Bamako Days 2 & 3 (27/06/09- 28/06/09)

Saturday was a pretty laid back day. We had breakfast then hung around the house for a while reading (I sat outside for a while reading, but then decided it was too much work to bat the flies away). In the afternoon we went up to Moctar's office to see if there was anything we should be doing. He was ther with his little son (about 3 and a half years old). We made plans to have a driver take up to Bar Blabla that night for dinner and to stop by a grocery store. Mahamado Thera who runs one of the labs that we'll be working with came down the house in the afternoon to introduce himself to us (he's been traveling and just got back the day before). He told us a little bit about the program and let us know that we would be meeting everyone monday morning and that there wasn't really much to do until then. So we bummed around and wasted a few hours until the driver came.

We went by the grocery store (Fermi) which was not really by definition a grocery store, it was sort of an everything store. Out front were ATVs for sale, inside was the usual grocerys with lots of french imported food, a whole office supply section and this was just the downstairs. After that we made our way to Bar Blabla (the name totally cracks me up) and by coincidence (though probably not) Moctar was there. He said his parents live in that neighborhood and he had just taken his father home. So he stayed and had dinner with us. The restaurant was surprisingly empty when we arrived, apparently people go out pretty late on Saturdays. I had "farm raised" chicken with fried plantains and some kind of dish made from cassava which was a bit spongey and a bit sour. Liz had a fish kabob with local fish called capitane. The chicken was surprisingly good. And I tried a bit of Liz's fish and that was really delicious. There was also some interesting artwork up which was apparently from a local artist. Moctar explained that the restaurant featured a local artist each month and apparently the artist from this month had been noticed by some people from one of the embacies and (Liz at bar Blabla) town and went from being a very poor artist to a world traveler. He's currently somewhere in Europe and is also going to going to the states sometime.

After dinner we went next door to a bar. It was definately different from everything else we had seen. The women working at the bar were by far the skimpiest clothed women we had seen in Mali, wearing clothes that would look appropriate for a nightclub back home. And the music was about as loud as it is at home, but of course it was still a Michael Jackson marathon (I hope this doesn't go on too much longer). Liz tried the local beer, Castel, which seems to be rather non-alcoholic (we've been told by a few people that you can drink 5 of them without being very intoxicated). We hung out there for a bit an then got a taxi back home.

Today was also pretty relaxing. The house cook wasn't coming in so we slept in late (which was nice). After breakfast we went for a walk around the campus. There are lots of pretty flowers everywhere, but the buildings are a bit delapitated. It seemed that everyone as outside studying today (we found out that med school here takes at least 7 years). It was pretty hot and its a little choaitc on the road outside the campus so we didn't wander too far. We were able to see the presidents house in the next ridge from us (oh yeah we met his little brother at the bar last night). The rest of the day we've spent reading and lounging and watching a bit of soccer on tv.