I called my mom for her birthday a couple days ago and she was actually a little hysterical on the phone. She sounded as if she had been crying and she said something along the lines of "If you die in Africa, I'm going to go crazy." My mother and her unrealistic worries! Does she really think Mali is that dangerous? So far, I have met only genuinely nice people but I guess my mom doesn't understand that. What she thinks of when she thinks of Mali is probably just a poor African country with a lot of AIDs patients and political instability. In actuality, there aren't many Malians who have AIDs with a rather stable democratic form of government with elections that were deemed fair. I do sometimes feel like a horrible and evil daughter though, for making my mom worry and cry because she's imagining things to be worse than they are. Hopefully she's feeling better now... I mean does she really think killers are lurking in the corner waiting to kill me for no reason??? I really doubt it. In fact, I doubt it so much that I can guarantee it will not happen!
This weekend, I just decided to relax a little and catch up on some work. Yeah, work on the weekends, I know. But in New York, I sometimes worked 13 hours or more a day during the weekends and I worked at least full time 7 days a week. Work in Mali compared to that is nothing. The only thing that's annoying is I spend a lot of time walking. Unless one of my coworkers with a car offers a ride to my rather distant house, I have to walk 14 km/day, sometimes more if I have to go to teach. I haven't gone jogging in a long time since I've been here. It's too hot and the roads get kind of gross. BUT, walking 14km or more a day is enough exercise, right?Also, since I actually have 2 "extra" jobs as a volunteer in charity programs focusing on education, time becomes even more sparse. Education is actually a very serious issue in Mali since less than 50% of the population is literate. Only around 53% of Malian men and 39% of Malian women know how to read. Thus, one of my charity programs manages delivering and distributing donations, such as books and pens, to local schools, not just in Bamako but also across Mali. This program, I think, will be especially cool since through it, I'll be able to go to other cities in Mali during the weekends to distribute items and such. The other program involves teaching since I teach English as well as French. Of course, I am not a native speaker of French by no means but I speak enough to teach Malian elementary school kids. I actually hate kids but I do have to admit, they are cute...
Last weekend, I went to Ségou, which is not really that far from Bamako... though still quite a distance to hitchhike. I went there with Paul and Ben again. Hitchhiking in Mali isn't that bad! In Ségou we learned how they designed fabrics to either sell as artwork, tapestry, rugs, blankets, clothes, you name it! 
More pictures can be found on my Picasa web albums page.
On Saturday, I went to the museum in Bamako. Don't think I'll be going anywhere special today. I'm having major insomnia problems. During the past 3 days, I've only slept for 5 hours even though I wanted to sleep, I couldn't! So hopefully, I'll be able to spend much of Sunday trying to get some sleep.
Today's Random Quiz:
| You Are Lightning |
 People will stop and watch you when you appear Even though you're capable of random violence You are best known for: your power Your dominant state: performing |
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