so. my friends and i here, in attempt to stay aware of the arrogant pats on the back we could be giving ourselves through the struggles here, laugh and say 'wow, i am learning soooo much about myself'. it's easy to think. it's probably true, and will be even more apparent when I return home. but none of us want to be the annoying friend who gives a condescending scoff when people talk about anything 'difficult' back at home. note: for all listening, do not let me do that, i just may need to hit you in the face with a pillow the first time you complain about food in the dining hall every once in awhile. cool? cool.
bon, so anyway, i think i am getting tired of 'learning about myself'. it's tiring constantly watching my personality deal with the plights of the african life. i'm very ready to not think, wow kyra, you feel guilty waaay too often, you should learn to do what you say and say what you mean without regrets, or why do you feel the need to prove yourself in this situation....blah blah blah. its good for me but wow, i'm ready to sit and relax with kyra, let her be.

meanwhile just being here, has its very strong points too. I find myself making lists in my head of the things i'm grateful for in my country, amongst my friends, in my family. we talk about incredible meat is, as I get about three small chunks of goat/sheep (maybe?) a week, or the healthy feel that fresh green vegetables give you. IN ADDITION. it has been recently brought to my attention that the water here, even after I use my nifty steripen to treat it, is heavily chlorinated and really fails to hydrate me. I gulp down bottle after bottle workin the battery to its maximum only to find i still have a headache...until I realize that everytime we've done an excursion including this recent GRAND excursion and our leaders buy us bottled water, I finally do not feel light headed and lacking energy anymore. hmmm although some other students are just fine, but maybe I just get dehydrated very easily, not sure, but i think i'm gonna stick to leaving my carbon foot print for my last few months and go with the bottled water.

So we finished classes - our last day was a grueling four hours of a man teaching us Bambara and french songs that I'm pretty sure he said were written by his friend. I guess he felt the need to fill the gaping time slot and after writing all the lyrics on the chalkboard he would proceed to sing it about 20 times. i absolutely kid you not. it was almost unbearable. my embarrassment at the fact that only one out of 18 students were paying attention by the end, and the mere annoyance at listening to the SAME simple song over and over made me very angry. I excused myself to go to the bathroom in the middle. i'm not lying when i say that that little trip was more thrilling.

with some easy exams on monday and tuesday, we headed off on our touristy adventure on wednesday. In two burning hot metal boxes filled with 10 kids whose legs did not fit in the space in front of them, whose bare feet could not rest on the floor for fear of the scalding, uncovered surface, we drove to Segou, Djenne, Mopti, and the Dogon country. Beautiful. some of the hotels had air conditioning, and all had actual showers!!! my hair actually felt clean, it was quiet in the nights, no morning prayer waking me up at 5:30, it was glorious. The air was cleaner, life was more calm, packs of children weren't always running behind yelling 'tubabou! tubabou!' at us. Djenne was an entire town filled with mud architecture, including a gigantic mosque that our non muslim status prevented us to enter. My friend Elle and I got lost wandering through mud houses, weaving our way through a maze of small dusty corridors, until finally we found our way back to the hotel. But it felt good. and safe. and people smiled as we walked by. In Mopti we went on a boat ride in the Niger, in the Dogon country (one of the most charming, quaint, beautiful, rural places I have ever been) we went on a difficult hike at 6am, walking over loose rocks and wondering how SIT lets its students do it... The scenery on the long car rides is difficult to describe. A sea of palm trees followed by rocky canyons followed by villages that seemed like something out of a historic museum. Dogon country is upposedely one of the most isolated and unchanged area/people in the whole world. There are round clay huts with straw rooves shaped like hersheys kisses.

There's too much to cover. In all, it was refreshing, tiring and relaxing at the same time. I ate a lot of good food. I used toilets. Our group bonded and got tired of each other. I missed my Bamako family, and started to think about how little time I have left here. I started to stress about my future research. I take off for Sanakoroba on Tuesday to begin interviewing, and I have four weeks to complete that all and write a long paper. (sigh)
Until next time, all is very very very well, I'm excited/scared/amazed/sad at the idea of going home.