Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Saying my goodbyes to Mali

I’m sitting here watching the last bit of Malian light that I will see fade away. It’s incredibly surreal. It doesn’t feel real at all. Various strands of my life are coming together and blending as I prepare to close this chapter. Here I am, listening to classical Indian music, thinking about taking tabla lessons in Los Angeles while sitting in an apartment in the middle of Africa waiting for a flight through France to Minnesota. It’s just too much change to internalize right now.

But I successfully checked my baggage this morning. I showed up outside of the Air France office about five minutes before they opened at 10AM; mine was the first baggage checked. I am happy to report that I didn’t have any excess luggage fees or anything to pay and that I received my boarding passes without a hitch (except for the final leg to Minneapolis, but I’ll figure that out when the time comes). Afterwards, I went to the embassy one last time to cash a check (it’s always good to have an emergency reserve on you) and to watch Spencer’s presentation. He gave a nice presentation about his music research, including a screening of a video he shot to a Malian rap song about pollution and littering. It was pretty great.

Other than that, I’ve just been hanging out, playing free trials of computer games and reading my book. Unfortunately my internet has gone down at the time of writing this, but hopefully it’ll be back up so I can post it before I leave for the airport around 9PM. If you end up reading this Tuesday evening in America, it worked.

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