Malian adventures

Good news everyone! My project got funded! Woot! Now I just have to wait for the money to arrive and keep my fingers crossed that my school will hold up their end of the bargain and then everyone will enjoy the hot season so much more with air conditioning. Huzzah!

Happy 2012 everyone! I've been looking forward to this year for a while because I feel 2012 is far easier to say than 2011. Also 2012 is when I make my grand return to America. Don't ask me when (September probably?) or what I'll be doing (...) but I'll be coming back. So get ready for me to eat all your food and make weird observations and be overwhelmed by the cleanliness of everything and so many television channels. I really look forward to the television channels.

I've spent all morning uploading a ton of photos from my Mali vacation. It was really great, look at all the pictures. We went to Mopti, which people there like to call the Venice of Mali, becuase there are two rivers that run through it. And then we took a sunset canoe ride on said rivers, explored the city a bit, spent two days sitting around a pool and reading at our hotel. Then for four days we hiking around in Dogon Country. The countryside was pretty reminiscent of the American southwest, and a very nice change from the bland, flat world that I live in. Our daily schedule was to hike all morning stop in a village around noon, wander about while they cooked us food, ate and then hiked on until we reached another village where we'd spend the night. It went like that almost everyday. We stopped in Ende and watched a mask festival dance. They do it mostly for tourists now but it started as an animist tradition during funerals to guide the spirits.

It's real interesting actually. Look it up, learn about the Dogon people and animism. I could tell you all the things I learned, but I don't want to. I'm also real bad at blogging now, for which I apologize. There's going to be real trouble during that writing section of the GRE I'm taking in two weeks. Yikes.

Stay sweet. Get ready for hot season and mangoes everyday!