Headed Home

We have made it to Bamako.  We stopped in Segou (2nd largest city in Mali, Bamako is largest) on our way and went to the market.  Their market is not nearly as crowded as the market in Koutiala.  There have been some rumors of terrorism in Segou, which drastically cut down their tourism.  Even though there were some really neat items for sale, I didn't like the market because they were very pushy. Groups of people would follow you around begging you to buy from them.  Steve saw them all huddle up when we arrived, so I think they were coming up with their game plan.  It seemed many of the "store owners" were related.  Anco spent a large amount of time negotiating with someone on some chairs that Jon, Jason and Adam wanted.  They were going between two shops and the Malian (shown in pics with white hat on) told him one store had better quality over another store.  Later, he said the guys could pick chairs from both stores because the owners were related.  Anco called him out on this discrepancy, and they laughed about it.  The Malian (who could speak English) also asked us at one point if we were from the U.S. or U.K. and Jon's response was "I'm from mother," which made the Malian laugh.  I'm not sure if he would have given a better deal depending on where we were from (we never told him). Many of the store owners could speak English, but would pretend they couldn't.  By doing this, they could listen to our conversations about the price we would pay without us knowing that they were listening and understanding.  It didn't take long for us to catch on.  The Malian with the white cap was talking to Andy in English, but when several of us approached, he switched to French (at which time Andy clued us in on the fact that he knew English). We did buy a lot from the market, so I think they had a good market day.

We took a patient from the Women and Children's Hospital with us when we left Koutiala and dropped them off (2 kids and their mother -- one of the kids was the patient) at their village on our way to Segou.  Doug said it would take 1 hr 15 minutes to get to the village, and Jason told him that Anco said it would take 45 minutes.  Doug laughed and said "Maybe for Anco."  Sure enough -- we arrived at their village in 44 minutes!  It was a pretty uneventful trip though.  Jon and Anco did briefly sing some Veggie Tales, and Anco scared us a few times when he was passing people.  There were many close calls, and we decided Anco was getting too much pleasure in scaring us.  A few times after a very close call, Ewien would look over at Anco, and he would have the largest grin on his face.

We will eat dinner at the guest house in Bamako and then head for the airport in about 2 hours.  Pray for an uneventful trip home for us!  The people who work in the African airports are very pushy about taking your stuff and then wanting money to give it back.  I hope we are able to avoid that annoyance as much as possible.  I'll be happy when we are sitting on the plane headed for JFK.

Below are several pictures from the Segou market.  Thanks to Anco and Ewien for negotiating for us.  I know it's not a fun thing to do, especially for 10 people!

Jon and his rhino purchase!  Unfortunately, the rhino lost a few horns on the way home.  I hope Jon can fix it!

Adam and his 2 chairs

These boys kept asking me to take their picture

Anco did a lot of negotiating for Jon, Jason and Adam to get the chairs they wanted at the price they wanted

We saw this truck on our road to Bamako --- oopsy!

Steve gave Moussa (on right) and Batuma (not sure on spelling) tips from all of us for their hard work on cleaning and preparing food for us.  Moussa is regularly assigned to Anco and Ewien and Batuma is regularly assigned to the guest house.  Anco and Doug are also shown in the picture.  Anco said the tip is a nice gesture.  Anco helped Moussa buy a house, and Moussa has been working very hard at paying back Anco.