Here's the scoop: we are leaving Mali in December, probably around the 10th. We'll fly to Dulles airport, visit our families in Maryland and Michigan, and visit friends in Washington, DC. We still don't know where we'll be living in January, but we hope to find out sometime in December.
So, January: TBA.
Meanwhile, we're preoccupied with leaving Mali. We move out of our house November 30. Not knowing where we're going to be living next, we're going to ship all our goods to the US. The less we have to ship, of course, the cheaper and easier it will be, so we're culling a lot: books, clothes, etc.
Yesterday we worked on the bookshelves together. Books to keep (i.e., ship):
Books to give away, plus some crappy $1 VHS movies we bought at the commissary:
People keep asking me if I feel sad ... I'm starting to. I was thinking about what I want to give to my Geekcorps coworkers before leaving, which made me think about saying goodbye to them all. That will be sad.
Sunday afternoon at our friend's house made me feel a bit sad too, in a nostalgic sort of way. We ate grilled hamburgers on the porch, then I sat dangling my feet in the pool. R had two chickens running around his yard, gifts from a friend in a village somewhere. E told us how to hypnotize a chicken:
- Catch a chicken.
- Hold its head down on the ground.
- Draw a line in the dirt extending straight out from its beak.
- Let go of its head and the chicken will just lay there, looking at the line.
- Chop its head off (optional).
Of course we had to try. It didn't work, but E swears he did it in the Congo.
Later I swung briefly in a hammock under the mango tree. It was exceedingly pleasant. I'm going to miss days like that.
