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.
