Kara, I love you

but not when you call me at 1:40 in the morning. Sorry if I was rude!

Photos

We went to Koulikoro and had a nice visit. Here are some pics of vaccination and giving SP to infants, a research study in progress.

The airport is closed for varying lengths of time and for various reasons depending on who you talk to. Latest from Alan at Appaloosa is that weekend Air France will go. I tend to believe him, but thanks to folks today who followed up on various rumors. It's been a nightmare of sorts but as I said, exhausted, at dinner, at least we are not trapped here because of a revolution or armed conflict.

I'm as beat as I've ever been and I'm signing off. Who knows when I'll be back in the states or through what route.

Charge it to the project

Ex-paratrooper redeems slightly creepy self by giving good advice on my current hugest headache project, the Joint Malaria Database. Some may find it odd, or icky, that I should hang out with such a fellow, but you know what, the icky factor is pretty small, and sure he likes to talk about how many different kinds of aircraft he's jumped out of, but it's nice to actually get some useful information about what I need to do on this database debacle to make it move forward. I'm tired of fucking around with my own small understanding and everyone else's non-technical background and trying to build a website out of sand. Let's get some freaking experts in here, for crissake.

And so, bartender, please charge that jack and coke and big bottle of water to the room, please, and I will write if off as a business expense.

In other news, Allan at Appaloosa says the airport will be closed for a week starting wednesday. Like we didn't have enough problems!

The willies

The story stealer is still here till tuesday and we are introducing them to the vrai Bamako. Interesting stories yesterday at the Campagnard, where there is a huge projection screen (for rugby, and wrestling, and everything), and Paul recognized me, and the PCVs were playing cards. My old house belongs to the Pirate Club and I couldn't tell if the Obama for Senate sticker was still on the door, as it was late and the shutters were closed. There was a truck and lots of trash in the yard along with a huge pirogue with tables and chairs inside, and a new concrete storage shed in the corner we kept Uncle Sam the goat before the July 4 bbq. La nostalgie...jarring.

The colonel wanted to dance so we all went to the MonteCristo, where last time Areana and I shook it to salsa and ndombolo until 3am. We stayed until about then chatting about things the USG does to remove human obstacles to progress, and (non-US) Ranger school. I got that feeling where I needed to run away and burst into tears. I don't know if I feel sorry for all the things they've done or for the people themselves that do them. It just seems like a terrible mess of good intentions and bad means and courage of conviction and inability to foresee consequences. The fact that the guy is extremely interested in my story, in my 'depth' and 'stoicism' is unnerving. But this always happens when people take a shine to me immediately, and this happens more often over here. It's my Bamako self again, my mysterious, hinting, play-spy self, but being close to people who were doing the real thing (long discussion on how Mali is the first place he doesn't need to be constantly on guard, and he can sit with his back to the door), well, it makes me ashamed that I try to pretend I can watch people in mirrors and overhear conversations. The real thing is hanging out with us and he's flesh and blood and sacrificed a lot, and quite frankly, this scares me. Like I said,unnerving. The platonic pursuit is also unnerving and the combination just makes me hide more behind my wary gaze. I'm repelled and fascinated.

Air France strike

Europeans have canceled but our intrepid US staff are mostly coming. Should be a good time.

Am being pursued by an ex-military secret agent type guy who wants to...steal my stories. He and his team are also stuck here due to the strike. Am having beaucoup deja vu (esp at Appaloosa the other night, bantering with DoD) and this will only increase when we go to the Campagnard tonight.

Fun!

Oh Shit

Air France is on strike. For two days so far. All our people arrive on Sunday.

Back in the Motherland

Got into Bamako and promptly met 3 DoD dudes who want to pick my Peace Corps brain about their projects doing 'humanitarian assistance'. No problem. We are off to Bancoumana and Djoliba tomorrow; Koulikoro the day after, and Kita on Friday. Music at the Hogon Friday and assorted dinners this week following our site visits, which are day trips fortunately. Apparently there is a new Lebanese restaurant, the Ouragan, near the Salaam. And yes, internet in our rooms totally rules.

Getting in everything (dinners, Halloween, shopping, favors to friends, flag making for Office Olympics) will be tricky but a fun challenge. On the bus into town the other guy was a random friend of a woman who works with Salif Keita who we don't really like. He's doing a fact-finding mission to see if we could run a T1 cable undersea to Ghana and supply West Africa with super fast internet. I love Bamako.

