We’ve arrived in that soup of humidity, dust, wood-fire smoke, mud and beauty that is Bamako. Kara (GAIA Mali Director) and Karim (Ousmane’s lab) met us at the airport and loaded our boxes of condoms, research supplies and medicines into Ousmane’s landcr cruiser. It took us almost an hour to cross Bamako because it was just 10 PM, the time when the semi trailers that are waiting at the edges of the city can come in and unload their loads. So our crossing of the Niger and the city was as efficicient as wading through a herd of buffaloes. We were surrounded by huge lumbering beasts, stacked two containers high (or so it seemed) and wrapped in blue tarp and bungee cords. Besides the buffaloes, the streets were full of people and carts and kids and bicycles and the inevitable goat or two. It was magic. It was Mali. We’re glad to be here.
After what seemed like forever (and catching up on all the news) we arrived at the clean, bright Maison GAIA where the first of many surprises awaited us – Nido is pregnant! (oh boy). For those of you who don’t know Nido, she’s our guard dog (left behind by GAIA volunteers two summers ago). She’s a beauty and now there will be more Nidos. The next surprise was a much better one – the news (that Kara kept back, smiling like a Cheshire cat, until just before he went home for the night) that GAIA has an off fficial approval to build an HI HIV clinic in Mali fr from the minister of health! This is huge, and it means that we can finally, if you can believe it, start building that clinic. The center of Hope. The Hope Center Clinic / Centre D’Espoir in Sikoro, Mali, a place as far from Providence as your imagination can carry you.