Nightmarish but I survived. Don't call the cops.

I am officially writing to you from Sikoro, ladies and gentlemen! I survived the flight(s) over and have lived to tell the tale. Mom and Dad, please do not send international police to look for me. :)

Well, remember how we were supposed to leave at 8pm and then got delayed until 1am? Well that actually turned out to be 5am by the time we left, including one girl-on-girl fist fight and screaming match between two Muslim women who couldn't stand the wait any longer. During the wait, I made friends with a fantastic man Birouk Larbi, who apparently happens to do quite a bit of work with microfinance in the Maghreb - I made sure to give him one of my brand new MHOP cards so he can get in touch with Julie eventually about her microfinance project.

I ended up sleeping most of the way over, but in the ten minutes before the plane landed, I met a wonderful young woman vising a Peace Corps friend in Burkina Faso and also gave her a card. Who knows? Maybe my homestay will be peppered with visits from guests from around the globe after all!

So the story of travel nightmares only gets better. When we landed in Casablanca, we were 9 hours behind schedule and I HAD NO LUGGAGE. I did my best to negotiate with baggage claims representatives in French, but I eventually had 13 Muslim women take me under their wing and scream at this poor man in the angriest Arabic I have ever heard in my life for half an hour until he would accept my passport to take down my information. Funnily enough, I later found out that the angriest yelling of all was these women screaming at this representative that he was ruining the American's first memories of glorious Morococo - I could only laugh, which actually served to diffuse the situation. Their help ended up not being of consequence since he was convinced my baggage would somehow just show up in Bamako magically. 

Cari and I, now alone in the Casa airport, contemplated a brief trip into town. After all, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and we had until 9 to be back. After ten minutes of tracking down the train and determining price and all of this type of information, we finally asked someone what we should see and if we could adequately take it in before 9. And this woman just LAUGHED at us. Apparently we forgot the basics of time travel and never reset our watches. It was 8:30pm, not 3:30pm. Oops. We all had a good laugh about that one.

We ended up meeting the rest of the crew (Katie, Caitlin, and Julie) in the terminal and we had quick catch-up, then straight onto the plane. Needless to say, we when we arrived, 7 of our 9 bags had magically disappeared. No better time than the present to dabble in naturalism, right? In the meantime, we came to crash at Rebecca's, Caitlin's friend in Sikoro. On the way, we had a fun discussion with the taxi driver about negotiating 5 people into one tiny taxi. Not to worry, though, we had TONS of time to talk about it while we changed our flat tire in the middle of the night in between Bamako and Sikoro. 

The moral of the story: I survived and am living in a house with 5+ lanky little cats - what could be better? I'm alive, well, and totally ready to explore and get acquainted with Sikoro!

Thanks to all for the good travel wishes - rest assured I did arrive safely, even if not on time or comfortably. :)

Talk soon.

X Ben X

So tantalizingly close....!!!

So I'm sitting in JFK next to the fabulous Cari Mailloux (another intern with me this summer) and it's roughly 1:30 in the morning - AND WE'RE STILL IN JFK!!!

I have spent more than my fair share of time yelling at Orbitz in the past week, but this time, I'm just to close for mere yelling - I need physical violence to express how frustrated I am. However, that having been said, I am also surrounded by roughly 200 other people who have been delayed alongside me (for 6 hours) and I am pleased to inform that they have taken it upon themselves to resort to violence for me. 

The airport terminal is a mess with children running everywhere and trash all over the floor - it's hot, sticky, and everyone is just aching to get on this plane. I have no idea what Casa looks like, who I'll see there or what I'll do, but at this point, I consider it to be my own Paradise (soon to be) found. The good news is that Cari and I found a bunch of ex-pats and chill Malians on CouchSurfing.com and we're trying to set up some fun coffee dates for our time in Sikoro to get to know the locals and, if circumstances permit and it feels safe, bum around town. It's been an exciting day.

On a personal note, I also got to spend the time in delay (both yesterday and today in the terminal) catching up with old friends and even making a few new ones. So all things considered, I'm glad I was here rather than on a plane or a beach or in a market somewhere in Casa. I had some great experiences and wouldn't trade them for anything. After all, how often do you get to devirginize a friend by exposing her to Li'l Mamma's "Lip Gloss" for the first time? That's what I thought.

OK, I'm exhausted and totally over every sensory aspect of this terminal, including the seemingly fluorescent light of this computer. I'm going to wrap a sarong around my head, lay down, and hope (read: PRAY) I end up somewhere other than New York. 

X Ben X

Redemption!

Thank God! Redemption!

As it turns out, the return envelope I provided for my passport was not the right kind, so the Malian embassy just put my passport away in a drawer without any word or notice... lucky I called to check up on it! My passport is being overnighted to me at a friend's in Jamaica Plain (near Boston) and after 4 hours of frustration with Orbitz, I have successfully rerouted my original itinerary at no additional cost. That's great news, given that every little bit of the grant money that is not paying for my tickets is paying for Sigida Keneyali. More money for the Malians is always good news.

I leave Tuesday the 10th on at 5:20 for JFK then leave the country at 8:20. Then it's off to Casablanca for a day and a half layover in the sun and off to Bamako for the summer. It's a hard-knock life, right? At this point, I'm just thankful I'm still going.

Whew! Crisis averted!

X Ben X

Preparations!

So tomorrow is the big day... or will it be? My visa still hasn't come back from the Malian embassy yet. GAH! I'm calling first thing tomorrow and hoping it arrives JUST in time to get to the airport. But it's looking like my departure may be delayed by a few days, unfortunately. 

In the meantime, I've long since finished finals and have been spending the last few weeks with friends squatting in their apartment after Brown kicked me out of dorms. I just came up to Boston last weekend and bought an entire wardrobe at a local thrift shop in anticipation of many adventures in red dust mud in Sikoro. I also just got a new pair of glasses with transition lenses for those sunny days (I needed a new pair anyway and who can say no to instant sunglasses, really?) 

So for now, I'm in Jamaica Plains at a friend's apartment waiting to find out the fate of my trip. For all you as well, I will certainly keep you posted. Keep your fingers crossed!

X  Ben  X