Killer Ants

Things have been pretty quiet around here with just Jeff, Salif, and me. It’s nice in some ways (i.e. plenty of choice chicken parts to eat at dinner) but it was nice to have all the company. Salif and I have hung out some—he’s an interesting guy. He’s a law student at the University of Bamako and is quite bright, but more negative than the others (which is good when you need to complain).

We had a huge dust and rain storm here on Monday. It was sweltering beforehand. Salif and I had walked all the way across town to the other internet place, where the computers are new and the internet half the cost, but it’s just so out of the way that it’s hardly worth it. Anyway, as soon as we got back, the wind kicked up, and in a matter of 10 minutes, the sky was red, and I mean red, with dust and then it poured. To make matters more interesting, the storm knocked out the electricity for a while. The electricity here is a fragile creature indeed.

It was nice and cool to sleep that night after the rain. Unfortunately, I had a run-in with another even more common biting insect: the black ant. They look just like the ants we have back in the States, except that they will occasionally bite you for no apparent reason, and let me tell you, it hurts. It’s a very sharp, stinging pain, which can apparently make your foot swell sometimes, but mine just hurt sans swelling. After eliciting the names of insects with Ramata on Monday, I have concluded that Mali has entirely too many gross bugs. I tried to check this out on the internet before I came, but Wikipedia lied to me. About the pangolins too.

I have finally figured out the basic verb tone/vocalism paradigms, which is a step in the right direction. Now I’m focusing on finding a little semantic study for Jeff and my talk in Leiden in August. So far I’ve been looking at the myriad verbs for ‘pour’. More on that later.

I will be spending only a week out in Tongo-Tongo starting on Saturday, since I have to make a trip down to Bamako to work out some last formalities for the Fulbright. It’s sort of inconvenient to have to go down there, but it will be a good opportunity to make some contacts at the embassy and pick up some imported foods. Hopefully I won’t have to take Sham Bus back and spend another night by the side of the highway. But if I do, at least I’m a seasoned warrior now.

Other observations: canned corn can be a gift from God. The fire finches in our tree often sound like R2D2-esque robots. Douentza smells awful after a big rain.