CINQUANTENAIRE!

The 50th Anniversary of Mali's Independence was yesterday... and the country has been crazy for the past few weeks preparing for the celebrations. I spent it in Village with my town, which was crazy but fun.

 This is Nakoria, the woman I work with who runs the orphanage. We just got back from opening a bank account for the association, and I decided it was a good photo op, with her standing in front of the Monument de Independence in Bamako. 

This is the Monument at night, when its lit up. This picture was taken a few days before the actual independence day so they weren't done "fixing" it yet. But you can also see to the left of it, as stage, where they completely blocked off one of the main roads in Bamako for 3 days to have a concert in the middle of the road! All of Mali's top artists were there to perform in this concert that started, in the rain at close to 1am and ended around 5am! 

 This picture was taken in Dioila, at our Cinquantenaire Celebration. This is the opening ceremony where the military officers raised the flag while the National Anthem played... I was surprised at how quiet everyone got... they definitely showed their Nations Pride!

 There were soooooooooo many people there, I think every person in the town was there! The police were all on a power trip and kept the crowd in random lines that they kept moving whenever they got bored it seemed like. I got to use my "white card" and sat with all the big names in Dioila. We each got a seat under a tent with prime view of everything, with guards standing by to whack anyone who tried to stand or sit in front of us. You see the kids on the wall trying to look in, it was like that everywhere!

Stilts! One of the villages obviously has talent! I don't remember which one it was, but each village surrounding Dioila got to march in the parade and showcase themselves somehow. This village chose to have 5 members walk and dance around on Stilts while they drummed and sang!

 One of the woman's association in Dioila. I was really impressed by their signs and coordinating outfits. 4 hours later the parade finally ended with, a bicycle race by a boy from each village, a rice sack race and a egg on a spoon with the spoon in your mouth race for the children.

Later that evening Eric, my new Dioila volunteer and I went to the soccer game. Which was a HUGE deal. It was Old Town Dioila VS. New Town Dioila. Eric and I both live in New Town so we had to represent... I have no idea who won because there were soooo many people there we couldn't see anything. People were sitting in trees, standing on whatever they could possibly find, it was madness! I'm glad I got to experience it though, It really was a pretty cool time to be in Mali! Who knows, I might be back in another 50 years to celebrate the 100th! Now that is going to be wild! lol I'll be 75... Damn!

2 weeks I have been back in Mali... geeze it seems like ages all over again!

I was really dreading coming back, but I know myself and had to have things lined up to come back to and keep my busy. I came back to meetings and presentations and swear in! Congrats to the new stage, Peace Corps Mali 2010-2012, Team America! Swear in was a good time as usual, and it was back to village.

It has been raining A LOT more this year than it did last year. When I got home I could definitely tell that my house had been sitting, unopened for a month in humid, humid Africa. It smelled gross! Most people like the smell after it rains... I have always hated it, so it was that smell mixed with a musky, mildewy smell! haha! I noticed that there is still two spots in my tin roof that leak after it being "fixed" twice and the rain basically just seeps in through the walls. Weird! I spend my first week back at site cleaning. For such a humid place there was so much friggin dust! I tuned fans on in all the rooms to dry them out, took all the linens and mattresses outside to dry/air out in the blazing hot sun and febreezed the heck out of everything else. It's all good, and smells clean now!

The damn rain has also brought many more transport issues, and it has been pretty rough. Today on my way into Bamako we actually had to get out of the bashe and walk because the road was way to bad to pass! All the men got out to help push the bus, that was spinning out of control, and almost hit a biker nearby. Little by little they would push the bus it would inch forward then slide deeper in the mud. It was sad to watch because all of our stuff was still in the the bus... my laptop included! Which I should have taken out of the car with me but I didn't know what was going on, the bus stopped and the driver told everyone to get out, so I along with everyone else just climbed out and began walking! Its funny how we humans just follow what everyone else is doing... I should probably work on that! After a while the car finally got through the mud and came back to pick us up, to continue on our way to Bamako.

This should be a short trip into town. I came to say a sad goodbye to an esteemed member of VADG... Daniella Allum :(

*PEACE OUT YELLA! MALI WILL MISS YOU!*

Mali is in a a whole 50th year celebration craze! Saturday there was a free concert in the middle of the street, the lanes were lined in blinking lights and there were hundreds of people standing around waiting for a concert that was supposed to start at 8pm... more like around 12:30am it started and apparently ran until after 4 am! Sunday there was a marathon, which was run throughout the city by Malians, which is great, except that all the roads were randomly blocked off and made for a hellish ride through town to the Formi. The actual celebration starts today and ends on Wednesday, which is the actual anniversary. I am going to try to get back to fight the traffic and head back to Dioila today... wish me luck!