Remembering Mali- remembering my Keita

 I don't expect there to be any new readers to my blog- so if you read this, you know who you see here. This photo was taken just after the Coup d'Etat in 2012. In spite of the turmoil, Keita and I - with two friends, Lassana and Levy, decided to go on a little holiday. And here we are, having been seduced into the waters of the Niger when we passed the bridge on our way to Guinea. It just looked too inviting! more about this holiday: www.djennedjenno.blogspot.com April 24,  2012 It is just over ten years ago now...

Why this sudden remembrance of times past? Well, it is Tabaski today (the West African name for Eid Al Adha) so there is an unusual lot of messages and contact between Siena and Mali today... and some of that involved 'my' sons Moussa and Lassie, who wanted to see pictures of their father. So I started digging out pictures...Well, it is a long and complicated story which belongs to my previous life. 

That request put me on a road of nostalgia - it made me put on KarKar- Boubakar Traore and Habib Koite on Spotify, and that is guaranteed to engender a state of exaltation and make me cry- both with  happiness that I was allowed to live through those times; and  with sadness that they are gone.  This time it also made me think that those extraordinary times were probably the greatest adventure I will have. But who knows? It would probably be greedy to think that anything could remotely come close to those days... 

I know there is a large part of me still remaining somewhere there by the shores of the Bani and the Niger...

Having said that, the work on the flat is finally going to start on Monday. And I have received, finally, that illusive Residency. I am now a Bona Fide inhabitant of Siena. Let this present chapter unravel and see what beauty there is here too to be discovered!