No wonder it's so hard to find, it's in Mali!

During our travels on Saturday we passed this sign and solved a long standing mystery in male-female relations. If you can read the sign you will note that it reads "Piste Touristique du Point G" or, loosely translated "Scenic route to the G-spot."

Long sought and seldom found, this mythical place seems to be located in the hills around Mali. So men around the world can take heart - their vain efforts to find it in the first place were pretty much doomed to fail given that it's in Mali, but, now we know where it is!

This photo shows me and two of my colleauges celebrating our new found knowledge.

12½ cents of Slightly Disturbing Fun…

Yesterday we went to the Bamako Zoological Gardens and it was quite the experience, for a mere 12.5 cents entry fee. As some of you gentle readers may recall from my previous blog in Addis, I told some sad stories about dogs and cats in Africa. I was asked not do that again as it traumatized some readers, so here are some sad stories about leopards and manatees instead.
The museum has some interesting rules. I particularly like this sign:It says “Forbidden to give cigarettes to the animals.” But can they buy them? It is, however, good to see the zoo authorities trying to stamp out the ravages of monkey lung cancer.

Or this sign:

“Please don’t throw rocks at the lions” this sign implores. The bone strewn field in front of their den should also give pause to any bold simba-taunters!

This baboon was quite big and very good at catching the bits of fruit the zoo sells to feed the animals. We did note that throughout his performance, however, he was giving us the finger!

This is a shot of a crocodile in a dog house. No wonder Malian mailmen run so fast!

The zoo has what could be called a Darwinian approach to safety. The fences are a tad distressed so one can approach the cages quite closely. As a result you can get a photo of your head closer to a leopard’s than anywhere in Africa, I would wager.

One of team members at the leopard cage. It was purring loudly while we were there, and rubbing itself against the cage. The purring was a familiar, but slightly disconcerting sound.

Two questions: 1. When does "close to a Hyena" become "too close to a hyena?" and 2. How much do I trust Malian cage door makers?

In Addis I posted often on the plight of the African donkey (for you Buddhists, don't be reincarnated as one), and so it seemed that here were the luckiest donkeys in Africa, safely ensconced in a zoo, no matter how dodgey. But then we looked a bit to the right of this bucolic scene...

No, he is not resting. I imagine he will be lion Purina in the next few days.

I'll post more zoo pictures soon.

The Course so Far...

Well it has been a week and I apologize for not posting more. I was waiting to get batteries for my camera, and that was an adventure in itself. I bought a set that were dead, and then another that did not have enough juice to run the camera. I finally got a set good enough, proving the old adage that buying quality once is better than buying crap three times! So I do have a few photos to post now.
We started the course on Monday and did not stop running till Friday. It is very intense with tight timings for the students to meet. My group includes two Algerians, two Malians, a Burundian, a Ghanaian, a Tanzanian, and a Rwandan - very diverse, but with an amazing variety of experience and background. They were a bit shy to start off but began to come out of their shells. By the end of the week they were ready for a break so we held a Happy Hour at the wet canteen and got a chance to get to know them better. I have taken a few shots of the school and our facilities:

This is a shot of me outside the front of the College in Bamako. It is a very modern facility, only opening last July. For those languishing under the February snows, it was 38 C that day.

This is our office at the College. It is a bit cramped for 8 people to work, but the instructors are mostly in the classroom once the course starts. It is air conditioned and has wireless internet access so we are well connected.

Yours truly at my desk at the College. Those who know me in Kingston will note that my desk is relatively tidy at this point. A week later it is no longer so!

To Work at Last

It’s been a couple of days on the ground so far and tomorrow the course starts. Our students have been arriving from across Africa over the past couple of days. Speaking of pan-Africanism (was I?) Egypt just won the African Cup soccer (football) tournament in a heartbreaker for four-time champs Cameroun. Being in West Africa we were sort of bound to root for Cameroun, so we feel that the home side has lost.

