Finding my lost marbles

Back on the road again, but with decidedly less steam. It was hard to leave Macs. I sort of feel like hibernating right now and almost every thought I have is of returning home. I’ve been dreaming about people from work, about returning to work, about seeing various people for the first time again. Six weeks does seem like a long time on paper and I suppose, in reality, and yet I can’t stop myself from flashing forward to the moment of stepping off the plane, of biting into all the foods I’ve missed, of sitting down for drinks with the girls or reuniting with the Ghana gang. In seven weeks time, I’ll regret having spent so much of this time thinking about it, and yet I can’t help it.

Spent the last few days literally shuttered up at Macs reading like a fiend and fighting for space with a hungry mouse. In three days, read a collection of short stories, two John Grishams and one of those period romances that rots your brain. Also found Sevare warm and welcoming and by the third day I was beginning to be recognized while walking down the street.

Now in Mopti after a short 200 CFA riding down the highway. It was probably smarter to stay in Sevare and go from there, but I wanted to get moving. Thank God the ride was short. There was a screaming baby in the back whose mother only laughed every time it cried and a belligerent jackass sitting behind me who said something nasty to the mate and actually made him cry. Bought a bus ticket to Bamako today, forgetting I actually wanted to stop in Segou. Oh well! I should be in Bamako by late Friday and in Senegal by mid-next week.