Our Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan East and Bamako, Mali Mission

A Bamako Bus Station

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Today while Pres Binene was doing some interviews at the church, we went with Sekou to a bus station to check some prices for travel to Togo for one of our members who needs to travel there to get a passport so he can attend the temple in a few weeks. It was an interesting place to visit.

There are two types of buses–basic and VIP. The prices you’ll see below. 10,000 cfa is about $17.00 USD. These are the main cities and towns in Mali and in West Africa.

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Here are the people waiting with their luggage for their bus. Many of these trips take more than one day. The buses stop occasionally to change drivers and for toilet breaks. Sometimes there is a chance to buy some food along the way.

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Bus transportation is probably the most popular way to get around West Africa for most people here.

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Friday Mornings in our Neighborhood

Every Friday morning the Ar-Rahma Mosque across the street prepares for a day of prayer. Here are a few pictures I took this morning as we stood in the street here by our apartment, waiting for a taxi to come along.

First the men pull out the tent poles. They erect this tent every Friday for overflow mosque attenders. Actually, our whole street fills with men and prayer rugs at mid-day.

Then the tent is raised.

This man is selling the wash pots the men use to clean themselves before praying.

This is our neighborhood trash collector. He comes down our street every morning collecting the trash we put out. Usually others have gone through the trash before he removes what’s left. By the time his rounds are finished, his cart will be piled high. These trash carts pulled by donkeys are seen all over town. Usually young boys pick up the trash and haul it to a dump somewhere.

The tent us up, the street is swept, and soon it will be time for prayer.

A Visit from Lynn Curtis

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This week we got to visit with Lynn Curtis as he came into town, and then several days later before he departed. He’s the Executive Director and founder of Broadweave Solutions, a company that fosters business enterprise in underdeveloped locations and the linguistics skills required to go along with business success.

Lynn went with our friend Anounou to Ouelessebougou for the week where he met with and trained about 20 men and women interested in improving their business skills through literacy training. He has programs for both French and Bambara, and we were really excited to visit with him about that as we consider ways we can teach literacy here.

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This evening we heard all about his excellent week in Ouelessebougou and he brought some materials to us to try here with our friends and members of the Church who want to improve their literacy. This is going to be fun!

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Zone Conference in Bamako

District Meeting, Binene’s Arrive, and some Banana Bread

This week we had a great District Meeting on Tuesday, then the Binenes arrived in Bamako on Wednesday. John continues to work with Frere Mbaya on straightening out our branch membership records, and I made 4 batches of banana bread.

Here’s the Banana Bread Recipe that works with our local ingredients:

BANANA BREAD

1 cup sugar
3 small or 2 large bananas, mashed
1/2 package of margarine (1/2 c. shortening)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla (can’t find here)
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups flour

Sprinkle top with cinnamon sugar

Mix together. Makes 1 large loaf or 2 small loaves.
Bake 300 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Share with friends.

Fabric and Bamako Markets

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You know how I love fabric! We wandered through the mazes of fabric shops on our way to the Artisan’s Market today. I need some pieces to make curtains for our windows in Bamako and in Abidjan and I also want to start making some baby blanket gifts for our members. We had a lot of fun in this shop while this owner watched how an American quilter selects fabric. Here you must buy in 6 yard pieces, but the prices are good–between $3.00 and $4.00/yard.

Then we went into the Artisan’s Market. We’d ordered some special Christmas Ornaments made for the Ouelessebougou Alliance benefit auction in April. Today we picked them up from our friend. He was really happy and so were we!

Our beaded angel and star ornaments:

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I always enjoy this market and wandering around watching the artists at work.

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I found a few more antique Malian wedding beads (made in Czechoslovakia in the late 1800s) and enjoyed visiting with our market friends.

Animal skins for wallets, shoes, belts and other things:

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This one is an iguana:

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What a fun afternoon we had in this interesting place!

Home Depot Alley –the Quincailleries

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.

Church in Mountougoula

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.

Sekou’s Medical School in Bamako

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 Preparations in Bamako

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.