We had a few errands to run today (P-Day), so we went north across the river and into the market areas surrounding the Artisan’s Market. We were looking for irrigation pipe for an orange grove some friends of ours have invested in here. We learned what we needed to know from several helpful “Quincaillerie” or hardware shop owners.
These streets were a working man’s paradise! We saw every imaginable part or piece displayed in shop after shop. It was really a fun wander.
We traveled to Mountougoula this morning after helping to set things up in Bamako. Dramame met us at the chicken farm, then we drove to the new meeting place about 20 minutes farther down the road.
When we got there, the lock wasn’t working, or it had been changed. We couldn’t get in. John and then Sekou went up and over the wall to see if he could open it from the other side.
That worked, thank goodness! We prepared this meeting place to receive our good members here. It’s still a construction site, quite dirty with dust everywhere. We finally found a broom and a pair of old boxer shorts to use as a rag to clean the chairs off.
Sekou and Elder Ikpeti prepared the sacrament and the program outline.
There were 7 men who joined us for church today. We had a wonderful sacrament meeting, spoken in 3 languages: Bambara, French and a bit of English. It was calm and peaceful. A breeze blew through the meeting room and we felt removed from the world.
Elder Ikpeti, Dramane, and Sekou:
John and Elder Ekpeti spoke. Dramane translated to Bambara.
In our Sunday School class, Sekou introduced the new Come Follow Me program for this year, studying the Book of Mormon. We had new manuals for each. They loved looking through them. We also gave them the recent copies of the church magazines.
The lesson was about the importance of reading and studying the Book of Mormon. It sure would be nice if we had a Bambara translation. These good men (farmers) don’t read much French. I noticed they all left their manuals behind at the end of the class. I was sad about that.
I was also sad to see where they kept their books and church materials. They had 3 totes. When I started to organize what was in them to keep the sacrament trays and hymn books together, I found that the bottom half of one of the totes was a mouse nest.
We cleaned everything out and organized the manuals and scriptures and the sacrament items and the baptismal clothing. We need someone here who can help look after these things when we’re not here. We also need some cleaning supplies–brooms, buckets, mops and rags. It’s a hard thing to conquer the dirt and dust that coats this world.
Today between our meetings we passed by Sekou’s medical school, the University of Kankou Moussa in Bamako. Sekou is a second year medical student here and he loves it. He was excited to show us around the campus.
This is the administration and faulty building:
This is the classroom wing where Sekou’s class is.
This is Sekou’s class room. He said he’ll spend 4 years in this room. The professors rotate in and out of the rooms, so the students stay in the same place. There are 30 second-year students in Sekou’s class.
Their weekly schedules and exam schedules are posted outside the classroom:
The center of the campus has basketball standards and a place to play some soccer.
What a wonderful blessing it is to have someone like Sekou in medical school here. He has such a good heart and he loves the thought of ministering to people as a profession. We wish him well. It’s a long grueling path to become a doctor, but Sekou is well on his way!
Sunday mornings we can get to the church in 10 minutes because the traffic isn’t as bad as usual. We are usually the taxi driver’s first customer (which means the mosquitoes haven’t blown away yet), but it’s a more peaceful drive and we get to the church early to prepare for the day.
John is helping prepare for sacrament meeting at 9:30 here in Bamako.
After preparing here, we left with Sekou to attend church at Mountougoula. Happy Sabbath!
This supermarche is where we do most of our grocery shopping here in Badalabougou, Bamako. Shopreate is a great store, always filled with our neighbors and lots of interesting people. It’s about a 5 minute walk from our apartment, so we usually go about once a week to pick up the few things we need. There are lots of foreigners who shop here. I wish I knew what brings them to Bamako.
Here are a few of the things we can find here. These are dry goods like seasonings, oats and milled grains.
Herbs and spices:
The pasta aisle:
Condiments:
Canned goods:
Today I found the snack aisle was filled with Pringles. Every week things change here, depending on what comes in. If you see something you need or like, you buy it. It may not come around again for awhile.
Peanuts are a favorite snack here. I find the packaging in recycled bottles interesting.
Things I’ve been thrilled to find here include imported butter and cheese, yogurts, ground beef and other meats, fresh baguettes, and some baking goods. We are getting along just fine.
Today one of our good members, Josue Togo, took us to visit a girls’ orphanage here in Bamako. Stepping into this place was like stepping into an Oasis! After winding our way through many dirty crooked streets, we pulled up to this compound and Josue invited us in. What we found was delightful.
This is one of many orphanages here in Bamako. Josue works with many NGOs to help find funding for this and other humanitarian endeavors. These orphanages survive because of generous donations from individuals and organizations who notice and care.
