Heading North!

Well it's nice to feel normal again. I have been laid up the past week with a classic west african parasite. If there is one thing a person gains from living in west africa--it's intestines of steel. Also finished my exams for the semester--all A's. Thank goodness because there's no excuse for not having good grades when being so far away from all of the usual academic distractions.

Am looking very forward to retiring my laptop and "bush chic" vibe for the next few weeks and going back to the western world. What I am not looking forward to is the journey there. 1st Leg: Fly from Mine to Bamako and wait six hours for 2nd Leg: Fly Bamako to Paris and wait two hours for 3rd Leg: Fly Paris to Madrid and 4th Leg: Drive five hours from Madrid to La Coruna. As long I get there safely, I don't really have any complaints. I know this sounds a little basic but I can't wait to have a UK manufactured Diet Coke and paved roads to drive on sans four-legged traffic jams (see photo above) . Have certainly learned to appreciate some of the simpler things in life. Will also be nice to see some holiday decor (sans x-mas music). You wouldn't have a clue it is near X-mas, Chanukkah or New Year around here. Wish I could also have drunken Santa Tom around to tell jokes and hand out pints of pale ale. Maybe next year.

The most amazing thing happened in the middle of the night last night--it rained! We haven't seen rain in three months (let alone clouds). Very unusual but very appreciated by everyone/everything.

My travel partner will be taking a lap top so I look forward to a Jolly Mali blog abroad. I also wish everyone a very happy (and jolly) and safe holiday season. If possible, try to do something for someone less fortunate than you this holiday season and practice that throughout the year. Lots of love to y'all!

Too much Yoga

Ouch! I'm walking like a robot today thanks to yesterday's workout regime. Most days consist of running or cycling and I haven't done any yoga in a while. Therefore, yesterday (due to lack of proper brain function) I decided to go for a two hour session. I can barely move my arms, abs or arse. Reminds me of the sloth-like days after a class with Paul at Abhyasa (http://www.abhyasayoga.com/).

I am also avoiding writing a final paper for one of my classes this semester. I have a terrible "end of the semester lack of motivation" vibe going on. Nachos and a burrito would be great catalysts to get back in the groove.

The bird photo is an adorable West African Hornbill. Cute yes, but total jerks! Recently, the cherry tomatoes in the garden have been disappearing and when I went out to the garden today, there were two of these little dudes prancing around and eating the tomatoes like they were at a glutenous tomato day spa. And gutsy too because I was right next to them shaking my finger at their naughtiness and they completely ignored me! I originally thought it was the big lizards (which I am still trying to catch to keep as a pet), but now I know the real culprits.

So I promised not to be too political in this blog but I really need someone to get a message back to George Bush for me....... if any of you happen to be at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, please give this letter to "W"

Dear Jorge,

As an American abroad and former Texas immigrant, I would like to ask if you could please do us all a favor and make a true positive gesture of foreign relations before you leave office? My best suggestion is to take a group of America's finest (or Texans) , fly down to Zimbabwe, and shake the living daylights out of Robert Magabe and his men. Feel free to use any tactics you like but please do something to help the evil situation this man has created. You can do it in the name of America or in the name of the great state of Texas, but most of all please do it to help the senseless pain and suffering these people of Zimbabwe are going through.

Viva Tejas, Tricia

This and That

Although it looks like we're on a flat surface, I can guarantee you that Reinet (the patron saint of Rioja) and I had a decent hike up this "Iron Hill" in eastern Senegal. Never realized until I posted this photo but it seems we are dressed as if we belong to the Malian Chapter of Che Guevara United. I really need to wear a pink scarf or some colorful bangles when out in the bush.

Tabaski seemed to have went well for those who celebrated it. I handed out candy instead of lamb shanks and all recipients were quite appreciative (despite they probably ate the candy after their lamb chops).

I wanted to take some time to say how grateful I am for the Lebanese population of this area. We have some wicked awesome Lebanese dudes on site here who keep the pantry stocked with whole grain flour and soy milk and the DVD player spinning Wes Anderson movies. They can get anything--anytime. I think I will be forever indebted (and probably would not have lasted more than a week in Mali) without all the Lebanese-owned businesses throughout West Africa. I look forward to one day visiting Lebanon and giving everyone a big hug.

I would also like to give hugs to my dear sweet Mandy with her lovely compliments. She is definitely one of the ladies I admire most. Speaking of Mandy, did you know there is a Sammy Terry fan club on Facebook?!?

Viva Tabaski!

