Adventures in Bamako...(MOVIES!)

First off, yay! We have finally figured out how to post video onto the blog. I hope everyone at home can enjoy watching these as much as we enjoyed filming them! Michele and I left Tubani So last night to stay in Bamako until Monday because the rooms at Tubani So have filled up quickly with the 110 Peace Corps Guinea volunteers consolidating in Mali because of violence in Conakry, Guinea. These are some of our adventures today...

Just a quick peak of what it is like on the inside of a bachee - 20 people in the back of a van that in the US we would all agree should hold no more than 10. Babies screaming, women breast-feeding, the money-handler hanging out the side trying to get even more customers into the van... One of the sayings here in Peace Corps Mali: "There is always room for one more."





The quickest way to get from Artisana (the big Bamako market) to the Peace Corps HQ is via a green pickup truck with benches in the back that a dozen people squeeze into - it's only 125 CFA (25 cents) per person to drive the mile and it sure beats walking in the heat - that's right, hot season is beginning to catch up with us. No more 70-80 degree days. Yesterday peaked at 99. Today? Who knows...



Then, as we came back to PC HQ, another experience that really only occurs in Bamako: men on camel-back walking through the streets of the city, offering people rides for money. It is a shame we weren't sent to Timbuktu or Gao regions - we'd buy a camel for a pet.





This was actually taken a week ago when Michele and I took our trip across the Niger with some other volunteers for Mexican food - then left early when Michele came down with Malaria.