Goats

Rebecca wants to get a pet goat. These two little brown ones, seen on the side of the road sure are cute. When they grow into ornery adults I'm sure someone would gladly take them off our hands. We'll see...

There's lots of goats wandering the streets of Bamako. Nobody seems to pay them much attention and their owners don't seem concerned about theft -- I don't even see any branding. Stealing a goat would be pretty difficult since there's no such thing as a fast getaway around here, especially given that a scooter can catch any car on the rutted dirt roads. Crime in general seems to be extremely low here. That said, someone tried to pickpocket my friend Randy at the parade yesterday (watch for an upcoming post about the parade). But Randy caught the guy and when the surrounding crowd understood what happened, they were ready to go after the guy too. He slinked away. There's not much police presence in Bamako, even at big events.

I believe the pile of wood in the foreground of the photo will be used to make charcoal.