I also learned that what I thought was a cloud of irritating gnats is actually a swarm of STINGLESS BEES. I learned this when Murray Garde, a former client on our carnival scoot trip who has now become a friend, exclaimed at the Sleeping Camel here in Senegal, “Oh my God!!! YOu have native bees!!!!!!” What?? What the hell are native bees? Murray went on to explain that they are small, stingless bees, that happen to be very important pollinators. He also said their honey is coveted for its rich sweetness and the limited quantities that are produced.

Here they are repairing an entrance tube. I tried to destroy quite a few of these entrance tubes (before I knew they were bees!).

There are over 400 species of stingless bees. Did you know about this? I didn’t!!!

One of the wonderful things about running our trips and having places like the Sleeping Camel is that we meet people like Murray. He is a linguist and anthropologist that has spent most of his life living and working in a remote region of Australia’s Northern Territory. In recent years he has been spending quite a bit of time in West Africa. After doing his first scoot trip with us in February, he came down and stayed with us for a few weeks in Somone this summer. He will be back in a few weeks to do our Mauritania and Cape Verde trips. Needless to say, he is part of the family now. Just a really lovely person who is curious and fascinated by so many things, and someone who has really lived a life. You may just run into him if you come and visit us!

——-Edited 1 day later. I actually remembered this around 2AM last night and nearly got out of bed to update the post.

How could I forget!!! Murray is the official Sleeping Camel Librarian. Our library remains modest, but Murray muled over a few dozen books, catalogued all of them (including our original stock), and he created our official library stamp!!! <3

But I figured I should probably try to bury the previous post for reasons that are clear if you read the introduction to said post.

So I’m going to write about my breakfast.

Somehow, I have been eating this breakfast for over 3 years. I mean, I will eat other things. If I’m traveling, I will eat whatever. But at home, unless there is a shortage of critical ingredients, this is what I eat. Every day.

• oatmeal
• milk – most of the milk that you see around here is either ultra-pasteurized shelf stable brands from France or its reconstituted powdered milk from the dregs of the EU dairy industry. Club Tiossane has milk from pastoralists in northern Senegal and it’s fantastic. If you are in a western country, you have a long list of choices here, including soy milk, every possible nut milk, oat milk, and probably some other milks that I am not even aware of. You could also use.. water?
• chia seeds
• baobab powder
• moringa powder
• some kind of fruit
• maybe some honey, especially if my fruit options are lacking

In 2023, I climbed aboard the overnight oats train, if there is such a train. I was told that soaking oats (and chia seeds) helps with nutrient absorption and digestion, but it’s also just really convenient. I put the oats and the chia seeds in a bowl with some milk at night. In the morning, I pull it out of the fridge and add some toppings. Baobab powder adds a little tang (and more nutrition). Moringa has a leafy, earthy taste, so I only put a little bit in, just enough to convince myself that I will be unstoppable with two superfoods in my breakfast. And then the fruit — whatever is in season, or sometimes frozen blueberries from the French supermarket, Auchan. Mango season overnight oats are of course the best.

I thought I would hate the texture when I prepared my first batch. I didn’t. I also assumed I would get sick of it. Nope. I look forward to it every day.

Anyone else here in this extremely small neglected readership that is with me on this?

On the night of September 1st, a thief, or more likely, thieves, stole two motorbikes from our house. This is the same house (not the new Sleeping Camel) where we have been living as a family since April 2023. We have never had an issue here and I suppose we just got too relaxed. I locked the steering wheels of the bikes each night, but I never bothered with a chain or an alarm. We live on the property with our Senegalese landlord and her family, and they were all quite relaxed as well. Bakary, the guardian, who is around during the day but goes home at night, always told me that they didn’t have a problem with theft in this particular quartier.

Now, it’s true that the jakartas are a frequent target for theft. It doesn’t take much to change the housing and the ignition, and they can easily be flipped if you take them to another town.

Thieves in this part of Senegal are opportunistic and they are usually looking for low-hanging fruit. They are generally not violent and they will avoid a confrontation. A motion sensor light would have probably been enough to deter them.

But we didn’t have that. And I didn’t chain the bikes. And on the morning of September 2nd, I learned that it was possible to reach underneath the big steel doors to open them even when everything else was locked.

I opened the front door of our house that morning and immediately saw the blue tarp that normally covers the bikes thrown near the bushes. No bikes. A single handlebar cover was laying in the sand just after the concrete. It was very dreamlike for a few seconds. Then my mind was racing for answers, some explanation for how the bikes could be gone but still in our possession. This was immediately followed by shock, anger, self-loathing, and quite nearly a panic attack.

The timing was unfortunate. September 2nd is Liza’s birthday. I had just returned from a trip to Bamako, and it was a big lift paying for rent, school tuition for both kids, school supplies (holy crap they were expensive), and of course, the birthday gifts and associated festivities. Now we were down two motorbikes just before our scoot season gets off the ground.

I was the only one awake at this point so I had some time to steady myself. If we had made the discovery together as a family, I may have had a Chevy Chase style Meltdown.

But I got it together. When everyone came down I told them the news. This thing happened. It’s done. We are all safe and healthy. It’s Liza’s Birthday. We are going to have a great day.

And we did have a great day.

As for the bikes, I filed a report with the gendarmes and reached out to all the mechanics I know in the area. But they are long gone. As they say here, and everywhere else in Francophone West Africa, ca va aller. It’s going to be OK.

I’ve deleted facebook, tiktok, and twitter (long gone!!!) from my phone. I still have Instagram, but my time there is brief. I will usually post something or check in on something that I (or we) have posted from one of our accounts, catch a few stories and then bounce when I see the first ad.

