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Africa

And then there was Kunnafonix

I expected that, as a white guy from the west, you would also pay accordingly. It happens to be, however, that in Mali people actually don’t try to rip you off all the time. In India anyone would try to get some extra cash from us poor westerners. But here, up to now I only paid too much to a cab driver. I actually knew that I was way overcharged for my cab ride to the Hellen Keller Institute, but what the heck. 2000 CFA instead of the 750 CFA we paid to get back. It was hot, and I didn’t feel like stressing myself. I just told the guy that I knew he was bullshitting me.

Learning another language

It is interesting to be in a country with 11 national languages besides the official language, and these are only the biggest language groups. So many languages makes French actually much more neutral than one would think at first regard. I haven’t been studying Bambara as much as I wanted. Bambara is, surprise suprise, the language of the Bambara, comprising 30% of the population, and Mali’s lingua franca spoken by about 80%. Many think learning languages is difficult. I think it isn’t.

My first days in Africa

So I broke my promise to write every day. But maybe I can start to fix this now. I just woke up, and my head feels a bit achy. First I actually like have to warn you that like my English is probably like, so much more Northern American now. My fourth day in Africa. Apart from my hangover I’m really feeling good. No need for culture shock absorbers. No extreme heat - yet. Only a a bit dusty now and then. Yesterday I woke up at 5:30 to drive to Yanfolilla with the Geekcorps 4WD.

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