Back at lake Siljan enjoying the breathtakingly clear atmosphere of the cool early Swedish summer. This place is about as different as it could possibly get to the dusty heat of Djenne...
But in three weeks only I will be back in Mali- what will I find in Djenne?

The hotel is down to a skeleton staff as usual for the month of June when Papa,Baba, Maman and Igor all go on holiday while Boubakar tends the garden and Pudiogou continues looking after the horses and the donkies, as well as opening the rooms, dusting and chasing out the termites every day.
This June closure is a yearly fixture. At the end of the month I will be back and the hotel will open again as usual on the first of July.
But it is of course not a normal year... The other day I had the bitter sweet pleasure of receiving our 2012 'TripAdvisor' recommendation badge (which means that the hotel received good reviews all last year from kind guests that took the time to write). But what now?

Djenne was already suffering from the down turn in tourism before the coup and the disasters in the north. It is likely that I will encounter a situation that has deteriorated badly. Keita is in Segou. He will accompany me back to Djenne of course. I look forward to my homecoming with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.