Fanta told me that our guard Fousseini is getting married today. I was confused, because I thought he was already married.

A couple months ago, he wrote a letter to E -- that is, he had someone else write a letter for him -- asking for a loan to help pay for a wedding. E agreed to the loan and forgave part of it as a gift.

Soon after that he brought Geneve to the house (he lives in a little house next to ours, on our property) and introduced her as his femme. Since then, he has gone every Saturday (his day off), picked her up, and brought her back on his moto. She stays the night, cooks dinner for him, and washes his clothes. Sunday he drives her back to wherever she stays the rest of the week.

But Fanta told me, and Fousseini confirmed, that the official ceremony is today at 4:00 p.m. First they'll go to the Muslim marabout, and after that they'll go to the mayor for the state seal of approval.

It's funny to find such a loose interpretation of marriage in such a devoutly Muslim country. When I moved here in October 2003 I actually worried about the fact that E and I weren't "really" married yet -- that Malians would see our cohabitation as a sin, as many Christians would. But when I confessed my secret to one Malian acquaintance, and then another, I was met with total indifference. "But I don't think you understand," I'd protest, "We haven't had a wedding yet! We're not married!" They would just shrug, impatient with the subject and explain that as long as we were living together we might as well be married. The ceremony is just a formality. My thoughts exactly.

I walked over to the Piano Bar last night for dinner with Awa. I was happy to be going out, because our power was off, and wasn't showing any signs of returning soon. On the way to the restaurant I saw that the power was off everywhere on our block. The power was even off at the Piano Bar, which doesn't have a generator, but the kitchen was still open (most cooking is done by gas) so we sat on their porch and dined by candlelight. I think they were grateful because when we complained about mosquitoes they went and bought a coil, and brought us a fresh sliced mango for dessert, on the house.

Awa came with Richard, the French architect/contractor whose floor she's crashing on until she leaves tomorrow. He speaks English with a strong French accent: "You know, I am giving zee cigarettes away all day, it is zomesink you must do heer, like drink zee tea." While he talks he smokes and fidgets and leans his head back to shake his long brown hair off his thick neck.

I had heard about Richard’s boxing career in the Dominican Republic secondhand from Awa. Last night we were both treated to a firsthand account of the two times he did the Paris-Dakar rally. The first time he had a co-driver, a dentist who not only had to move his bowels too often (by Richard’s standards) but was shy about it, demanding that Richard drive a kilometer or more off the course so he could have some privacy. Richard hated being slowed down, so he told one of the rally doctors, "It is bad, I am having to go to zee bathroom all the time," and they gave him some Immodium AD. He ground it up and put it in the dentist's food. The poor guy didn't poop for two weeks. Richard told him years later and wondered why the dentist didn’t think it was funny.

The second time, Richard drove by himself. Probably just as well. I think he placed 37th.