I have been camping this weekend and it was fabulous. We camped on a hill about 1500 feet up. In the photo, you will see the view from our campsite and the Senegal river. On this side of the river is Mali and the other side is Senegal. We saw a few monkeys on the hike up and heard them all night long--similar to sleeping through a grandmothers' tea party at the Synagogue. On the return hike, we ran into one of the local villagers and when we explained what we were doing, he was shocked that we survived the night because "devils live on top of the hill." Local Malian folklore always says evil spirits live on top of each of the big hills around here. If the evil spirits happen to be the beetles that were crawling all over my backpack this morning, then call me a local folklore believer.

Tabaski begins tomorrow, here's a website with a great explanation of it: http://www.nhm.org/africa/tour/unit001/016.htm Not exactly my cup of tea. Evidently all the cows, chickens and goats in the villages give a sigh of relief on Tabaski. I'm certainly one of those people who would be a strict vegetarian if I had to do my own slaughtering--let alone doing it for religious purposes. My heart and thoughts go out to all the local sheep tomorrow and I tried my best when I suggested they slaughter heads of cabbage this year but I received the "you are a crazy white lady" look again. I would love to go on a sheep rescue mission tonight but I think the other person in this household might object to my compassionate efforts.

By the way, for those of you who might like to know, here's a great story of some "real" American Ambassadors to Mali........ (just when I thought Air Force dudes couldn't be any more sexy, along comes Humanitarian Air Force dudes.....)

http://www2.hurlburt.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123126767

Is it really December?!

Wow! It's really December. (only 16 more days til Galicia!!) The temperatures have finally gone down to the lower 90's during the day and 70's at night. It scares me to think what the Spring will be like. I'm told it's the hottest part of the year. Oh Joy.

Everyone is preparing for Tabaski, which begins on Monday. I will explain more about Tabaski later this weekend. FYI-Vegetarians might want to skip my Tabaski post. Ramadan and Tabaski are equivalent to the Christmas/Easter or Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur of Mali Muslims.

By the way, did I ever mention the local language here is called "Bambra" and that Mali means "hipopotamus" in Bambra? Now you know--impress your friends.

Another interesting Mali factoid is Lemongrass grows wild here. Back in Houston, there was only one Asian grocery store (in a town of 4 million) where you could buy fresh lemongrass. There are at least 8 lemongrass patches in the back yard. Now if I could just grow some nacho and India Pale Ale patches in the back yard, life would be beautiful. The other night I actually tried making tortillas with the local corn flour here, I think "disaster" is a relatively appropriate description for how they turned out. Oh Texas cuisine--how I miss thee.

By the way, I added a photo of my Mali/Senegal border crossing from this past weekend. First class.

East Senegal Weekend

I have spent the past weekend at an exploration camp across the river in Senegal. (Notice the photo of some of the little dudes hangin' on the river) It's a stunning area. However, I think every Tsetse fly in Eastern Senegal decided to investigate us. It just wouldn't be trip to a new area in West Africa without the local insects giving you a massive amount of itchy bon voyage gifts. This was also my first experience of an all-dude camp. If you have the time one day, I'll give you the one-on-one briefing. I also had my first experience with an interesting array of foods. Not as bad as it could be, but I now know the scent of deep fried fish heads is a superior appetite supressant.
There were some great highlights though, a lung-expanding hike up one of the local hills which included an inadvertant ambush on a family of mongooses (mongeese?). We also saw a huge troop of baboons and some antelope looking things. (Eventually, I will get around to primping my Picassa site so I can share more photos.) The absolute best was the overwhelmingly appreciated organization of a Thanksgiving BBQ on top one of the hills. It has been ages since I've enjoyed a bonfire in the middle of nowhere and cooked everything from scratch on the fire. Bliss....
Hope everyone had a wicked awesome Thanksgiving.

Might as well cook the Turkey in the Back Yard

This is my first Thanksgiving where the outside temperature is a cool and crisp 101 degrees. Blahhh.

Getting Thankful

Am slowly recovering from last night's festivities. Red wine hangovers are never welcomed in 98 degree weather. Reinet, my newly dubbed Patron Saint of Rioja, flew in from the UK and brought two bottles of Spanish Rioja with her. Therefore, last night we feasted upon some of my homemade spinach and chicken lasagna and mucho vino. Thanks to my sous chef, the lasagna noodles were also made from scratch (whole grain cracked pepper noodles!)

Was feeling a little down earlier b/c I will be spending Thanksgiving alone. Everyone foxtrot oscared today to go over to the Senegal camp. However, tomorrow is just a regular day (and no sign of a turkey within about 1000 miles) here so it won't be too depressing. Plus, I was looking through photos earlier and found this one of a local village (yes that's a burnt trash pile in front of the hut). I'm extremely thankful I was neither raised in this type of environment nor do I live in it now. These people will probably never have a Thanksgiving dinner (nor my Mamaw Beaumont's Date Pudding). I've got it pretty good, even if I am in the third poorest country in the world. Was also thinking back to last Thanksgiving when my Mom came down to Houston and we epitomized gluttony by devouring a half log of Boucheron and several bottles of a NZ Sauv Blanc---and that was just the starter. Probably not going to do a repeat performance this year.

