A different world

When I said “more from Bamako,” I forgot that SIL has tagged Pangolin Watch as a danger to their missionary sensibilities and has blocked it from their internet. Well, to be fair, I think they block all of blogspot.com and all of youtube.com. But anyway.

How to sum up these last crazy days of travel, coupled with reverse culture shock and jet lag?

For starters, on Thursday afternoon, we got a call from the bus company around 2:30 saying that the bus was already there at the highway. They told us it would be there at 3:30. We were not fully packed. This sent all of us into a panicked confusion, throwing stuff in bags, desperately saying goodbyes, stressing about if we would miss the bus and have to try and find another one later. The bus people ended up sending a car to our house to pick us up (apparently they really wanted our business), so we crammed in all of our stuff + us and made it in time.

Saying goodbye was quite sad, even though it was only for a month (for me, at least). There were definitely tears in some people’s eyes (not mine, of course). Even Ramata, who is usually such a badass, had watery eyes and couldn’t really look at me. That made me feel good—she legitimately likes me, not just as a colleague or something.

The bus ride itself was not too eventful. No sheep strapped to the roof, no midnight break downs in the middle of nowhere. Just a really creaky window and terrible music being played too loudly over the speakers. I like Malian music, but this stuff was just bad and loud, and it went on until 10 PM or so.

We got into Bamako in the wee hours of the morning and made our way to SIL, where we found that they had not put our names on the list, despite having sent us a confirmation e-mail and having spoken with us on the phone the day before. In the end, it worked out, people had moved out that morning so we had our rooms. Got some breakfast, relaxed, went out to lunch, relaxed, and then Jeff took Abbie and I out to a really nice dinner at this traditional African restaurant with peaceful kora music playing. Well, it was peaceful once we got there, but just as we stepped out the door, the skies opened up and stormed all over us. And of course the taxi that we got couldn’t roll one of the windows up all the way, but that’s just to be expected. There’s always at least one window that doesn’t open/close.

After dinner, we were exhausted and just went back and slept. In the morning, we packed all of our stuff and went over to the Air France office to pre-check our luggage. I’m still not certain why you can (but don’t have to) check your luggage hours ahead of time at a location entirely different from the airport. Mysteries.

In the afternoon, Salif came and joined us. I hadn’t seen him since I left him during my last trip to Bamako, so it was good to catch up. He, Abbie and I hit up the artisan’s market, and I flexed my ever-growing bargaining muscles. I find bargaining much easier in French than in English. I think this has to do with what Abbie and I call our different language personalities. You just express yourself differently or have a different character in different languages. If I bargain in English, I just feel like an ass, whereas in French it’s all fun and games. In any case, I didn’t have any more epic bargaining failures like I had in India where I bargained them for the same price they had originally quoted (and felt very successful doing it).

We killed a bunch of time at Amandine until we had to go to the airport at night. The flight itself was about 5 hours, not too bad, but it left at 11PM and got into Paris at 6AM, so another sleepless night a la Bamako bus ride. It turns out that sleeping every other night does not suffice in making one feel rested. The anxious, panic-stricken feeling of reverse culture shock began building during our approach into Paris. We just came out of “brousse” (the bush), and here we were going to Paris?

Zombie versions of Abbie and myself got through customs without any hassle. White people everywhere was kind of overwhelming. And the fact that I could understand most of what was being said. And the fact that everyone wears really drab colors. Then we bought our TGV tickets to The Hague, me trying desperately to recall my “French-y French” accent and being amazed at the ease with which one can use a credit card.

Abbie and I took the RER to Paris Gard du Nord, then the TGV straight to The Hague via Brussels. Our little compartment was full of English-speaking: two British kids going to travel Europe, two old Dutch ladies, us two Americans, and then two Asian-looking men (Indian and Indonesian, if I had to venture a guess), who also presumably spoke English, though who didn’t chat with us. Abbie and I were just gripped by the absurdity of our situation: why weren’t there any goats anywhere? Why was everything so clean? Where did all the toobobs come from? And you know you’ve just come out of brousse when you see a European corn field and you think, “The rainy season has been good to them this year.”

We got into The Hague around 2 in the afternoon, exhausted and starving. We found a sort of Dutch fried chicken deli place (that’s the best descriptor I can give) and recharged there before braving the bus to Leiden. Jeff was already in the lobby when we got there (he flew from Paris to Amsterdam), and he kindly went and registered all of us at the conference, allowing us to shower and sleep and relax. I’m excited to sleep in a bed without a mosquito net tonight. I still see flying insects and instantly think “malaria” until I realize that I’m in Holland and that the last time I checked the CDC, Holland was not included on the malaria watch list.

Tomorrow morning is our presentation. I’m dead tired and nervous, but I’ll do my best and just get it over with. The first world is enough to deal with right now.