Ever since I left the Gambia my mind’s been racing. I’ve been wanting to write something down. I’m not sure what really... anything, everything. Travelling fires my mind. Gambia has made me boring maybe, or perhaps more accurately it has made me uninspired, uncreative. Since I’ve been on this trip though I can’t seem to stop thinking. For me thi9s is great I’ve been docile far too long; there are some amazing times afoot and I don’t want to0 do a stupid after the fact write up on my website forgetting all the cool day to day stuff. Today is Sunday and I finally got my hands on this fine exercise book to jot down my thoughts on Mali and this trip, I don’t want to forget these times so simply.

Some Highlights so far: we (Tim, Joe, and I) left Gambia on Friday. Which was pretty rough in itself. On Thursday night I went out with Gillian to the Safari garden for possibly our last night hanging out together. I know we’ll probably be seeing one another for a day or two once I return but somehow this actually felt like goodbye. Once I get back she’ll be getting ready to leave, to go see her boyfriend. Even if she’s not all crazy or stressed out it’ll still have been a month since I’ve seen her. I doubt, or maybe I hope, I won’t feel the same about her then as I do now. I feel like I’ve said goodbye now, I don’t want to be upset like I’m loosing my friend all over again when I get back. I’d also rather if she wasn’t all upset about loosing me (which is maybe a little improbable) or more likely upset about hurting me when she goes away. I know, I know, it’s a totally screwed up relationship. I shouldn’t even like her, she’s like the extreme version of many of the unhealthy things I want in women. But I really do care about her. I’d like to stay friends with her, regardless of what happens... Anyhow, I’ll deal with that later, I really just want everything to be cool when I see her again.

After our dinner, which was somewhat uncomfortable at times (mainly due to my inappropriate dinner conversation), I went home kind of feeling like shit. Not emotionally or anything, I mean I already know most of my personal nonsense. Although it’s really not my place to impose my relationship issues on other people. Whatever, this is getting cryptic and I’d rather move on with what actually happened. I went home and was pretty sick that night. I’m really not sure what it was, or is but at the time I just figured I had a bad case of Banjul belly. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the ‘running-to-the-bathroom-every-few-minutes’ kind of stomach bug. But this was a bit different; before with Banjul belly I’d never had sporadic sharp pains in my stomach. Slightly worrisome to say the least, and not necessarily a good omen to start the trip on. But we must persevere, mustn’t we. Besides, I know I’m a total hypochondriac at times.

So I went back to the Y and tried to sleep as I did actually have to get up in the morning and do something, unlike most of my time here lately. But my stomach kept me up running to the bathroom to throw up every 45 minutes or so. Basically the entire experience sucked. I barely slept at all. It even got to the point where I almost woke up Lien two rooms over to get some medicine, but I didn’t in the end. Instead I just tried to sleep, kept getting the chills, put on tons of clothing, turned off my fan and pulled the covers up, only to wake up 45 minutes later boiling hot and having to run to the bathroom again. Maybe the most annoying part was that there wasn’t any running water so I had to use practically all of my standby bucket to clean up and cool off..

Obviously I did make it through the night. And at 6 am I got myself cleaned up as best as possible and after a quick wakeup goodbye to Lien and Jesper I headed off to Tim’s place to meet for 7. The key to travelling overland from Gambia to Dakar (where we we’re flying out of) is to get out of Gambia as early as possible. At Tim’s house I met up with my travelling companions Tim and Joe. Another friend Carey was there too. She was in town hanging out until she leaves on a big trip to Sierra Leone tomorrow. After chilling out a bit and psyching ourselves up we left for Banjul giving ourselves just enough time to reach the port for the first ferry crossing to Barra on the North bank. Somehow we did make the ferry just before it left, which was very good and seems to be a running theme to the trip so far; just barely having everything work out. But then again that’s how most things seem to happen here. I honestly believe it’s a kind of fate. We’re all good people, and if there’s any kind of cosmic justice in the universe it really should work out for us. Somehow through perseverance and a little luck it actually does in fact always work out too. Even though we’re constantly balancing on the edge of total disaster. We always have just a bit too much going on though and sort of need to count on this fate, this rightness with the universe to help everything work out ion the end. I like my life, I like this world, and I like living somewhere (metaphorically speaking) that does good things for good people.

