Wednesday 21 March 2012

HAPPY TIMES!

I have lost all motivation for this blog as I only have two weeks left and I want to spend my time enjoying Mali rather than blogging. SOOOOOOOOOOO much happened recently I can’t even keep up no more, but I’ll try and make this blog as detailed as possible.
WEATHER:
It is getting HOTTER and HOTTER and HOTTER. It is now a cool 40 degrees on most days. We are all either about to take a shower, showering or just getting out of the shower. The electricity is cutting off more regularly due to the fact that more people are using their fans. Last night the electricity cut off in the middle of the night, so there was no fan, I ended up showering three times and lying in a pool of sweat on my bed. I now know what Papa (our driver) meant when I told him that Mali was too hot in February, he replied by laughing and simply said ‘if you think Mali is hot, now wait till March and April you will cry then’.  IS are not going to send another group of volunteers till after the hot season, which after living through the beginning of the hot season makes a lot of sense, as they won’t even have time to acclimatise before the hot season starts they will be thrown straight into it.
WORK:
Sensory Area - The sensory playground is now starting to come together FINALLY! The artisans are now currently making the different parts of the playground. Although it is bittersweet as we are no longer having a sensory garden as there are not enough funds available in the budget for it. However the charity Right to Play who have been really complimentary about the whole sensory area project have signed a contract, and a partnership has now been created. This means that they will build the sensory garden at a later date, most likely when we have left. Even though it is upsetting that we will not see the sensory area fully finished, it is good to know that our hard work will pay off eventually.
Chalk day- Felicity’s chalk day was a success, loads of people turned up and the refreshments were delicious. The guests even got little chalk presents. The pictures are on our facebook page so feel free to look at them, along with pictures from the English and art and craft lessons.
Sightsavers - yesterday we went to a village called Tien Fala that was an hour outside of Bamako, to see one of Sightsavers projects there. Sightsavers helped this particular build a community garden for the blind people of Tien Fala. They also built a well to help to sustain the garden with Water Aid. The villagers told us how important the garden was to the family as it helped to generate extra income. The plot of land is kept in the family even if the blind person dies and the family take care of it.
A group of us have been volunteering at an orphanage in our spare time. The women who set up the orphanage is called Bibi. She is a really inspirational women, Bibi hasn’t had a day off in over 20 years. She struggles everyday to meet the basic needs of the children and tries her best to make sure that they never go without. The children are all so cute and have that amazing baby smell. I’ve actually fallen in love with one the baby girls called Adina- I want to take her back to England with me! There are around 25 babies in the orphanage, with around 1 new addition every week or so.  The room is really hot and there are two babies per cot.  Some of us are looking into getting mosquito nets for the orphanage as only the really small and vulnerable babies have them, and the others are covered in mosquito bites as they don’t have any nets.
Life IN GENERALLY!!!
I have always been told I looked Malian, but it’s like I suddenly look more Malian, as people are now randomly shouting Fula moussa (Fulani women) as I walk down the street. I didn’t know what it meant at first I thought people were just being either over-friendly or rude. I asked the IS staff and they explained it to me. The chalk guy at UMAV refuses to call me by name and just refers to me as Fula moussa, which the IS staff find so funny that they have started to do it now as well. The other ethnic group that I sometimes get confused with is the Toureqs. When we went to the artisan market a man started to follow us around the market because he decided that I was a Toureq and thought that I was just refusing to say it. The situation was then fuelled by Felicity and Bridie who told the man that I was indeed a Toureq from Timbuktu in a bid to get lower prices, and it worked!
As we now have 2 weeks and half left in Mali, we have started a bucket list of things to do before we leave. This includes a home stay, a boat ride on the river, museum and national park, kayaking and camel ride (which is looking more and more unlikely). Hopefully we will go on the river boat ride on Sunday for my birthday.
We have also been going to different restaurants in Bamako, and for those of you who know I’m obsessed with food, will appreciate how happy this makes me. Me and Rachel now have 3 questions constantly on our minds, when are we eating? Where are we eating? And what are we eating? At first we tried going to different restaurants from the Brandt guide book however after going to two different restaurants that were in the cheap and cheerful section of the guidebook. We have realised that the cheap and cheerful really isn’t cheap. La savannah and a Vietnamese restaurant were both pretty much the most expensive restaurants that we have been to in Bamako bar the Ethiopian restaurant. La savannah was really nice as it has live music most nights, on the particular night we went there, there was guy a with a really high pitched voice, we thought it was a women till we looked at him! The toilets are pretty good for Bamako standards it even has a full length mirror. The Ethiopian restaurant is called Abyssinia and is in quarter de flevre. It was probably one the best food I’ve had in Mali so far, but it made me miss home cooking a lot. We have also found a restaurant called Broadway it does really good waffles, burritos and ice cream milkshakes. Rayan in hippodrome has the best sharwarmas in Mali, the garlic mayo sauce although rather anti-social tastes amazing and is well worth the garlic burps for the next couple of hours.
That’s all for now but ill post soon before the end of the trip. Take care!