first trip

we went to bamako the other night. possibly against advisement, I'll leave out details. the transportation there was a mess so I was having fun. we got dropped off right in downtown and needed to get to one of the outer sectors and close to the medical office. the taxi was expensive and the driver wouldn't take all of us in one cab. we said bs so we tried getting there on another sumatra bus (really a big green van without seats and packed 20 deep). it drove around and past all sorts of familiar parts until it dropped us off in the middle of some slummy place. really loud steamy and chaotic. it was like nyc with no sidewalks and muddy nyegen water streets.

I forgot to tell what a nyegen (knee egg en) was in the previous post. it's the unroofed area that you shit in with maybe a ten inch cement hole in the ground. the hole goes to a big ditch underneath the nyegen that, if you're ever brave enough to look down into, you'll see everyone's waste getting turned and churned by fly larvae and worms. you can even hear it. if you're lucky it'll have a lid for cover, I'm not so. when I use it all the flies swarm up from the hole and try to suck face or find a home in my ear or up my nose or on my toes. anywhere flies bother the hell out of me, I assume all were just having fun in the nyegen. so anyway nyegen water is basically everything you do in the nyegen that doesn't go into the pit. pissing, bathing, whatever else (greywater) goes out a drainage hole and into the streets. this is what we were walking in.

people were almost getting run over, holding onto the sumatra and being dragged down the street. we walked for maybe 45 minutes, so we must've been dropped off at least three miles from the restaurant. we took a soundougouba local with us which I think helped a lot. instead of being driven everywhere he just kept asking the way every couple hundred meters. the people I was with were worried that he didn't know where he was going, or that it would take too long. he saved us money at least, which turned out to be pretty significant considering how relatively expensive dinner was. a JD single was 3500 cfa (~$7) and the personal pizzas were at least 5000 cfa. granted, for me, nothing beats american whiskey and hot greasy cheese, but the cost hurt when we've been living off nickles and dimes. I mean the pocket double-shot whiskeys are 300 cfa. that's 60 cents. three or four bucks and you're as golden as your drink. luckily one of the PCTs we met there brought a few with her, so we ended up sharing them. we drank and ate and smoked cigarettes and played pool at this place I don't really want to go back to even though it's where all the PC scandal goes down. or so we heard. the air was snobby, even around PCVs. we tried sending back ice cream that one of our homestay people didn't like and the waitor said she couldn't not like it because she was from the village and wouldn't know what ice cream was. dick. and some americans just turned their head and had that awkward situation look that I always saw back home.

getting back was just as fun as getting there. the girls we met tried to haggle their taxi driver to get back to their homestays. they know french, none of us did so we just let the guy fuck us over. and he did. first wrong decision was taking the scenic route. we ended up waiting 20 minutes for a herd of hundreds of cattle that was blocking the street. it was really loud, like the night was bellowing under the final weight of the day's departure. after we crossed the river and were back en brousse the driver hooked us up with some tunes. rod stewart - young turks. I don't even like rod stewart, but it was appropriate, and strangely surreal. and almost any music sounds good once you're without it. I even like kitkat bars now. soon after the tire blew out and the driver wanted to collect the full amount. one of us flipped and the driver changed his demeanor. I guess it was about time. he agreed to pay a sumatra out of the full fare we owed for the rest of the trip. our local wasn't helping too much; malians get tired and they wear they're disinterest obviously, oh and apparently they don't travel with spares. so we paid in full and hopped on the next sumatra which only took us to kobilakoro. we had to hoof the next seven or eight km, which wasn't bad under moonlight, but it certainly worked off any buzz we might've taken to sleep with us.

so I had bacterial dysentery earlier this week. of course, it happens as soon as we're back in tubaniso, or "dove house" or PC training center outside of bamako. I really don't like this place, I like my homestay. miss it even. the dysentery is just no eating and lots of nyegenning. no energy and losing weight, I'm down 15 pounds from when I got to Mali. it's not a lot compared to some others, but it's certainly a 15 I can't afford to lose. both of my roommates here are at the med office in bamako. now I have a viral infection that gets to the muscles and cartilage in my chest. the doc couldn't do anything for it, she said to just ride it out. it's pretty painful to breath and I've been fevering 102+ for the past couple of days. I can feel it subsiding now though, and we visit our permanent site tomorrow. once again I'm fine upon leaving the training center. and this will be the last about sickness talk. everyone's getting it and more will come. it's a drag really, but either shut up or die. haha just kidding. but not really. okay I'm out.

next is word from permanent site visit...