A short summary of the departure procedure at Bamako airport:
1. We arrived quite early because of the shuttle bus schedule and were not allowed to enter the airport building but had to sit on our baggage on the street for 2 hours, feeding the billions of mosquitoes. Discussions about the stupidity of the procedure are not appreciated by the police, Michal is almost put to jail
2. The toilets outside are closed, those inside unreachable, no trees around…
3. After 2 hours we pass the first passport control still outside of the building. Two people are checking the passports, two more are watching.
4. Five meters later the second passport control, one guy is checking the passports, four others are watching him. We have to fill in an embarkation form, bad luck if you don’t have your own pen, there is only one for 250 people.
5. Usual queuing in front of two open checkin counters, delayed by frequent rebooting of the checkin computers and discussions about the weight of the baggage (one guy had 2x35kg!)
6. Passport and boarding pass control No.3
7. Weighing of hand baggage (fortunately the scale is so small I have to balance my bag and can hold half of its weight, the remaining 9kg are OK)
8. Security check No 1. Luckily shoes and belts have to be taken off by a few suspicious persons like Michal only.
9. Arriving in the departure hall. Many arrows around the room pointing to non-existing snack bars. Nothing to eat in the duty free but cheap whiskey at 9EUR.
10. Passport and boarding pass control No. 4 at the gate.
11. Just down the stairs, five meters later outside, passport and boarding pass control No. 5. We have to make sure those poor mosquitoes get enough food.
12. Outdoor security check, all hand baggage is checked by hand (the license plates of the Beast are particularly suspicious)
13. We enter one of the three shuttle buses, the plane is only 20m away
14. The buses go around the plane and stop 25m from it
15. Boarding pass control No. 6 at the door of the bus
16. Boarding pass control No. 7 at the door of the plane, detailed explanation in French how to find our seats. Thanks, we can read, and its not an A380.
17. Its 2am, we are on the plane, and fall asleep.

Since we did not find any car to take our banana boxes back home, we started the day selling our stuff on the market (tools, car parts, GPS, CB radio, lots of things not fitting into the 20kg limit of Royal Air Maroc). It was funny to stand “on the other side”, but bargaining in parallel with 20 people about 100 different package prices and barter deals (for the tow rope plus the tire repair set I want to give you a neklace, plus a wooden hippo, plus 1000CFA, but only if you buy me a Coke on top). It was a funny but exhausting morning and sorry, we did not have time to take pictures.

Then we relaxed at the grand market of Bamako  (watching only instead of selling or buying), here are some impressions:

In the afternoon, with a heavy heart, we had to say goodbye to the Beast. We went to MHOP again, left the last unsellable items with them (two mosquito nets, 3 rolls of toilet paper, some pens, a torch) and handed over the keys to Anna Ninan and Adama Kouyate, the local program manager:

It was a sad but rewarding moment at the same time. May the Beast have a long second life in Africa and help MHOP to improve healthcare in Bamako!

Now we are waiting in the hall of the hotel for our shuttle to the airport, chasing mosquitoes (we have not seen mosquitoes at all until now, but here, in the air conditioned hall of a 5 star hotel, you could make a filling dinner out of them).

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that today was the most rewarding day of the whole rally. In the morning we went to the storage of the African-Hungarian Union to pick up our boxes, which were safely delivered to Bamako by the charity truck.

The roof rack was bending under the weight and the Beast (even more than usually) behaved like a big battleship when driving, but we managed to load all the boxes intended for the SOS Children’s Village in Sanankoroba.

There we were welcomed by the director of the village, had a short tour through the houses, the kindergarden, and finally went to the school to unload our computers, books, t-shirts, and school supplies. All the village is clean, well maintained, the people very friendly, an unexpected but inspiring sight in otherwise rather chaotic Mali.

It was a moving moment to shake school director Bouba Traore’s hand and to accept his thanks for the supplies. A big Thanks to all of you who helped to make this happen.

At the end we also left some Aspirin there, our last bunch of pens, almost everything still left in our petit cadeau banana box.

In the afternoon we met Anna Ninan from the Mali Health Organizing Project in the suburb of Sourakabougou, where MHOP is helping the local community to set up healthcare infrastructure and to provide easy to access affordable medical services to the poorest people of Bamako.

We spent the afternoon at their offices and the clinic and learned a lot about empowering people to set up and to operate a clinic autonomously. The doctors were extremely happy about the drugs we brought, claiming that they would cover most of what they need until end of the year.

Finally we had dinner with Anna (well, for her it was dinner, for us it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one), a very nice closing to a successful and touching day.

(Yes, you are right, we are also donating the Beast to MHOP, but we first have to collect some parts of it from the African-Hungarian Union’s warehouse, where we left them to make room for the boxes, and we also want to clean it a little before handing it over. So we will go to Sourakabougou again tomorrow, give the Beast a big hug and a long kiss and drop the keys at MHOP.)