I apologize in advance for not writing a ton about the last few weeks, but they were awesome. I went to the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST) in Dakar, Senegal. Peace Corps Mali rolled up with about 25 volunteers. About 300 other volunteers from The Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania showed up, as well as other international organizations and schools. We didn't win a single game, but that is no matter. We all had a ton of fun, got some good plays in, and got to hang out with hundreds of other Americans all in it for the same reasons.

I'm up at bat in our second game on the first day... we actually did come close to winning this one.

Dan is bear-hugging Pete after making a great catch for the third out of the inning.

After the tournament, I headed south to a town called Popenguinne (still in Senegal) and spent three days/two nights in a rented beach house with about 20 other PC Mali volunteers. It felt great to go swimming and spend time on the beach. I also went for a hike into a national park on the shore with a another volunteer named Adelle... actually we started out three strong, but one girl bailed when we had to check in with the "headmaster" of the park. She thought we were going to get into trouble, but the guy just wanted to know who was in his park. He then informed us that there is a PC volunteer that works at the park, but was away for a fruit drying formation. So, this guy gets a national park on the beach with all the fresh seafood he can ask for while I am stuck in Mali sweating among the toh-eaters.

Here is the view of the beach from atop the national park cliffs.

Speaking of seafood, I woke up early one morning and headed to the beach. As I was wandering around, these guys came to shore and started selling their morning catch. I bought a few dollars worth of fish to bring back up to my friends. Then, this guy comes up to me with a squid and says it's only a dollar. I bought it, figuring if we couldn't determine how to cook it, we could always just give it away. Anyway, Lindsay, who went to school in Indiana, somehow learned to dissect and cook squid in her high school biology class. She sauteed it in garlic/onion butter... it was wicked good.

Here's my dollar squid

While in Popenguinne, I decided to travel further south to The Gambia. When I went to the internet cafe to inform the Peace Corps of my changing travel plans, I received an e-mail from the State Department. The e-mail contained my Qualifications Panel results letter, and I passed! So, I need to be in America by June (most likely) for the interview, which is the last step in the hiring process.

With that incredible news, I headed to The Gambia on a high note and had a great time. I traveled with 4 other Mali PCVs and we ended up being a really cohesive travel group. Our mantra was, "We're just feathers... we're going wherever." In The Gambia, we stayed at the Transit house in Banjul (the capital) for a few nights. My friend from PC Mali, Ted, who now works in PC Gambia met us there and we hada open pit BBQ chicken night. We cooked up with chicken while some other people cooked up veggies and pasta inside.

Ted flipping the chicken

I'm making sure the chicken is cooked through.

The chicken is almost done and we're enjoying Julbrew... the local beer, which is also the best beer in all of West Africa... it tastes almost like Heineken.

After Banjul, we went to Paradise/Coconut Island for two nights and spent some more quality time on the beach. After being among tons of people for 2 weeks, it was nice to get away and have the beach to ourselves. After the island, we headed back to Mali. We high-tailed it for 2 days of intense travel and arrived in Bamako looking pretty haggard after sleeping on the side of the road, not showering, and eating very little along the way. All in all, completely worth it. This was probably the best vacation I have ever been on and wonder if I'll ever top it. But, I'm heading out of Bamako now and going north. Hopefully I will be back in village by Thursday morning. Then on to more rock climbing adventures, maybe a trip to Ghana in May and hopefully America in June.

Hombori pics

Karate on the top of the finger

A little standing action

Watching Jared lead climb the second pitch

We climbed to the top of the fat finger on the right. There is one more finger out of frame. Hombori is seriously awesome.

Travel with the Family and Toubab Weddings in Mali

The last month has been an adventure. My parents and sister showed up for a visit that lasted a little over two weeks. I did my best to keep them comfortable and safe, but this is Mali. They all ended up sick and my mom even sprained her ankle the night before our scheduled hike through Dogon country. All in all, it was awesome having them here. From now on I will be able to share my life and experiences from Mali with full understanding from my family. As much as I have changed and grown here, they will now have a better grasp of how and why it has occurred.

When they first arrived, we took a early morning bus from Bamako to Sevare. The ride was a little over ten hours, which I thought was great timing. Apparently it wasn’t so good for the family. They swore off public transport for the rest of the trip after that ride. We stayed in Sevare for a night and awoke early the next morning to drive to my village. We spent some a few days in village which was marked by drumming, gun firing, dancing, singing, animal slaughtering, many miscommunications and lots of laughing! When we arrived, the entire village came out to the main road to greet us with their drums, guns and finest clothes. My mom brought lots of gifts for the kids, but she now fully understands why you don’t bring gifts to Africa. The kids rioted, broke everything, hit each other violently and cried relentlessly. They would rather have a broken gift in their own hands than see an intact gift in a friend’s hand.

After village, we hired a 4X4 and drove from Douentza down to Sangha on sand track road that was similar to Sandy Neck. The difference was that we were surrounded by rock spires, Fulani herders and staggering cliffs as opposed to sand dunes, piping plovers and the ocean. In Sangha, we met up with about 30 other Peace Corps Volunteers for a hike. Hilary became deathly ill, my mom sprained her ankle and my dad decided the hike wasn't really for him. The three of them hired a car to drive back to Sevare and recuperate while I hiked on with the group. They pampered themselves in Sevare at the Ambadjali hotel while I camped on rooftops and climbed over mountains for three days. It was some of the most fun I had had in a long time, but I only wish I could have shared it with the family. Mom never would have made it around those ledges, up the Dogon ladders and over the mountains on her ankle. In the end, it worked out. I had my adventure and they all relaxed and got healthy. I arrived back in Sevare and found them happy, safe and healthy (well, almost!) at the hotel.

We spent the next few days back up in Douentza for New Years with more PCVs and had a blast. New Years was spent among good folks in a great place with drinks and dancing had by all at the Tango Tango and later at a high school dance (of all places). We had our own Malian dance circle, yet completely lacked Malians. I think they may have been blown away, and maybe a little intimidated, by our white-guy dance skills.

The trip ended in Bamako and I ate pizza (which is huge news in the world of Dave). We took a guy from my village, Amadou Kassambara, another PCV (Jenny) and a Fulbright Scholar (Laura) out to lunch with us and it was an extremely interesting experience. I usually eat with Amadou’s family in village, so I figured it would be fun to see how he would react to eating with my American family. We went out to a relatively nice restaurant with American-type food. At first, he refused to come into the restaurant until I dragged him in. Sitting at the table, he would not look at the menu because the prices were well above his income level. I had to explained to him that as an American Peace Corps volunteer, I had the unique opportunity to live with his family, eat what they eat, share in their culture, become Malian, etc. I explained to him that it was now his turn to become a Malian PCV and experience the life and culture of an American family. I told him not to worry about the prices, as this is how we eat when there is a large gathering of family and friends. I explained that the day was a special occasion because it was the last meal my parents would have with me for almost a year. This eased his tensions a bit and helped him to understand the meal. He reluctantly let me order his meal. The restaurant was out of rice and sauce, cous-cous, fried rice…basically anything that would be remotely familiar to him. I landed on Chinese rice. He gets this dish in front of him and it’s a huge pile of rice, veggies and meat. To top it all off, it’s got a giant omelette laid over the top. Amadou is sitting there, poking at it, examining it, wondering what move to take next. Taking his fork, what my homologue (his uncle) calls an “American hand,” he poked, prodded and finally began to eat slowly. I gave Amadou some pizza, which was an entirely new concept to him, and I think he almost like it. He said, “Oo ana welli seeda tan.” (It’s only a little good). We finished the meal off with ice cream, another first for Amadou. I can’t imagine being 21 years old and having ice cream for the first time. His only comment was that it hurt his teeth, but I do think he liked it despite the tooth pain. I was sympathetic to Amadou because he felt out of place eating with us, did not understand our culture and didn’t know how to react to everything. But, as I have been doing this in his culture for 18 months, I will admit to taking a slight bit of pleasure from his discomfort. I did my best to keep him engaged in conversation and to explain everything to him, but now I know we share a similar bond in transcending cultures.

Anyway, the fam made it back home and life is back to what I can almost call normal here. Two of my friends, Kevin and Rachel, were married in Hombori last Thursday. We all arrived in Hombori for three days of rock climbing and marriage ceremonies. It definitely was an experience to remember. The ceremony was beautifully crafted, well organized and in the most amazing setting I can imagine. The Hand of Fatima laid out the background for the wedding, as well as for the rock climbing afterwards!

