swear-in & risky business

the night before swear-in was our talent show and superlative announcement. some committee self-formed from our stage decided to implement the high school tradition of mosts and bests. I'm most likely to fall asleep behind my aviators and end up in a malian jail. sweet right. the talent show was the highlight of the evening with 12 quality presentations. I usually avoid this type of deal, but there was lots of good singing dancing and beats. and buffering with social lubricant cures stage fright. I was part of the circus act, the freak show, with kat sara and ali (hula hoopers), zan jeremy and I (jugglers), and clemente (freak). the girls hooped sexy well, jeremy kept his juggle and after Zan and I lost ours we did chair walks and hung from the hangar rafters. for the finale, clemente came from the crowd sat at front stage and held his leg behind his head. I lit six cigarettes and put them in everyone's mouth while they were in action.

we didn't win. to forget the painful loss we went to the trash bar. there my glasses fell apart, foreshadowing the return to tubaniso. I rode back against better advisement without my eyes and in the dark. so as expected I ended up face-planting the side of a ditch, leaving pieces of my beautiful mug in the grass and mud. K helped me out of that hole but then it rained on us. we walked our bikes probably a mile the rest of the way and directly to the med unit for cleanup. I had to scramble the next morning, I wasn't in my room for wakeup and we had to get to the embassy. I took my first mali walk of shame, trying to shrug off lots of omgs and duuudes. swear-in was in brutally sweltering heat, but it was quite impressive to walk the embassy grounds and take the oath of service. another PCV and I ran through and laid on the thick green grass surrounding the embassy, he made the point that we won't see the kind of grass we're used to for a while. I shook the country director's hand afterwards and he just smiled upon reviewing my face. I looked fresh out of a bar fight or skating wipeout for all the pretty group pictures. from the embassy we were bussed to the american club to swim eat drink and work toward starting the wild swear-in night right.

before everyone else got good and deep, our stage was nicknamed risky business. every stage is nicknamed by the previous year's stage. many of these extracurriculars seem juvenile but the name is somewhat appropriate. I heard that my mishap the night before was mentioned as an example. by the time we made it to the pirate's club everyone was loose. I always enjoy seeing that, everyone coming out and drinking their face off, everyone without the mask of inhibition. it was a good time anyway, got to go out with my girl and get loud with the boys. we polished off a nalgene of jack daniels (spent extra for that sweet stuff) and went dancing at the second club, a legit two story deal where no one could hear each other. we were beyond that anyway, we just smiled and moved together.

somewere along the way we lost our room key. we were staying at an inn different than everyone else and we had problems with the front desk, at whichever early hour in the morning it was. they supposedly didn't have a spare, since we're in mali you know, and nothing is the same as it is in the states. good thing K knows french, we had to argue for another room. when we woke up they presented a sparkly new spare key, only after more arguing. we were supposed to have sessions back at tubaniso but K had a bad foot so we went to the med office. we stayed there the whole day, we had the entire building to ourselves. movies and a balcony and a real bathroom with a toilet tub and sink. they really spoil you when you're sick... I was just along for the ride. and I went into town to get us lunch. white cheddar and chocolate from the white person store and greasy delicious spring rolls and sandwiches from the vietnamese stand by the bureau. it was a good final day in the city.

I had to go back to tubaniso that night for the guest dinner. we were supposed to invite someone from our homestay so I chose my uncle. he got to eat cake with chocolate frosting and drink cold sodas. we left for our banking towns the next morning. most of kita-kaw, the group of us seven who bank in Kita, spent the next few days under the influence and buying essentials. I got a malian charcoal stove and a big thick bed, cheese pasta chocolate and condensed milk.

I get installed on 9/17...