Above is my ensemble from last year.
 |
| Ouaga airport with Christmas decor |
The trip to Bamako was uneventful. I was picked up at the airport and taken to the Mali branch of SIL, which appeared to be housed in a single high-rise building in a very nice section of town. I was told there is a river nearby, but villas have been built around it in recent years completely obstructing the view. In many ways the town seems very similar to parts of Ouagadougou, but perhaps the African Muslim influence predominates more, and I feel even more uncomfortable taking photos than I did in Burkina Faso. Consequently, there will be few, I’m afraid. Also, the Internet connection here is absolutely pathetic, so I wouldn’t have been be able to upload the images anyway.
Within walking distance of the Center, there is a fairly good-sized grocery/convenience store which I have visited twice. It is very handy with an odd assortment of things. Because of the more upscale neighborhood there, many products are imported from France and the US. In Ouaga France dominated, so the US presence surprised me. I also balked at the price of cereal (easily six or more dollars a box) but managed to get some decaffeinated coffee on sale (apparently not a best-seller) and some slightly expired imported sharp cheddar cheese for practically nothing, which made up for some of the other outrageously-priced items from abroad. As I walked along the road to the store I passed “the vegetable ladies” selling fresh produce, with one woman selling lengths of fabric on the side, a stall with some painted wall hangings, and adjacent another with woven cloth stitched together to form blankets, a “gas station” for motorbikes with gasoline-filled wine and spirit bottles, and a few men sitting on chairs outside gated houses “guarding” the properties.
I have set to work in the library, which looks smaller than the one in Ouaga, but appearances can be deceiving. It is certainly dustier, as the bookshelves are open, without the glass doors that protect the books. Most of their local language materials are not cataloged, which makes the size of the database a deceiving way of assessing the exact size of the collection. Journals also appear to be treated differently.
I am taking inventory by checking all of the cataloged materials (books), as some titles were lost from the database in a software upgrade although the once-catalogued books maintained their barcodes. I am finding that a number of items checked out in the past were not returned properly as well. I will then add these lost books I find with no data attached, and then add the new items. It is clear that this poor library has been neglected for some time.
On Thursday evening I had dinner with Dan Brubaker and his wife Lucia, at a local restaurant. Dan is responsible for the library, but he has additional responsibilities as well, and it is obvious that the library is not been his main priority. The three of us went to a lovely place called the Kora, situated not too far from the Center, where the interior walls were covered with painted murals, featuring Mali-themed scenes and symbols. I enjoyed a thin-crust pizza, which was quite good, even though the featured mushrooms were not in evidence. We ate in the interior room off the main dining hall where it was better lit. There were few people there on a weekday evening, although we were eating relatively early compared to most European and African diners.
 |
| the Kora Restaurant interior room |
 |
| the SIL Center in Bamako |
No comments:
Post a Comment