ISP is over and I have presented and it was awesome , though now I but now I am in a hotel and sick with a cold that turned into a bacterial infection. I have left my home stay family and at this moment am unsure whether or not I will go visit them again. Now for a few things that make me happy.

Since I don’t have a phone I usually walk across the street to talk to my friend who lives the closest to me. The children on her street know me and my name and just about every morning they run up to me with the happiest smiles on their faces screaming “Aïchata! Aïchata!”

My maid, Lala, doesn’t’ really speak French but she knows a few things like: “ça va?” and “Bon nuit!” and things like that. What is wonderful is when we can still communicate things like “I need a cup of porridge.” Or “I like your hair.” Through a mixture of the little Bambara that I know and gestures. I also love when she thinks no one is looking she will dance and sing a little as she goes about her work.

Every now and then my sister Tantie, the one that I share a bed with and who is kind of in charge of me will joke around with me about the smallest things, but then when I try and joke with her it’s doesn’t translate.

Sunday night I laid on my foam pad of a bed and watched a storm move in over my part of Bamako. It is so hard to describe that feeling of being calm, but then this lightning is flashing all the time and the wind is blowing hard and ever so slowly the clouds are blocking your view of the stars. Finally my cousin who was on the roof with me thought that we should go downstairs. This was after the sky had been fully covered by the white clouds. I am going to miss sleeping on a roof under the stars a whole lot.

I love climbing into a Sotarama and greeting everyone in Bambara and having the old ladies continue the greeting with me.

I love being able to buy a soda for 400 cfa.

My family often gets dressed up and then asks me to take a photos of them, and they never smile until I make them laugh and then tell them that they are prettier like that.

No as I said we are in a hotel.  I have been chilling here all day because I was exhausted this morning and I have really good book to read.  That I was hoping would save me from the nine hour layover I have in Senegal, but instead it kept me in a hotel room... though I do feel better now that I spent all day here... who knows.