Return from Blendio

So Michele and I have been MIA for the past week at our site (the place we will spend the next 2 years). It is going to take some getting used to for me after having lived in Atlanta and Paris the past several years. Blendio is only 25km off the main highway to Sikasso, but it takes roughly an hour to tranverse those 25km via van. The van only comes into Blendio 3-4 times a week, so if we want to leave Blendio on one of the non-van days we have to get creative. On our first trip to Blendio we had to get creative. Michele's APCD was able to charm our sous-prefect into finding a van to come into town on Friday so we could leave for Sikasso - the van came and left as to the fact that it was jam packed with people and goats. We ended up stopping a pickup truck for a local NGO (actually the village chief stopped the truck for us) and hitched a ride into Niena. From Niena we hitched a ride by bus to Sikasso in the traditional Malian way (stand in the middle of the road until a bus with an opening stops). It is really strange just how nice many of the people are here. When the chief in Blendio found out we needed to get out on a non-van day, he had a sizeable chunk of the village population out in the street to flag down a car for us. The pickup truck driver -when he dropped us off in Niena- told some local children we wanted to get to Sikasso and they helped flag down a bus for us. Even though things are extremely rustic and rural out in our part of the bush, I think we are going to get by. The only real concern I have is over the food - we are spoiled in Sanankoroba with street vendors - Blendio has no such thing. The only food you can get in on market days (Tuesday in Blendio, Sunday in Niena). Michele and I will actually have to start planning ahead and stocking up on the stuff we want to eat (I have a feeling I will get extremely sick of white rice very soon).

Anyways, I can't talk long, there is a line for the computer and I am pretty tired from traveling the past 2 days. I will try to jump on tomorrow to give more details of our site and add some photos. Til then, peace out. I love everyone and hope you all are having a good time in America. Michele and I still love it here in Mali.