by phil | Jul 4, 2023 | thoughts
Do I want to wade into these waters? Not really. I have relatively flimsy toubab-in-Mali credentials to be talking about pan-Africanist critiques of the neocolonial order. But maybe someone can help me see something that I’m missing. By now you may have heard...
by phil | Jun 15, 2023 | thoughts
“TIA” – this is Africa. Seasoned travelers, country counters and a certain class of expats adore this phrase. I regret to say that I may have used it at one point in my life. Thankfully I have suppressed those memories long enough to not know when...
by phil | May 12, 2023 | thoughts
Google “Africans dead at sea” and the thousands of links that pop up have nothing to do with the 2 million Africans that died during the middle passage. It’s Africans dead at sea now. Not forced onto ships but forced out to sea, locked out of the...
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 | 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...
by phil | Jan 14, 2017 | thoughts
2016 was not a great year for the planet. Personally, however, I have no complaints about it, mainly owing to the birth of our son. This year may be almost as eventful. At the start of last year, I had the following on my agenda: ✓ Keep working on side projects. That...
