Portrait of the Neighborhood

It's a rather beautiful day, despite the heat. From the third floor of our apartment building, we have a spectacular view of the neighborhood rooftops. Some of the houses are quite nice; the corrupt ex-government official who stole six million euros from a UN fund set aside to fight malaria lives near here. But many buildings are half-finished, lacking a roof and sprouting weeds on the uncovered second story where children sometimes play. In my imagination, they are exploring a city of abandoned ruins. On fridays, you can see a scattered patchwork of color emerge on the rooftops as women complete buckets of laundry and hang the vibrant cloth to dry.

For the young, unemployed male demographic, the majority of the day is spent making and drinking tea. In Mali, "tea" refers to the social activity and rather elaborate presentation of green tea with sugar. What we would call "tea" is simply called Lipton. After two weeks of watching others, last night I finally tried my hand at this process. The tea is boiled in a pot on a bed of charcoal. After it is done steeping, it is transferred to a smaller pot and sweetened with a large helping of sugar. It is then poured back and forth between two shot glass-sized cups to generate a thick head of bubbles. Once this is accomplished, the glasses are washed and the tea dispensed two cups at a time to the people in the tea circle.

The weather here can change very quickly and without warning. Although we are nearing the end of "rainy season," occasionally in the late afternoon you can start to see thunderheads rolling in from the distance. As they approach, the wind really picks up and kicks dust around; everyone runs for cover. The rain seems to last for 20-30 minutes, and afterwards everything is pleasantly cool. All of the locals break out their sweaters, and we sit for another round of tea.

The sunsets here can be quite beautiful. Again, the view from our balcony is splendid.

Occasionally, a thunderhead will roll in without the accompanying rain. Two nights ago we we watched a lightning show in the clouds, just after dusk. A few pictures came out nicely; the view is from a bench in the tea circle.