I loved my first car, a 1990 Honda Accord, which I started driving when I graduated from college. I loved my Honda because it was faithful, kept on running for years, got back on its feet (wheels?) after many a wreck, found its way home three months after being stolen. Before I moved to Mali I donated it to the Gaithersburg High School Auto Tech program, where they had a lot to work with, starting with a broken headlight and a trash bag duct-taped over the hole where the passenger window should have been.

I never thought another could equal it in my heart, but I’m growing awfully fond of my car here in Bamako.

First of all, it has a Bambara name. Not a name I personally gave my particular car, but a name given by the Bamakois to all little Toyota hatchbacks: cafuni. It means “little chicken egg.” I like to think that refers to its sleek organic styling and not its fragility.

Second of all, it doesn’t have air conditioning. That sounds like a good reason to hate it, especially now in the hot season, the season in which a day that only reaches 95 degrees Fahrenheit is kinda comfortable, actually. It’s not that I like to sweat in my car -- and I do, especially when I make a three-point turn, since my car doesn’t have power steering either. But having no air conditioning means driving with the windows down.

Picture this: most expatriates living in Bamako have nice 4-wheel-drive trucks. They sit high off the ground, elevated over the pedestrians, mobilettes, and owners of humble cafuni like me. And because they have air conditioning, they drive with the (tinted) windows rolled up, sealing them off from all the action. The intersections of Bamako are lively, full of young men selling phone cards, fire extinguishers, and boxes of facial tissue; boys from the marabouts’ schools carrying tomato cans, reciting Islamic verses and begging for a bite to eat; elderly blind people and various other handicapped people and women with twins (or children they dress to appear like twins). With the windows rolled up one has a barrier between oneself and all the teeming humanity. One needn’t acknowledge other people outside the car, let alone politely decline their offers or pleas; one can just look straight ahead and pretend they don’t exist.

My husband calls that style of driving “Pope-mobile.” I don’t know where that term comes from (perhaps it sprang fully-formed, apropos of nothing, from his admittedly odd brain). What he’s referring to is the sealed-up, closed-off, insular, elevated kind of driving done by Important People everywhere.

If one (or one’s spouse or parents) works for a U.S. Embassy, one’s entire life is conducted Pope-mobile-style. For example, mail that is sent overseas via diplomatic pouch never enters the foreign post office; it’s only handled by the U.S. government. What’s more, Embassy staff arriving in Bamako -- as if they are being delivered in a people-sized pouch -- get off the plane and into an official vehicle, and are whisked away to a safe place (safer, presumably than the totally chaotic but not especially dangerous Bamako Senou airport). They never deal with the lines (or lack thereof), the customs agents, the police, the guy who looks at your WHO card to make sure your yellow fever vaccination is up to date, the pushy porters, the sketchy tour guides, the irritable man who throws your bags through one last X-ray machine, the surprisingly friendly woman who actually compares your baggage claim ticket stub to the ticket on your baggage, and, of course, the relentless taxi drivers.

They don’t see these, or many other things. They are not even allowed to change the light bulbs in their own house. They have to call the Embassy and request a Foreign Service National (i.e., a Malian working at the U.S. Embassy) to do it. How many Foreign Service Nationals does it take to change a lightbulb? Three: One to change it, and two to make sure he doesn’t steal it. I wish that weren’t a joke.

I don’t drive a Pope-mobile. I drive cafuni, the little egg, the people’s car! I am so low to the ground that I look up at everyone who approaches, even the stooped old ladies shaking their plastic cups for coins. Because I don’t have air conditioning, my windows are always rolled down. I can’t pretend that people aren’t there when they’re leaning on the door, looking me in the eye. So I make conversation. Almost everyone I talk to is friendly, whether or not I buy what they’re selling. They talk to me differently than they talk to the people in the 4x4s.

I almost always have a little coin I can give the blind or handicapped -- that’s their Social Security, in a way, and what’s it to me? Five cents, or fifty?

Sometimes I give a little bread or water to the boys from the marabout school, and tell them to share. If they don’t speak any French they speak stubbornly in Bambara, perhaps hoping that by the fifth or sixth repetition, I’ll suddenly understand.

Once, a man selling Hollywood gum and cigarettes asked about the carton full of grapefruit in the backseat; I gave one to him and one to his friend. I don’t know if they liked grapefruit, but they sure got a kick out of it.

“I need a phone card, but I don’t have any money,” I shrug as I sit waiting at the red light. The phone card man on the curb understands, he really does. Maybe tomorrow? Sure, maybe tomorrow. The light turns green and I drive off.