But the smartphone is really a terrible thing and I still end up checking the news a lot (awful) and reading newsletters. The latter might not seem like such a bad thing. I subscribe to several digest type newsletters (I mentioned a few here) and they point me to all sorts of fantastic writing. Reading an essay is of course better than doomscrolling, but when you have so many things to read you run out of room to do any writing yourself, especially when the rest of life is there to sweep you away.

I don’t work well at night so it’s really just the early mornings where there is a window. Let’s try. No more news and a little bit less reading. Time to write.

To be completely honest, I would very much like for this to be a non-political life update (not because I am worried about offending people but because I am worried about adding an extra 3,000 words to this) but it’s just impossible. The wreckage is everywhere.

Bintou and I are dealing with a situation that may not actually be that unique given the global rightward, authoritarian lurch, but basically both of our countries of origin are moving towards autocracy. Mali is fully there already, with the dissolution of political parties, banning of foreign media and the arrest of journalists, activists and politicians that don’t tow the government line.

What is perhaps unique about our situation is that in addition to embracing authoritarianism, the governments of our respective countries of origin are also feuding with each other. (Actually, maybe not that unique either). After the US announced that Malians could no longer immigrate or study or visit, Mali released a communiqué of their own. Now, Americans can’t get visas to Mali either.

Somewhat related side note: Do you know that we haven’t been able to send any mail to the United States — from anywhere in West Africa — for about 6 months??? Not even a postcard!!! And it looks like it’s going to just… stay that way?

So here we are, on the Petite-Cote of Senegal.

The 2023 move to Senegal felt wrong for so many reasons. Life was good in Bamako. We had Bintou’s family. So many friends. The kids had plenty of friends, too. Liza had her playgroup and Andre was happy in school. But each month our business was making a bit less money while the security situation throughout the country was deteriorating. A few months after we moved, the electricity cuts started. Things have only gotten worse in the time since.

You’d think you would be able to find solace in a well-timed decision. It doesn’t really work like that. I have an achy nostalgia for Bamako that I cannot shake. But like last year’s post, I can only end this intro on a note of enthusiastic gratitude. We are lucky to be in Senegal, all together and in good health (yes, I am touching wood), in a beautiful place next to the ocean.

How did things pan out from my hopes and dreams list from last year?

Let’s take a look.

1. Get Jason Kottke to notice and mention Postcards from Timbuktu on his blog – This did not happen. But I am not giving up. Apparently, it is going to be a multi-year effort. You can read the first entry in last year’s post to see why this is important to me. Somewhat related side note about the previous side note above: I have a large batch of postcards from Timbuktu that I was forced to send with DHL in order to get them to the states. That pile of postcards has been under scrutiny from US Customs for nearly two weeks now. WTF

2. Send at least 100 postcards (friends, family and postcrossing) – I ended up sending a lot more than that and all I can say is that I really had no business spending that much on postage (and postcards). My pace slowed considerably during the second half of the year as I became increasingly conscious of that fact. In case you missed it, I am a postcard person now.

3. Learn how to surf (or at least witness my son learn to surf) – did I write this with a built in cop-out knowing that I would not actually pursue surfing? It’s possible. But my son is well on his way!

4. See at least 36 new bird species, including an Abysinnian Ground Hornbill – YES! on both counts. The Abysinnian Ground Hornbill was also the most dramatic bird encounter I have ever had. We were a few days into our carnival trip, somewhere between Baila and Bignona, on a forested stretch of road. He came gliding out of the trees to my right, flying over the road like a small majestic airplane. The dramatic entrance combined with the realization of what I was seeing nearly caused me to crash the bike. I braked as quickly as safely possible (it was a little unsafe) and scrambled over to the opposite side of the road to confirm it was not a hallucination. He landed quite a distance a way (it is a he as you can see by the red on the throat), but the zoom on my google pixel 7 was able to get a bit of his head before he flew off again. Lya and Abbey, clients who are now friends, were confused to find me off the bike and dancing around the road. They were even more confused when I breathlessly tried to explain that I SAW AN ABYSINNIAN GROUND HORNBILL.

Here is a much better photo of a male Abysinnian ground hornbill taken by a Mr. Charles J. Sharp. It is quite the bird!

5. Make a longform video I am proud of – Nope. Total failure. I did make some shorter videos, though. Here is one. Anyway, it is still longer than most vertical swipey shit.

6. Go camping with Andre – Technically, yes. Although we were camping at the new Sleeping Camel (more on that in number 12) so it was kind of like camping with training wheels.

7. Take a trip to the states (move to the states?) – We did take a trip to the states. We couldn’t move there even if we wanted to (see beginning of post). The trip was wonderful, though. Incredibly nourishing despite It All. It was great to see family and friends after more than a year and a half away. I will also say that Vermont and upstate New York with Your People in the summertime is a magical formula.

8. Take more family trips in West Africa – We spent a good chunk of the summer in Mali. Along with a few short trips around Senegal, that was it. We have quite a bit of ground to cover when it comes to family trips in the region. But again, going back to the intro of this post, we are lucky to be able to take family trips of any kind. Much of this past year was about keeping our heads above water.

