9 May

I went out for my walk early this morning. It was already getting uncomfortable. I am not carrying my camera with me so no pictures. We did take an all school picture and if I get a copy I will include it next week.

I have mentioned before that the people of Mali are friendly and happy. They like to joke with each other. There are disparaging jokes (all in fun) about each of the family groups in Mali. If you are not from Mali they will give you a Malian name. They did give me one but I never was sure what they said. This all leads into the one thing that they can get very combative about.
Politics and weddings may get noisy but if there is a soccor game you need to stay out of the streets. They really go wild with their soccor games. There was evidently one on tv this past week and when it was over we had an hour of screaming, hollering, horn honking, and firecrackers. I talked about that with one of the long term missionaries and he said that it was probably not even a Malian soccor match. He said that there was one game between Bamako and another town in Mali. The other town won. The man who owns the restaurant on the corner by my apartment was from the other town. He had to run to keep from being beat up and they trashed his restaurant. I don't understand how they could do that. If you look at past blogs you can see it in some of the pictures. It consists of a roof and part of a south wall of corrugated metal and a table. They bring their pots, pans, and dishes in each morning to set up for the day.