Getting ready for the course has been busy as we try and get the classrooms sorted out and finalize our presentations. Our photocopier is a venerable machine that squeaks more than a box of mice on crack, and over overheats after 2 copies, so preparing the handouts has been problematic. You must realize that in coming to Africa you are leaving the world where everyone has a computer, laptop or otherwise, and entering one in which paper is once again king.

I tried the fitness centre at the hotel yesterday and it was definitely an African experience. The treadmill had a bit of the palsy. I don’t know if you’ve seen the video of the guy who gets beat up by his treadmill as it starts and stops, but this one was kinda similar. It would set out a great rate of knots and the suddenly stop, which, as Newton tells us, meant that yours truly got an impromptu vaulting lesson. So I abandoned that course of action and settled instead on the stationary bike. This one however had no power so it was rather like biking uphill in a bowl of molasses. Still, at least it was a good work out.

The night before last the group went out, guided by a Canadian colleague who works at the College, to a local pizzeria and club. Now in Bamako, as in Montreal, the clubs are dead until about midnight, so our dinner was a relatively quiet affair. Later that night the contestants of the Miss Africa contest, being held fortuitously in Bamako this year, dropped by the club. Unfortunately I have no photos of the proceedings but certainly at least two hubbas were in order.

Speaking of photos I have taken more but my camera’s batteries died and I am unable to post them until I procure replacements. Watch and shoot.

Montreal to Bamako

I have safely arrived here in Bamako where we will begin our course on Monday. We left Montreal on Tuesday night and had an uneventful flight to Paris. On arrival we discovered that a two-day taxi strike was underway. We should have checked one of the several websites that provide updates on looming strikes, but as it turned out we weren’t to severely effected. We had arranged an airport shuttle to take us downtown and all went well. After checking in and having lunch I took one of our team members who had never visited Paris on a walking tour/death march of the essential sights. We spent five hours walking from Place St Augustin, la Madeleine, Place de la Concord, Les Invalides, the Eiffel Tower, the Trocodero, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elyssee, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Opera Garnier, and Galeries Lafayette. I’m tired just typing that! After a game attempt to reduce the Paris duck population at dinner, I retired to 11 hours of blissful rack.

A shot of me at the Grand Battery outside Les Invalides. These guns are fired to celebrate great French military victories. They have not been fired for a long time.

The next morning we tussled with our shuttle driver, who drove off while were loading the van; driving over one backpack, which suffered a bad case of road rash. After that bit of excitement we made it to Chuck de Gaulle airport in record time (in a second shuttle driven by a less psychotic driver). Our flight to Bamako was full and included either two handcuff models, or two gents being repatriated to Mali by the Paris gendarmes.

The first thing that always hits you on arrival is the heat. It is a palpable wall that physically assaults you. After going through customs and the baggage check (Note: if you want a business idea, start a luggage buggy export company and ship them to Africa, there are very few in the airport!) we met our drivers and headed for the hotel. It is a nice place, one of three owned by Moammar Ghadaffi in Mali. I think he looked on Mali as a sort of coup refuge/resort and as a result bought up a lot of land. On the way to the hotel we crossed the mighty Niger River, and it is mighty mighty - wider than the St Lawrence at Montreal, but not quite a Wolfe Island ferry ride across.

Bamako is like many African cities, but seems cleaner and friendlier than most. Our two Canadian colleagues who live here report that they feel very safe when travelling around the city, even at night.

We had our first lunch in Bamako at this Vietnamese restaurant. It came highly recomended by the Canadian staff and was quite good.

So after learning, and putting to good use, my first two words in the local tongue – cold beer – we settled in for the duration.

Addisabaddass heads back to Africa!

Yes folks it is true. I am heading back to Africa, though not for 6 months this time. Ii will be in Bamako, Mali for a month teaching a course. While there I will keep you posted on my adventures, though I have been admonished not to include any dead dog stories! I hope to get to Timbuktu while I am there (yes, that is a real place, not just a location Bugs Bunny should have turn left at before Albuquerque). So wish me luck as I head back for another hit of amazing adventures in West Africa.