I went up climbing with Jared, Chris and Eryn the day after the wedding and was finally able to summit one of the fingers. We began after lunch, hiked up and around the base of the short/wide middle finger, scrambled up some large rocks and set the first pitch. Jared lead climbed and set down three ropes for us. He belayed me up first, followed by Chris and Eryn at the same time. I scrambled up to a higher ledge and set my rope in the anchor. Jared lead climbed again and made it to the top of the second pitch. It was a good sport climb up a well defined crack that he set with cams. I followed Jared up and had to unset the cams from their cracks. The wind began to pick up, which was a little unsettling considering I was hundreds of meters off the ground. The second pitch was long and took me to a good point where I was able to scramble the rest of the way to the top. I found the highest point, climbed on top of it and let out a huge whoop, as I had finally conquered one of the fingers.

The descent was ridiculously scary, I will give you that. Jared set up a rappel from a ledge on a different side of the finger. At this point, the sun was just about down and the wind, the harmattan wind, was blowing at full force between two fingers. I kept envisioning myself being blown from the face of the rock to the ground below. Finally, I strapped myself into an anchor with a sling and my heartbeat slowed considerably. Easing along the ledge, I got my belay device hooked into the rope and began my descent. I went down a few meters to the bottom of the ledge and then swung down into open space with no rocks to rest my feet on. It was me, the rope and a few pieces of metal holding my weight as I dangled about 50 feet above the closest thing to rock. My belay device kept jamming on the way down and the rope was heavy with wind drag. As the device would jam, I would smack it to allow the rope through. With the smack, I would freefall a few feet before the device caught again. With each fall, my heart jumped to my throat. You quickly learn to trust your equipment and the people you climb with. Making it through the free space hang, I found myself descending along a steep pitch. At least there was somewhere to kick my feet to, if only for mental security! I made it to the bottom of the rope and was completely tired out. We all took off our harnesses and climbing shoes, high fived, ate cookies and got ready for the hike down. The sun was gone and it was cold. We put on our headlamps and hiked for about an hour to the base. On the way, we spotted a wild hedgehog and some rock hopping mammals that look like giant mice/rats/hogs/whatever you want them to be. The climb rock and I am so ahppy to have finally made it to the top of one of the fingers. Hopefully there will be more climbing in the near future. That was the most badass experience of my life so far.

The wedding band

The guys with Kevin

The married couple with rocks in the background as the sun sets.

All of the guests at the wedding in Hombori

The newly wed couple, Kevin and Rachel Belida, with Ted marrying them off.

Just another day of work in the Peace Corps!

Tabski Festivities

I spent the Tabaski/Eid festivities in both Douentza and Dimbatoro this year. The parties began on Monday in Douentza, where they apparently had a better glimpse of the moon than the brousse villages. Antony, another PCV, came up and we ate until we were stuffed. Our neighbors, especially Sira Cisse, were bringing over entire roasted goat legs, racks of lamb, widjula (steamed bread with an oily meat sauce, rice dishes and various snacks all day. Basically, the streets ran red with blood due to the sheer number of animals slaughtered for the fest. If you are a married man, you are supposed to kill a fattened sheep. If you are short on cash, a goat will work. Slaughtering a cow is apparently good for up to seven people (the equivalent of 7 sheep). Being unmarried and non-muslim, I was exempt from the ritual animal slaughtering. Although, I did buy a hefty goat to eat when my parents and Hilary arrive in village next Monday.

On Tuesday, Antony and I picked up our engorged stomachs and headed out to my village for another day of festivities, eat meating and tea drinking. Because my village is so small, it is really like one big family. Each house is like just another room in a large family house. If we had a pool table in the basement and a football game going on in the living room, it would be just like Grandma and Papa's house on Thanksgiving. We arrived in village and were promtly given a steaming bowl of zame, fried tomato rice with dried fish, "fresh" fish and meat. Despite the fishiness, it was slightly edible. After teh zame, we followed the men out to the fields were they pray. The Al Iman led prayers for an hour and offered his many blessings to the village for a prosperous new year, health to friends family and everyone, etc. As would be expected, the village men all showed up late, the kids fired off their mock guns during the prayers and complete disorganization ensued. The best part was watching Djougal scream at the kids for being disrespectful during the prayers... it is similar to taking unruly kids to Catholic church, but on a much grander scale. The rest of the day was spent wandering and greeting from house to house as the animals were slaughtered, drinking tea and eating grilled meats loaded with MSG powder (tastes great, but I often wonder how my blood pressure is doing).


