April 2 The Long Road Home

Leaving the cocoon of the hotel Tamana, I had forgotten 

- the thousands of motor cycles and scooters carrying assortments of burdens but often men in women in traditional dress

- the unmarked sand-paved streets - transporting surfaces smoothed daily by street sweepers

- the garbage strewn side-streets, burrows amongst deserted old cars, carts and tumbling down straw huts and buildings

- the line-ups of street and seething activity on and beside the road

- the half-destroyed buildings fronting the highway - as if their fronts were sacrificed for the higher good of transportation

All the reminder that Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world.

But also I had forgotten,

- traffic lights run by solar panels that are studiously obeyed

- concrete barricades both sides across the 1.6 km bridge across the Niger river bed that demarcate the motorcycle and bicycle lanes

- clean-up efforts of the rubble in the fields and the preservation of trees

- people bathing in the river and irrigated gardens along the riverside

At the one security check point close to the airport, the driver (the manager of the hotel) tells me to "put your camera away and don't take it out until you are away from Mali."  But he is also friends with one of the soldiers, makes a show of opening the trunk - my suitcase is in the back seat - and we are waved onwards.

At the airport, the first task is to enter the scrimmage of people who want something from me - money, change money for me, sell CDs, sell me something, carry my luggage.  By the time I'm next the building, I need a place to wait, settle my nerves, finish my water bottle and get my bearings.  Two long lines of heavily burdened luggage carts end at the entrance.  People pass the line-ups and are screened by security officers before entering.  The line moves very slowing.  I really wish that I could take a picture - the clothing is colourfully everything, children gussied up with braids of every variety and practically pasted to their parents clearly no place to play,  the shear numbers of people sitting, standing seemingly patiently, the constant rumble of voices.  A very few are taking their last drags before going cigarette free for their flights - in fact, very few Africans seem to smoke (in contradistinction to the Europeans and certainly not many are fat).

Does it ever feel good to have my boarding passes in hand!  By the time the plane is loaded, I will have had my luggage x-rayed three times and hand-searched twice - lost my "tweezerman" and the battery out of my little flashlight to their garbage.  They weren't picking on me, this happens to everyone.  

At 7:30 pm, 25 minutes late, the plane, an Airbus 330, was loaded.  We hear the luggage compartment open and close, open and close - the pilot goes down the aisle twice and just when he should (workshops in Risk Management aren't just for emergency room physicians and public health officials), he announces over the sound system that the baggage loading equipment is broken and that we are waiting for a tractor to tow it away!

Whew!  At almost 8:00 pm our engines are revving and we are moving, the pilot studiously following the yellow line on the tarmac as we turn onto the runway.  Suddenly from my window, I can see that all hell is breaking out on the ground.  There are ground crew with flashing lights, someone with the red flashlights swinging them into X's, a spotlight shone on the cockpit - even to my eyes, they want our pilot to stop the plane.  He does but when the bells and whistles seem to settle, revs up again.  If the ground wasn't frantic before, this is over the top!  There are people and machines moving everywhere.  A couple of trucks with flashing lights on their cabs park on the runway in front of us making clear that our plane is not going anywhere.

The coup?  A military intervention?  But no.

From my seat at the window, the left wing of our aircraft is poised to slice into the tail wing of a parked Air France plane!  The pilot announces the issue and the ground crew confers, people standing under the wings, an apparent supervisor arrives.  For the next thirty minutes, a tractor alternatively pushes and pulls our plane back and forth levering  us to the right until clearance is achieved.  What a potential disaster! Am I ever thankful to the sharp eyed ground crew!  (Also, how amazing that this doesn't happen more often on busier airports!)

In Brussels, my task becomes “Phoning Bill”. My Visa won't work in the telephones and the phones won't allow me to charge the call to my home number. OK. I'll find the business lounge and Skype him with the MacBook Air. But my “Air” won't sign on to the “Telehotspot” because it "says" it doesn't recognize the ip address!  My iPad isn't so fussy. Finally, almost two hours after arriving and after downloading the Skype app to the iPad, we're in touch!

At this point, I'm SOO looking forward to lying down on the plane – my back is holding up surprisingly, uncomfortable in either sitting or lying for any length of time but not reverting to the original injury. The Brussels – Toronto leg of the flight is delayed by an anxiety-producing two hours which means that I probably won't make the Toronto-Regina flight. The trans-Atlantic stops in Montreal where going through customs is a snap – (keep that in mind for future trips) but which also means that when we arrive in Toronto, we're on the domestic side close to connecting flights so there is still a chance. By now the crew know that I want to get home so they arrange for me to off load first.  But this adventure is not over!  The airport bridge won't attach to our plane - the pilot announces that it is broken and we are waiting for the GTA!!!

By the time every thing is moving again, the Toronto-Regina check-in was closed – but the desk staff is willing to check to see if the plane was still attached to the boarding gate!  Whew!

Made it to Regina (and Bill's arms) twenty minutes (and ten days) late!