Me is Ace Linguist

I am killing approximately 8 million hours in Charles de Gaulle airport, next to people leaving for Chicago and Philadelphia and Toronto (how Bamako fits in I do not know, but this is a different terminal than the modernist oval round one I usually leave from, which has bright sun streaming in but is somehow kept frigidly cold in all seasons). Perhaps something fell down again. Who knows. Anyway. I have gotten coffee and croissants in this terminal before, on my way back home to the States, and it was good. So of course I decided to try the stand alone stand instead of the Shoppe-thing. I witness a prime example of French snobbery!

Older black American woman: Yes, I'd like a coffee? What kind of coffee do you have?
Surly: It's coffee, just coffee.
OBAW: But what flavors do you have?
Surly: Flavors? It tastes like coffee.
OBAW: Yes but I'd like a coffee that's not strong. Do you have coffee that's not strong?
Surly: I don't understand.
Guy behind woman: Listen, she wants coffee that isn't strong. Don't you speak English?
Surly: Je suis Francais. Je parle Francais. Je ne comprend pas.
Guy: Well you shouldn't be working in an airport if you can't speak English! We're going somewhere else, come on Elaine, we're leaving.
Surly: Vas y allez.

I was the next customer. I tried sooooo hard to make my accent not african. The coffee still sucked though.

Across the aisle from me on the plane over was an older couple. He was wearing tan orthapedic shoes and a safari vest. She was plump with a white turtleneck and gold chain and fancy Dame Edna glasses. They talked the entire time. He did color commentary on the landspeed and distance traveled monitor! At first I thought he was speaking English because the intonation and the vowels were Oklahoma. But then I realized it was French. I heard a 'quand-mayme' and thought oh! they're quebecois! It's like Tete-a-claques right in front of me! Amazing! But it was still a little odd. Finally at the end of the flight he put his hat back on. I mean, this guy was just speaking french non stop, but stuff like 'por le moment', with American stresses on the syllables. (I am spelling phonetically, by the way). His hat - US ARMY VETERAN. It all makes sense. He talks like a guy who married a french girl back in 1945 and never left. And never stopped talking.

Dinner Party

I had a dinner party and it went very well indeed.

We had broiled eggplant/zucchini pasta cheesy thing; thai green curry with tofu, sweet potato and onion; garlic bread extravaganza; salad; and magnificent cheese. Also wine, and caramel apple slices. Yumminess was achieved by all, and Nick did a good job not mentioning how all the other people are my work colleagues. Ha. The kitchen performed like a champ and the dining room table was ever so grateful to have people sitting and eating and drinking.

Next time - we will have trivets, and possibly a salad spinner. And perhaps some real napkins.

Oh Fucking Hell

Melinda Gates, in her infinite wisdom, announced that the B&MGF will be setting a goal of eradicating malaria. No timeline, no specifics, no mention of how, given current capacity (human and financial) and the crazy high EIR of the disease, this is widely acknowledged BY ACTUAL SCIENTISTS to be in the same league as say, Cubs winning the World Series.

Even worse my boss's boss thinks this is a rad idea and partly due to our efforts. This makes me throw up in my mouth.

Prices

I wish the Honda Service Center had a pricing scheme similar to Radiohead's. I would much rather pay what I think a starter and a driver's side mirror and an oil change are worth, rather than $846 dollars. I would pay, let's see, $50 bucks for the starter, $30 for the mirror, and $10 for the oil change. We have health insurance for normal wear and tear on our bodies - why not on our cars? I would love to have a co-pay for this kind of thing!

New Radiohead

Their new album, In Rainbows, is superb. And you can download it for whatever you think it's worth. Some economist is going to have a field day with this, but I wonder what effect having to register your name, address, mobile number, etc will have on what people pay? I found it to be a little guilt-inducing. Not saying whether or not that resulted in my paying 'fair price' or not. After all, every price is a fair price in this situation.

Triple A basically rules

So I've had this problem with the starter on my car all summer, where it doesn't turn over and then you try again and it goes. Nothing major. I finally caved in last week and made an oil change appointment (my maintenance light has been on since June), but only after lightly bashing in my driver's side rear view mirror while parking in the garage. On Friday I was down in DC and Edith borrowed the car, as she is wont to do, to go see some friendlies down in Fells Point. Woe was her when the car finally gave up and refused to start, after having been parked illegally in a very narrow alleyway/street (the plan was to pick up the friendlies for transportation to an eatery). A chance parking spot right at the intersection of this alley/street and the next cross street appeared as if by divine intervention, but how to put the dead car in the spot?

Gravity saved the day, as usual. Edith simply let the car slide down the incline, used its inertia to pull a 90 degree left turn, and slide back down into the parking spot. Now that's a nice park job!