On Wednesday, Antony and I went hiking into the mountains with Tijani and had a great view of the surrounding areas. Cold season is amazing here because we are actually afforded the opportunity to view the beautiful landscape and not sweat to death. As ususal, I scrambled to the top of the mountain as fast as I could to get a great view. Antony and Tijani lagged behind. I climbed so much faster and higher than they did that they couldn't even get my attention screaming; I gave them a good scare. But I finally caught a glimpse of them from my perch up top and quelled their fears with a big wave and poking fun at how slow they were.


Anyway, enough of my ramblings, here are some pics of the fun with explanations.

Djougal holding up a freshly peeled goat skin as I tend to the roasting meat.

This is my host family (Jah Tigi). They slaughterd three goats, one sheep and a cow.

Here, Al Hadji (His real name is Gibreel, but he made the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 2000 to obtain his title) is slaughtering a goat as two other guys help to hold it down.

Rocks and mountains behind my village

Antony is standing on one of the rocks mid-frame. You can make out his green shirt.

Here's Antony after drinking some chobal. His face shows the obvious displeasure with the sour taste. Chobal can be fermented into millet beer. As my village is Muslim, they only ferment it enough to make it sour.

These are some women and children helping to prepare food for the festivities.

Ousman, a neat little kid

Firing guns in the town square

Post-prayer walk back from the fields to the village

I am wearing a traditional Fulani hat and carrying a cow-beating stick (saure)

More gun firing directly after the prayers

And even more gun firing

Why not one more gun firing picture...

Dogons love their guns... No bullets, just as much powder as they can cram into them. You'll occasionally see guys with bits of fingers blown off. Guess why.

Al Imam, Youssef, leading the prayers with the Muezzin, Oumar, holding an umbrella for shade.

Mamadou is the guy with the umbrella. He is an awesome guy in village.

These are the guys heading out to the fields to pray in the morning. The guy directly in front of me is Moussa. His house is right next to mine and he rocks. He's got a little kid, Abadeena, with down syndrome. He's a fun little guy, but I feel so bad for him because there is no structure in place to help kids like him. The village looks after him very well.

I'm dressed like a real Fulani.

Same attire, minus the hat and stick.

My continuing Malian adventure

The last few weeks have been extremely productive in terms of getting work done and making things happen. But, this is Mali, so there are the normal, everyday obstacles to get over. In addition to the time being productive, an equally applicable word would be frustrating. We held the formation for cereal bank management over the course of three days and conveyed a lot of important information and work. The biggest obstacle in running the formation has been to get over the education barrier. The committee running the cereal bank consists of 7 village men. Three of them are literate and semi-educated, but even that can be a stretch. I have had my first lesson in non formal adult education. In the States, we tend to take lower education for granted and see it as a give in. But here, it is not always possible for kids to go to school and learn the basics of alphabetization and mathematics. The main problem lies in the fact that there is just too much work to be done when you’re stuck in a cycle of subsistence living. If the boys go to school, then there is no one to go out and herd the animals to ensure they are fed properly, watered and don't stray. There will not be enough hands in the fields, either. As for the girls, they gather fire wood, take care of the babies, prepare food and help with general upkeep of the family compound. Schooling is put on the back burner; the kids grow up without knowledge of the outside world and without a formal education. The cycle of subsistence living continues. In my village there are very few children who attend school regularly. As for the few kids that do go to school, it is not their primary concern. The children that are able to attend school are from the bigger families that have enough younger kids to work the fields, herd the animals and take care of the homes. But, if some of these younger children are sick and can’t take care of their responsibilities, the students must stay home from school and take over the work.

Amadou as the teacher

The formation was held to teach the basics and the importance of record keeping. We scheduled the formation for 2 consecutive nights and hoped they would run smoothly. We planned to start at 9pm. By this time, everyone has completed the fifth prayer moment of the day, taken their nightly bath, and eaten dinner (In’sh’Allah). That’s what I thought, at least. I show up at 8:30pm. Everyone else shows up by 10:30pm. There are the usual excuses of forgetfulness, the completion of tea making, run away animals, etc. Eventually we get going and all is well. Amadou taught the lessons in Najamba, the local dialect, and would then go over the important details in Fulfulde to allow my input. My role in the lessons has been to provide examples, make sure people understand the work and to give specialized math tutoring on the side. This has proved difficult, but it’s going. I gave the guys one problem and split them into two groups. I said, a man shows up to the cereal bank and wants to buy six 100kg sacks of millet. The cost per sack is 12,500 CFA. How much is the total? After nearly an hour of deliberation, the two groups had somehow meshed into one and had come up with a grand total of 10,750 CFA. How they got that total cost, which is less than the cost of one sack, I am still not sure. I do have my work cut out for me.

The cereal bank assosiation learning at night

Doing the math

As per usual, this week has been filled with mishaps, hilarious misunderstandings and the usual debauchery that plays into the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. On Saturday, Terriya (the old woman that cooks the food for the family I eat with), said she was going to market the following morning. Taking advantage of this situation and seeing an opportunity to increase the quality of the meals we would eat, I gave Terriya some money and told her to buy rice, beans, oil, vegetables, spices, etc… whatever she wanted, just get it. Sunday night, she comes back and cooks dinner. It’s the usual millet-based toh, so I am disappointed and wonder where the money went to. I decide to wait it out. Maybe she just didn’t get back early enough to incorporate the new ingredients into the meal. The next morning, I show up at the house and sit down on the mats with Adura, Unissa, Abadou, and Ousman for breakfast. Terriya brings the bowl over, places it n the middle of our circle and walks off. My hopes are high, but I don’t want to be set up for disappointment. After all, breakfast is usually re-heated toh from the previous night. Ousman says “Allah bisimillah” with his usual guttural flourish and lifts the straw lid off the bowl to reveal not toh, but a big bowl of beans. Yea, I was definitely excited. As Ousman is the oldest member of the family present, we wait until he takes his first handful of food and then dig in. I’m in heaven. These are beans with spices and oil. Handful after handful is stuffed down my throat and I can’t be happier. I’m dancing in my head, singing praise to the sheer awesomeness of beans and proclaiming their superiority over toh. Then, as with everything in Mali, it was ruined. This little kid waddles over with tears streaming down her face and squats down next to me. Within seconds, it is apparent that she means business. She lets out a huge groan and the poop shoots out her backside with the force of the Harmattan winds. The proximity of the child to me is mere inches. What do you do in this situation? You can’t just ignore the poop and continue eating. The excitement of beans is forever gone and my breakfast was ruined.

Much of my time in village is spent attempting to dispel myths black and white people. For instance, the villagers are convinced that white people are inherently smarter and have far more God given intelligence than black people. They tell me that black people don’t know what computers are, that they can’t build airplanes, that they don’t know how to make money. This is all white people work, and it is the job of the white person to pass these works onto the black person. They proclaim that the evidence is all around them. The white NGO workers come to Mali in big fancy cars, throw money at the villages, build schools and wells, increase the rain “footprint” through cloud seeding, etc. The villagers see themselves as the child recipients of this giving and have resigned themselves to second rate due to their physical characteristics. According to Amadou, the most educated man in village, the physical characteristics of a person are the best way to measure intelligence. And what are these physical characteristics? Pale skin (but not albinos… they are a “mistake from Allah”), straight hair and, the biggest teller of them all, fat on your forehead. He tells me that this is why Malians attempt to bleach their skin and straighten their hair. If not to make them smarter, than at least to make them appear smarter. As for the fat on the forehead, that one is beyond me. Eat more, I guess. I ask where this information about pale skin, straight hair, and fat foreheads come from. Amadou assures me that it is fact, straight from the Koran, the Bible and from legitimate media sources. I tell him that is bogus, makes no sense, and give examples of ridiculously stupid things white people do and the major achievements of blacks throughout history. He tosses my notions aside as flukes and tells me there is nothing I can say that will change his mind. Going along with his reasoning, I tell him we will just have to disagree and he will never change my mind. End of story. Hopefully I can convince him that we, as people, all have an equal intelligence capacity. Until that day, he will be stuck in his mode of thinking and be convincing the other villagers of his correctness. If you have a fat forehead, pale skin and straight hair, you can rest assured that you will be considered a natural genius in Dimbatoro.

Here are some unrelated pics just for fun.... Like, a kid playing with a tire in downtown Mougui...

I got hold of a ram at one point.