On the upside, I'll be heading over to the Senegal camp on Friday and we're going to do a West African Thanksgiving BBQ. Now.....time to get to those lasagna leftovers--sans vino.

Le Weekend

(the photo is a view from the bar on site)

The Lentil Cakes didn't turn out half bad, the key element is to have some HP Sauce on hand. You can find it in your British foods aisle or just mix some Heinz 57 and A1 together....here's the recipe:

1cup Cooked Lentils
1cup Cooked Cous Cous

1cup Instant Oatmeal

1/2 cup shredded carrots

Enough Olive oil to stick everything together

2 tsp curry powder (I prefer to double the spice amounts)

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp garham marsala

1 tsp powdered ginger

2 tsp soy sauce (tamari, if you have it)

Salt & Pepper to your liking

Mix the first four ingredients together, add a little olive oil to it, add the rest of the ingredients, add enough olive oil to keep it tight. Take half a handful, roll it in a ball, then squish it down into a patty. Saute them on a hot non-stick skillet and top them with HP Sauce. Parfait!

Also tried to make salsa today and it turned out terribly. As most of you may know, two of my all time favorites are WFM 365 Sesame/Flax Tortilla Chips and WFM 365 Black Bean-n-Corn Salsa. I would sacrifice a lot for those two right now.

Had a nice dinner with some of the South Africans last night. Those guys are a crazy bunch. Sometimes I find it very difficult to understand them and I wonder if they feel the same way about me? There also seems to be an unwritten rule that South African men over 40 must wear very short shorts. These big burly men wouldn't last five minutes walking around my old "gayborhood" in Houston b/c they would be snatched up by a group of "bear-loving" youngsters almost instantly.

Mali-vision

For the past three years, I have lived without a television----until I moved here. There are about 20 channels here (a combination of French, African, British and American stations). My favorite is the local Bamako channel which either shows "home-made" music videos of a Patty Labelle-looking lady coated in West African garb and probably 15 kilos of gold or it shows City meetings full of very bored Malians and even more bored Westerners. The American channel is CNN Africa plus there is an African-American channel which hosts contemporary shows like Falcon Crest and Who's the Boss. The best part about CNN is the commercials. Many of the up-and-coming Eastern European countries shoot C-grade commercials (we're talking mid-1970's style) to advertise for tourism. Croatia--here I come! Monte Negro--gonna let you develop for a few more years and your national anthem is annoying.

Saw a very interesting sight today.......when the plane flew in today (please see photo of airport/plane above--yes, our airport is actually a sea container--and that's actually the big plane which flys about 26 people instead of our usual plane which flys 16) there was a problem with the right propeller. Anyway, I witnessed 15 guys pushing an entire airplane along an airstrip today. Not a scene one wants to see right before they get on that plane. That was about four hours ago and I just heard the plane take off so it sounds like both props are working again. Go Mali Airlines!

Made a ridiculous amount of lentils for my lentil curry last night so I am going to try my hand at some lentil cous cous veggie burgers. If they turn out, I will post the recipe. Also found a way to make cornbread with polenta (we have polenta here but no corn flour), so am going to try and do these mexican spiced veggie burgers on cornbread buns. I think back to the days of Bloomington, Laughing Planet Cafe (www.laughingplanetcafe.com) had the best veggie burgers in the world. If you're in B-town and you've got the time, go treat yourself. Your heart will thank for it this close to Thanksgiving.

Okay, speaking of food, time to put the final polishings on my "Obesity" research paper.......

Why do Papayas Taste Like Vomit?

Am back home again and the Papaya trees have (literally) 100 or so papayas on them. The trees in the photo are two of about 15 trees in the back yard. Unfortunately, I think they taste like vomit. However, every day, our gardener scurries up the papaya trees (about 20 feet tall) to retrieve them and he is so proud of his accomplishments, therefore I act extremely grateful in accepting them. The other day I was explaining my papaya predicament to a neighbor and he said "Oh just put some sugar on it and it tastes much better." Hmmmm, sugary vomit? Are you serious?! I wish I liked them b/c they are great sources of Vitamin A, C, fiber, and digestive enzymes (great for testy tummies)--they also make a great meat tenderizer b/c of the enzymes. But I would rather just take a vitamin and eat some yoghurt. On a more positive note, many of the papayas end up with our gardener and the monkeys/goats are very appreciative of them as well. The banana trees are starting to make some headway though and I can't enough of them so all is not lost on the local fruit vibe.

