Mali

We get to Mali and now I know that we truly, truly are in West Africa this time.

I love the mobs of motorcycles, the long flowing boubous, the miles of hand-made shoddy furniture, the overflowing buses, the mosques, and mosque-like structures. I even like the chaotic traffic here. The soil is incredibly red in Bamako (I am told it's laterite). I see an elegant woman, with a brown boubou and assorted hat scarf, with glittering gold earring, and a baby casual perched on her hip, walking in the red dust. It's a sort of disorganized beauty, reflected by the trimmed bushes along the fence of a nice house, overlooking decaying sidewalks. Bamako is a lot greener than Dakar, but this season is usually rainy.

What I learned about in Bamako:
-Our driver is Toumani Diabate's brother, the famous Malian Kora player which I saw play in Washington DC in April 2008