian's to live every day. I have ...

... 500 server and new switch in it. We really need those! However, in true African style we are figuring out how to make due with what we have. We are reconfiguring a 20 GB server (you can see a picture of the current one with cobwebs and all) that we have here on site. It is very small but will work until the new one arrives which as 700 GB of memory. I am hopefull it will all work out in the end. By tomorrow we will have the hospital up and running on the ...

... 130 degrees. I have included a great picture right after their work. Anko and Ewien contiue to take great care of us. They have fed us many nights. I have't really told you much about Anko, who we are here to help. He is a farm boy from the Netherlands and is really a mad scientist with everything from Computers to Solar Power to Engines to Electric Power. His talents are definately in demand here. He share with us his plans ...

... of the Malians is amazing. Although it seems very bleak in this country, they are able to survive on so little and seem so happy at the same time. This really is starting to change my thoughts on how much is enough. Every day continues to impact they way I look at the world. The heat really hasn't bothered us that much. It has been over 100 degrees but it is a lot different than that same temperature back home. There is no humidity which ...

We had a great time at festival sur le ***** in Segou, a town around 3 hours east of Bamako. The setting on the banks on the riv** Nig** was really stunning and we enjoyed lots of live music and dancing from loads of diff**ent groups. The locals go mental at diff**ent parts of a song, and jump up dancing, especially the women, they really love to dance! see the pics. We stayed with a local family in Segou which was really good fun, if a bit ...

... au soleil avec une température de l'ordre de 50°C, - des taxi-brousse hors d'usage dont même la f**raille ne voudrait pas en Europe, surchargés de passag**s avec des gal**ies à plusieurs étages, style gratte ciels newyorkais, - des camions qui marchent en crabe. La première fois qu'on les voit arriv** en face, l'angoisse vous prend car vous êtes c**tains qu'il vous en veut tel Mad Max !! Mais non ça passe à coté, ce n'est que son chassis qui est complètement cass ...

... out) and dancing (as I tend to do aft** I drink be**). We went back to an apartment that I think was Marc's, but when I woke up in the morning I was in an apartment that was a complete pigsty. Doug, Marc, and I w**e each sleeping on one of the three couches in the room, but it was a complete mess with be** and whiskey bottles, fast food refuse, and dirty glasses all ov** the room. Th**e was laundry lying about and ...

... a couple hours to walk around a little and buy a few things at the market, but Segou seemed to be a rath** friendly and low hassle kind of a place. Now I'm not really sure if the widely held assumption that a democratic form of gov**nment leads to good gov**nance and less corruption is necessarily true, but our exp**ience is reasonably democratic Mali would provide some supporting evidence. In Mali we exp ...

... of suitors throughout the night. It turns out she was in heat. Opting for a late start the next morning we spent most of the day waiting for a car that never came. We guarded against the sun by sitting under the shade of a large tree by the road and enjoyed smoked goat meat and the local millet staple, To (pronounced "toe"). We hopped back on the lousy bikes and rode 17 miles to the nearest junction. Luck changed and we had a car and a bag of mangoes within a snap of the fingers ...