March 31 A day in the courtyard

Breakfast is sitting up but not for long.  My back pain (S-I joints) is much better.  Now eleven days after it started.  (At least this sounds more like a stressed joint than a tumor!) Rather than retire to my little room, I dismantle the thin cushions of a couple of chairs and lie down on under the flamboyant tree - not in bloom.  (It is on a raised concrete "stage" at one end of the little plaza.)

A jewelry hawker who has pestered me all week manages to talk me out of the equivalent of $30 for a few earrings - he needs the money more than I.

Then to my surprise, especially when there are plenty of unused tables - but none so isolated - a white French guy accompanied by five Africans takes over the table (these are all coffee tables, not real tables) practically on top of me!  Barely a nod of acknowledgement!  Two Africans are unceremoniously dismissed to a lower table and a noisy exchange ensures.  I can barely make out a recognizable word - "donc", "voila", "aujourd'hui".  Then the Africans get up and leave - obviously not very happy with the conclusion.

The electricity stays off which makes my room into a caldron of stale air. The makeshift mat in the courtyard is a better choice and fortunately, now I am well enough to enjoy it. People come and go – who knew how active the place was – a couple of dread-locked young white French males, a woman with two children in tow gives a franc note to the manager and departs, two different black men come in requesting something (a job maybe) but are turned down, the evening waitress arrives decked out in sequins and enormous earrings, the owner and his wife are in the main bureau coming out now for lunch, all of the whites chain-smoke, a young African with a shirt identifying him as a polo player and his partner check out, several other Africans come to check out (flight time!) but the Moslem woman that I met yesterday is either staying in her room or eating on the upstairs patio (I tried but couldn't manage the stairs and, of course, she cannot come down to eat with me – among men).

The lingering mystery of the private haggle that took place earlier is answered somewhat. The white guy is checking out of the hotel with an assortment of statues and small items – a dealer and, as I watch the staff wrap his purchases, taking a serious collection with him. The statues are beautiful, some appear more attractive than those in the museum. There is an intrically carved footstool that I could covet – he says that he will be able to sell it for the equivalent of $12,000 but declined to tell me what he paid for it. He brings out a sculpted hippo which is surely an antiquity. In all, there were 30 statues, each about 30 inches tall, carved out of black or blackened wood, and a metal chest 18” x 48” x 30”, the contents a mystery. They are stacked onto a jeep to be hauled where? And how? Seems like another rape of Africa.

Around 3:00 pm the electricity comes on - and activity slows down as the heat takes over.

Nicola, the hotel manager, and I negotiate the time to go to the airport. I want to be there three hours early when the airline opens its ticket office – he wants to take me two hours earlier. I'd go in the morning if there is the slightest chance of traffic or barricades.

Again there is no one else here in the evening for dinner. This time the evening t-v is showing a peace rally that occurred in the football stadium – greater than 25,000 strong, the press called it.  It was followed by a march in the streets. Promising.

March 30 And then there was one......

Wow - off line for thirty-six hours!  Did that ever make me feel isolated!  I suspect that it was the effect of the wind, not the coup.

Today is my first day of feeling more or less human.  Besides some gentle stretches for the muscles and the fact that I feel weak all over from lack of exercises, the length of time that I can tolerated the upright position has lengthened to almost an hour.  I can think of the flight home now with more anticipation than fear!

The guests at the  hotel with its small communal courtyard are changing daily now; there aren't many but they arrive late at night and leave during the day consistent with the airlines.  Most are Africans and all speak French.  A lively petit middle-aged Moslem woman in white hejab with a little English engaged me in conversation - and then introduced me to each of the staff at the hotel.  I now know that the woman who swabs the floors is named Fanta.  It turns out that one of the shaved-headed whites is the owner - inherited it from his father.  

The remaining two of our group are nervously calling their airline, Kenya Air, going on-line, and arguing about whether to go to the downtown office or when to go to the airport.  Is the flight happening?  How are the roads?  They are twitchy - they've been to the airport twice only to return to the hotel!  Eventually they depart and at 6:15 a text comes that they are seat-belted on the plane!!  Whoopee!

Canadian embassy news is rather discouraging - an international boycott is planned for Monday.  Fortunately, my flight is Sunday.  Bill frantically checks that the flight is still planning to come.  Apparently some of the borders are now closed and the Tuaraq rebels from the North have come as far South as Timbuctu.  (Always thought of it as fictional in a youth - now it is very real and in the hands of Tuaraq "rebels" - although who knows who is who in Mali?)

So I am alone for the evening meal - and the t-v is surrounded by staff because the coup leader is making a speech.  Heads nod and the occasional sound of approval or cluck of disagreement is heard.  I can tell that he is saying things like "Mali should be for Malians" and that this country should have "social democracy" - all good words.  At the conclusion of his speech there is some cheering in the room and then very loud arguing - not everyone agrees that a coup is the way to get to a democracy. There is a little t-v kiosk outside the hotel which charges its patrons for watching and when I stroll the courtyard, I can hear the very similar sound of humans in disagreement.  

