Les dimanches à Bamako

Today was a remarkably quiet day in a normally bustling city. I slept in until 11:00AM after an impromptu night of swimming at Matt's place. Immediately, I called Dave to see if we could arrange lunch. He said he and Antony were going out to Adonis, so I got dressed and hailed a cab. The cab driver had no idea where he was going and tried to charge me extra after we drove around for fifteen minutes looking for the restaurant; I staunchly refused. There was hardly anyone in the streets and very few cars on the bridges. I guess Sunday is truly a day of rest. Or rather, as blind musical duo Amadou and Mariam put it, "Les dimanches à Bamako, c'est le jour de mariage" (Sundays in Bamako, it's the day of marriages). I have probably spotted three marriages today.

I had an egg roll and a soda at Adonis before we went to the Campagnard (where I sat for 5 hours using the internet back in February) to drink more soda in their sweet, sweet air-conditioning. Eventually we parted ways, and I got into an even nicer and quieter taxi that took me back towards Badalabougou.

I'm coming to like Bamako. It's a haphazard city, like something thrown together from whatever the Creator had lying around at the time. Rubble heaps? Sure. Fruit stands with grapes? Why not. A big white stallion tied to the side of the road? Naturally. There are so many colors, so many smells (not all of them good), music blaring from taxis passing in a doppler blur, big saucy ladies perched on top of Chinese mopeds, and no shortage of runty goats pillaging trash piles or even a mango seller's table, if they aren't watching.

I came back to SIL and heated up the rest of my cabbage rolls for Lunch Round 2. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading, doing laundry, surfing the internet, and cat-napping in the humidity.

Two days left.