Mali & Mangoes

      I ni sogoma ( Good Morning!)   Like a bunch of girls on the school playground, loud screams rang out as the sound of my bike downshifting to a stop could be heard. I passed the group of girls about 50 yards or so away and found find my water before resting in the shade. Their day is spent trying to sell  baskets of fresh-picked mangoes to anyone they can manage to stop. It's a tough way to make a dollar in Mali where tons of unwanted mangoes rot under trees.
       I ate two, while we decided on a fair price and laughed over an exchange of words that neither of us could understand. The mothers and older women stayed at a comfortable distance, but they knew my stop would mean some money for the group. In the end I found the grandmother of the group, about three times the average age and asked her to be the banker, knowing I would cause serious inflation for the next guy to stop, if I didn't.
        My cheat sheet of Arabic words ended at Mauriania's border. I added to my list of new Bambara words while travelling through Mali. The friendliness of Mali made learning one of Africa's many languages a little easier. Unfortunately, before the next tank of gas is used up, I could be in an area where a different language is spoken.




Mauritania , somewhere around Ayoun

 

Bargaining for mangoes....