I got to Gao covered in dust. after 2 good nights sleep, I’m still tired. almost 2 weeks without English.

At the house of the postal official little children offer me tea,
There’s a 13 year old cook. I’m very tired of eating rice.
The young son showed me his math paper, new math in Mali, they’re learning bases!

Although I was proficient enough at the art of the bucket bath
to be able to wash myself and my hair with the one bucket of water that constitutes a bath,
I was so covered in dust that it took me one whole bucket to wash my body
& then I waited til the next day to wash my hair.
Water which must be carried by the women from the well & stored in large terracotta urns
is very precious & very heavy.

I remember that the aluminum frame of my backpack had broken
& I took it to a machine shop on the edge of town
where the machinist made a curved metal splint for the snapped tube of the frame
& attached it with two small bolts.

I went to the big hotel in Gao to drink a soda and gawk
& bought a couple of carved wooden spoons just the kind of small inexpensive souvenir
that I could carry in my backpack.
The two story mud mosque overlooked the dusty city with its wide earthen streets.
I gazed over the roofs of the mostly one story mud buildings
& caught a glimpse into their walled courtyards.

During a walk near the drought shrunken river,
the same river I had pushed the canoe down from Mopti to Djenne,
I saw the parched carcass of a cow
dry, cracked skin & bones with no flesh,
lying on dry, cracked ground which is under water
when there is water in the river.