Of presidents and pancakes

For all of you who commented on the gender of calico cats (a fact that I had heard), you will feel vindicated to know that Sami (formerly Samba) is indeed a girl. The people at the house just told me it was it was a boy and I never looked again. I checked it out though, and there are definitely girl parts. So now I have little sisters, who are acclimating quite nicely to life in the house. I’ve taken on the role of their mother; they come crying to be picked up when I enter the room and fall asleep in my lap while I’m working. At night, I put them in their little mosquito net enclosure and they sleep peacefully. Except that yesterday morning, I let them out while I went to brush my teeth, and both of them peed on my bed. Potty training has started today. They’re doing a good job of peeing in the sand outside of the door when we’re in the big room of the house, and I’m going to try to fashion them a little box for my room.

It was fun having Dave and Phil over. We got a big feast of a couple chickens and beans and bread. Dave’s gone to Bamako, but I went over to their house the next day and made banana pancakes with Phil. We hung out all day, and he just watched movies on my computer while I was working. In the afternoon, we went over to someone’s house with a TV and watched the inauguration, all voiced over into French. If you really concentrated, though, you could hear the original English. It was really surreal watching all of the footage of the US while sitting in this dirt-floored thatched shack with a bunch of Malians. A ton of people were there watching, and we were all quite moved. M. le Maire keeps declaring that Obama is the president of the world. There is so much Obama hype here. I wondered what it must have been like watching the inauguration speech as a Malian, as Obama gave messages to “poor countries” and “Muslim countries,” but everyone seemed cheery.

It’ll be a couple of weeks hanging out by myself (or with Nicolas) now, since Dave will be in Bamako for 2 weeks and Phil went to his village for 2 or 3 weeks. I’m feeling really busy with all of this work now, but it should be done in about 2 weeks (perfect timing). I’m not sure how long M. le Maire will be able to stay, though—probably until Sunday. Then I’ll need to go back to the village once more to fill in some words and hopefully get him back for another week before heading to Bamako myself.

I now officially have less than 4 months until I come home.

A message from Sami: lkeeeeeeexxDDA.