How to spend a day in Bamako, Mali

After a few much needed hours of sleep, we awoke to join the group for breakfast and a "briefing" at 10am. Most had arrived on an 11:30pm flight, dad and I were the last in at 3:30. Typical European-style breakfast -- I had some coffee or tea or something like that (not much of a breakfast eater!). Met some of the others at the various tables set up by the pool. Don't picture a "typical" US hotel with pool -- while the pool/patio area was lovely and the rooms were nice, they also had mosquito nets. And tepid showers without a separate stall. But I digress.....

In any event, we had our 10am briefing where we got introduced to one another (11 people total including 2 leaders). Lots of relatives -- me and dad, mom and daughter, sisters, aunt and nephew. Most from Ohio, also Montana and Arkansas as well as dad and me. We got a "calendar" of where we would be each day and then had some brief history/information. From my journal, I note the following:

Dogon -- an ethnic group ("our" village is a Dogon village). There are about 20 sub-groups within this one, each with subtly different languages and customs.
Toubab -- a white person
fete -- party (French -- I did know this one ahead of time!)

Enjoyed some information on basic health and safety. Need to keep track of ourselves -- don't push too hard, make sure you stay hydrated, keep your hands clean, be careful what you eat, sterilize the water, keep track of your "stuff".

Culturally, we need to be aware of a different concept of time -- be flexible. And we want to keep an environment within the group where it's "safe" to talk to one another without any fear.

Onward to lunch at the Relax (which will feature more prominently at the end of the trip!). Apparently a "major" ex-pat hang-out with familiar food -- crepes, omelets, pizza, etc. Nice cheese omelet for me! Then we headed to the National Museum. There were a couple celebrations going on by the museum -- from what we saw, heard, and can figure out, there was a wedding (woman dressed in white) and a celebration for the 50th anniversary of independence. The museum included artifacts of early tools and ritual idols -- mainly for fertility and good crops, although there were also ones for protecting crops and for brides on their weddings. A long mask headpiece (like we'd see later) represents the 8 original Dogon tribes. We also saw a big exhibit on textiles showing the weaving, cotton processing, mud cloth, indigo, modern dying techniques, and an exhibit of fashions by a Maliian designer.

There are various techniques for dying cloth to create patterns -- tie-dying, stitching the cloth in patterns, and batik are all used.

Catch up the rest of the day later.........there's so much to say!