9. Finish updating the Bradt Guide to Senegal – YES YES Alhamdulillah!!! YES!!!! I’ve already posted about it, but this was a big lift. If I’m being completely honest, I did not know what I was getting myself into when I took this assignment. Our friend, and the original author of the book, Sean Connolly, got me this gig, and while I may have cursed his name at one or two points along the way, I remain deeply grateful for this project. It was quite possibly the least lucrative work I have ever done, but it paid in many other ways. Also, I now have a new appreciation for guide-book writing, a craft that requires writing chops as well as a methodical approach to research, exceptional attention to detail, and at least in West Africa, a skillset that in some ways overlaps with that of a murder detective. Sean is one of the best in the game and I strongly suggest checking out some of his books — perhaps his Bradt guide to Mauritania which just came out a couple of months ago? Of course, the Bradt Guide to Senegal is also his book, and I did not need to make very many changes to the already excellent foundational text. Bradt Senegal is now available for purchase in the UK and will be out in February in the US. I just received several advance copies and I do admit, it was cool to hold this thing in my hands.

10. Become conversational in Wolof – I did not. But I did make some small small progress and I remain committed to the goal. One BIG thing that was unlocked for me in this language learning journey is that there are no verb tenses/conjugation in Wolof. The verb ALWAYS stays the same. It is rather the tense of the subject that changes. This was hard for me to wrap my head around. As an example, to say “I eat,” you would say “Damay Lekk.” To say, “I ate,” you would say “Lekk Naa.” “Lekk,” the verb “to eat” does not change. I think this is kind of cool actually. It’s me and you that are changing tenses and not the verb. I remember when I was learning Bambara and I finally reached the point where I could think in the language. That is of course the big breakthrough. I am a ways off from that in Wolof, but I can see it in the distance. Inshallah.

11. Write at least one thing every week on this blog or in some other public place – Yikes. No. Very little writing this year. I mean last year. This year, more writing!

12. Create a base in Senegal – Midway through the year this looked increasingly unlikely. I don’t want to say we manifested it, but yeah, maybe something like that happened. Instead of relying on les agents immobiliers, who were more interested in showing us exorbitantly priced well manicured 3 bedroom houses with shoebox pools, we took the search into our own hands — riding around on the jakarta and looking at empty, and some not so empty properties. We were struck by one house that had a massive garden, an interesting looking u-shaped house, and an excellent location. Our friends at the Kalao brewery, which is situated around the corner from the property, put us in touch with the landlord. But it turned out that the house had a tenant. Damn. The search cooled over the summer as the rainy season settled in and we took off for Mali.

Later, while we were in the states, I got a message from Rapha at Kalao. He was convinced that the house was going to be vacated. I got back in touch with the landlord and sure enough, the house was available from the end of September. Once back in Senegal, I had a series of meetings/negotiations with the landlord and we eventually settled on a price. After one of these meetings, I ran into a camel (and an ambitious dog) around the corner from the new place. This was auspicious to say the least.

So here we are, with another rent payment to make each month, appliances to buy, renovations, paperwork and licenses to obtain, etc. etc. Are we insane? Possibly. But if there is one thing we know how to do — besides running tours — it’s building a home for a traveler-oriented community. For circumstances beyond our control, we can no longer do that in Mali. Here, in Senegal, there is a tremendous lack of these kinds of spaces.

We’ve also been running these tours in Senegal since 2017 with no base of operations, no office, no physical address. We have a website and 15 jakartas, which are parked at our mechanic’s house 180 km away. We’ve done well with this set up, all things considered, and there are advantages to a minimalist operation. But we want to get back to offline client recruitment, and we need a physical location for our Senegalese paperwork.

Wish us luck. And come visit.

This photo was from one of my early visits to the property. It does look a bit more kempt after a few weeks of TLC and Moustapha’s green thumb.

Matt looking contemplative while brewing a pot of coffee on the fire. It’s been wonderful to watch the space come to life.

We have 4.5 rooms that are ready to go, with a few more on the way. We also have lots of tents. And hammocks.

So yes, please come visit.

We do have a little website now. And an instagram (yes, another one. Ugh.). And a substack (!!!!!). But in general, we hope to be spending a lot less time online in 2026.

See you in Senegal

My wife Bintou banned me from skateboarding a couple of years ago and I am probably one injury away from losing pickup basketball. Of course, none of this is really on Bintou. It’s more about me coming to terms with my aging body.

Birding and postcard-writing are two hobbies that are very compatible with this current life stage. They also offer a much more sensible way of obtaining that little hit of dopamine compared to just about everything else we are being peddled. But we’ll get to that later.

With birding, I was taunted into it by a little burnt headed passerine. With the postcards, it was more of a delayed fuse. I have actually been running a postcard project with a former guide from Timbuktu for 9 years. In 2018, a website called Postcrossing wrote a blog post about the project. Do you know about Postcrossing?

From their website:

• What is Postcrossing? The goal of this project is to allow anyone to send and receive postcards from all over the world! The idea is simple: for each postcard you send, you will receive one back from a random postcrosser from somewhere in the world.
• Why? Simply because, like its founder, there are lots of people who like to receive real mail. Receiving postcards from different places in the world (many of which you probably have never heard of!) can turn your mailbox into a box of surprises — and who wouldn’t like that?

Despite this simple and beautiful concept, and the fact that I was running a postcard project (that they promoted on their blog!), I did not become an active postcrosser until late last year. One reason for the delay is/was that sending and receiving naked postcards in Mali is a challenge, one that has only become more difficult in the wake of Mali’s ongoing diplomatic dispute with France.*

But two years ago, we half-way moved to Senegal and I finally got a functioning PO Box. I quickly learned that the Senegalese Poste is a well-oiled machine. In fact, I now route all the postcards from Timbuktu through Senegal.**

In October of last year, I made a little vlog from Senegal for Scoot West Africa in which I displayed our new PO box address and encouraged people to send mail our way. It worked. I started to get mail. From all over the place. Postcards, mostly, but also some letters. Do you know how thrilling it is to get physical mail? A handwritten letter from someone? Maybe you do. Everyone loves mail, right? 

