Not much has happened this week. That is, nothing exciting or strange or especially foreign happened this week. I worked at Geekcorps, I worked at the commissary. I went to the gym. I went to a Board meeting. I made a phone call to the US. I drank a beer at a bar.

You see what I mean.

But I'm not going to let that stop me. Oh no! I've been inspired by an email conversation with an old college friend: He asked what a young American typically drives here, I gave him a 300-word reply, he came back begging for more. I feel encouraged to drone on about the most mundane of topics until I've driven my entire audience away. (Except my dad of course. Dad will always keep reading, no matter how boring I am, right, Dad? .... Dad?)

It is, after all, my website. See my name up there? Yeah. That means it's mine.

So, here is a picture from lunch today:

Josh and Maimouna work at Geekcorps with me. Josh is a volunteer from Montreal, a computer engineering student. He's setting up Linux machines as studio editing stations. Josh had a great Tabaski in Timbuktu, where he wore his boubou and was invited into many people's homes and ate trop de mouton. Volunteers usually come for about four months and live in the Geekcorps house/office.

Maimouna is our office administrator. She is bright, stylish, funny, charming, and sassy as all get-out. She makes me wish I spoke better French so we could be better friends. She speaks some English and seems to have a knack for picking up languages. Maimouna lives with her family, as is customary for women until they get married. Most Malians live in extended family groups under one roof, but women in particular are obliged to do so. Those who go off and get apartments on their own are scorned as prostitutes.

We had lunch at Habib's, a new place just down the street, across from the new mosque. It is semi-open-air, in a walled-off compound with a light roof to keep the sun and rain off. Habib's food is pretty good, especially the hummous and baba ganoush. It's also reasonably priced, not as cheap as a 350F ($0.70) bowl of rice-and-sauce at the Senegalese restaurant, but still only about 1000F ($2) for a chicken sandwich or a beef shawarma on fresh pita bread, and 1000F for a plate of hummous (which you see on the table) with a bag of pain lebanais and tomatoes and onions.

Here is the rest of the restaurant. You can see part of the new mosque in the top left. In the center is the brick oven where Habib makes the bread.

Peter was also at lunch but he does not like to have his picture taken. But he took great pictures of Dogon country. You should go look, if for no other reason to see the very professional photo of my Geekcorps boss on page 2. And to see how green Dogon country is in December, as compared to May, the peak of the hot season, when I was there.