1 Day and 7 Kilometres at a Time...

Here are some of the long awaited pictures of what Michele and I have been going thru the last few weeks since the last group of pictures. Enjoy!!

Me and my bike, the day of the first flat tire. I bike 7km whenever I go into Kassoumbougou to meet up with my African counterpart Dramane Sangare. 7 kilometres through the Malian countryside... it makes you happy to be alive and even happier to be a part of the planet Earth in all its beauty; to think that this is a place so few Americans will ever step foot- it really makes me glad to be me.

They say that the gorillas of Africa will be extinct in 20 years... the snows of Kilimanjaro will be melted in 10 years... these are tragedies that will stop our hearts, but not actually do much to affect the continent of Africa; but if even a single species of termite goes extinct (Mali has several hundred species of termite), most animal and plant life in the African savannah will cease to exist. Termites are that important to the eco-system here by basically acting as Nature's garbage-men, cleaning up dead grasses that would otherwise choke the savannah floor. No need to worry yet, since Africa has plenty of termites. This is actually one of the smallish sized termite mounds that I have found off the paths of southern Sikasso.
I had just walked by this tree when I noticed something in it; I zoomed in with my camera to get a look - I was too scared to actually walk closer. The tree was full of hornets crawling all over their nests. Good thing I saw them first, I high_tailed it out of there soon after.



I took this picture to show that there was no one anywhere nearby to help when I got a flat (this was on a different road than to my homologue's so I was a good 10Km from the nearest person. But no worries, I had my tire patches with me and I fixed it up in a few minutes.



They have been controlling the growth in the fields by burning them- in order to prevent wildfires from starting and becoming out of control. This field was burnt just a few weeks ago and already new life and the next generation of plants are beginning to spring up. Green of new and black of the dead together, it is quite a site seeing whole fields of this.



One of the nights I talked Michele into coming outside with me to do some star-gazing. You seriously can see thousands all across the night sky when the moon isn't out. Michele is wrapped up in our wonderful new blanket bought off of an Arabic man in the Niena market. Cold season (a misnomer) is upon us as it gets cool enough at night to use a blanket (there is no difference in temperature during the day- it is still hot a anything)

Meat! This is one of my new favorite purchases here in Mali; the grill! Mustard (from Sikasso) and Mrs. Dash spice (from America) make some delicious marinades. That is, until a few minutes after I took this picture the neighborhood chicken walked up to the grill and yoinked a kabob full of meat and ran off. I threw a hammer (AKA the tenderizer) at it in a fit of revenge-seeking.

alt="" /> The Sikasso sunset and the dusty and smoggy horizon.

Michele cooking at night.