But what about writing and sending my own cards? For every card or letter I received that included a return address, I sent a card back. Once I wrote the first 4 or 5 cards I had some wind in my sails, and I realized something: I was enjoying this. Unloading thoughts. Writing slowly. Drawing little hornbills. Imagining the reaction of the recipient. 

Again, I realize that this might sound bizarre – I had been running a postcard project for 8 years. I suppose it’s kind of like having a kayak in your garage. That you’ve never used. The day you take that thing out, you might realize – or remember – that you really like kayaking. 

Once I got into a rhythm of writing and sending cards, I remembered I had a postcrossing account. I dusted off the cobwebs there and requested an address. I got Michaela in Wegburg, Germany. Her profile photo was a picture of a husky. In the about section, she wrote that she was happy to receive any kind of postcard, but she would be ecstatic to receive anything featuring:

Wolves, Fairies, Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes, Arwen, Galadriel from Lord of the rings, Twilight, CSI, Lighthouses, Halloween (Halloween greeting cards are welcome, too), Brad Pitt, Nice fantasy postcards (Briar, Nene Thomas, Anne Stokes, Selina Fenech etc.), Beautiful landscapes with sunsets.

I ended up sending Michaela a postcard of a mosque in Chinguetti, Mauritania. It’s what I had at the time. It took about a month to arrive. She was thrilled. On Postcrossing, she had sent and received over 18,000 cards. Yes, eighteen thousand. But this was her first card from Senegal. It was actually only the 632nd card ever sent from Senegal through postcrossing. To put that in perspective, 15 million postcards have been sent from Germany through the site. 

When you first start a postcrossing account, you can send up to 5 cards at a time. For each card, you are given a code. Michaela’s was SN-632. You write that code on the card. When Michaela gets it, she registers that code and it will link it with my account. You can now exchange messages if you want. Every time one of your cards is successfully received and registered, another postcrosser is assigned your address and you will have a card coming your way.

Let’s just say that every time I go to the post office now, the reward centers of my brain start lighting up before I make it out of the house. I typically read my postcards in the company of Cheikh, one of the poste employees who has a huge smile and is often even more excited than I am when a new card comes in. But believe me, I’m beaming too. Holding this thing in my hands that has traveled thousands of miles, that someone took their time with – the little weather reports, the drawings, stickers, the choice of stamps, the random story, the mini-bio, the cryptic poem, the This is What I’m Doing Today, the curiosity, the “wow! I have never sent a postcard to Senegal before!” Every postcard is somehow a piece of art. Even the wear and tear and the haphazard post office interventions play a role in it. I cherish every single one I get.

Because I put birds and birdwatching as interests in my profile, I get a LOT of bird postcards. Often with stories about birds AND BIRD STAMPS to go with it. I LOVE this. 

This card even had a SCOOTER STICKER (in my profile I talk about riding scooters around West Africa). 

I have now become penpals with some of the people I was randomly assigned on postcrossing. I even have plans to meet up with one of them! I also swap cards with people on instagram and I will occasionally post a story announcing that I will send a card to the first person that sends me their address. All of this is to say that I have become a little postcard-obsessed. 

Here is why that’s a good thing

1. Postcards are analog  

Something magical happens when you get away from screens and algorithms and put pen to paper. When you sit down and write and concentrate on another person. And when you finish writing, you can hold this thing in your hands. You leave your house and go to the post office with it. You might even have a conversation with someone before it’s all said and done. The person who receives it can also hold this thing in their hands. They may put it on their refrigerator and look at it every day.  

I’m not saying you can’t write a meaningful email, but when you think about the torrent of digital refuse that gets spewed all over us from the moment we wake up each day, it isn’t hard to imagine the profound joy you will feel when you receive a handwritten note that has traveled hundreds or thousands of miles. 

2. Postcards provide a healthy way to release coveted brain chemicals 

Scrolling gets you the dopamine, but you feel like garbage afterwards. It also makes you more anxious, less social and destroys your attention span. Postcards offer equally convenient dopamine along with a healthy dose of oxytocin and 0 side effects. What’s wonderful about postcards is that it feels just as good writing and sending them as it does receiving them. 

3. Postcards are an antidote to AI 

I’m not anti-AI. I used AI this morning. To help me sort through addresses on the backend of the postcards site. I do have an issue with AI and creative work. Oliver Burkeman said it better than I can here, but in case you don’t feel like reading his essay toute de suite, let me just say this. More and more often, when I’m reading things online, I find myself struck by a word or a phrase that has a certain je ne sais quoi. Call it a synthetic tinge. At a certain point it feels like I’m being paranoid. But I can’t help it. If I become convinced that a single, solitary word is AI, the whole thing is tainted. 

Imagine going to your favorite restaurant, where everything is supposedly homemade, and you walk by the kitchen and see a giant plastic bag of frozen industrial french fries from Sysco. Those “hand cut artisanal french fries” on the menu are suddenly not so delicious. More than that, you may actually feel a sense of betrayal. You don’t have to worry about this problem with postcards. Postcards are 100% handcrafted and made to order.***

4. Anyone can start sending postcards

You don’t need your friends’ addresses. You don’t even need friends.**** Sign up to Postcrossing. The internet was made for cool shit like this. Postcards are usually quite cheap (you can even make your own!) and so is postage. 

