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.......