News from Mali

We left Guinea last Thursday, and after two stops over night (stopped in Mamou and Kankan), we arrived in Mali, Bamako safe and sound. It took us probably all together 18 hours, which Andy drove most of the time (probably over 1000 km).

In Mamou we stayed at a nice missionary guest house, where we had for the first time since 16 days since arriving in Guinea HOT water. It was the first time when I came out of the shower and actually felt CLEAN. Because often it happens, we take a bucket shower and afterwards you look at your arms and feet and we find them still brown. We thought we’ve already got some tan, but no, big disappointment, smile.

The other team who came from a different part of Guinea arrived earlier as we did in Kankan. When we called them they said, they had decided to change the hotel… Hmm, we were wondering…. When we arrived as well, we were not very impressed with the hotel at all, and we asked ourselves: If they decided to change the hotel, we don’t really want to know how the other hotel looked like. Anyhow, the hotel was very loud, people shouting and talking in the hallway. We were glad we’ve sorted our stuff out before 10 pm, because without warning the electricity went off but with that, the talking outside our room stopped. In the morning at 5 am we had to find ourselves around with torches and even ate breakfast with flashlights because electricity wasn’t back on yet. How romantic… Here three pictures from the hotel room: The flush did not work, the sink was rosty, if we would have taken a shower we would have fluted everything, even the toilet.

To cross the border to Mali took instead of one hour it took 3 (maybe because it was around noon time and I am not sure if it is here the same like in France, around Lunch time nothing happens, nobody moves).

Our room, in the 5 Star hotel, is air-conditioned which is quite nice, but often we have to turn it off in the night because it is too cold. In the Bathroom we have hot water but no shower curtain though, so when we take a shower we always set the bathroom under water.
Besides that, there is a pool which can be used, which we did not have time yet. Today we will go on a boat trip which will be good as well. I will show you the picture next time.

God bless you with his abundance. Thanks for all your encouraging emails and words.