The burbs

This morning, we hopped in a taxi to head out to the suburbs of Bamako to the American Embassy to take care of some business. What used to be a falling apart old colonial structure in, seriously, the smack middle of downtown, is now a sprawling shiny office complex out in the Hamdallaye neighborhood. This is an "unfinished" area of town with tons of construction, some new, some half finished and abondonned. There has been some care taken to the planning of it and there is landscaping in the medians, lots of paved roads and bits of Western life all around. I wish I'd had my camera. It really even felt like the burbs in the states in some areas. At one point, we were on this large parkway, 4 lanes, a landscaped median in the middle. Large empty spaces waiting to be developped are interrupted by fancy and sterile Peugeot dealerships, Western hospitals, spankin' new hotels with "free internet..." We even passed what looked frighteningly like a mall...modern clothing, furniture stores, a restaurant...it looked like a bank had taken over where the movie theater was supposed to go. I honestly would not have been suprised to see a Chili's and a drive thru Starbucks. We happily found "The Mac Centre Mali." wow...wonder if they have iPhones...