My little piece of Mali

I am writing this post from Douentza, Mali. My site for the next two years. I am sitting in my Air Conditioned office typing on the computer and surfing the internet. haha no im not kidding. We arrived in Severe on Monday nite after a long and eventful bus ride. Actually we had an accident on the way up. Thankfully, no one was hurt. We were passing a truck on its left side while it was turning left. we hit it on its left front panel and it bounced off to the right and rolled off the road. there was a man that was walking his moto across the road that had to ditch his bike and jump out of the way of a giant bus that was barreling toward him. Thank God he was only walking his bike and had time to jump out of the way because we ran over his moto, which got stuck under our front axle. it was a bumpy ride but our driver was great and prevented us from rolling over into a ditch that we narrowly avoided. Hopefully everything works out for him. The police did eventually show up and decided it was necessary to take some official measurements, which included knowing how far away the bus was from a random tree in a field, the diagonal measurement of the road to the front tire, and even how close the onion stand we hit was away from the bus after we had hit it. it seemed to us Toubabs (white people) that the police were just putting on a show for us white people to make us feel alittle better. but everything by that time was fine and the bus company had sent us another bus and we were on our way to Severe.

We stayed in Severe for 2 nights and then Me, Dave, Phil, and Deryk caught public transport up to Douentza which took forever because the driver wanted to fit as many people as he could to earn an extra buck. so we had 35 people in a small van that at top speed only reached about 30 miles an hour. a 2 hour trip took us about 4 hours. which is actually kinda speedy here in Mali. But we did eventually arrive in Douentza. That day and the day after were spent buying furniture for our new places and trying to bargain for the lowest prices which is extremely difficult and stressful but we got everything we needed and found out we paid pretty good prices for them. I got a shelf made for about $40 american dollars. or 20,000 cfa. its a really nice shelf and should last me my full 2 years. i also picked up a mattress and cot for a bed, a electric fan to keep me cool in these blistering Mali temperatures. i also got 3 mats for the ground to help keep the dirt at bay and a chair. I will also probably pick up a basket and some bowls at the market this Sunday. It took all of yesterday to set up my room but i finally got it the way i like. it is so hot inside that i almost cant stand it. its better if you stay outside and most all Malians sleep outside because its so much cooler. I also found out where the post office is in Douentza and my new address is

Mike Kapocsi
Peace Corps Volunteer, Corps de la Paix
Douentza, Mali West Africa

trust me the packages should get here. the volunteers that have been here for a year have had all their packages show up. I will be taking some pictures of my town and of my new house this week and will try to upload them as soon as i can. Thanks again for all the support and emails i have been getting.