Sundays, as they say here, are "top"! No need to wake up early. No ill-fated voyages to the post office (me to Sarah: "not one flat tire, but two! AND no package!"). No responsibilities. No pressure of any kind,* just a veritable lazy sunday.
To paint a picture: if we were of the colonial persuasion, Sundays would be spent on our shaded veranda wearing khakis, sipping a gin and tonic, and discussing the latest cricket scores in an absurd British accent. We don't have khakis and haven't made gin and tonic or discussed cricket; I make no comment on the veracity of that last claim.
A lazy Sunday indeed. For dinner, we "inviteéd" Baïssou and Robert to our favorite Chinese restaurant. We weren't sure if they would like the food... for how incredibly bland (and awful) some of the Malian staples are, anecdotal evidence suggested that many Malians really aren't interested in tasty food.**
However, much to our delight, both Robert and Baïssou absolutely loved the Chinese food. It was a bit of an adventure trying to teach them to use chopsticks, but they learned quickly as you can see in the picture below. We talked a bit about Malian politics; apparently there is an all-out strike today and tomorrow to get the President, "Son Excellence" ATT, to fire some incompetent ministers from his cabinet. Baïssou, it turns out, would really like to become a politician, perhaps first by becoming mayor of Niamakoro.
Altogether, another successful Sunday and start to a new week. Now we're just counting the days until Christmas!
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* Up to and including "no water pressure."
** Where "tasty" is defined as cuisine from pretty much any other country.
*** For those of you wondering about the title of this post... as part of the "joking cousins" system here in Mali, we must maintain that we do not eat beans (haricots). However, we do love the sautéed green beans at the chinese restaurant.
It is actually physically impossible to not like Chinese food.
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