Tambacounda, Senegal and Kayes, Mali

We inaugurated a strategy in Tambacounda about which I have mixed feelings. Peace Corps has planted houses in many of the cities we will visit; these are used as meeting places and decompression chambers for their volunteers. They tend to resemble the collective university houses of the most liberal, communal and fringe inhabiting students during sparsely populated and attired summer doldrums (to be clear, they never quite resemble hippy houses, though occasionally they push the line). They reliably contain hundreds of movies, and thousands of books and, so far, the televisions have always been on—as a result of which I have re-watched several Hollywood movies instead of wondering around Kayes.

Since retired Peace Corps Volunteers along with a tiny entourage can often use them as the cheapest and safest form of local accommodation, they are likely to feature prominently amongst our places of rest. It simplifies finding the cheapest food, cheapest drinks and the speediest internet café; but it threatens to whitewash this experience somewhat—Tuuli and I are beginning to think that sometimes it might be preferable to be lodged in a grungy room from which we are forced to seek relief on foreign streets. But the ability to leave our computer, cameras, audio equipment and money unlocked and in sight without fear is a difficult one to abandon.

We'll work out a balance along the way. As an issue, it has probably risen to artificial prominence since we are stuck in Kayes. There are three roads out of Kayes, one of which we took to get here. The second one goes southward and arrives at Bamako after passing by a hydroelectric facility where we could have thrown ourselves from some cliffs into a man-made lake. We wanted to do that very badly. But on the first 10km of that 200km route (the 10km known as "the good part") we established an average speed of about 7km an hour and exploded a rally tire, discovered our primary spare had no air, that our emergency air pump wouldn't draw electricity from the newly disconnected cigarette lighter and that our tertiary spare would look better on a scooter. This alone would have necessitated a longer stay in Kayes since we have to fix both the electrical system and our spare shortage; but the delay was already necessitated by the third road out of Kayes. That road goes directly to Bamako and is an important artery for overland shipping between Senegal and Mali. Two days ago a bridge on that road was completely washed out by strong rains. The Malian army and soldiers from an Asian country are currently supervising the reconstruction of the road and the dubious river crossing attempts of the most impatient travelers. From what we have heard, our car is probably unable to ford the gap at this time. We will fix it today and try tomorrow.

This has given me the ability to pay more attention to Kayes and this is what I have noticed: the flies in Kayes often have a couple of bright red spots growing on them like puff lichen—as if their tendency to suckle on the most putrid and festering things before landing on my skin was not disturbing enough. In Kayes they also know how to make liver taste good. Judging by appearances, they let something chew it that might have had pepper in its teeth and then spread it around a sandwich with an equal part of mayonnaise and onions. These forty cent sandwiches are stupidly good. And of course we drink the water, which has also been deliciously pure in Gambia, in Senegal and in Mali—no hint of swimming pool—straight from the tap. If Kaye is anything more than a transit stop of 200,000 people, perhaps I'll find out this afternoon.
* posted by Nathaniel at 10:16 AM