Under a tree you’ll find a house!

Our new street

After a week in Bamako we finally found a house. We knew house-hunting here would be different and certainly non traditional, but not to this extent!

Bamako can be off-putting and confusing. Most streets don’t have names and if they do, people don’t know them. If you want to go somewhere, sometimes it can be really tricky to get there quickly. Before we go anywhere we always make sure we ask someone who really knows the city to give us some reference points. Don’t think that a Roundabout with a huge statue of an elephant or hypo would be sufficient to tell a taxi driver!! Here we really need to think outside of the box. For example, when Michelle went to work for the first time, she tried to explain to 3 taxi drivers that she had to go to the rondpoint avec l`hyppopotame. The taxi drivers did not know what she was talking about, so she called the CECI driver to ask him for another reference point. He told her to tell the taxi driver she had to go to the TOTAL gas station by the pharmacy. She found a driver who understood. Every time we go out and have to take a cab, it`s a real adventure, most of the time either we have to show the guy the way or rhyme off a bunch of different reference points until a taxi driver knows one of them. The problem is that we still don`t know the city very well.


After spending a few days trying to find our way and trying to get our bearings, we decided to look for a place to live either in the neighborhood of Badaladougou, quartier du Fleuve or Hippodrome. There`s no Craigslist and there`s no newspaper ads!! There are 2 ways to find a place here, either a real estate agency or the so called “coxers”/demarcheur . Our first step was to go the more conventional way… what we thought would be the simplest way. On Monday, I asked the CECI office where I could find an agency and someone gave me the number for an office close by. I went to the office and after a confusing and quick meeting, I exchanged numbers with people and never heard back. We finally decided to go with the CECI driver to look for a place to live. We told him which neighborhoods we were interested in and from there he drove us to the first one. We stopped at a booth…like a kiosk selling cigarettes and drinks under a tree and the driver exchanged a few words with the guy and called someone then we went two streets away where we stopped under another tree where 3 men were drinking tea. The driver exchanged a few words in Bambara and one of the men got in the car with us and showed us a house. The house was big but quite dark and we decided to keep looking. The custom is that you pay a coxer a few thousand CFAs for every house to thank him for his time. If you`re picky, house hunting can become expensive!!! This particular coxer told us that there was nothing else in this neighborhood within our price range. We decided to cross the river and keep looking. We stopped near the center and the driver asked a few men if they had heard of anything for rent but again, nothing was available in our price range. Finally, we went to Hippodrome and stopped at a tree were a man was sitting. He got in the car and we went to see a house.
After seeing the house Michelle and I talked a bit and ask the coxer to call the owner. Half an hour later he showed up and together we went through the house asking him a few questions. We finally made an offer and began to negotiate the price which we were able to lower a bit. The following day, we signed the agreement. There are 4 bedrooms, a living/dining room, 3 bathrooms, a small kitchen, a lovely yard with a mango tree, and an empty swimming pool which we will eventually fill.

So, for those of you looking wondering where it is we live exactly, get into a taxi and tell the driver to take you to Hyppodrome, go up the Bla Bla (a bar) street until the paved road ends, continue up 5 blocks (carrés) on the dirt road and turn right at the street where there’s a carpenter’s workshop and seamstress’ workshop. If you make it, we’ll have the mint tea brewing for you. 
Thomas