Heat showers

Work is progressing little by little. We’re getting into some grammatical topics (noun phrase constituents, transitive sentences, commands, etc.) and getting used to one another. It’s always a slightly awkward situation, bringing the person you work with to come live with you, since you feel a lot of pressure to keep working with them just to keep them entertained, even if what you need is to stop and analyze some recordings or review your data. I’m trying to step back from that as much as possible, since it’s not my work, thus it’s not my responsibility. When Steve wants to work with Ely, I’ll be there for him, and when he doesn’t, that’s his choice; it’s not my responsibility to keep his assistant busy. Besides, I still have my own work to be doing. I’ve been typing the texts I transcribed with M. le Maire into my computer, and I’m going to work on translating them with Ramata a bit this evening.

The last couple nights, Steve and I went to the Tango to watch the soccer games that were on TV. I know nothing about soccer, but Dan evidently follows it and invited us out. It was actually pretty entertaining, especially listening to the Malians get really into it. There was this one man in a nice boubou who would stand up and shout “Eh?? Mais c’est pas possible!” (“but that’s not possible!”) whenever someone missed a goal. Steve likes to have a beer in the evenings, so we’ve been frequenting the Tango. I, however, have had my fill of beer and currently content myself with grapefruit soda.

It’s been really hot and muggy the last couple of days, with little heat thunder storms rumbling overhead. Apparently it even rained a bit last night. The humidity makes the heat quite nearly unbearable. Whereas with dry heat, your sweat evaporates pretty much as soon as it emerges from your pores, with this humidity, you’re just sticky all the time. All the more reason I’m excited to go home.

Either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday morning, it’s off to Ngouma with Nicolas. I think it’ll be a fun trip, one of my final huzzahs on the motorcycle.