5. Postcard people are good people 

I kind of knew this already from the Timbuktu postcard project. My experience on postcrossing has only reinforced it. In addition to having very diverse interests, postcard people are generally progressive, empathic, curious and open-minded. Postcard people are the kind of people that support independent bookstores and participate in community gardens. They will restore your faith in humanity and convince you that we just might have a fighting chance against the forces of ego and accumulation. 

I don’t know if I’ve convinced you or not, but this is part where I share my address and ask for yours. You can email me yours at phil@philintheblank.net . Mine is : 

Phil Paoletta

B.P. 232 

Ngaparou, Mbour 

Senegal 

My son Andre also loves postcards 😉 

Andre Paoletta

B.P. 232 

Ngaparou, Mbour 

Senegal 

* All international mail from Bamako (that wasn’t destined for neighboring countries) was previously flown to Paris on the daily Air France flight. After the Malian government banned Air France in July 2023, international mail temporarily came to a halt. The mail now goes through Casablanca on Royal Air Maroc flights. 

** The postcards travel 1,200 kilometers on a bus from Bamako to Dakar, and I either ride up on a jakarta from La Somone or take the train from Diamniadio to go and pick them up. The postcards are still stamped and postmarked in Timbuktu. I just put them into an envelope that is stamped and postmarked in Senegal. In other words, more stamps for you!

***I mean, I guess you could use ChatGPT to write a postcard, but you’d have to be a really sick person to do that. Postcard people are definitely not doing this (see point 5). 

**** I do highly recommend sending postcards to your friends, though.

I was not very present for Bintou and the kids during the final sprint to turn everything in. When I finished, it was as if I was returning home from a trip. The kids were on spring break and I don’t have a real job so we got some round-the-clock QT in Bamako before heading back to Senegal.

After that, I sort of blacked out for a couple of days. I had not really spent any time on social media, in a feed, in newsletters etc. etc. etc. for a few weeks. How nice that was. Then for no particular reason, I let the algorithm just torch my brain. I did get some reading and website work in here and there, but for the most part I was like one of those lab rats repeatedly hitting a lever for more treats. I might as well have been shooting up with crack. It was exhausting, and of course, I have nothing to show for it except regret and a whole bunch of misfiring neurons.

One of the reasons (or maybe the only reason) I am writing this right now and not scrolling is because of an instagram story by @badkidfrench, who has been spinning tunes next to our pool at the sleeping camel on Sunday evenings. His post paid tribute to a genre of music in Mali that comes from the Wassoulou region. This genre has two ingredients, looping Mandé melodies and divine female vocals more than capable of freeing your brain from the algorithm’s death grip. It’s been 100% Wassoulou music for the past several days and I am writing postcards, updating our scoot website, writing in my journal, doing puzzles with the kids. I even updated our Patreon.

Here’s some Tata Diakité to get you started. Djiguiya means hope by the way.

Also, I didn’t mention this earlier, but I have a “now” page now.

To be very clear, the project was 100% Coumba’s idea. She wanted to mobilize people to vote – and to vote for the right reasons – in Mali’s post-coup election in 2013. I played a support role, launching a crowdfunding campaign and trying to get the most out of contacts I had with different embassies and NGOs in Bamako.

In the beginning, the project was self-funded, with Coumba contributing much of her own money, and everyone volunteering their time. We organized town halls in Bamako neighborhoods in conjunction with Yeredon, a community dance troupe, who put on a satirical performance mocking politicians who try to buy votes by giving away t-shirts and sacks of rice.

The town hall Q&A’s were revealing. We realized that many people didn’t know how to vote – from what documentation was needed to where they could obtain it – or how to find out who was running and what policies they were promoting. Almost no one knew that you could still vote even if you didn’t find a candidate to your liking (at the time, you could submit a blank ballot. If over 50% of the vote turned out that way, the election was nullified and rescheduled).

Things were going well but we started to run out of money. Coumba couldn’t really put anything else in, I barely had enough money to buy my evening meal of sɔ ani macaroni (beans and spaghetti), and we had exhausted the crowdfunding money. The weekly meetings were suddenly less well attended. Membership dwindled.

Then we got the call from USAID. They wanted to meet. We were received by a team of 5 or 6 people. We gave our pitch and then fielded some questions. Many questions in fact. Most of them, very good questions.

At this point, we had several different gameplans depending on whether or not we could find funding. The most ambitious plan involved a call center where Malians could freely call in to ask questions, an expanded campaign of countrywide town halls, and TV spots on ORTM, the national television station.

After several rounds of meetings, USAID was on board. So what happened next?

Elon Musk would have you believe that USAID forked over a wad of cash and then went on their way. There were actually some members of SOS Democracy that thought this would happen. They quickly disappeared once they realized that the USAID collaboration was not their ticket to a payday.

What actually happened was that USAID worked closely with us to carefully disburse funds and to monitor their use every step of the way. In many cases, they didn’t actually give any money directly to the organization.

For example, the call center. There is no unlimited calling plan in Mali. You put credit on your phone and then when it runs out, you add more. For many Malians, phone credit is a luxury. You are not calling up your friend to chat for hours. And most Malians were not going to spend money they didn’t have to get info about voting and the election.

So we created a number that Malians could “beep.” Beeping someone is free and doesn’t use your credit. You just call their number and if you hang up before they answer, they get a missed call notification. Malians beeped our hotline number and then we called them back and talked to them for as long as needed.

We of course needed to buy the phone credit to call them back. Instead of giving us the money to buy it, USAID went directly to the two telecom providers in Mali and worked out a deal to buy phone credit in bulk at a discount that would then be issued to the hotline numbers.

