We have officially entered the final countdown! My mom and neighbor arrive this Sunday for a whirlwind tour of the country, and then there are only 13 days left before we leave. For those of you who are curious, we're going to the Dogon Country, Djenne, Mopti, and Ségou for the start of their music festival. We will not be going to Timbuktu on this trip, no matter how much we're a fan of their bags. Unfortunately, leaving so soon also means that we'll return to the US in the middle of primary season... although we should feel right at home. Let's just say the US is not the only country where politicians lie to the public and routinely get away with blatant displays of corruption.
Speaking of blatant displays of corruption, we finally liberated our books from customs! No comment on the details, but from the looks of it a few G's must've changed hands... in all of our dealings with the Malian government, there is always a whole slough of misinformation and pointless trips to bureaucratic headquarters before snap! suddenly everything happens in the course of 24 hours. "Negotiation," it's called here.
Report from our social life: last weekend, we went with Stephanie and Pierce to hear Ballaké Sissoko play at the French Cultural Center, which was quite relaxing and involved an obligatory dinner of tasty chinese food. Then Saturday, we went to watch the Mali vs. Ghana game at Stephanie and Pierce's (semi-new) home, which later segued into a housewarming party. Unfortunately, Mali lost the game (@Brendan Folie: remember that I can't see you gloating! And double or nothing we beat you in elimination rounds). But we still had a lovely time and met some interesting people.
Speaking of interesting people, we chatted for a while with three guys from the "Humanitarian Assistance Bureau," who I initially mistook as US marines. They apparently do work "up north" on a range of humanitarian "development projects," and (half-jokingly) invited us to build our next library in Tessalit. After returning home, Sarah and I started to think... Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb operates in northern Mali. Northern Mali is also home to Tuaregs and their nomadic camels. Camel, the cigarette brand, was introduced in the US exactly 34 years before... you guessed it. The CIA was created and signed into law by Harry S. Truman. This was too much of a coincidence.
I now submit to you the evidence that they were all CIA:
(a) Have you ever heard of the "Humanitarian Assistance Bureau"? Neither have I.
(b) How many people in the US government have undergone "extensive training" in Persian? Is this evidence that Iran is plotting a land grab in West Africa?
(c) Why don't they work for USAID? Does the government have aid projects they don't want us to know about?
(d) Any organization with a three-letter acronym is automatically suspect. HAB. NSA. CIA. FBI. WTF. You get the idea.
(e) Does anyone know what a "bureau" actually does? At least we can be sure that "corporations" are moral agents. They're people, after all. And yet I have never seen evidence that bureaux employ any moral agents. (See what I just did there? Also, bureaux is totally the preferred french pluralization of bureau.)
(f) This picture of JFK. Why is Bobby smiling? Does he know something?
(g) Everyone likes a good conspiracy!
Anyways, regardless of whether or not we were snooped on by the CIA, the party was a total blast. Now, we're buckling down to get everything established and handed off smoothly to Robert and Baïssou before we leave on February 29th. Once again, time certainly does fly.
I'll end this post with a few pictures, so as not to leave anyone hangin'. First, a photo of our full library bookshelves, then one of some 9th grade girls using our newly donated Classmate PCs (shout-out to Care Innovations at Intel!), and finally a rather adorable picture of our nieces and nephew.
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