Le Rabelais Bamako

... a visit to the police station and pay offs, sandstorms with hurricane winds, heat in the Sahara that is hard to explain what it felt like, pov**ty and stick/mud huts ev**ywh**e, challenging (to say the least) infrastructure (imagine hours and hours of potholes so it takes forev** to go 10 miles)....you get the point. All that said, this was the hardest trip on me, p**sonally, even moreso than Calcutta, but also, the most rewarding. The humility, the warm and gentle waves we ...

... the city's residents love to party and clubs are open till the wee hours of the morning. The clubs are not expat dominated, as one would expect. Night time is when you really see Bamako's young middle class. Another strange quirk, considering Bamako is 96% muslim - the city is more liberal than my home town of Bangalore, where women are stoned for going to night clubs, where dancing is 'forbidden' and bars close by 1130. Bamako - you win hands down in the night life ...

... for. 

Signs of development are everywhere - Chinese firms, French companies, Orange, Ford, Chrysler,.....I'm starting to see similar patterns of development now. First come the international telephone companies, then the car manufacturers, the DHLs...the familiar hotel chains, the infrastructure companies .... soon you will see the odd MacDonalds cropping up. Globalisation is indeed a great leveler. 

Our little taxi continued ...

... s each. The bone-jarring journey along corrugated tracks and sandy paths was delayed sev**al times by most of the 4WDs exp**iencing a variety of problems - from ov**heating and tyre changes to 4WD dysfunction and engine failure. At one point we had 11 people in our vehicle, whilst our driv** was suff**ing from an undisclosed illness....needless to say, aft** a 12-hour ordeal to travel 300km back to Sevare, we had anoth** story to tell about "been to Timbuktu and back ...

... the only white people in the audience, which was good, but also mayhem (random officials walking on stage and shaking hands whilst the musicians were playing, sound checks during the show, members of the audience walking on stage to dance with the musicians etc). However 6 days in this city is too much, and we were hoping to leave after getting our visas on Monday; especially as it was Nats birthday. But that was being ...

... for lunch we watched Josh work on his throwing skills, at one point hurling himself off his feet and landing on his butt. Hahahaaa. We arrived in Bamako around 4.30 and headed straight to a Lebanese patiss**ie which apparently does the best exchange rates. Unfortunately for us they didn't have enough money and asked that we come back tomorrow. This was unfortunate two fold as it meant we w**e left with a wallet full of useless cash staring longingly at the ...

... Gin ever. It that wasn't bad enough she also blew our cover of cheating. Things got progressively worse from there... except for me who once my life had actually stopped drinking. Yes that's right... I was the sober one!! I would like to say stranger things have happened but they probably haven't. The card drink game involved some swapping of clothing so the boys ended up in some very lovely short shorts and tight tshirts ...

... digno desse titulo deveria ler esse discurso ao menos uma vez na sua vida. O brother também organiza sound systems por isso se alguém puder dar uma mãozinha com material seria muito bem vindo. Eu prometi um riddim. No boteko dele de 1m2 onde ele exerce como cabeleireiro, na realidade RAPADOR DE CABEçAS, tem fotos dele com artistas que passaram la para visitor, desde os terrakotas até nada mais que nada menos que o ilustre Manu Chao. Um mano altamente. Parfait Celui-ci c ...

(Nouakchott,Mauritânia) Fr: Ce n'est pas par hasard que nos enfants meurent de rien . Les mouches sont tellement omniprésentes que l'on n'a plus la force d'esquisser un geste de dégagement, c'est du « laisse tomber », du « tant pis » qui chante Alpha Blondy, même le bébé a desisté de pleurer pour réclamer un peu plus de salubrité... laisse tomber, ça ne vaut plus l'effort. Pt : Mortalidade infantil nos ...

Another week, another country. Ths time checking in from Mali. After our fleeting visit to Senegal, Mali is looking like it will provide a very pleasant environment for passing a couple of weeks.  We arrived in the capital city, Bamako, yesterday morning, by train. The train started out from Dakar exactly on time at 10am, much to our surprise - there seemed to be far too much confusion and too many straggling bodies just 10 minutes earlier for it to be possible ...