The phone credit was released incrementally, and USAID required that we keep detailed call logs to show how the credit was being used. They regularly dropped in to monitor the call center in-person.

And so it was with the TV spots on ORTM. USAID worked out a deal for multiple ad spots and then they handled the payment directly.

Throughout this collaboration, regular meetings were held, questions were asked, feedback was offered. The USAID team was helpful and thoughtful. But what I want to stress more than anything else is the relentless scrutiny when it came to finances.

In the years since, I have come to know dozens of USAID employees in Mali. They have been some of the most hardworking and dedicated people I have ever met.

I don’t agree with all of their programming, and I’m sure USAID has its share of waste and inefficiencies, but the idea that this agency (and every federal agency?) is nothing more than an army of faceless bureaucrats ripping off American taxpayers is a steaming pile of horse manure.

You may have already known that. But maybe you have a friend or an uncle or a colleague that has been parroting Elon Musk’s talking points and hurling (now debunked) claims that USAID spent $50 million on condoms for Gaza. Feel free to show them this alternate perspective.

Or not. I don’t really know what to do anymore. Other than make phone calls.

P.S. if your concern with USAID is not waste, but rather the idea that we are spending money outside our borders — if you can’t even see the practical reasons for it never-mind the idea that maybe we should be invested in some idea of shared prosperity and collaborative living as human beings, then I am at a loss for what to say to you.

1. Humans 

Obviously 

2. Pelicans

Is it personal? Yes. Is it justified? Yes.

Let me ask you something. How do you feel about swans? Be honest. That’s right. You don’t like them. Because they are horrid, vicious creatures. The word “nasty” has lost much of its meaning, partly because the incoming president of the United States uses it to describe most of the women he interacts with, but this word was really created for swans. 

Pelicans are like swans but with bigger beaks. 

I once thought they were harmless, cute even. A seaside curiosity that spends its days shoveling fish down its gullet.

Then I saw a pelican assault an Italian woman on a beach in Dakar. I believe she survived, but does anyone know for sure? 

The pelican had no reason to attack that woman. But I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was an isolated case, a one-off.

Then I was attacked by a pelican outside of a welding workshop in the village of Kafountine. Again, unprovoked. I mean, I looked the pelican in the eyes from a distance of over 10 meters. Is that a provocation?

Growing up, a friend’s basenji was like that. His name was Rudy. You couldn’t look him in the eyes. If Rudy had a beak like a pelican, I wouldn’t be alive to write this.

I was able to take refuge in the welding workshop before the pelican was able to have his way with me, but I still live with the PTSD from that encounter.

At the end of 2023, I came face to face with a human sized pelican statue at a friend’s garden Christmas party. I was terrified but I convinced myself to face my fears. I poured out some libations and asked the universe for a pelican truce. It worked for about 3 weeks, at which point a flock of pelicans seemingly tried to attack me from the air while I was riding a scooter in the Sine-Saloum delta.

The thing is, it’s not just me (and the Italian woman). More and more people are starting to talk about it (I assume the person that filmed that is no longer with us).

I would love to make peace with these birds. If you have any ideas, I am all ears. I live only a couple kilometers from something called “Pelican Island” here in Senegal, so this may actually be a matter of life and death for me.

3. Mosquitos 

Obviously 

4. Orcas

Trying to keep up with all the diabolical shit orcas get up to will make your head spin. I had just finished reading about how orcas have figured out how to kill whale sharks – yes, those docile, gentle giants of the sea – when I stumbled across an article talking about them wearing salmon carcasses on their heads, which is apparently an orca “trend” that is now back in fashion.

An orca will risk beaching itself in order to snag a baby seal. Because it’s starving? No, because orcas love to torture baby seals. It’s their favorite pastime. Did I mention they practice infanticide?

These are just the things we can see! Imagine what they get up to under the water when we’re not looking. And that’s really the only bright spot, that these motherfuckers don’t live on land.

5. Monkeys and some apes* 

I’m not going to get too stressed about something small, like a marmoset, but even a capuchin will put me on edge. I don’t trust them. After humans, monkeys (and some apes), are the shiftiest creatures in the animal kingdom. This makes sense. We’re all primates, and the combination of nucleotides responsible for shiftiness was sprinkled liberally around primate genetics.

Of course, some primates were spared. Lemurs are straight shooters. And despite looking like gremlins – and being able to swivel their head 180 degrees, see at night, and leap up to 5 meters – tarsiers are not trading in deception.

Baboons, though? Chimpanzees? Even when they are trapped behind glass at a zoo, I feel like I’m caught in a mind game. Are they my friend? Are they making fun of me? Are they going to snap my legs in half?

Bears are potentially dangerous animals, but at least I know where bears stand. A bear might try to eat me because it’s hungry. A chimpanzee might try to humiliate me before it rips my face off for fun.

*Bonobos are cool. And orangutans. And some gorillas. 

Do you agree with this list? Anything to add?

This is my second post of 2025. In my first post I mentioned a few goals for this year. One of them was posting every week. Consider this a request for increased accountability on your part. I have written 26 postcards this month, though.

Twenty twenty four felt like a car careening around a bend with two wheels in the air. 

For me personally, it was a year of bricolage, cobbling together tattered sources of income, dipping into savings, trying to keep the dream alive. The dream being to wake up without dread each day, to live relatively comfortably, to move freely. To watch the kids flourish and grow. To stay healthy. 

It’s a tall order. We did alright this year all things considered. 

There was a little dread. The normal amount of dread when you find yourself occasionally staring at your bank account and crossing your eyes to add a few decimal places. And there were a few sacrifices. We couldn’t do our big trip to the states this year and some fall break plans got scuttled. 

