28 July 2014

Seeking Out Running Opportunities

Sunday morning we decided to stop at a cafe for breakfast before doing a little grocery shopping. Since I can't eat gluten and I don't like eggs, breakfast is one of the hardest meals of the day for me to eat out in Africa but most of the time I can get some fruit and yogurt, and if I'm lucky, a little bacon. This restaurant was out of fruit plate, however (despite a bustling fruit market just down the block), and bacon. As I drank my surprisingly good coffee and munched on half a stale Lara bar I'd had in my purse while watching Muffin eat waffles and Mike eat pancakes, I felt discouraged. 

Then the channel on the television changed from a nature show about whale pregnancies to a marathon and waitstaff who hadn't been interested in serving us materialized to watch. I got up to watch, too. I didn't know until later that it was the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I couldn't hear most of the French commentary and there were no graphics on the screen informing me of anything other than distance and time. It didn't really matter, though. I watched and I felt happy. 

We visited the Parc National du Mali on Saturday for a short hike. There's a fitness trail with some crazy 1970s-like workout equipment, but it looks fairly new. I hopped onto a few machines and felt like I was in a Jack Lalane video, or the Ben Stiller Daniel Day Lewis treadmill sketch from Saturday Night Live. Muffin had a blast trying out all the equipment. I envision myself jumping into the car as soon as she gets on the school bus in the mornings to get to the parc early to run the trail up the mountain before the heat of the day sets in. I caught site of a track from our hike up the mountain, too. 




Mike thinks our neighborhood is fine for me to run in, I just need him to take me out a couple more times so I get the lay of the place. We have a treadmill coming in our household shipment. There's a gym at Mike's office. I can run laps around the field while the rest of the expat community plays ultimate frisbee on Sunday nights. There's a hash club here. There are ways to run. 

I didn't plan my gluten-free foods in advance of arrival in Bamako as well as I should have, so I'm hesitant to try too much running or working out quite yet. I'm making strides with grocery shopping and our housekeeper but everyday living and figuring things out in a new place is still taking up a lot of time and energy. One of the cookbooks I mailed to myself arrived last week, one that I'd already jotted down French translations for our housekeeper in Burundi, so I was able to ask our Malian housekeeper for the right ingredients without consulting the dictionary again. I hope some of my gluten-free mixes arrive this week so I can have crepes and make quick breads. I stocked up on local peanuts, popcorn, and honey to try making some kind of peanut-popcorn snack this week. The local yogurt is good and our housekeeper has a fresh, pasteurized milk source. Yesterday I found a good avocado at the fruit stand, which I overpaid for, but my housekeeper says it hasn't been good weather for them this year, so everyone is overpaying for the good ones. We are eating mangos like they're going out of style, because they might be soon. The rainy season has been unusual and we are eating produce while it's available.

Today is a "surprise" holiday -- you never know until the last minute which day will be the holiday for Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Mike has the day off so we are contemplating getting outside for a bit, exploring a new place. I have enough bottled water and peanut packs for a day hike.

25 July 2014

The Dull Roar of a Million Peep Toads

Is what I’m listening to right now. We had a night of heavy rain and around five o’clock this morning when I got up to use the bathroom I could hear them as I passed by the window. By the time I got up later for breakfast, they were so loud we could hear them in the living room above the sound of the air conditioner. If there weren’t so many mosquitoes right now we’d be outside poking around mud puddles looking for toads and tadpoles.

But we have to be extra careful of mosquitoes right now. Africa has thrown a few challenges at us in our first week here.

First thing Monday morning Muffin and I took our anti-malaria pills. We call it Malaria Monday and take the pills with breakfast. Later that day I found out that the pills the travel clinic in Rhode Island gave us are no good here. The local malaria strain is resistant to chloroquine so we have to get on mefloquine ASAP. Unfortunately we can’t overlap the two, so we have to wait a couple more days before we can start the mefloquine, which means we are on high alert for avoiding mosquito bites. We have Deet and bed nets so we’re doing the best we can. As tempting as it is to go outside in the relative coolness after the rain, I think we need to stay away from the bugs.

I was hit with some kind of stomach thing on Tuesday. On Wednesday I felt bad enough to see the nurse at Mike’s office. I wasn’t quite sick enough for her to think I had an infection and she didn’t think I’d been here long enough for a parasite to gestate so the best she could do was treat me for dehydration, which was definitely one of my symptoms and certainly something that could lead to the other symptoms I was suffering from. For twenty-four hours I drank a horrible-tasting rehydration solution, but it seems to have done the trick. I’m not 100%, but I feel much better today than I have any other day this week. The five pounds I gained during my winter hibernation have vanished.

I’ve had some ups and downs with the housekeeper. Mostly, she’s very good and is trying hard to be helpful, but due to the language barrier and my not feeling well it’s been difficult to give her accurate instructions. I did some successful grocery shopping yesterday and tutored her in soaking dried beans and making a vegetable soup that I found appetizing, so the good meal has improved my spirits as much as anything could. To be fair, she probably knew how to make this soup already, but my French wasn’t good enough to instruct her in what I wanted, so I needed to show her exactly which vegetables, herbs, and spices to put in. I did not find the Chinese market yesterday, which is rumored to have tofu, but I think I pinpointed the neighborhood it’s in so I should be able to find it next time.

I don’t know how much coverage the airline crash in Mali is receiving in the rest of the world (because due to all the rain, the satellite isn’t working so we have no generic international or American news, only what I choose to read online). I’m glad we flew last week, though, instead of this week. The flight between Paris and Bamako was turbulent enough without landing during the thunderstorms we’re having now.

I’ll end with a few photos from the week. You can follow my photos on Instagram: http://instagram.com/stephaniesdiamond

The fire finches like to hang out in our windows.

Storm clouds on Thursday afternoon.

The view from our balcony.
There's no filter on this; it really does look like the 1970s here.

Feeding our eight parrots.

20 July 2014

Dateline Bamako

Muffin and I have arrived in Bamako, Mali, finally reuniting with Mike. He’s been here since April. He came home for a couple weeks in June, then returned, while we stayed back to do the pack-out and enjoy a little bit of Rhode Island summer vacation. We left Rhode Island last Thursday and about twenty-four hours later we landed in Bamako, tired and a little crabby but thrilled to be together as a family again.

Muffin is still adjusting, but she’s doing well. This time of year the time difference with the East Coast is only four hours and we’ve been able to manage our time well so far. I expect both of us to crash and burn any day now, though, as the excitement of travel wears off and the reality if living here sinks in, probably shortly after Mike leaves for work tomorrow and I’m faced with a full day on my own with Muffin. I feel pretty comfortable there, though, more so than I did in India. And after living in Burundi, Mali isn’t nearly as shocking. My French comprehension kicked in as soon as we got off the plane in Paris and I’ve understood just about everything that’s been said to me. I’ve even made a handful of successful transactions in stores and restaurants. We’ve walked around the neighborhood and I can find the homes of some other Americans with children about Muffin’s age, plus a snack shop and a pharmacy.

This is Africa, where the tonic water glows blue in the light of the bug zapper and the best meal at most restaurants is a brouchette with fries and a Fanta. I feel at home.