M, our older daughter, is in the Peace Corps in Mali. She had Internet this week as well:

I’m in Bougani. There was a Halloween party here last night. Tomorrow I’m going back to village.

Costumes worn by other volunteers last night: A lot of Mario Kart characters, the characters from “It’s not gay if it’s a 3-way” SNL video, Osama Bin Laden, Bill and Ted from Bill and Ted, The Fresh Prince and Carleton, Dick in a Box SNL video reference, a crayon, three lady gagas, one of whom was the tallest guy in country in drag, a jellyfish (Tabitha), Malian flag (me), Aladdin and Jasmine, a couple mummies, a convict, one of the guys who stands on the side of the road here selling phone credit while wearing a bright orange vest, a couple of Fulani cow herders, etc. I thought it summed up my generation and Peace Corps at the same time.

The ride from Sikasso to Bougani was awful. We rented a bush taxi to take all 17 of the volunteers in Sikasso there for the Thanksgiving meeting to Bougani, which should really only be a 3-4 hour bus ride. If we rented a van to ourselves though, so the thinking went, we wouldn’t have to make all the unnecessary stops to pick up people on the side of the road, and we wouldn’t have to deal with the smells and noise that come from Malian public transport. Unfortunately the van that some of the girls though they’d rented never showed up, and then by the time another one was found and convinced to pick us up it was after noon, so we were travelling during the hottest part of the day, plus they charged more than they were supposed to, plus they ended up stopping along the way anyway to pick up dried cow hides, which smell pretty bad normally, but smell even worse when piled on top of your van in the sun in a huge stack, and we also picked up a random Malian woman and her child. So it saved us no time, was not any more comfortable and we didn’t roll into Bougani until around 5. Most people here had already started drinking, but all we wanted to do was shower and change. I’m glad we got a hotel room, because the house did look packed. A lot of people had bug huts on the roof of the stage house. As we were waiting for dinner at the hotel restaurant the party moved over to the hotel. It was a fun evening. Around midnight a lot of the volunteers started to couple up though, and the dance floor became a lot less fun, although still amusing. I sat outside and talked with a friend M1 who I met at the 4th of July, who was in homestay with Tabitha, and M2 from my stage. It was considered an early night for a Peace Corps party, but I was happy to be going back to my room at 1:30 and asleep by 2.

Today I went with T to Build On, an American NGO that builds schools here. They built a school in her village, but the roof is leaking; they thought maybe sending someone to complain in person would get them some attention. It seemed to work, and the lady spoke English so there was less ambiguity than if it had happened in Bambara. Then we stopped at a particularly good fabric store and I got some fabric with eight balls, and some other fabric with a couple laying in bed looking out a window at the sun and a palm tree. I’m thinking maybe I’ll hold onto this fabric and we can take it to Niena together when you come so you can see the whole process of getting something made. We went over to the house expecting a bunch of hung-over out of towners to still be around, but they’d all actually gotten up early and left for Bamako.