New digs

In about 24 hours, I will be hitting the road for Bamako. Just some last minute work and packing to do. Oumar painted the AC room today, and it looks terrific. We took the cardboard down from the screens to let in some air, and the place has a whole new feel to it—nothing like the dank office it used to be.

I’m getting to know some of the other usual suspects who come around the house now. Ali who is involved in something that takes him between Bamako and here a lot (bus company, maybe?). Dauda with the gimpy left hand. Abba/Voltajazz who kicks around the neighborhood and flirts with Ramata. Now that my Dogon is getting better, I can connect with people better, even if they speak Jamsay or some other dialect. At least I can greet in Tommo-So and feel like a bit less of a Toobob.

Kirill has recovered from his malaria and is now back on track. I think he’ll head out tomorrow morning, then me in the afternoon. The former palace will belong to Ramata and whoever else stays here so I can lock up the main house. Even her father might stay until Wednesday, depending on whether or not the person he’s waiting to see comes in from Dianwely today.

I got a curtain made for the door yesterday at the market. I had gone out with M. le Maire, and he took me to an old tailor just set up along the road. The sewing machines are ancient here, foot pedal models, but even old-looking for that. They seem like something right out of the 1910s. But the tailor peddled away with his old, leathery bare feet, and 25 cents later, my curtain was sewn.