Anyhow, we did catch the first ferry and finally began our month long Mali trip. Joe worked some Mandinka magic on the Barra side and we soon found ourselves heading for the border. I personally hate the Gambia-Senegal border. I have hassles at borders all the time, perhaps I look like some kind of sketchy drug smuggler or something, but even back home at the US-Canada border I get hassles pretty bad. Thankfully in Senegal they’re not strip searching me yet (knock on wood) but I usually get some kind of trouble from the border guards. Most often it’ll involve my VISA. There are a few clear distinctions to remember when crossing the Gambia-Senegal border though: 1. I am not working in Gambia, I am volunteering. And 2. I do not live in Gambia, I am visiting. Of course sometimes these don’t apply if you meet a stupid or corrupt or just plain self-important annoyed little bureaucrat type of border guard. Then again sometimes they know and like volunteers and its all good. Needless to say I was a bit nervous crossing the border that morning. Whatever the problems you’re about to face though its almost always better in the mornings. The guards haven’t had a whole day worth of hassles yet and are often in better spirits. After all that stressing though we managed to cross the border likity-split and managed to get a 7-place (a seven seater Peugeot (usually)station wagon) without any trouble at all. Tim and Joe very nicely gave me shotgun for the ride as I felt pretty horrible still. Then again I think Tim was worried I’d throw up all over him if I wasn’t comfortable. I guess it really wasn’t very comfortable though but I did manage to stretch out a little, keep my breakfast down, even sleep some. I really needed the rest too after not getting any the night before.

When I awoke though I started thinking, and thinking... I needed to write something but I didn’t have any paper. I hate that feeling, especially because I don’t often feel the need to write. I kept thinking about when I was a kid travelling with my parents across the States. My parents took us (me and my sister Catherine) on a lot (well it seemed like a lot) of road trips while growing up. We went to Florida, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Colorado a couple of times at least. Some of those trips are confused or I get them mixed up with other trips but it didn’t matter that much. I really appreciated the travelling regardless of where we went. It wasn’t that as a 9 year old I could really truly understand the significance that resides in the Mall of Americas, the Corn Palace, or Wall Drug. But I loved the fact that we went there anyways. Seeing something, anything outside of your sphere is really important to me. I suppose that’s what makes me want to travel. I don’t know about these places I go, or want to go, before I get there. I mean, hell when I got to Australia on the bus from the airport to the hostel I was stunned to realise that these strange people from ‘as land down under’ that eat ‘vegemite sandwiches’ (which was the extent of my knowledge of the continent and consisted solely of lyrics from Midnight Oil songs) actually drove on the wrong side of the street! :) At that point I decided I’d better crack my still virgin Lonely Planet. Ok so maybe I a bit more prepared in my old age but I still seem to plan to the minimum. And that’s just how it works out for me.

The funniest thing though. As a kid it wasn’t even the endless stretches of road, desert, trees, or sky that mattered to me. It was on those trips that I felt my most free and playful. I think my most creative. Sometimes after being on the road for hours or if me and Cat had been fighting or annoying for too long, my parents (really my dad ‘cause he always did the majority of the driving) would give us a break. Or maybe it was giving him a break from us. Whichever, it was always fun.

When we (Cat and I) were young our dad had this really great van. A black 1980- Dodge Street Van. It had black tinted windows and carpeting on the walls and ceiling. My dad being the engineering guru that he is decked out the van for travelling with the family. E put these cool wall closets running along the inside behind the single row of a plush red velvety passenger bench. The wall closets seemed to hold all kinds of magic when I was small. You could find anything in them, anything you might ever want.. Food, water, road snacks, toys and games, maybe an old frisbee or beach ball, or kite. I remember once or twice squeezing myself into the wall cupboard too, somehow inside it felt good, like I was a part of something bigger. Of course I was even though I couldn’t see it at the time. I was a part of a really great family that actually cared enough to make sure their kids saw something of the world around them. I’m not trying to get smarmy here, I know I sometimes idealize my childhood, but what’s the value on focusing on the negative? I don’t see any, besides as I know Catherine realized a while ago and I’ve only more recently come to appreciate, our lives have been pretty amazing.

