2010 is here! After our Christmas excursion in Dogon, we were all headed to Bamako for New Years. We PCV’s took over a party held at the home of a Lebanese friend. You tell volunteers on a strict budget that you are providing the booze, and you would be fool to expect anything less. We all counted down the new year and set off fireworks to celebrate, but the party lasted into the wee hours of the night. I don’t believe many of us were home before morning prayer call (which happens around 4:30am).
So the next day, when we headed out for the hangover hash run put on by expatriates in Bamako, we were all feeling it. This is one of my new favorite things about Mali. Ever heard of a hash run? I hadn’t. It’s a run set up like a puzzle, with lots of beer at the end. The runners all start together, headed down a path marked by “shreddies,” pieces of some miscellaneous white substance. The idea is that these markers take you to the finish, but along the way you come across big circles, marking a split in the path. Each circle has arrows pointing off of it, telling you which directions you could go. One direction is correct, leading you on to the rest of the trail. But the other arrows send you down a false path. You can identify the correct path by encountering 3 hash marks in a row. People tend to work as unofficial teams, sending people down each path, and yelling out when they have found a dud or a real path. The runs are usually about 5k, but rarely does one ever actually run the whole thing. At the end of the run, every one gathers together to raz the winner (the front running bastard) and any offenders during the race. These are people who may have cut parts of the course, or who might have worn ridiculous clothing, for example. The whole thing tends to finish up with dinner at someone’s home, which of course, us volunteers cannot resist.
This run was my first, and I set out with the other volunteers from my stage that came along. At the firs circle, we set out in different directions to find the right path. Ali and I found one and yelled for the others to follow. And some did. But there were other runners who swore up and down that they had also found a path, so we split up and moved on. About 10 minutes into our run, Ali, Billly and I realized that in fact we had found the path, but that we had found it going the opposite direction. So we decided that whatever our punishment might be, we would continue on and finish, running the whole thing backwards. These runs are frequented by many of the expats living in Bamako, from embassy workers to those working with NGO’s and the University. We ended up finishing first, which earned us three cups of beer. One for finishing first, one for going the wrong way, and one for being hash new-comers. The whole evening finished off at the home of one of the expats, with lasagne(!), socializing and more drinking.
The next few days followed with more fun, including a pool party/bbq at a friend’s house, a night of dancing, and lots of ice cream and indulgent food that we can’t get in brusse. So, needless to say, I am headed back to site today, back to reality. After being away from my village for so long, I hope they remember me. I talked to my host dad yesterday about coming home, and he sounded simply giddy! I’ll be introducing birthdays to them next week too. Malians tend to not even know when they were born or how old they are, so birthday celebrations are a foreign affair. But Monday is market day, so I am coming in to get the fixings for a good dinner and will be inviting everyone to join me in celebrating. Che (chicken), frites (potato fries) and zere (watermelon) all around!
Miss everyone lots,
Loves, hugs and kisses!
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