But I can hardly complain. We live 200 meters from the beach in Senegal, the kids go to a good school, and we still managed to spend nearly 4 months of the year in Mali. The Sleeping Camel continues to poke along, and Matt and I are both optimistic (is that the word?) about Scoot West Africa, despite a slow start to the season. 

If we run out of rope, Bintou has a multiple entry visa to the US that is good for another 4 years. It wouldn’t necessarily be a soft landing. I don’t quite understand the economics of living in the United States at the moment. And then there is everything else. Talk about dread. But the point is, we have the option. Many do not. 

We really have too much to be grateful for. 

Hopes and dreams and can I use the word goals for this year?

1. Get Jason Kottke to notice and mention Postcards from Timbuktu on his blog

I just realized that I’ve been reading Jason’s site, kottke.org, for over twenty years. In the early days, it was more of a personal blog. It is now something of a bottomless well of curiosity, wonder, and human achievement, a one-stop shop for the best things happening online and off.

But what stands out to me these days is not Jason’s prolific curation, but his values – values that I share – and his willingness to champion them. He could easily make his site politically neutral and commercialize the shit out of it. He could get in bed with a particular platform (or all of them). But he hasn’t. He has stayed true to his progressive politics and online ethos at a time when the stakes couldn’t be any higher. 

I have been trying to get Postcards from Timbuktu in front of Jason for a while. I am obviously biased, but I do think it is incredibly cool that with a few clicks and keystrokes, you can order a handwritten postcard from a place that many people believe is fictional while also providing a lifeline to a group of guys and their families who have been struggling since the collapse of Mali’s tourism industry. 

The project could not exist without the internet, but it is the analog aspect of it that I truly love. On the backend, a physical card travels from Timbuktu by motorbike, bus, sometimes boat, sometimes plane. It changes hands a dozen times. And that’s before it begins its second, international leg. Anyway, I’m preaching to the choir. Many of you reading this already support the project. My feeling is that there are people in Jason’s audience that would also appreciate it. 

Years ago, I sent postcards to Jason at the address he had listed on his site. I don’t know if any of them ever arrived. I do know that before I started our current double postage card-in-envelope method, a lot of postcards were lost.  

I sent him an email. Maybe more than one. I may have sent some tweets. I may have inadvertently unleashed my email list upon him. That was dumb.

I think what has happened is that I may have deservedly ended up on Jason’s shitlist before he ever got a clear look at the project. Sometimes persistence pays off, and sometimes persistence earns you a sign over your head with blinking lights and bright red lettering, “this mf’er is annoying!” 

But I’m not ready to give up. The project could really use a lift, and I think an appearance on Jason’s blog could do more than any of the news articles written about it. Jason has a massive audience and there are many bloggers and newsletter writers with their own audiences that make discoveries on his site. 

I feel like I am seeking relationship advice here, but if any of you have thoughts on how to proceed, let me know. We need to have a strategy here. Because I feel like my next move could be my last chance. 

2. Send at least 100 postcards 

While I’m on the subject, I have become slightly obsessed with sending and receiving postcards. I am active on postcrossing now (this is me), but because my cards take so long to travel from West Africal, I have started doing swaps as well. 

If you want to send me a postcard, this is my address: 

Phillip Paoletta 

B.P. 232 

Ngaparou, Mbour 

SENEGAL 

Any bird related stamps or cards (except for pelicans) and you will have a permanent place in my heart. 

Regardless of whether you want to swap, I would love to send you a postcard. Just send me your address to phil.paoletta @ gmail dot com and I will send you a card from Senegal.  

3. Learn how to surf (or at least witness my son learn to surf)

I am not an aquatic person by nature. I think that has to do with being ginger. Water fun typically comes with a lot of sun exposure. I already have a few basal cell carcinomas under my belt so now I am one of those guys wearing a broadbrimmed hat and long sleeve UPF shirts, which by the way are apparently riddled with microplastics. Between microplastic cancer and skin cancer, I guess I have to take microplastic cancer and hope that it’s less deadly than melanoma.   

Anyway, we live next to the ocean now, and regardless of how I feel about it, the kids absolutely love it. I will say that I do enjoy the occasional dip, and I do like collecting shells and observing tide pools and building hermit crab hotels. And if you give me a patch of shade, I can sit and look at the ocean all day. 

But now that I’ve tried surfing, I can see a path forward to even greater ocean appreciation. My son Andre and I did a joint lesson and we were both standing up for stretches by the end of it. It was thrilling. And admittedly much harder than I imagined. After my collapsed lung, Bintou banned me from skateboarding and she has more recently tried to ban me from playing pickup basketball. At least for now, surfing is being perceived as a relatively risk-free activity in our household. I will not be telling Bintou about sea urchins. 

We have our next session a few days after we arrive back in Senegal.  

4. See 36 new bird species, including an Abysinnian Ground Hornbill 

In West Africa, this is a very modest and achievable goal. But the pool of potential lifers shrinks each year. I think I can manage to see 3 new bird species a month with a little bit of effort. 

I really want to see an abysinnian ground hornbill. You can only see this bird in a relatively thin band that runs across the African continent. Or in Florida, where they occasionally escape that state’s ridiculous exotic wildlife trade. I imagine there is a “fully nude florida man high on PCP arrested at Wendy’s drivethrough with Abysinninan Hornbill in passenger seat” headline out there somewhere. 

I haven’t been to Florida in a long time, but I do happen to spend a good amount of time in this bird’s endemic range. 

