Feasting in Mopti

Greetings from Mopti! Tuesday morning, I took the bus down to Sevare to hang out for a couple days with no solid game plan. I felt empowered going it alone, though, and playing it by ear. For instance, I knew to get off the bus before the Sevare bus station, since the walk would be shorter, then walked to a restaurant called Mankan Te that I like, had lunch, then set off for the Peace Corps bureau. I ran into Dave and Braxton en route, who were surprised to see me there. We went back together and I camped out on the internet basically all day.

We tried to go out and get pork that night, a rare commodity here with Mali being a Muslim nation. Unfortunately, however, no pork was to be found. We ordered chicken, though, and I got mine with salad, after the brutal shock the night before when I found out that the salad had officially finished in Douentza.

The chicken was delicious, char-grilled with some sort of spicy mustard sauce. In the end, it was probably better than the pork would have been. Plus they gave me my salad for free.

I was naughty and slept at the Peace Corps bureau that night. You’re not supposed to, but everyone does it anyway. I wanted to use the internet until late into the evening, and I didn’t feel like going out and finding somewhere else to stay. I certainly wasn’t alone, though—all of the mattresses were occupied.

I made a fried egg sandwich for lunch yesterday before heading out for Mopti. I was supposed to go with Rabayah, but she wanted to go swimming in Bandiagara, since there was a Peace Corps car already going there today. I don’t blame her. I decided to just live it up and be a boss and hire a taxi to take me to the hotel as opposed to walking through the heat to the bush taxi stand. I think it was a good choice.

Most of the afternoon was spent on the internet and napping. It was while chatting with Abbie that I learned that Steve and Minkailou are planning to go to Douentza today, not on Friday, as previously planned. This put a serious kink in my Bollywood party plans. Rabayah, Susan and I were going to make samosas and watch Bollywood this evening, but now I have to go back to Douentza, since most of the keys are in my possession.

I was bummed, but then I Skyped with Kevin for a while and decided to go out to a nice dinner. I went to a place called the Bissap Café, on the waterfront. It has one of the nicest atmospheres I’ve felt at any restaurant in Mali. It has multiple seating areas—a garden terrace, a room where light shines through thick slabs of desert salt, and a rooftop terrace overlooking the street and the river. I opted to sit up there and watch the world go by.

It was very peaceful. I could gaze out across the port, watching the reflections of streetlights ripple on the murky water, serenaded by a chorus of bullfrogs. In between courses, I read my Discover magazine with the top 100 science stories of 2008 that Chev sent me for my birthday. All in all, I spent $20 on myself: a chocolate shake with cointreau, a wood-fired ground beef and ham calzone, fresh fruit sorbet, and a glass of hibiscus (bissap) juice. I figured if I couldn’t get my Bollywood party, I could at least treat myself to a nice dinner. It was fabulous.

Anyhow, it’s back to Douentza today. I’m looking forward to meeting Steve and getting him settled in. It will be nice to have a colleague around to talk to.