and huge lizards. Well, they take us farther in and they have alligators, snakes, rabbits, rats, cats, dogs, fish, and other unidentifiable animals. Apparently Mamadou works for the zoo and keeps the extra animals or something. Their was a snake so big that we thought it might eat people but they insisted it didn't. I'm not sure if they meant it didn't or couldn't. They then showed us a video of it eating a whole sheep. It was disguesting. Then a little boy brought out a snake for us to hold. I held it, but it started moving and it was terrible. Still, it's really exciting that there is a zoo across the street from us! Mamadou said he would take us to the real zoo sometime.We finished living in the village. It was kind of sad to leave, but it is nice to be around electricity and running water again. Apparently we left at a bad time because they were having a family reunion that day and were killing 2 cows! (they told us this over and over). I've never been anywhere were they killed
2 cows, but oh well, I missed it. And for those of you who don't know, according to the people here,
President Barack Obama is going to change thinks a lot, so be ready. According to the people in the village, he is going to change the crazy law that President Bush made and allow men to marry more than one woman (I didn't know that President Bush had decided this and I don't know how President Obama is going to change it but that's the word here). Also, the Africans are going to become American citizans. So there you have it.More new news, I just got back from the village with my first volunteer team! They all made it back safely, and I really don't think I endangered their lives once. We drove about eight hours south of
Bamako and worked with people in the surrounding villages. For those of you who don't know, the roads in Mali are AWFUL. Really, words cannot describe how bad. Well, we were in a really bad
truck with no shocks or air conditioning. I am sure that the prayers of the people back home is only reason the truck survived the trip. The people in the truck were counting the times they hit their head on the roof. When we got back to Bamako, I was told that their was miscommunication and that the truck wasn't supposed to leave Bamako because it was in such bad condition! The trip went really well, we went to a lot of villages they had been to before and new villages as well. At two of the villages the chiefs told us that the things the church had prayed for had been answered and that they were very interested in learning more about Christianity. One village was so excited we were there that they gave us a live chicken (because it is very rude to give someone the gift of dead meat) and fed us a lunch of peanut butter sauce! I love peanut butter sauce and told them over ane over. They then pulled out a huge basked of peanuts and said that since I liked peanut butter sauce so much they would give me peanuts so I could make my own. Nothing like African hospitality.
