Update from London

Living the long forgotten joys of a London autumn: it was always a favourite time and I have not seen the glory of autumn leaves turning into their fiery colours for ten years: but now they have nearly all fallen. Although my friends all tell me that it is the warmest November in many years I am of course shivering and wrapped up in as many layers as I can muster, closing my eyes and trying to remember what the searing heat of Mali feels like...
Have been staying with my friends: David kindly gave me a pair of unwanted stripey, wooly  hand knitted socks in rainbow colours that  his mother knitted him, which I have been wearing every day with my Crocs (indispensible in Mali) with the result that  Jeremiah tells me to walk three steps behind him in public and Cressida thinks I have joined those who have lost all sense of style and who don’t care. There is unquestionably some truth  in the last part of that statement. Andrew on the other hand liked this ‘look’, but  I cannot pretend that he is a style authority...

I am feeling better. I have finished my last course of antibiotics and tomorrow I will see the jolly Emma again with the team from the Tropical Disease Hospital- will they give me the all clear? Was it ‘just’ a parasite that had not been treated properly in Mali and kept lingering that made me so sick? I would very much like to go back to Mali on the eleventh of December as planned...

Hotel Djenné Djenno is continuing without me. The group of fourteen Japanese tourists left on Sunday morning seemingly happy said Baba over the telephone. The picture above is one that Baba proudly sent me of the bus they travelled in.  (I would perhaps have preferred a few Japanese tourists too but nevermind). They had spent a peaceful night after dining at the hotel and no one complained about anything but all smiled sweetly when they left after early breakfast. This number of people is really quite unusual now of course.

On the MaliMali front Dembele is completing an order of textiles to be sent off  by Fedex to a London interior decorator and Maman is arranging for a shipment of Niaber’s recycled flip-flop plastic necklaces to our South African client. The world is turning without me and I am so proud that they are coping.

The library is also seemingly flourishing in my absence and Michaelle Biddle, the American conservation expert has completed her course with the new library employees that I have not even met yet.
Keita and I are in daily contact- he is  feeling good but  tired from his third cycle of Velcade treatment. What will happen now? Will we be able to continue our life in Djenné? Is there still something left in the magic cupboard?