Hittin the guy on a bike and Djenne mud mosque

After the wedding discoteque party, we piled into a station wagon with 11 people on the inside, our baggage on a welded luggage rack on the top with the driver's assistant on the top to go to Djenne. We had to wait for the station wagon to be full before we could go so it took about 4 hours to get enough people to go. We were so sweaty from our dance party and packed in like sardines that I felt bad for the other people that were in the car that had to smell us. Luckily on this ride the windows were rolled down. It was 4 hr ride from Mopti to Djenne. I fell asleep for part of it. We got to a large river and we had to take a ferry across with the car. The girls bought some more bracelettes. I met a man named Ali that wanted to know if we wanted to sleep in his house or on his roof top in Djenne. He was very nice and I told him that we would check it out when we got there. He was going to charge us $2 a person. He said that he would meet us at the gates of Djenne. We got to the other side of the river and all of crew piled back into the station wagon. While we were driving there were two men on bicycles on the road and one of them, an older man in his 50's had a boom box blasting malian music in his hand. Our driver honked to have them get out of the way. Right when he were about to pass them there were a pile of stones in the middle of the road that we later deduced was to get people to slow down because of construction further down the road. One of the men went to the left of the stones and the othe guy with the boom box went to the right Our driver slammed on his brakes and we skidded on the dirt road. We ended up hitting the guy with the boom box who fell off his bike. To avoid hitting the guy, our driver veered more to the right crashing into a ravine. The guy on the roof rack went flying along with the luggage, fire wood,and a marriage pot. The car was high centered and facing down in a 30 degree angle. Shocked by what happened, we watched as the guy that was thrown off of the roof dust himself off, the guy on the bike stand up with his pants torn, and our driver get out of the car to yell at the guy on the bike. We all piled out of the car. After the arguement stopped, both were embarrased by the incident. All of the men that were in the station wagon, the guys on the bicycles, and I picked up the station wagon out of the ravine and put it back on the road. We picked up the luggage rack and tied it to the roof with some rope, and put the luggage, the sticks, and the wedding pot back on the roof with the driver's assistant We all piled into the car and proceeded to go to Djenne as if nothing had happened the only reminder was that the stationwagon did not run the same after. The girls and I just sat in amazement and laughed at how crazy the situation of the guy that we just hit ended up picking up the car. We knew we were definetely not in Kansas anymore.

We got to Djenne and met Ali. It was an amazing city. 2-3 story houses made in mud. There were labarynth of narrow streets that could only be traversed by foot. We followed Ali to his home. I thought it would have been a cool place to stay because I really like staying with the local people. Julia had read in a blog about staying on a roof top and waking up to see the market and the huge mosque. We decided to find the place that Julia had read about. We went from hostel to hostel and finally decided to stay on the roof top of one of the fancy hotels in town. It was close to the mosque but didn't fulfill her expectations. We went to a woman's coop of the town and Janine bought some cloth. We then went to bed and met an American guy that had been traveling after his study abroad in Sierra Leon. We slept on the roof until the rain started pooring down. We came down and slept under an over hang by the eating area. The hotel didn't want the other guests to be bothered so they told us we could sleep in one of the conference rooms but we had to be out by 7am. We decided to sleep under the overhang and I was too tired and lazy and didn't put on my bug repellant that night. I am pretty sure this is when I got bit my the malaria mosquitos because the next morning I woke up to many bites. During the night the rain was so harsh that we ended up going into the conference room and turned on the fans because it was so hot.

The next morning we awoke to see the empty courtyard in front of the mosque busy with hundreds of stands. We went around and saw the different spices and things that they were selling. We also went and saw the mosque which was beautiful. They told us that there was a debate in the town on how to mud the mosque. The older generation wanted to keep the yearly traditional couple of weeks of mudding that required everybody's participation. The younger generation with the suggestion of a rich French man wanted to mix the mud with some cement so that they only had to mud every couple of years. It is a pretty daunting task, but it brings people all over the world to see it. The mosque is in movies like Sahara and is a world heritage site. And it is part of their culture. We went through the market, Julia got angry with me because both Janine and I told her that she probably shouldn't give candy to all of the children. We had different reasons: I didn't want the kids to keep following us and asking for more, and Janine didn't trust them. Julia didn't like this and took off through the market. Janine went back to the hotel, and I ran after Julia. We finally made peace and I told her that we should go wonder through the narrow streets. I said that she could give her candy there. It was interesting to talk to Julia and realize how different lives we lead as we walked through the streets. I won't divulge what she said because she probably wouldn't like that on the blog. But through our talking I got to understand why she thinks the way she does about life. One of her ex boyfriends told her that she didn't live in reality because she came from a very wealthy family. I told her that it was just a different reality that most of us don't understand with problems and expectations that I will never have to face. We then tried to find Janine to go get ready to leave. We bought our tickets for a station wagon going back to Mopti. We had to wait around for a couple of hours. While we were waiting a bunch of people eating rice out of a community bowl asked me to join. I couldn't communicate with them but we laughed as we ate. I tried to contribute with a smashed cereal bar. I don't think they liked it very much and I felt stupid afterwards because it was pretty gross. I sat at the taxi station while the girls went to go get water for our trip back. The taxi was ready to go and they weren't in sight. I freaked out because I could barely communicate with anyone and I tried to explain for them to wait. The taxi was running and the people were waiting and I was about to go to try to find them when the emerged from the market. I was so relieved and happy to see them. I worried so much about the girls because they were so independent and I knew they spoke even less French then I did and being women alone. We finally left and we were tired. Luckily there were no problems getting back. On the way back, our taxi driver stopped to pray and we all got out of the taxi. He also saw some people who were stranded because they had no gasoline. He gave the liquor bottle of gas that he had to them. I was very impressed how he lived his religion.