Tomorrow morning Keita and I will wing our way south in blissful air conditioned comfort, courtesy of Elisabeth and Hinnerk, our Austrian friends who were stationed in Bandiagara before the April troubles, working for the Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst, I believe. They have now entrusted their car to us to use or to sell if we find a buyer. This may prove difficult- the market has collapsed in Bamako- too many people have left and are still leaving, selling all they own. But we will try, of course. The road seen behind is now cut in two by the advancing water. It is the road that leads to the hotel and the neighbourhood behind. Now the path of sand bags will begin-vehicles will have to be parked at the main road and people will walk.On the positive side it will mean no annoying and noisy motorcycles going up and down. We are leaving at a critical time- but I need to send things from Bamako- once again to Elisabeth and Hinnerk, who are preparing a MaliMali fashion show in Vienna! We are leaving Ace in charge. I will be back in a few days to look after a Dutch journalist. He phoned me from Kenya the other day, and enquired timidly if he might come and stay and interview me (having first taken the charming precaution of 'following me' on Twitter!) He started by saying that he was a follower of my blog, and that he knew I didn’t like journalists. He wants to talk about the Manuscript Library. I said he was of course very welcome. Although I am a firm believer that generalizations are normally quite spot on, there are of course always plenty of exceptions that prove the rules... Of course it will be fun to have a Dutch journalist here to talk to and have sunset cocktails with!