by phil | Apr 18, 2020 | Stories
fort architecture Some blog posts will tell you in advance how much time it will take you to read them. I am going to offer a different metric that relates to how much this post will depress you. At the moment, it sits squarely in the middle between “ca va...
by phil | Dec 17, 2019 | thoughts
In my last post, I was in South Africa. I was having skin cancer removed from my forehead and we were preparing to move our hotel and restaurant in Bamako. That was 6 months ago. July and August were difficult months. The new landlord of what is now the old sleeping...
by phil | Mar 14, 2019 | Stories
Background: we have a hotel/bar/restaurant in Bamako. We were evicted 6 months ago. A few weeks ago I was standing in the courtyard of a villa. There was an adolescent baobab tree a few meters away from an empty swimming pool. I started having a vision. The baobab at...
by phil | Oct 31, 2018 | Stories
Please get comfortable. With your drink of choice. I am enjoying some rum with bitter lemon. In 1985, Mamady Kanta sold a parcel of land in the Badalabougou neighborhood of Bamako to Gustave Bongo, son of Omar Bongo, the President of Gabon from 1967 until his death in...
by phil | Jul 24, 2018 | thoughts
A lot of people have asked me if we chose our travel dates in order to avoid Mali’s presidential election scheduled for July 29th. The answer is no. I am not worried about my personal safety nor am I worried about widespread violence, at least not in Bamako.Some...
