Bonus Post!

I'm still in Kayes... been here for almost a week now! My friend Jeremy and I waited 7 hours at the bus station last Thursday for a bus back to Kenieba, and never left. Jeremy wrote about the not-fun experience on his blog.

We made the best of our extra days in Kayes. We went to a reggae concert on Saturday night and watched Mali play Angola in the opening match of the Africa Cup soccer tournament last night. Mali staged an incredible comeback, down 4-0 with less than 15 minutes left, to tie Angola 4-4 by the end of the game. When Mali scored the fourth goal in the last minute of the game, all of Kayes (and I'm sure all of Mali!) erupted in loud cheers. Everyone was shocked by the huge comeback, and Malians were celebrating in the streets for hours after the game ended. One guy was doing cartwheels and flips! There's a good article from BBC News about the atmosphere in Angola on the night of the opening match.

Hopefully you won't be hearing from me again for a while, and I actually get back to Kenieba tonight!

Site Visit, Part 1 - Kayes

I'm blogging from the Peace Corps house in Kayes, the regional capital in western Mali. Kayes was the French colonial capital in the late 19th Century, and it remains an important commercial center. It is on the main route from Bamako to Dakar, the capitals of Mali and Senegal. The bridge is out across the Senegal River, so there are trucks on both sides of the main road for miles waiting for a ferry to cross the river. Kayes is also the halfway point from Bamako to Kenieba, as it takes a full day to travel from Bamako to Kayes and from Kayes to Kenieba. So Kayes will be my closest major city, and the Peace Corps house will be a place to come to meet other volunteers from the region and take a break from work.

The road from Bamako to Kayes is in great shape, paved and pothole-free almost the entire way. Eight of us made the trip here in a Peace Corps car last Sunday... it was a little cramped but the smooth road made for a comfortable trip. After driving ten hours to get to Kayes, we had to wait another two hours for a ferry to take us across the river. A Peace Corps volunteer, Andrew, welcomed us to the Peace Corps house. He cooked up a great Mexican meal, complete with steak, veggies, rice, beans, and soft tacos. The perfect ending to a long travel day!

The Peace Corps house in Kayes is really nice... it has a full kitchen, a few bedrooms, a TV and DVD player with a ton of movies, a library, and a computer with high-speed internet. The bathrooms have flush toilets and showers! It will be nice to come up here every few months for a mini-vacation.

We are back in Kayes now after four days in Kenieba. We will be venturing out soon to explore the city and get our bus tickets for the trip back to Bamako tomorrow morning. More on Kenieba in the next blog post!