One of these really cool wall shelves had possible the best treat of all though: a full fold out double bed. Cat and I could go back there while we were on those never-ending stretches of highway. We could sleep, or colour, or read, or play, or just talk and chill out and listen to music on the mounted rear speakers that my dad had set up. Of course he did have some pretty selective music tastes on those long trips: Pink Floyd, The Who, and one of my favourite albums ever Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms. It was at those times; on the bed in back of the van travelling and playing for hours at a time that I really think I did some of my best work. I could go on huge adventures with my stuffed bunny rabbit and my stuffed seal (Rabbi and Sealy respectively - ok so maybe I wasn’t so creative with names), or I could have extensive recon missions with some G.I. Joes. Whatever it was though somehow I felt like my mind was really free to do anything, to be a kid. It’s a pretty amazing thing to be young, having so much potential, to have a mind so open and uninhibited is really quite special.

Hey, back to the trip though; we arrived in Dakar after a 5-hour ride from the border. Actually a very smooth travel day on the whole, very good for West African travel. We grabbed a cab quickly and headed out to the Hotel Grenelle. A bit pricy but a really nice place. We got two rooms, Tim and Joe shared and I sprung for my own seeing as my stomach really wasn’t still feeling much better and I didn’t want to keep the boys up if I ended up throwing up again all night. But thankfully I did manage to keep it together, and I went to bed pretty much right away skipping dinner to give myself some rest and recoup time.

We did get out to the money machine quickly and had a short walk around Dakar before I hit the sack though. Dakar is a bit intense at times, but on the whole it’s a much nicer place than Gambia. I did come to the unfortunate conclusion though that I have a daily withdrawal limit on my Visa card of 300 000 CFA Which could cause some issues as there is reportedly only one ATM in Bamako and nothing else anywhere in Mali. But as I said before, things tend to work out for us in the end. We went back to the Grenelle after a late lunch where I only could handle a milkshake (granted an amazing milkshake) due to my stupid stomach, and then back to the hotel where I passed out by 6:30pm.

Our plane was leaving from Dakar to Bamako at 8:30 the next morning so we asked for a wake up call at 6. This of course didn’t happen. Neither did the taxi we’d ordered for 6:30 show up. Somehow though we all managed to pull it together and got on the move to the airport only 15 minutes or so late. Of course that would not be the end of our problems that morning. We arrived at the Dakar airport having passed on stopping at the ATM in town for our daily allotment of money because of the whole time thing. But when we arrived we we’re disturbed to discover that Joe was the only member of our party to actually be checked onto the flight that morning. Air Senegal only flies once daily to Bamako so as you can see we were a little pissed off by this development. Tim and I were put on the waiting list. Can you believe it! I mean we all bought our tickets together a month ago in Banjul; what the hell did they do to screw up something so totally routine as booking a flight. They’re a frigging airline for Christ’s sake! And another thing, is it our fault that they only booked Joe!? Is it too much to ask for an international airline to suck it up and even apologize to us?! Apparently so. Joe went to get on the airplane, while Tim and I waited fearing we might be relegated to spending an extra night in Dakar. Thankfully though Tim is turning into his parents. I like to think that in my day-to-day life I don’t put up with too much bullshit but quite often to my utter dismay I watch myself doing it. Tim on the other hand took a lesson from his mother and threw down on the Air Senegal supervisor. Somehow, his ranting worked and Tim and I found ourselves running to get on the plane right before it took off. We looked super quick for the rumoured ATM in the airport on the way, as it was supposedly stupidly placed behind the security check in. But we discovered that it didn’t in fact exist at all and the bank there didn’t open for another 30 minutes. But hey, at least we made the plane. Our monetary fate was now in the hands of the also much rumoured Bamako ATM.

On the hour and a half plane ride my stomach felt better to the point that I ate most of the airplane breakfast they thankfully served us. We arrived in Bamako around 10:30. Not into the oppressive desert heat I was expecting but just a dry pounding that wouldn’t really start to hit me for a few hours yet.

Mali. Bamako. This place lies somewhere in between Gambia and Senegal. Its got infrastructure, traffic and street lights, buildings over 3 stories tall, and mostly paved roads, but its bustling, dirty, gritty garbage strewn streets and non-functional sewage ditches alongside them are not overly pleasant. It reminds me of Banjul. Or maybe if Banjul had slightly more money and a hundred thousand more people.

