Weekend Updates

Apparently not much work is done here on the weekends, which seems to be a fairly universal concept. From my perspective, by mid-day Friday when the locals headed to the mosques (90% of Malians practice Islam) most shops and services had shut down for the weekend. The nearest mosque is just across the road (which is really just a big dirt field) from our house, so we have the privilege of hearing the call to prayer and various prayers broadcast throughout the day.

Starting Friday at noon, since very few officials or doctors were available to meet with me, I began to spend a good deal of time around the house, planning and documenting my work. We also spent some time doing some classic lounging around. This is a picture of our 18-year-old guard named Masan. Masan lives in a nearby village, but has come to live at our house and keep watch over the gate, help us around the house, and apparently, to be our friend. This is a picture of him climbing the palm tree in our yard to knock down a few coconuts for us. Masan is saving the money he is earning working at the GAIA house to pay for school to study physics. He is brilliant. Even though he speaks French and Bambara (the native Mali language), and I speak neither, we are able to communicate well through hand gestures, facial expressions, and actions. I am slowly picking up some Bambara and French.

We are off to the market in downtown Bamako, but this weekend I will post more pictures and updates about what I have observed so far in Mali.