Lucia in Bamako

Back in Mali just in time to help Eva decorate for  the St Lucia celebrations at the Swedish embassy residence- it was a splendid party last night with carols, glogg (our Swedish gluhwine) delicious Swedish finger food and over a hundred guests who mingled happily in the glittering gardens by the swimming pool.  This Bamako interlude is of course not really my home coming yet and it feels almost like a continuation of my last London days which was full of Christmas revelling often courtesy of my dear friends Jeremiah and David who always have the best tickets and invitations and let me tag along: below at the Norwegian embassy Christmas do.

 The real homecoming will be tomorrow: Keita is with me and we are travelling north to Djenné in our old Mercedes. Our Christmas will be a quiet affair this year: it is unlikely that we will have any hotel guests. But we are not alone: there will be Birgit joining us as usual and also our old friend Karen, who is probably the only tour operator still functioning in Bamako. And of course we will make our usual Christmas celebrations with the staff: Boubakar the old gardner will dress up as Father Chrismas once more and bring the presents for everyone...
But there is no doubt that tomorrow we are leaving one world and arriving at another: a totally different environment where the most sophisticated item one is likely to find in a shop is a tin of sardines and where any social activities we are likely to partake in are the ones we create ourselves at the hotel: there will be drinks on the sunset terrace and there will be dinners under the stars in the light of the storm lanterns again; and that is pretty good too!
The greatest thing about the homecoming is that both Keita and I are in good health  alhamdilullah and I feel ready to  dive into my Djenné life once more.