Off to the eatery they went. Next evening we spent two hours hanging with the friendlies waiting for the tow truck to come and cart off the car to the Honda Dealership, where I had conveniently scheduled an appointment for Monday (see above). But Tow Trucker Wayne did not show. Meanwhile, Carmen had to study for her Boards, Edith had a raging caffeine headache and a raging sushi craving, and I just felt bad making them all wait out on the corner of Patterson and Bank, although, as we conceded, there are worse corners in Baltimore to wait. We saw a professional dog walker and an androgyne-arm-swinger. Boy was s/he swinging that left arm of hers (his?). We left Carmen to direct the tow truck when he finally arrived and we hauled off for Kawasaki sushi in Fells, stopping in to see not one, not two, but three friends of ours, none of whom were at their homes/on their phones/in their place of business (John Stevens). Oh well. Then CBarks called, last minute as usual, wanting to do something fun and exciting like RIght This Hot Minute. Instead we ate our sushi at home, fielded calls from "limited" Wayne, who did a nice job dropping the car and the keys in angled parking at the Honda Dealership, by the way. Some people just need a few more instructions than others.

Oh yeah they had to disconnect the battery because after tapping on the starter for a while, it got stuck in the 'must turn over and over' position.

Am mildly cheerful about this considering it will cost me about 9 meeelion dollars to get a new starter (and a new mirror). It was just nice of Edith's Triple A to do all of this for no cost to me.

Stillness in Motion

This morning I had my first proper trackstand in traffic, no unclipping, no wobbling, just smooveness till the cars were all through and I could dart across like a needle.

Click on the picture for corporate/alternaculture guide to how to do this (and other things on your fixie).

Trainspotting

Not the movie about heroin, but the original trainspotters, and planespotters, who track flights and trains and know each type of aircraft by its silhouette, and how many horsepower the engines have.

I do this with bikes.

I used to do this with trucks in Gabon, knowing who was driving what was of vital importance. A new 4x4 in town was cause for sleuthing.

Walking into work in the rain wasn't particularly fun this morning until I came to the Au Bon Pain and saw the Messenger slowly arriving at the Randstad building ahead of me. Blue tires. Chrome track bars. No brakes. This was not necessarily the bike I had seen parked outside of Rocket to Venus where I believed he also worked on Tuesday nights, so I'm both excited (a sighting!) and disappointed (harder to track down the track bike now). Rumpled white buttondown with sleeves rolled up. A very pleasant morning.

Daydreaming

Tonight is climbing night. There are two routes I want to hit, a pinchy 11b with a great first move, and (finally!) a great route that makes the most of this long roof we have in the gym. Sort of like this picture.

But somehow more awesome.

Good Coffee

For all my friends, especially ladies in New Orleans, who are having trouble with the home coffee system. There is a brewing guide in the row of links on the bottom, with options for "Press Pot" or Moka thing or Pavoni (yah right!). The other key is having beans that are no more than two weeks out of the roaster.

gigglemonster

Ok but - it's kind of funny Cecilia thought that 'intercourse' was the 'middle of two courses'.

a new way to communicate passive-aggressively

www.someecards.com.

Fun is Ouch

I had a really nice weekend! I took no pictures so there is no proof of this, however.

A pleasant backyard bbq Friday night with the peoples, limited sleep Friday night and an interrupted (by roommate's zip-code question) nap, leading into frantic packing of non-lightweight camping gear and making of pb&h sandwiches. Picked up Ian and Lucy and Buster the dog and drove out Annapolis Rocks, where we commenced a 2.25 mile hike directly uphill. Before it flattened out I started getting that panicky, roaring in the ears feeling. Fortunately three Teach for America volunteers who climb at the JHU wall appeared and fear of embarassing myself won out over fainting.

Did I mention it was really hot and my pack was heavy and non-ergonomic?

We camped that night and watched the sunset; Buster scarfed my apple.

In the morning we set up a couple ropes and climbed. Plenty of overhangs and roofs, nice horizontal hand cracks, and a gratuitous heel hook on the 10a made things fun. Second time around I finally finished the tough overhung section that drew blood from my knuckles. The sun started hitting our west-facing rocks around 3pm, so instead of staying to sweat even more we packed up and hiked out, cursing my pack (which Bryan had found in a dumpster) most of the way. The brewpub on Market Street in Frederick had a nice Hefewiezen and a decent pulled pork sandwich, but an especially scrumptious sherry lobster tomato bisque.

I'm achy, cut, bruised around the collarbones, and a little worried about the tightness in my left achilles, but how nice to be outside and climbing again. Marin took some pictures so if I receive them I will share....so you can believe me.

Bike Snob NYC

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2007/10/from-lbs-to-complete-bs-future-of.html is my new favorite thing. Where oh where is Bike Snob BLT and why won't he buy me a drink?

Oh right...I'm the bike snob. Guess I'll have to buy myself a drink.