Piles of little dead bodies...day in the life

When I woke up today, there were piles of little dead bodies in my bathroom.

Hundreds of little dead ant bodies. Last night, I got attacked by literally hundreds of ants. Sitting on my mini toilet, I kept feeling little things crawling all over my feet, legs and butt. I was shaking my legs out and slapping them off of me while I was in the bathroom. Then, I started hosing them with perfume to hopefully poison them.

When I got up from the mini toilet, I looked down and saw a black mass movement from the deep cracks surrounding my mini toilet to the toilet bowl. It was a vibrating mass of black, tiny little ants building a fortress on my mini toilet.

Then I looked down, and realized the ants were everywhere in my bathroom. There was a thick, black belt of them next to my bathroom door, at least hundreds of them.

And today, as I hand-washed my clothes, my wooden stick chair was teetering. And sawdust-looking piles were everywhere my chair had been in my house. Looks like I have a case of the ants AND termite infestation.

Little freaks.

Tomorrow, I am going to meet the mayor of my town. Yesterday, I went to a big party at an NGO, called SOS Village Enfants, for four hours (think of sitting in a concrete block building, sweating like you're in a sauna, while watching little kids dance for four hours = that was my day). The NGO is a French NGO that provides housing and schooling for children whose parents can't afford to send them to school.

The party was for its graduation or something. The president of my service, Sabou, and two other members of my service, were honorary guests who presented the awards to the kids.

True to Malian form, they had me sit in the very front row of the party and someone from my service introduced me to the hundreds of Malians there.

People kept coming up to me after the party and saying "I Coulibaly," which is a way to acknowledge someone's last name respectfully.

Most of the parties like this are all the same. This one involved all the "important" people sitting in special chairs in the very front, facing the crowd. The mayor, school directors, dugutigi (but Kita doesn't have a dugutigi) and employees at the mayor's office usually sit up there. Also true to Malian form, only two women out of about 20 men were in these "important" seats.

(Mali, we really need to work on getting women in positions of power in your country - but I digress. Dooni Dooni)

The school kids do skits where they act out Malian scenarios, sing and dance.

One song they sung was about being poor, one was acting out women cooking and men hanging out. One looked like a Malian dance team with pom poms (all girls).

After a set of skits, the kids received prizes. I think it was for the best students in the class. They got mosquito nets, notebooks, pens, yogurt, pop, etc.

It also started with about 20 minutes of thank-yous and introductions, again, true to Malian form. Things here never start on time and when they do, expect up to an hour of introductions first.

There were hundreds of Malians there, so it was a good thing to spend my time on, getting all that Malian attention. I was the only white person there, so it's not like I could hide out.

Today, I cleaned every inch of my house, did laundry for a few hours and went on a bike ride around my village. I'm also still listening to "Who's that Chick" by Rhianna and some guy on repeat. It's already in the Top 25 on my Ipod.

I also cooked garlic mashed potatoes while jamming out to some Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Beyonce, Rhianna, The Cure and Mariah Carey. One of the other Kita Kaw (people whose region is also Kita) made some sugar cookies with makeshift chocolate frosting and it was soooo delicious.

But, in reality, I'm struggling here. It's going. I am "dooni" as Malians say. It will be fine in a few days, it's just a struggle to get up and get motivated on a minute-to-minute basis.

That sounds horrible, but things aren't horrible. It's just hard to stay motivated. I've been in this place before, and I always get right back up and in the game...I just need to get used to the idea that this is it.

Tomorrow is the mayor's office, some other dude, the rest of my furniture comes and I'm hitting up my other service - the girls' sewing school - to spend time with them.

Cheers, love and mohawks,

Check out the side of the new mohawk - not spiked, but you get the drift. 

LV