Insider/Outsider

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot

I am impressed with how things are reused and adapted here until every last bit of value has been utilized. In some stores used bottles of water are sold for those who just want water and don't need it to be spring water. Coumba lost the key to her car and was starting her car by using a key to something else and igniting the spark of recognition that the car needed. Perhaps she lost that key because now she is literally hotwiring her car to start it. She wraps the orange and yellow wires together and then touches the red wires to them and vroom the car starts up. When my sandals broke there was someone close who knew the craft of restitching them and they were fixed in an hour. The country seems full of beach chairs whose original binding busted and have since been restrung with woven plastic strings. I think the world would be a better place if we all found ways to conserve like this.

Prices confuse me though. It is 150 CFA to take the bus, 200 CFA to repair shoes, 200 CFA for breakfast, 200 CFA for a soda, 300 CFA to get a pregnancy prevention shot lasting 3 months, 1300 CFA for a box of juice, 1500 CFA for a tailor to sew a simple outfit, 2,000-10,000 CFA for a phone card which I have been running through like water, 3700 CFA for a box of bottled water and 10,000 CFA for a new canister of cooking gas. The ratios just do not add up to me.

I am very aware of my perception of things as an American and of others perceptions of me as such. I have tried to dress in a way that helps me to fit in a little more but it is still obvious to locals that I am not from here although they cannot place me. All I have to do is walk down the street and every taxi that passes in either direction will honk and or pull over assuming that I want to pay through the nose for a ride.

When I first arrived and I told people my Malian name it was obvious to them that I was not Malian. Imagine my surprise now that with a bit of a tan people are reacting to me differently. When I don't know how to respond to something said in Bambera, eyes narrow as if people are seeing me again but for the first time. One woman sucked her teeth at me. When I explained that I was American, had only been here for a week and was learning as fast as I could she softened and said oh it will come little by little. What had she thought before? That I lived here or had grown up here and did not speak Bambera or that I was one of Mali's daughters abroad and had come home not knowing my native language?

It's interesting that there is a sort of discrimination that is inherent in being American in a foreign land and there is also a sort of internal discrimination inherent in being native in a foreign land. One woman said your name is Puehl. I said yes and smiled. (One dead give away about being American is smiling so much. I realize I do it more when I am nervous.) She said that is not a good thing. My smile fell. I am Malikan (another ethnic group), she said proudly striking her breastbone. That's wonderful, I said. She was silent for a moment and then asked, Why did you take on a Puehl name? My colleagues told me to take a Puehl name because they said I look like I am from the Puehl ethnic group of Mali. Hmmm she said. And I got the feeling that I had somehow made an error though I wasn't quite sure where. Was I stumbling into a viper's nest in my excitement to identify with an ethnic group that people said I ressembled while not knowing the assumptions, issues, and history associated with that group?

Actually the name I took is Puehl too simply because all the young leaders said it didn't make sense for me to have a name from another ethnicity when I clearly look like another. Apparently the dance I did at the wedding was very similar to the traditional Puehl dance and I did it unwittingly, trying to remember some moves from long past African dance classes. So my coworkers taught me the Puehl dance which involves a lot of shoulder-moving, right up my alley right Taryne? And they taught me how to say hello in Puehl. Then another put her foot down and said it was enough that I was perfecting my French and learning Bambera, that they shouldn't be trying to confuse me with Puehl also.

The tan has also meant a difference in how men react to me. At first people of both sexes would just look their fill, being interested in someone who clearly was not of the area. Now I think that men think I may be Malian I am experiencing a lot more random things like a friend of my neighbor telling me as I walked out the door you are pretty; give me your phone number. I tried to laugh it off but he was serious. So I said Akine in Bambera, a polite refusal. He said oh you speak Bambera huh? Nice, give me your phone number. Do you even know what Akine means? I said yes do you? He said it means I'm good. And I said yes well I'm good. Thanks.

I think too about the American things that are exported here. Coumba watches Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives on DVD. She calls Rodney - Rodney King and she asked me if I think Tupac is really dead. Africable plays music videos and I think it is a shame that not only are US music videos corrupting youth in our own country but their exportation is affecting how others think of us. If I could choose the parts of our culture that were exported, I would be a lot more selective.

I was initially very skeptical about spending the next 10 days in the house with only Andrew. Two days in a row as we were leaving he started to take his direction for work without saying anything. Both days I said bye have a nice day and had to remind him that it was polite to say that in return. We had a talk tonight though and he said he was waiting for an invitation to join me and Rodney shopping at the market, or cooking or what have you whereas we did not invite each other but simply said hold up a minute I'm coming.

He said about the converter that he was thinking about conserving his stuff because he felt Rodney and I had formed a liason and were united against him and were not there for him. I told him that the only person that I thought acted as if they were not there for other people in the house was him based on his actions. I said that I had gone out of my way to cook for and go shopping for the household and that I had not seen that he had done either of those things. Further when he had a chance to do someething for me with the converter, and I needed some help, he chose not to. He apologized for that. I also told him that I thought sleeping and headphones were a sign that he did not want to be disturbed so I did not bother him and since he was engaged in either activity most of the time it meant we did not interact much. Anyway we hashed it out and we both understood each other's perspective and agreed to start out again. Thank God. Hopefully Rodney will be able to fold into this new vibe when he returns.