5. Make a longform video I am proud of 

I’ve made a few videos that I’ve published on our Scoot West Africa youtube channel. If I’m being honest, I am more embarassed by them than anything else. Sometimes it’s something the small, a poorly framed shot or bad lighting. Sometimes it’s the entire premise of the video. Sometimes it’s my irritating tendency to overexplain and overnarrate, something I feel like I’m actually doing right now in this post.

case in point.

I have an idea for a video that I am going to film roughly two months from now. Then I will likely spend the next 3 years editing it, which is why I need I this goal. 

6. Go camping with Andre 

Long overdue. Between official Scoot West Africa gear and the semi-permanent bazaar in Matt’s room at our house, we have everything we need. And it’s not the rainy season anymore. No more excuses. 

7. Take a trip to the states (move to the states?) 

The latter is not the goal, but if it works out that way then it will cancel out the first bit.  

8. Take more family trips in the region 

Bintou and the kids have still not been to the Casamance and that is gross negligence on my part. We have been everywhere on the Petite-Côte and up to Dakar often enough. And we have spent a bit of time in The Gambia and the Sine-Saloum. But there is so much more to explore and really an endless supply of family-friendly trips to take.  

9. Finish updating the Bradt Guide to Senegal

Provided I finish on time – and the manuscript isn’t rejected – I will be a published author sometime later this year. Ok, a published “updating” author. My name will not be on the cover, but it will theoretically be somewhere in its first pages. Anyway, it’s less about the glory of authorship and more about future opportunities, and an excuse to see more of Senegal. 

10. Become conversational in Wolof 

I mentioned in a post last year that I finally started to appreciate Wolof as a language. Unfortunately, my language learning efforts have not been commensurate with my appreciation.  

11. Write at least one thing every week on this blog or in some other public place

I write at least once a day privately, but my daily commitment to blog posts proved too ambitious. I am aiming to post at least once a week though. I think this is manageable. Good things happen when I write here.  

12. Create a base in Senegal 

The algorithm – or, my algorithm – is collapsing in on itself. I’m consuming less social media these days and when I do, much of it is encouraging me to get offline. 

The story I keep telling myself is that we need social media for our different projects, especially Scoot West Africa. But I’m not so sure anymore. We have actually not found that many clients this way. 

Now, we might just be shit at social media. We do neglect and often ignore many so-called best practices. 

What I do know is this: social media has produced a disproportionate number of problematic inquiries – prospective clients that really do not sync up with our travel philosophy.

A client on our November trip to Mauritania made a tiktok video that was viewed over 10 million times (!). She tagged our company in the post and throughout the comments. We thought we would be selling out trips to Mauritania for the next two years. 

Instead, we ended up with an inbox full of unserious inquiries and long-winded pleas for steep discounts from teenagers. I’m all for teenagers being adventurous, but we are not in a position to offer a 10-day trip in 4x4s for a few hundred dollars. 

Amongst the more serious inquiries, 100% of them wanted to do the trip for one reason: to ride the iron ore train, which tourists have since been banned from. This is unsurprising – Francesca’s video was about the train – but what was disturbing was the complete lack of curiosity about Mauritania itself. 

It should be said, Francesca was a wonderful client. She is now a friend, and someone that we hope will join us for another trip in the future. And of course, we appreciate her efforts to showcase our company. But if it wasn’t already apparent to us, it’s crystal clear now that “viral content” is not the way forward. 

I think it’s still possible to win the right people over on social media. But that’s if our stuff gets in front of people. The kind of content that the algorithm wants – and I suppose that just means what most people want? – is rarely the kind of content that is reflective of who we are and what we appreciate about travel in this region.  

When I think about where we have had the greatest success – and what we actually enjoy doing – it’s meeting people in-person. Yes. Like, real life. This is what we’ve been missing the past two years. The Sleeping Camel was once a Mali travel institution. It still is, really. There just aren’t any travelers. The government has quietly done away with tourist visas, and the entire country is painted red on most embassy websites. We get a few stray country counters every now and then, but that’s it. 

Senegal has lots of travelers and no sleeping camel. Our scooter trips are based there, but we don’t have a base of operations. Whether it’s a “scoot shack,” a small guesthouse or some kind of speakeasy, I really believe we need to have this physical space where we can meet people and, you know, indoctrinate them. Our brand of maraboutage does not travel well, and it does not work well through screens.  

PS I know I said I am spending less time on social media, but I am on bluesky now @philintheblank.net and it seems pretty nice and I may just start using it! 

PPS At least one client has joined a trip through this blog and we honestly couldn’t have asked for someone better. That is giving some extra motivation to revive this thing! 

13. Witness the Mali turnaround 

This might be the most pie in the sky thing on this list. It felt like something had to give last year, and it didn’t. Now it’s the cold season and the power cuts have eased up (to 12 hours a day instead of 20). But we are drifting back into untenable waters. A cratering economy, runaway capital flight, relentless inflation. On the horizon, Ramadan and the hot season.

I don’t know what is going to happen, but I find it hard to believe that Malians will patiently weather the storm once more. Over a decade of crises on multiple fronts, and it now feels like we are in reverse with a lead foot on the accelerator.

If, somehow, things were to break in the right direction, we would move back to Mali in a heartbeat.

But right now, that’s a pipe dream.

Nightmares

Honestly there is enough to be worried about without me articulating my nightmares. A lot can go wrong this year. In my personal life and far beyond it. If there is any truth to the purported ability of our mind to influence future events based on how we target our mental energy, it’s better I keep my mouth shut. 

How about you? Hopes and dreams please, no nightmares.