Potholes, Monkeys, and Clowns

June 26, 2007

Only two weeks left. It’s hard to believe that in two weeks we’ll be in Timbuktu. My mother must have traveled there a million times to pick me up and now we are actually going to go and see it!

We have done a lot of cool things over the last several weeks, but I have been too lazy to sit down and write about any of it. I have the best intentions, but then there is always something else to grab my attention. So I sit here now, trying to remember the details of the time since my last entry.

We finally managed to get a new car! It took awhile, but the mine finally gave us a VW van. It seats ten, has air conditioning, power brakes, power steering, and even a dome light that comes on when you open the door. It’s awesome. Since it is a fairly nice vehicle, we are able to trade it to others in the mine for their vehicle. That seems weird so I’ll explain; the mine owns all of the vehicles so they get to stipulate how they will be used. Since our van is not four wheel drive, it is not allowed into the pit or more than twenty miles away from the mine at any time. There are many others, however, who have vehicles that don’t have these types of restrictions. We have been able to trade our van to these individuals on the last three Sundays to go to the potholes.

The potholes are a natural feature on the Senegal River. They are written up in most guide books. There is a rock structure that spans the width of the river (about a half mile) just outside of Kayes. The river seems to stop as there is no runoff over the top. Instead the water finds its way through the rock however it can. It spews through tiny cracks and creates holes of many sizes all over the terrain. A lot of these holes are dangerous as the outflow is underwater and the current is very swift. Some of them are super deep as well. We swam in one that was at least six feet deep. It’s a really cool spot that would be even better if there were even a small amount of shade. But there’s nothing like floating in your own little natural pool in the middle of a blindingly hot day, drinking a beer and watching the sun pass overhead. That pretty much sums up my last three Sundays.

I say my last three because there was one week when Carrie and Zachary were unable to make it. There has been a nasty flu going around and those two caught it just in time to completely miss the second week. I went instead with my friend Reg. It was great to be able to spend some time just me and him, away from the mine. That kind of thing doesn’t happen much here.

Beyond that we have been working on our circus. The school is sort of expected to put on an end of the year show. Last year we put on a “Fifties Rock and Roll Extravaganza”! This year we are presenting the Smamooleons Family Circus. We took the names of the two major companies; Semos, and Moolman, and created an anagram for the title of the show. We have clowns, lions, monkeys, and magicians. The kids wrote it, designed the sets and the costumes, and helped with creating their designs. We were supposed to put it on last Saturday, but half the school got sick last week so we had to postpone it until tomorrow. We are a little tired of dealing with it. We were hoping to be working on packing on our stuff and pumping out report cards, not working on this show forever.

The rainy season has arrived with a bang. Two nights ago we got one serious thunderstorm. The lightning was constantly lighting the sky all around us and the thunder sounded like it was right on the roof. We stood outside under our covered porch, in a half inch of water, watching the water pour out of the sky. I will never get over the rain storms here. They are so intense. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a mud hut and experience that.

It’s sad to be leaving here. I will genuinely miss this place. It is the first place I have ever lived that is so remote, it will be next to impossible to ever come back. Every other home in my life is there if I want to go see it. Each of them is on a road to somewhere I might be going. Mali, however, is on the way to nowhere and Sadiola is smack dab in the middle of nowhere. We are anxious to leave, but sad at the same time.

I will try, dear reader, to be more faithful with my posts. I know how frustrating it is to go and read a friend’s blog only to find that there isn’t anything new to read. I am sorry to say that I tend to crumble under pressure, but I will do the best I can to keep you updated on our progress as we extricate ourselves from this live and move on to something completely different.

MJR