oh technology

here is my first attempt at posting an image along with a new entry. it is not the best, nor the worst...

other than ranting about the world beyond my grasp, both figuratively and literally, i want to let you all know that this is a picture of yours truly inside one of my thatched roof adobe dwellings or trad or hut or rondavel, however you may want to call it. the roof leaks now that it is rainy season, yeah, but the flowers are a-bloom and it looks like there may be enough rain to replenish the water sources and provide food to my neighbors. the rains last year stopped in mid-september causing a stunted food production and kept well waters down.

recent drama aside (i am not going to get into it now), things are looking absolutely fine here. the bambara/malinke language is improving all of the time, and i think i may mention that every blog or email, but it's true. linguistic complexes i have had in my life and now i think i am over it. i am meeting people in bamako, and from kangaba to my village of sombo. they remember that i am a doumbia, or in the blacksmith family. when in the land of traore's, it's tough to justify why i have kept my family name as such, but i just say that my host-mom is a traore so they are okay with me. i like making dabas anyways, or the hand-held hoe.

well, it's been over six months since i got here, i have only got like 20 months left, and my mind is blown. it feels like yesterday we disembarked the plane and stepped onto african tarmack. whoa. the ball is rolling on projects at site, making vacation plans with friends from the peace corps here, and looking to the future. now, i know i can't complain.

i guess that's it for now. no new books to add to the reading list cuz i spent all of july in training and hanging out in bamako. i will admit though now that i am in the midst of reading Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix, 2003, right now. it's good, i like harry a little angsty, i can relate. love

What?!?!

a bombing coincides with the g-8 summit in london that coincides with the ioc naming the same city to host the 2012 olympics that coincides with the 7th appearance of a man who stated last year in the tour de france that he'd bow out this years' event.

all i have to do is shake my head and state: lies and the lying liars who tell them.