Follow The Gruddas

To catch you up on our retreat week, I'll try to be light on the words and heavy on the pictures:

We rode 5 deep in the Hilux pickup from Kankan to Bamako. Brandon did all the moto-dodging and border stops since we have both (finally) received our Guinea driver's licenses. (The officials were confused by our Indiana licenses so now our Guinea ones both state that we were born in India.) Bamako is currently undergoing rolling blackouts so we were pretty disappointed to not have the ceiling fans whirring as we walked in the door. Fortunately these only lasted about 8 hours a day (never at night) since the guest house is in a pretty upscale/business neighborhood.

 We met Bella, the resident monkey at the guesthouse in Bamako.

For 2 nights we ate nems in brightly lit rooms, played Phase 10 under a fan, used toilets that flush normally, shopped in the market, took showers (our one working shower broke a few days before we left and the hoses are only available in Bamako), and did dishes without needing a stove to heat water.

Then we drove a couple hours south to a retreat center. We had our own finished hut with a toilet, shower, sink, table and chairs, ceiling fan, and...AC! Despite being located on a hydroelectric dam, the power here was only good enough to run electricity reliably by generator for 7 hours at night and 2 hours in the afternoon. This was a side-effect of Mali's political problems and the devastating effect it had on the European tourist season

We had our meals all prepared for us, hung out by the green pool, played games, read, napped, had meetings and discussions, explored and just relaxed. 

After a couple more nights in Bamako, we sent Tim, Joy and Peter (the retreat speaker) to the airport and Brandon navigated his way across the border as chauffeur with no help. 

Now it's meetings and finishing French class and emptying the fridge for another week. We'll be in touch, though.

-Brandon