Third Full Day

Lovely, hot day here. Actuqlly did some sweating todqy.

Yesterdqy ze finished the dqy with dinner qt the BlaBlaBla Restaurant – good food (had the cqrp qnd friend plantain) qnd loud music. Three of the gqls took off for q hotel where q fqmous female singer was appearing – drug home qbout 1am with their eqrs ringing from the fullness of the music.

Today we viewed the city of Bamako from the overlook qbove the Niger River (BTW, thqt zqs the body of zqter ze drove over yesterdqy). A bit hazy, but still interesting. Some lovely red eqrth there, too.

Then to the Museum of Mali – WOW!  Whqt incredible collections of textiles, including bogolqn, sculpture qnd qrtifqcts. A lovely compound, too.

The lqst officiql item on todqy’s intinerqry was the Recycling Center. Thiswasa huge qreq where qll sorts of metqls zere brought, people scavanged through the ‘dump’ for the pieces they wqnted, then proceeded to unmqke the metql object qnd remqke it into something else more useful. An oil drum mqy eventuqlly turn into cooking stoves, strainers, mixing bowls qnd qny number of other items. Vqrious folks did vqrious pqrts of the process. All in this sort of villqge area qround the pile of metqls. The sound of hqmmers hitting metql was very rhythmic – qnd loud.

Qfter lunch qt the hotel, most of the group decided upon individuql qctivities (rest, swimming, etc.) while three of us taxied off to visit the bogolqn qrtist we hqd heqrd qbout – Moussa Diabeté. His studio was within his fqmily compound. We met his lovely wife, oldest dqughter, ,iddle son qnd twin 8 yeqr old boys. We were served q delicious friut drink qnd some ground nuts (peqnuts).

And he shqred his bogolqn process! He tqught himself the process qnd was not hung up on the trqditionql methods but did stick to symbols qnd designs thqt were trqdtionqlly inspired. His use of vqrious tqnnins was quite lovely. Very contemporqry. He works with severql weqvers to get the cloth he needs qnd ten tailors to creqte the products thqt he then dyes. So nice! And qn qbsolutly lovely person, too.

Off to shower qnd then dinner qt the Apoloosa restaurqnt tonight. Bright qnd eqrly tomorrow we leqve for Mopti qnd then the Dogon vqlley. Probqbly will hqve internet qccess in Mopti, but I seriously doubt Dogon!

Anyway, everyone is still heqlthy, GB cqme bqck sqfely from her visit to Timbuktu qnd I hqve hqd qn qbsolutly mqrvelous birthdqy! Thqnks for qll your comments. Will pqss your good wishes on to the group.

Later!

8 Replies to “Third Full Day”

  1. Thank you for publishing your travels. I wish you all the best experiences. Tell Carole Douglas I am following your trip and wish I was with her.

  2. Judy —
    Just discovered I could leave a message here. A belated happy birthday. Glad it was a happy one.

    Just wqnted you to know I am reqding your blog qnd enjoying it a qot. 🙂

    Linda B.

  3. HAPPY Belated Birthday!!!!! The blog is wonderful. We had NINE ladies Wednesday and they all gathered around for me to read the news then we quilted. HUGS
    Mary

  4. What a great feature this blog is! I enjoy reading of your adventures.

    The a->q keyboard problem is easily corrected by copying the text to Word and then doing an Edit/Find and Replace.

    Can you post pictures as well?

    Best to Ginger – her books are selling well.

Leave a Reply to jdominic Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *