A Trying Day...

I was looking forward to a girly gourmet dinner in the delightful company of Eva at the Swedish residence in Bamako tonight. That was to be followed by coffee and Armagnac in front of some fascinating film on her wide screen. Alas, it was not to be. Instead I still find myself on the dusty terrace of the Auberge du Desert in Timbuktu, attempting to chew my way through possibly the oldest and scrawniest chicken that ever polluted a Malian table.
My flight to Bamako was cancelled since the whole of north and central Mali is enveloped in a thick yellowish dust cloud containing swirling sand from the Sahara swept in by the Harmattan. I am reminded of  a terrifying flight between Timbuktu and Mopti last year, when the powers that be decided to risk it regardless of the inclement conditions and the little MINUSMA plane was thrown about like a drunken sailor and we the passengers, including  hard bitten old UN officers ended up holding hands, praying and hugging strangers.

So here I sit.  Now and then I have sad conversations with people on the telephone:
with dear Faira Keita, the ophthalmologist:
 ' so sorry Faira, will not be able to be in Djenne  for the closing ceremony of the cataract surgery on Saturday'.
With airport officials:
'Surely if the plane that takes me to Bamako tomorrow stops in Mopti I will be able to get off there rather than travel all the way down to Bamako in order to travel all the way up again in a car the following day? What do you mean? I can't? Why NOT???!'

With Ga, the driver from Djenne who drove down to Bamako today to pick me up: 
'Sorry Ga, you will have to stay in Bamako and wait for me another day'.

But the weather was not the only problem today. Other conversations take this form:
With Fane, in charge of moving three large boxes between the airport in Bamako and the MINUSMA:
'What do you mean? You have finally managed to pick up the digitizing material from the Airport AND YOU TOOK IT TO THE WRONG PLACE? And now you are going away and can't deal with it?? What exactly do you expect me to do about it stranded at the airport in Timbuktu!???'

With Halimatou, the local project manager here:
'What do you mean, the Timbuktu  IT person has managed to wipe off all the meta data from the last months from the computers  when he reinstalled Windows!?' Surely he backed all the stuff up? He didn't??!'
And just to top it all, have been beaten at computer chess three times in a row.