The trip South was a wonderful getaway. It is much cooler there and I managed to bring back multiple bug bites, an intestinal parasite and several wasp stings. Now if I could have just encountered a few wild bush baboons scratches and a hippo stomp, it would have been the perfect trip. Maybe next time.

So how annoyingly evil are these Somali pirates? I want to kick all their arses. A friend of mine recently said "It's people like that who make me wish I would have gone into military special forces to do in jerks like that." I say let's put a team of Navy Seals on one of those tankers. That'll show'em. Then send them over to the Sudan and then down to the DRC. Speaking of, I want to highly recommend a book called "Unscathed" by Major Phil Ashby (he is one of the British Royal Marine Mountain Leaders) and it's a non-fictional story about his time in Sierra Lionne with the UN. If you know anyone who likes real-life-adventure-hero stories--this is perfect. Ladies--a great Christmas/Chanukkah gift for that special dude in your life.

Southern Living

Am down in Southern Mali for the week, near the Ivory Coast (for those of you with a map). Although I thoroughly appreciate the change of venue, it is unbelievably dusty here. I went for a morning and evening run yesterday but it probably would have been healthier to run in downtown Manhattan during rush hour instead.

This area seems much more populated than my stomping grounds up north. Every village still looks the same though===Beaucoup de mud huts and burning trash piles with a scattering of geeps (goats and sheep), chickens and donkeys. I still can't decide if African donkeys look more sad than American donkeys.

I've actually made a friend on site here. He's a two year old boy who is the only young child not to cry upon my first encounter with him. Perhaps it's because of my white skin or perhaps because decades of UN immunization givers are white females (causing Pavlovian-like fear with most young natives), but African babies do NOT like me. I have made an infinite amount of African babies cry simply by smiling and speaking googly French to them. I might as well be waving around a big immunization needle and shouting at them because no matter what, they are going to release the tears and screams when they see me. Fortunately, most of these babies' mothers find it highly entertaining. Anyway, this little dude rides around the site with his little tricycle (an extremely rare and prized possession for the locals) and rides over to greet me during my morning and evening runs. I wonder how long I can keep this facade of "knowing how to speak French" with him........ (For those of you who have not already witnessed it, my French is awful. Please send a handsome French tutor if you happen to have an extra one hanging around your house.)

By the way, I would like to correct a mistake from my last blog--my favorite Bamako restaurant is spelled Suhkathai. Had the world's greatest Thai Beef Salad there. The vinaigrette was absolutely divine and thought I might pass along the ingredients--do your own measurements.....lemongrass white vinegar (let some lemongrass hang in some vinegar for a day), lime juice, sesame oil, cracked chilis, finely chopped onion, crushed cilantro, pinch of sugar, and some salt. Make sure to mix it vinaigrette style and drizzle it over some romaine, carrots, tomatoes, onions and medium rare fillet. Would also make a great marinade for meat or tofu.......

Time to take a Musculoskeletel Exam...would love to have a box of Oreos to accompany it (note: please send handsome French tutor with Oreos......)

Waiting for the Plane....

Some quick background......Born in Indiana and have lived in Houston, Texas for the past ten years. I am now living here in Western Mali in West Africa and studying Health and Nutrition. This isn't the most healthy nor nutritionally stable place but it's definitely a learning experience and so far I wouldn't trade it for anything.

For those who have always lived a First World lifestyle, living in one of the world's poorest countries will humble you and open your eyes beyond anything. I have infinite appreciation for being here and everyone who made it possible.......... Now, if anyone could send me some Whole Foods 365 Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and all the episodes of this season's 30 Rock, I will be even more grateful........

The main purpose of this blog is to pass along interesting tidbits of my African lifestyle as well as some interesting food things and any Cliff Claven-esque trivia I can dish out.

Today has been such a lazy day. (that's not a complaint) We're now waiting for the plane to arrive so we can fly down to Bamako (capital of Mali). Shall be a glutenous Thai meal this evening at the SukkaThai restaurant. Then off to the Appaloosa bar for social hour with the Ukrainian girls accompanied by a few beers. The Sukka Thai makes some wicked awesome peanut sauce and spring rolls----which are usually lacking here in the Sub-Saharan belt.

Am looking very forward to my upcoming week in another location. Will be down in the southern part of Mali--another new experience.

Due to my plethora of bug bites, I have been scratching like a flea-ridden dog. For some reason, despite our entrance into the dry season, the mossies are biting more frequently than during the wet season. Btw--little piece of trivia--did you know Houston used to be the state capital of Texas but because so many people living there were dying from Malaria, they moved the capital to Austin.

Today is Veteran's Day. A special salute to my favorite veteran--RJ. It's been very interesting watching Veteran's Day events in Western Europe (in both English and French). Those guys (and girls) from WWI dressed up in their uniforms in the freezing cold. My salutes to all of them.