The saying, “hotter than hell” was coined in Gao, in case you weren’t aware. Its day four here of waiting to be installed and we’ve all established a routine. Wake up at 6-6:30 ish, when the sun rises just high enough and the bright light and white heat start to hit where we’re sleeping. We all sleep outside at night on the roof under the stars because its too hot inside the house, --ironically enough this is where we will spend most of the day seeking refuge from the heat. After I’ve tried to fall back asleep a couple times, all vain attempts because the heat is so permeating already, we head into town to the market to do our shopping for the items we’ll need for the next two years. By 10 am its gotten so hot that the sweat starts dripping down my face and I can see it pooling on the faces of the other volunteers shopping with me—disgusting, I know, but I don’t know how else to convey this massive all encompassing behemoth that controls our lives. We come back to the house and then wait around, reading, finishing season 1 of Buffy the vampire slayer or passed out on the floor or mat until it finally cools down a little in the afternoon. Then, we venture out again to barter and do more shopping. I’ve bartered in Tammasheq and have talked people down a couple times. We all have this immense source of pride when we think we’ve gotten a good price, when in reality there’s definitely a foreign and a native price- I’m happy to pay it as long as I feel that I’m not being 100 percent ripped off. So far I’ve bought a big bucket for doing dishes and laundry in, a big cooking pot, frying pan and a charcoal stove, sort of like a miniature weber grill, except you can put pots and pans on it. I’ve also bought bowls, cups, forks, spoons and a big cutting knife in the cooking department as well as a mirror and two beautiful fabrics in the “don’t let yourself go” department.

There was some extra furniture lying around the Gao stage house, which is where all the volunteers in this region stay at when they come to town for banking and mail, so the volunteers who’ve been here a year decided to have a competition to give them away. I happened to win the big ticket item, a large red table about four and a half feet tall, in an intense rock paper scissors tournament… I know, I know I make you all so proud. Im going to get some stools made in Gossi to go with it so I’ll actually have a work/cooking/dining/writing letters table in my house and wont have to do everything from the floor.

So far in Gao other than shopping, we've met the deputy governor and the police chief as well as the immigration people when there was a little cofusion about whether we were all set with our paperwork. The driver for the police cheif is this really fun dude who likes to wear a cowboy hat and randomly shows up around town to chat with us. We've also made friends with some of the market people and the fabric sellers. Its nice to have people who recognize you and smile rather than staring at you or shouting at you. Alot of the people here are so incredible too, most of them speaking at least 2 or 3 languages and sometimes 4, 5 or 6. Walking down the street ive had more whoa i'm in africa moments, with everyone in turbans or flowing ekarshes (the traditional dress of the tammasheq women) and this amazing multicultural, multiethnic mix all living together, tammasheq, songhai, bambara, arab...

I’m really excited to get to Gossi and start using my tammasheq more and really getting to know the town and its people. I have a lot of research and interviewing to do, although I’m pretty sure the first few weeks I’m there I’ll have no idea what anyone is saying to me. I’m fortunate to have my French to fall back on but I’m going to try to resist. I plan on conducting a biodiversity survey in the first three months, along with doing my NatCat, which is the Peace Corps Natural Resources Management sector’s assessment tool that helps the volunteer to figure out what has been done, what needs to be done and what can be done over the next two years in terms of projects. Bess Jared and I feel very fortunate in that there are three of us in one town with the potential to be a peace corps dream team and accomplish so much in so many different areas. We’re already thinking about starting a public trash cans program and maybe teaching basketball along with the eco-tourism and organizational development stuff I’ll also be doing.

For a good laugh I have to fill you in on the trip up here--You all will probably become used to these stories but each time I think I’ve seen (or heard) everything, it turns out I’m wrong. We left the training center at about 6:30 am and as the bus pulls away with all the volunteers headed north of Segou, the driver of our chartered bus puts a tape in and out comes, blasting from the old bus sound system, the most fitting soundtrack for our departure- Tracey Chapman. It was one of the best laughs I’ve had so far in Africa. I was almost crying . And then after we’ve listened to side a and b and then the first two songs of side a again, the bus driver decided to switch it up and what luck—it was Phil Collins. We were only ten minutes into this album, I believe it was song two, “another day in paradise”, when the horn blaring from our driver went on a little bit longer than usual and we had to slam on the brakes and veer off the road to avoid another vehicle and a moto carrying bags of onions. No one was hurt although we were a little shooken up but we did have to switch buses and in the process, lost our driver and his great taste in music, who had to stay behind with his bus and the gendarmes who had showed up to assess the situation. This essentially consisted of them taking out a measuring tape and measuring everything—from the bus to the car, from the onions to the bus, from the front of the bus to the back of the bus and from their head to their toes. It reminded me of those activities in elementary school when we were all learning the metric system and had to go around measuring everything in the school yard and classroom. To their credit they arrived pretty swiftly and all the Malians handled themselves with much more composure than any Americans I’ve seen in the same situation. They realize yelling at each other won’t accomplish anything—that and its just too hot. The rest of the trip was a breeze in comparison but I’m taking public transport to Gossi tomorrow so I’m sure in two weeks I’ll have something more to share. Until then….