At the airport the VISA officer could only give us a 5 day visitors visa for 15 000 CFA. Why they can’t give the free 30 day extension there, I just don’t know. He said we had to go to the immigration office which we did immediately only to find that it is unsurprisingly closed on the weekends. Why the VISA officer at the airport didn’t know this, I just don’t know. So deciding to take a load off and hopefully find some more reliable information we headed over to the local Peace corps Hostel, called the Stagé. In Gambia the main Peace corps house is also called the Stagé. But here they use the word for all the regional houses too. They also call each new intake of PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) a Stagé too. I think the PCVs themselves would be stagéurs, but I’m not totally sure about that one. Anyhow we found it after some small kafuffles and entered a fairly similar scene to the Stagé house in Gambia. A large 2 story building with a couple of kitchens and bathrooms around 50 bunk beds and 2 common areas. One of which is constantly dominated by PCVs loafing around watching movies. There were a few Peace Corps people around and we asked a fairly nice guy Adam for info on the bank machine. He gave us the scoop on not one but two ATMs in town. And after dropping our bags in a conveniently empty, if cluttered, room we were once again off; this time into the city itself.

There really was a lot of information about our trip that we simply could not get beforehand. Guide books like the Lonely Planet may be great in a way but for this region they leave much to be desired. Many of the entries in the LP are obviously written by hearsay from unreliable travellers or are completely out of date. Besides the fact that while yes the local ex-pat bar may in fact remain fairly stable over the course of a couple of years, the smaller restaurants and shops constantly turn over or are revamped. And particularly here you might get entries on a place that have definitely only ever been visited once. |I might read for example how such and such restaurant has great Chicken Yassa and I can watch the amusing local drunk Steve dance on the tables. Once I get there though I find that the chicken is out of stock or more likely off the menu and Steve was killed six months ago in a rogue hippo accident. That kind of stuff happens all the time.

The only really reliable source of information is the people actually on the ground when you get there. I can give sound travel advice to anyone coming to The Gambia right now, but in a year or two well... I doubt it. So we went to the ATM downtown and thankfully my card worked. Tim’s gave him some problems but he had more from Senegal in the first place. Joe had US dollars which he’d gotten changed in Dakar so he was set. But Tim and I were still running slightly low. I really wouldn’t want to get to Timbuktoo and realize I had no more cash; that definitely does not sound like a good time. We really needed to get all our money for the trip before we left Bamako.

We’d only planned on spending one night in Bamako but since we needed to wait for the VISA extension, we are stuck here until Monday. Sorry for not clarifying earlier, its Sunday night now and we arrived on Saturday morning.

We decided to wander around downtown for a while. We stumbled onto a really nice Patisserie (one of the good holdovers from French colonialism) called Gourmands. We later read in the LP that it is apparently the best place in town, and I’d believe it seeing as we ended up eating there as much as possible. Afterwards we wandered into the Grande Marché. Both Tim and Joe are interested in finding some Malian cloth. A highly sought after commodity in the Gambian markets. But instead we found that the market totally sucked. I mean it really blew. Oh there was lots of stuff alright. In fact the market seemed to encompass much of the downtown area but with Tim’s modest French ability, my minimal ability, and Joe’s Mandinka (a language which bears the same root as the most prevalent local tongue Bambara) we absolutely did not have the skills to avoid the onslaught we received. In the market. In Gambia; Banjul’s Albert market, or Serekunda market we get hassled don’t misunderstand me here but this was just totally ridiculous. In Gambia once you actually get to the point of following your most demanding or persuasive hustler to his cousins shop he’ll generally speaking leave you alone; not so here. Also in Gambia they won’t enter the shop with you, or continue pestering you so even if you might be interested in buying something you can’t think straight enough to bargain, not so here. And maybe most importantly in Gambia the hustlers won’t actually touch or grab you, not so here. The Grande Marché was a completely unpleasant experience that I have no need ever to repeat.

Upon leaving the craziness behind us we went back to the Stagé to chill out a bit and plan our next move. Our idea was that once we were here we could get a bit more information on our loose plans and some stuff out, especially from the local PCVs. For some totally unfathomable reason though none of the local Peace Corps seem to actually know anything about their own country. This I just don’t get at all. Of the 15 volunteers or so that we met, we didn’t meet one, not a single person who had made it up to Timbuktoo. I really don’t get that. I mean I’ve been in Gambia for a year and a half (practically) and if in all that time I hadn’t seen at least a moderate amount of the country I’d feel pretty bad. But that’s just the way people seem to do it here. Very odd. Of course I do understand that Mali ios much bigger than Gambia and I know it’s a bit of a hassle to travel for days on end, but come on people this is your own country, your home for 2 years! There’s also this Peace Corps travel advisory for Timbuktoo that I don’t want to go into right now but it makes things more difficult because people have to take the river boat and not the road now. Regardless though I think people could at least make it up to the halfway area of Mopti and Sevaré. But they don’t seem to even get up there. So even as of now of plans remain pretty vague. We simply can’t get the info we need here in Bamako.

