WTF? Its getting hotter, not colder. At this rate, well never get rid of the mosquitoes. Either Doxicycline is the greatest wonder drug since penicillin, or I am very lucky, because Im being eaten alive by mosquitoes. African mosquitoes look just like North American mosquitoes, but they are a lot nastier. They dont just bite, they sting, too. They leave a burning rash that lasts almost a day. And that sun. I was thinking the other day of an old pop song by a group like The Go-Gos that had the tag line, We live for the sun. Malians live for the shade. Every day they look up and say, Oh, no! Another hot, sunny day without a cloud in the sky! How much more of this can we take? I dont know, but I guess Im going to find out. Its the dry season (there are only two- wet and dry). And in the dry season, it Will Not Rain. Ever. You dont even get cloudy days. It was getting steadily more pleasant for a while, and I even had a few nights when I needed a blanket. But now were going the other way. So my problems now are mostly mosquitoes and ice. There are too many mosquitoes and not enough ice. In fact, there is almost no ice. I sure could go for a nice 10 pound bag of ice cubes about now. Malians are not into ice machines. Way too much money to buy, way too much electricity to operate, and way too few people who could afford to buy ice unless theyre selling cold drinks at the bus station. My other problem is communication. What a difference now that Lyle is gone. Now that I cant participate, even indirectly, in the greetings/blessings/joking cousin drill, Im on the outside of the Malian culture looking in. And thats no fun. Fortunately, there is a laid-off Peace Corps language instructor coming over this afternoon to talk about lessons. So thats good. Maybe he can also steer me to an ice machine.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 12:28:11 +0000
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