Life in Mali is an Excercise in Patience

A lot and also not a lot has been going on since our last update. We decided not to move into the original apartment, some serendiptous confusion on my part led to the discovery of a larger, nicer place near by. We are very excited to move, but the place has to be cleaned and fixed up a bit which is a bit of an undertaking . We went to see the real estate guy today (we were supposed to see him yesterday but he never showed), he tried to get us to pay all 6 months rent now and told us we couldn't move in till Saturday. When we explained that that was not going to work for us we agreed on tomorrow, and he said he'd call us/our Malian middle man. Of course come 4 this afternoon he had not called, so we called back and he said they'd work on it tomorrow and we could move in tomorrow afternoon. So mostly we just sit around, drink tea and wait (sound famliar to former SITers?) Oy. It is very frustrating not having any control over such things. But, once we are moved in we will have an extra bedroom so we will have room for visitors if anyone is interested...

In other news, Neal has been named Abdoullaye/Baba Traore after my host father, which I find quite amusing and nice. I miss the original Baba quite a bit, being around the house without him is not the same. It is funny how much is the same though, the kids are older and taller and there is a super adorable new addition, there are more chickens in the courtyarrd, but other than that the house, the corner, and the grin (tea circle) are much the same. It is nice to be with my old friends again, and they are quickly adopting Baba as one of their own as we sit around drinking tea and waiting.

It has been HOT the last two days, and has not rained, however everyone keeps telling us the rain will start on the 20th. On va voir. Stuff on the project has also been moving along, which is good. I'll be writing a post for that blog after this.

I also met a current SIT student at the cyber cafe yesterday and I plan to go visit my old school on Thursday (assuming we move in tomorrow...inchallah).