"Patio"

"Patio" is a small restaurant beside the French Cultural Center in Bamako. Normally we go to this cozy place to have a coke at the lunch break but today we made a difference and went there for lunch which gave us the opportunity to stay there more then an hour. During the four months I spent in West Africa there was only two or three occasions which I felt I was not in Africa and today was one of them... The restaurant is a one storey building which has a rectangular patio in the middle. We were seated on the bambou chairs around the patio listening african music, staring to the white walls decorated with B&W photographs of the african musicians and staring to the clear blue sky through patio's ceiling. Feeling the light breeze on my face caused by the ventilators on the tatch coverd ceiling while the music changed to Phil Collins's long forgotten song, I felt I was in the 70's sitting at a beach restaurant somewhere around the world... Which was a refreshing feeling in the middle of a hot African day...