Comings and goings

Saturday night, Jeremy didn’t come in until almost 1am. Everyone was tired out, so people turned in early, and I waited up, listening to music and playing Solitaire until I got his call. We had an ice cold beer at the Tango, then went home and crashed. I slept better that night than I think I have for weeks.

Sunday was International Women’s Day and Monday Maouloud, the Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday, so because of these two holidays, official business such as the market was kind of messed up this weekend. It appears that a movement was made to have the market on Saturday instead of Sunday, so Saturday was more crowded in town than usual. But then most of the people didn’t get the memo, and there was still a market on Sunday. Jeremy tried to just turn around and leave for Timbuktu on Sunday, so I took him up to the freeway to wait for transportation.

We decided to go to one of the campements, the “hotels”, in Douentza for a nice dinner (or at least as nice as it gets in Douentza). Dave’s friend Jason got back from Timbuktu that afternoon and Dan left for his village, so it was the five of us. Around 7pm, right when we were about to leave, I got a text from Jeremy asking if I wanted to join him for a beer. Apparently he’d been sitting around all day and still hadn’t found transportation. I instantly hopped on my moto to go up and try to find him at the Tango, but when I got there, Brahima, the bartender, told me he’d just left. I cruised the highway for a while looking for him, but to no avail. To make matters worse, the cell phone service has been terrible lately, so I literally tried calling 50 times and could not get through to him. I’d told Dave and company to meet me at the Tango so we could go to dinner, so finally I went back there, and Brahima told me Dave and everyone had just passed by and left. Luckily, I caught up with them just fine.

Mid-way through our meal, I got a call from Salif saying Jeremy had gone to my house and they were now in the market. I covered up my couscous, got back on my moto, and drove into town to pick him up. He came back and joined us for dinner, then we went to the Tango for a couple beers afterwards.

Monday morning rolled around, and I woke up at 7am to see off Hala and Adam and also Salif, he was heading back to Bamako. I was exhausted. Once they were on their way, I went back to bed until 11am, probably the latest I’ve ever slept in Mali. Jeremy and I sat around reading most of the afternoon, until he decided to try the transport game again. I dropped him off around 3 and told me to call or text me if he needed anything. I didn’t hear from him until the evening, when apparently he’d gotten in a car to go.

I did some work on my grammar, read my book (The General and His Labyrinth), and listened to some music. Dave came over in the evening, and we got dinner then watched Interview with the Vampire. We got a message from Phil saying he was coming into town, so Dave went back to the house to wait for him and I got some more bedtime reading done.

I was going to drive Dave to his village today, but apparently now he wants to go tomorrow. I’ll probably see Phil and Dave for lunch, and maybe do some work with M. Guindo in the afternoon. I go to Mopti in about a week to spend a couple of nights with wireless internet and a shower. Being in seclusion there, I will probably be able to get a lot of work done on the grammar. I’m hoping M. le Maire will be coming from the village this week so we can work on a text, but we’ll see, I guess.