Time to get caught up

The Internet here pretty much sucks.  Oftentimes (in fact I'd say the majority of the time between 8am and 11pm, the Internet is slower than a 56k dial-up connection.  Since I use the Internet heavily for work, I don't really enjoy using it for pleasure.  I've stopped reading much in the way of news, which I used to do all the time, and, as any of my readers can see, I've cut back on my blog posts.  I'm going to try to get back into blogging though.

Today I'm going to throw a couple random thoughts out just to get caught up and after today I'll try to post more diligently.  I do enjoy the writing, and I hope you enjoy the reading.

The important Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha (called Tabaski in Mali) is next week.  The exact date of the holiday was uncertain until a couple weeks ago.  Then it was declared to be November 17 (by whom, I don't know).  Also, in Mali there seems to be a tradition of the government declaring, just days before a holiday, that the holiday will be celebrated for two days instead of one.  So in this case, it is expected that the government will declare Novemeber 18th to also be a holiday.  I don't know who makes this decision, but I like to imagine the president  looking at his date book a few days before the holiday and deciding whether or not he can take the extra day off.

Right now the streets of Bamako are brimming with sheep and goats.  It is my understanding that nearly all of them will be slaughtered and eaten on Tabaski.  There is also lots of gift giving.  For example, we will be giving all of our employees (a gardener, two guards, two French tutors, a pool maintenance man, and a housekeeper) fairly substantial gifts (5,000 - 20,000 CFA depending).  We are invited to two Tabaski parties: one tonight and one on Tabaski.  More on that later.

I want to comment on cleanliness and poverty.  I think back on my expectations in coming to a poor, hot, dry nation and one thing I expected was for people to have, by necessity, poor personal hygiene.  I was wrong.  People take great care with their personal appearance and cleanliness.  As far as I can tell, many families lack running water, but they still seem to stay very clean.  I'm not exactly sure how the adults do it, but it is common to see small children washing themselves in the street in front of their houses.  Women are always seen washing laundry by hand in the street.  People wear very clean clothes -- though it does appear socially acceptable to wear the same outfit 2 to 3 days in a row as long as it still is "clean".
 
About a month ago Rebecca and I visited Senegal for a week.  We had a great time and I'll write more on that later.  But there's one thing I noticed visiting Senegal from Mali  that I would have been blind to coming directly from the Untied States:  Senegal is significantly more prosperous.  Here are some things I noticed:  horses pulling carts instead of donkeys, men who were strong and muscular (read: access to plenty of protein and the free time/energy to work out every day), very limited numbers of open sewers, a beautiful shopping mall, several luxury hotels, less cooking with charcoal and more cooking with gas.  The interesting thing is that it's all relative and would be easy to miss for an outsider.  This is just a guess, but if one were to say that Mali's per capita income is $1000/year, Senegal's is probably $1500.  Both countries are extremely poor, but Senegal is still way ahead.