This orphanage has 60 beautiful young women. Many have been the victims of abuse. This is their safe haven. The courtyard of the compound is filled with beautiful gardens the girls look after.
Mariam Dembele Togo is the director of this beautiful orphanage. She is lovely.
The girls sleep 4 to a room in bunks with mosquito nets. They each have a desk and a chair and a locker for their clothes.
Malian drinking fountains!
It was lunch time and the girls were busy eating.
This is the kitchen and the helpers who help prepare the meals for the girls:
These are the bathrooms:
Here’s where the girls fill their buckets for bathing in the bathrooms:
Laundry drying. There was way more on the ground than on the clotheslines.
Our purpose for meeting with Josue and visiting the orphanage today was to learn more about humanitarian opportunities we might want to become involved with. We are here to love and serve in any way we can. Josue had lots of good ideas and he is well connected in this community. We are grateful to have good members like Josue.
This afternoon the Elders came for a special District Meeting here with us. John prepared lists of every member in each of our groups and we went, one by one, introducing them to these Elders, who are relatively new here. Oh, how we love these members and pray for those who we haven’t seen in awhile. They’ll be back. They know what we teach is true. They know this is the Church of Jesus Christ. Some of them we need to go find.
We were able to get our hands on an excellent map of Bamako last week. This will help us so much in our work.
We had dinner together after our meeting. I introduced the Elders to an American meal–sort of Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches (without the cheese), chips and carrot sticks. It was a huge success. I cooked about 3 lbs of ground beef, seasoned with red, green and yellow peppers, onions and some steak seasoning, and served it with fresh baguettes. It was delicious. Elder Kouakou said, “Soeur Lewis, I could eat this every single day!” We had zucchini bread for dessert. Another new favorite for them.
I don’t think there was a bit of room left under their belts when they left! What great young men! We love being here with them.
I find this very interesting. Not many roads here are paved, so during the dry season they blow away and during the rainy season they wash away. Most streets and roads are filled with ruts and potholes and you always have to watch where you step or where your taxi swerves.
When the ruts and holes are serious enough, someone comes along with a load of what I’ll call “road base” for lack of another name–it’s just big bad stuff that comes from who knows where–junk piles? constructions sites? garbage heaps? These truck loads are dumped in the roads to fill the holes. The idea is that people will drive over it enough to break it down into something that will fill the holes and not wash away.
Here’s how it looks after a fresh dump-load. Notice the toilet is here too! Our taxi driver didn’t see a large irrigation stand pipe at the end of this dumped pile, and he accidentally drove over it, which high-centered the back tires. We had to get out and help lift the car off. I’m curious to see this street again in a few month’s time.
Francois is one of our early members of the church here in Bamako. He traveled to Accra to be baptized in 2016 after learning about the gospel from friends here in Bamako. He’s a favorite translator for the expeditions who come to Mali, being fluent in Bambara, French and English.
Francois Director of the Mady Sissoko English Academy in Bamako. This school started last fall semester with a group of high school and college-aged students. Many of them are basketball players at local high schools who have been involved with groups that have come to Mali to promote their sport. Mady Sissoko is a Malian high school player who went to Utah to play high school basketball. He’s in his senior year now at Wasatch Academy. Mady has been recruited to play for Michigan State.
Before and after school, students who want to learn to speak English come to this school where Francois helps them learn from an online curriculum. They do their work on individual laptops and have classroom discussions to practice conversation skills.
Students were just starting to arrive as we were leaving. They were happy for this chance to learn a valuable new skill.
Good things are happening here in Bamako. We have good members around us doing good things. Francois is fantastic.
Here are a few more interesting things to look at depicting every-day life in Bamako. I think this place is fascinating, everywhere I look I learn something new about surviving in a hard place.
A local coffee shop:
A fan is a man’s best friend:
Fulani herder’s hats and African items for sale by a large hotel:
Perhaps one of the most common sights here–a motorcycle repair shop:
A hardware store:
Dried fish for sale under a red umbrella:
More dried fish for sale:
Watching her wares:
Mudcloth for sale:
Ripe plantain:
A thatch-roofed fruit and vegetable stand:
Yams for sale, already cooked:
Women with popos stopping to watch a street painter:
Feed for animals:
Floor tiles, a squatter toilet and fans:
A very typical busy street:
More dead cars than mechanics here:
Young boy on a horse:
A supplier of pallets:
A local sheep market:
All of this was seen in about a 20 minute period as we drove through town. I love this place!
Our Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan East and Bamako, Mali Mission 