My second weekend in Mali and the first I've felt remotely normal.

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to play ultimate frisbee with some other expats over in Badalabougou (on the other side of the river). One regular has played ultimate for 11 years and recently started running drills for 30 minutes before we play. Sounds overly serious, perhaps, but when it is your only form of exercise you are grateful for a coach.

I was so exhausted after two hours of frisbee that I fell into bed almost immediately for a good hard nap. First, though, we met some of our neighbors. An American girl, maybe eight years old, came over to tell us that she would be selling popcorn and bissop shortly. (Bissop is a sweet, fruity drink made from hibiscus.) She came back again to tell us when the popcorn was ready, and a third time to let us know the bissop was cold. We strolled out our gate and met our neighbors across our little dirt road: The girl, her mother, and her little brother. They moved in only a week before we did; before that they lived in Guinea. The mother and E. talked shop a little, and the girl sold us plastic bags of popcorn and bissop. I waited until I was home to bite off the corner and suck the juice out, since it was my first time and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by making a mess. Boys commonly sell bags of cold water on the street but I’ve never bought any, not trusting its source.

Late in the afternoon we bought groceries at two nearby supermarkets, Azar Libre Service and La Fourmis. Instead of cooking, though, we went to Chez Thierry for dinner. They serve the usual Bamako menu—chicken, fish, beef, pizza, pasta—on a really pleasant outdoor patio, dimly lit, with American jazz playing on the stereo. We bumped into someone we'd met at frisbee, who invited us out dancing, but we opted instead to pick up a movie (Blow Out) at the DVD Club and a tub of ice cream from the Broadway Café.

We made an exploratory trip to the DVD club earlier in the week to see if they had anything in English. The young man behind the counter very politely explained—which we knew but had forgotten, because we'd never needed to know—that DVDs offer a movie in multiple languages. One can choose the spoken language and, if one so desires, subtitles in another language. Stupidly (but not surprisingly) there are different standards for American & European DVDs; luckily, the Club's discs play perfectly on my Dell 5150. In English. God bless technology!

Today we slept in until 8:00 and had breakfast at Le Relax. We bought an International Herald-Tribune and a Time magazine (European edition) to read over our coffee and tea. These, like ice cream from the Broadway, are little things that make life nice here, and cost just enough to make them seem like a real treat.

Speaking of treats, and movies, we need to leave soon for the Babemba Cínema. We’re going to see the premiere of The Hulk—in French. I won’t understand most of it, but I won’t need to; it’s the Hulk, after all. Incroyable!

Our car: Trés chic, non? And it was only 2,000,000 CFA!

After breakfast we went to the part of town where the bamboo furniture is made and sold. We tried some out, bargained a little, and arranged to have it delivered pousse-pousse—pushed across town on a little handcart.

On the way home we bought a couple typical Malian pots for houseplants.

Bougainvillea is popular on walled yards, because its thorns discourage intruders. Luckily it’s also very pretty.