After two nights of not sleeping--the first night, the election, and the second night, a 20 hour bus ride back to Bamako, I'll give you a photo update of the past few weeks:

Several weeks ago, a bunch of us went hiking in the Western Kayes region of Mali. Here's the view from the top.

About a week later, I finally met with a friend of mine in the closest city and bought some Bogolan fabric. Bogolan is a traditional West African mud cloth: cotton fabric is painted on with mud, then goes through a washing process to produce the image on the left.

Most makers on the street have cheap knock offs, but my friend still makes authentic Bogolan that has a reputation for authenticity and quality at US University Anthropology Departments.  My friend proudly busted out his portfolio and showed me some shows and lectures he gave in the US.

This is my first tapestry I bought with the design in the center being the Bambara symbol for Alligator. He's currently working on a second tapistry for me with the symbol for lion--noteworthy for me since my Malian last name means 'lion'.

This past week, a group of us hiked up the Rose Dune, just off the Niger River in the eastern-most part of Mali.

Note how the southwest of Mali (first photo above) differs fairly significantly from the eastern-part of Mali, just off the Saharan desert. No more are the vast fields of millet like in the south, but cow-herders and camels gradually become the norm. In the markets I had to hunt for Bambara or French speakers, since the default languages are Sonrai and Tamasheck.

The northern folk found in Gao are strictly herders and/or nomads. The landscape and people change gradually, with some mix of desert/livestock raising and savannah/farming, until you arrive at the southern area of Mali with strictly farmers.

This, of course, is changing. Global warming has caused the rains to come nearly two months later, and dried up watering holes on which the nomads rely. As the Sahara creeps further south, groups will be forced to give up the nomadic life and become farmers. Even my village, smack in the central band of Mali, is beginning to undergo tree-loss due to desertification.

The next night, we watched the election results come in on CNN international--shockingly, in Peace Corps, there are many political junkies like myself.  It felt like we were waiting up for Santa as we napped and anxiously sat around for exit polls and returns to start coming. At 4:02am Obama was declared the winner (Ohio and Virginia just went blue). McCain gave his speech at around 5:30 am, Obama followed around 6 am.

If there is something you want me to talk about or some burning question, don't be shy! Learning about and sharing Malian culture with Americans is part of my job!

Hope everyone is well.