We chilled for a bit at the Stagé and then Adam (the PCV from before) showed us where a good dinner spot was. Cheap , fast steak sandwhiches are always nice. Apparently the chicken here just isn’t worth your time, but the steak and the mutton are great. We then went over to the local ex-pat bar with Adam and had a few drinks. Its really pretty nice here; they’ve got Castel beer everywhere, and Flag most places. Much better than dingy old Gambian Jewlbrew. Castel is nice, it reminds me of Becks a bit, the first sip or two are pretty bitter but afterwards it’s a really nice drink. Adam soon left and we were left hanging around a few other PCVs who we talked some with. Adam was a nice guy but a bit weird; like anti-social or something to all the other Peace Corps people. What he didn’t mention though was that he was going home to America that night, ETing (Early Termination). Basically quitting the Peace Corps. Once we found that out it made a bit more sense. I mean, I might prefer to spend my last few hours hanging out with some guys that don’t know anything about my situation too. And at least we weren’t about to pester him for details. I’m sure he’d been getting enough bullshit from his peers as it was.

Joe had some pretty interesting insights after a few beers. This is something I really like about Joe, he’s actually pretty different than most anyone I’ve met before. I know I can’t explain what he said last night with anywhere near the authority or clarity that he did but I must say I was impressed. His convictions, his will, his honest desire to do good for the world are pretty staggering. It makes me wonder if Joe is the most altruistically pure person I‘ve ever met. Not that I can totally agree with the practicality of everything he said but he’s got some great ideas. He actually cares about people, in a wholly unselfish way, that’s honestly very rare. He talked opf his ideals, his movement to unite the world, you know the utopian dream, forget divisions, forget race, let’s form a true brotherhood of caring and helping people in need. A beautiful idea, and I believe in it too, but its still a long way off. You know, we do what we can, but mostly in small ways. Joe managed to, and fairly eloquently I might add, express his views on this and really engage Tim and I in a way that’s really special. Passionate people working to honestly make the world a better place. Joe is the kind of man who will change the world, he is what’s good about development work and I think its great.

We went back to the Stagé after maybe beer too many and passed out. Today though I’ve learned to appreciate Bamako much better. My impressions on Saturday left a fair bit to be desired. Maybe it was just the fact that today is Sunday and there are less people out and about but the town seems much more chilled out now.

There’s still this pounding dry heat that parches your mouth in a efw minutes but I think I’m beginning to get a handle on that. We went out to the Gourmond Patisserie for breakfast today and then hit up the ATM one more time. Finally we’ve all got enough cash for the trip. En’challa. Anyhow, we took a cab out to the Hippodrome area of town, which is an area that seems a bit fancier. We stopped off at the super toubab supermarket to try to find some white fuel. Definitely not your typical grocery store item but we didn’t think flying with it’d be all that cool. Of course no one had it though, so our whole idea of cooking on the gas camping stove we brought is scrapped now. We’ll most likely just buy a charcoal brazier that they sell at any local market. It’ll serve its purpose no problem, its just a shame about hauling the gas stove all the way out here.

After that we walked around to the far more relaxed Medina Marché. It was a nice open air market which was far more inviting than the Grande Marché. We then took a cab over to the empty Peace corps offices and used their internet, which was good for all of us. Especially since our plans have pretty much all changed in the last few days. And even though a lot of things are still up in the air I think it’ll all work out ok. You know, assuming we’re not captured by Tourag rebels on our way up to Timbuktoo. We’ll see though...

We came back to the Stagé and I’ve been writing for most of the rest of the night catching all you lucky people up on all this st6uff. We did go for a quick, an expensive, dinner at the local ex-pat bar but now were. Tomorrow were off to Sevaré right after we go to the immigration office for the VISA extension. It’s like 12am now and Tim and Joe have headed off to bed. I’m sitting here writing listening to some pretty decent original music that this cute PCV girl, Heather gave me to check out. Its pretty cool stuff. I also kind of liked the fact that she introduced herself to me as a rock star. That’s just funny.

Alright this has just been far too much writing for one day and I almost definitely won’t be putting as much detail into future entries. I really just wanted to get you up to speed so far. Until next time; later all.