This is my road to site. I took this picture after about a month of rains; you can see the millet starting to come up and the grass taking over the cement-pack dirt.

This is another view of the road to my site. Three kids are walking back with firewood on their heads.

Millet

Abadou and Mira

I've been spending my days out in the fields harvesting the millet with my homologue, Ousman, and his family. We cut the millet one by one with a knife tied to the wrist. Some people put leather or cloth over their hands to protect against cuts and blisters. I opted for a bandana this day. Your hand gets cut up quickly because you use the knife and your thumb in a scissor motion. Once the millet panicle is cut, you place it in your leather cut satchel over your shoulder and cut the next one. The work is tough, but it is nice to have something to do all day.

Ousman preparing his donkey for a day of field work. He was unhappy that I took a pic of him working, but I said it was better this way.

Abadou holding a sorghum stock. These are filled with a sweet, sugar like center. You chew it and spit it out like sugar cane.

Back to work in Mali

I've been back in Mali for a while now since my trip to Europe/Morocco. Life is definitely status quo here and I am waiting (nearly patiently) for cold season to begin in a few months... late November or early December. Rainy season is coming to a close, but I was told this year has been a season "especial" because there have been more consistent rains than in recent memory. The millet is green, tall and healthy... Allah is smiling down up on the people of Mali.

Getting back to my village at the beginning of Ramadan was a bit of a trip. For the most part the villagers thought I had disappeared and wasn't coming back. Sometimes I am surprised that I came back, but I actually do enjoy what I am doing here and my friends from village and Peace Corps are awesome. It is strange to think how a year from now I will be leaving and will, most likely, never see any of these people again. Not seeing my Malian friends is pretty much a given, but it will also be difficult to keep up with PCV friends as we'll probably spread out around the world when we're done here. But that's not a subject to dwell on at this moment.

Work related, projects are going at the typical Malian snail pace. Regardless of the speed, I am really just happy that the projects are actually running as planned. As anticipated, the cereal bank project is definitely turning out to be long term. The building is nearly complete. We had to halt work in order to make way for the rainy season. You can't very well build a mud and stone house when it is raining and storming on a sort of regular basis. The roof has gaping holes that we will plug with dung, mud and sticks and we must now clear the mud from the floor and lay the cement down. Once this is completed, we'll build the pallets and buy the grains after the harvest season (late November). What's exciting is that we have chosen the members of the association that will be charged with running the cereal bank. Now that Ramadan is over and the harvest season has yet to begin, my tutor and I will begin the education phase on proper cereal bank management over the next couple weeks. It will take no more than a few days, but we need to finish up the prep work, ensure that everyone can attend, purchase educational materials and make sure that the association "gets it." It'll be a challenge to teach in Fulfulde, but I am ready for it and am excited to have something big to do.

As for the drought resistant millet project, it has pretty much tanked. The seeds came late, we did not nearly receive as much as we needed and we ended up planting late due to odd rains early in the season. The millet is growing, but there does not seem to be much of a difference between the Niger millet varieties and the local varieties. The local variety is actually better. What is neat is that the villagers are pumping themselves up with the pride of their own millet actually growing better. So, you can see that from this little experiment, the result has not been more, better millet, but local empowerment. A curveball, but a good one at that.

My rabbits haven't had any litters yet, but I am waiting. I really just want to eat them, but I have put in this much effort already. I will continue to play this one out. They aren't a cost burden, it has just added extra work for my homologue with no results after 5 months. We'll give it a few more.

Next on the project agenda is gardening. I bought about $30 worth of seeds (carrot, lettuce, onions and peppers) today and will work with a few guys in village to plant early. We want to get the gardening going early this year in order to beat the market glut that inevitably occurs during the cold season. Hopefully we can produce some veggies a few weeks early and capitalize on the market demand.

Unrelated to work issues, I turned 24 this past Saturday and it was a blast. I shared my birthday with another volunteer from Mopti region and everyone got together to show us a good time. We all met up in Bandiagarra for a big 'ole fiesta. In the picture below you can see Kate and I with our personalized birthday cakes.

This is my cake... I am truely integrated into Malian culture. "Happy birthday Amadou!" I don't know how or where they got these cakes, but they tasted so good. Seriously good. Thanks guys!

This picture is a must because the birthday boy has always got to be the ladies' man. Aren't I the lucky one?