The arguing is still occurring as I slather myself in the organic "natural" German mosquito repellent and prepare to enter the mosquito netting.  Incidently, the mosquitoes here are little ones, almost like sand flies, and hard to slap, not the helicopter-sized blood-suckers that we have at home - but more dangerous with their loads of various forms of malarial parasites.  (With global warming, these little suckers are already moving North!)

March 29 Still in Mali - Noise in the Night

March 29 Noise in the Night

The roaring never seemed to stop. Damn that generator, I kept thinking. But it wasn't the generator making the noise all night. It was a windstorm.

Breakfast is delayed. The courtyard is ankle deep in leaves, dust and debris - actually very little of the latter - but since the courtyard and the lobby and the kitchen are all open to the elements, the staff clean by sweeping followed by hosing. It was quite a production - almost like good emergency room staff, no one seemed to be directing the tasks yet no one got in another's way.

When breakfast came, only the coffee was affected - it was worse than usual.

My back seems better but "touchy". Ruralmed listers have given me a list of options for recovery and I have been trying everything that remotely applies. I've examined all the muscles around the pelvis including the pelvic floor (in private needless to say) and can't find any tender places or anything remotely tense. First thing in the morning, the entire back is stiff so the advice about "modified cat-cow stretches" loosens them. I've been lying down 50 minutes, up for ten; managed up for 15 this morning but I'm lying down again now. Today I've strolled slowly around for about five minutes an hour - vertically for the first time, always in bare feet (I figure I'm more likely to trip in shoes.  So the on-line discussion about orthotics was interesting.)  The relaxation exercises looking for my chi were simply good exercises.

Things seem so settled that the remaining two guests and a friend from France are going to go to the National Museum! (It's worth a trip - some of us went last week. It is located very close to the presidential palace but it doesn't sound as tho' the coup people are targeting civilians. Hope it stays that way.)

On one of my strolls, a staff person tried to give me a light bulb. I shook my head, "Merci, non." He touched my key and gestured towards "votre chambre"; I started moving towards "ma chambre" and he started climbing the stairs. My room is (thankfully) not upstairs. Twas then it occurred to me to ask one of the only two another women at the hotel if she needed a light bulb for her room. A European would never have mistaken us for one another and I hope that she was not insulted, but to this Malian, we white women looked alike!

Nothing is working - no electricity, no internet, and no water. Since they cook with gas, everyone will eat.

When the electricity comes, the staff huddles around the t-v to watch the local station broadcast a meeting of West African leaders with the coup leaders. If this is a mediation, it doesn't seem to be going well - there is a lot of shouting and raising of fists.

Now I'll need to wait for internet to come on. 

OK So I got the date wrong yesterday.

March 28 Day 8 Goodness, how time passes when you are having fun (not)!

Woke during the night from a dream that someone was gripping my wrists only to find myself all wound up in the mosquito netting so, keeping the door closed and using some anti-mosquito spray, I folded it above the bed. There are little splotches of blood on the sheets signifying that those minor defense mechanisms were insufficient. (Erin, our in-house entemologist, assures me that I won't actually get malarial symptoms for a couple of weeks – how reassuring!)

For breakfast, we are joined by an assortment of blacks, mostly in traditional dress of long tunic over loose pants and whites with closely shaven heads, tattoos, grubby t's and grubby pants of varying lengths. We've seen many of this hodge-podge before but not all simultaneously. One well-dressed white departs followed by a neatly dressed black carrying his luggage – shades of the colonial past.

Actually most black Africans have shaved heads too.  And I just realized how easily I've slipped into the black/white differentiation - there are second and third and much more generation white Africans too.  The shaved heads are much easier to keep clean in this forever dusty place - my white clothing is all becoming yellowed and probably my hair will soon as well.  Walking barefoot as I am now - the only things that I've "lost" have been my expensive walking sandels last seen beside the swimming pool.

Breakfast is bread, butter, some sort of sweetened gel, and coffee or tea. No milk. Orange juice is extra. One morning I ordered eggs and they arrived swimming in oil.

I asked to have the sheets changed and the room cleaned. After the woman finished, I tipped her 1000 Malian francs (equivalent to about $2) – her gratefulness was embarrassing. And telling - our respective statuses?  her wages?  her poverty?  Just plain thank you would be fine - in Canada, they pretend that nothing changed hands.

During the morning eight people leave, three come back and leave again, two come back to stay until Friday. It depends upon the airline.

Most of the hotel staff leave early afternoon, the manager telling us that they want to be home if any violence breaks out. The streets are incredibly noisy and crescendo occurs mid afternoon but we are hearing nothing. The T-V shows international soccer or BBC and the Eurocrisis – we suppose that local stations are still blacked out. 

 Some staff return to prepare an evening meal confirming that relative safety has resumed.