And So On

"The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing." - Marcus Aurelius

Two new birds came and took over the abandoned nest on our windowsill. I saw the female sitting on the nest and tucking in bits of straw and twigs the male brought to her. The next day there was one egg; the day after that two. They looked like slightly larger white jelly beans like the kinds you see around Easter. The next day one egg was gone and the next time I looked, both were gone. I asked Andrew about them and he said he saw a big black bird sitting on the windowsill eating the eggs.

Wednesday night my coworker Brahms took me to a music festival. At first I was ready to turn him down but Coumba assured me that those festivals are excellent and I should go. It occurred to me that I don't do much here without her prior approval. So Brahms picked me up, then his friend who spent 8 years in Germany, and we arrived at the Palace of Culture (a misnomer really) next to the river and discovered that the festival was not that night but two nights later. There were hordes of young boys out that night between the ages of 6 and 12. A security guard chased them away from an event with his belt in the air. I asked Brahms why they were out and he said school is out and so parents are lax over where their children are. The boys go out with the premise of playing on the street but end up joining together and roaming the city, but of course they keep the girls inside. Interesting...now there is no good that can come of little boys roaming the streets together in the dead of the night.

Well since we are already out Brahms says, we should go for a drink. My hackles were raised already and further more so when he stopped on a dark street. I exclaimed Eh! That one sound that can mean so many things. And Brahms says no this is a bar! Mali is a Muslim country and so when people want to drink they have to hide to do it. And indeed there was a bar hidden behind the courtyard walls. It was very dark inside as for the patrons not to be able to see each other well. A tv played music videos in the corner and a lone server brought our beers. Huge beers almost a liter in size.

Yesterday at work the power was out again and we sat and fanned ourselves and sweated all day long. It really would have been better for us to be outside in the shade where we could have caught a breeze or two. I went to sit outside on the opposite side of our compound. Coulibaly was there and 3 or 4 other guys whose names I can't recall at the moment. They offered me a glass of sweetened green tea steeped with mint leaves. After a short conversation one of the men, about 40, said he wanted to keep in touch with me when I went back to the States. I said hmmm. He pressed his case and ended it with je t'aime...I like or love you.

I told him that in the States we have a saying for those who say things like that and don't know you. He asked what and I tried to translate "Get in line," only to see four blank faces. So I picked up a few stones on the ground and said when you wait for something you make a line. And I set one stone down and said here's one person, then dropped another stone behind the next and said, here's the second, and so on until 6 rocks were lined up in a row. So what I said is that this is you, and I held up the last stone, and you have to go to the back of the line. And with that I placed the last stone down behind all the others. Immediately one of the younger guys burst out laughing. He explained in Bambera and others started laughing. The older gentleman's face looked slightly annoyed which made the younger guy laugh all the more and he reached out to shake my hand.

Mieko invited us to go salsa dancing and Andrew and I took her up on it. We left soon after we ate dinner that Andrew cooked. Rodney had just returned from Timbuktu and so he declined to attend. There was a table full of Americans from Peace Corps, the Embassy, and USAID. It was cool not to have to speak French but at the same time if I wanted to hang around Americans I could have stayed at home. Of course if I was here for 2 years like most of them are I probably would want to have that company frequently. Dancing was fun but it was an outdoor bar so dancing even just a little made one sweat profusely. I danced with Andrew and so did Mieko. We left at midnight, 3 nights out in a row having taken its toll. Both coming and going I was told by different people that I ressembled Fatima and asked if I was related to her. I said no but now I am really interested in meeting her.

And on that note there are a lot of familiar faces here. It's very strange. At the club on my birthday I saw a woman who looks like my cousin's wife LaShawn; One of the mechanics at the garage looks like my friend Tomiko's godbrother; The sister of one of the bride's at the wedding looks like my cousin LaTonya; one of the little boys who begs at the Sotrame stop where I transfer ressembles a slightly older version of my little cousin Zachary; and even Coumba slightly ressembles one of my grad school classmates.

Relatives and friends of Tchou Tchou, Sogona and Coumba stop by all day long and when they see me they greet me in French instead of Bambera so I respond in kind. The girls have started insisting that I demonstrate my knowledge of Bambera. She speaks Bambera they tell their friends. Go on, they say, as they prod me. I feel like an actor, performing on command. But it's funny how people's eyes light up and they smile when I greet them in Bambera.

A traveling vendor came by the office two days ago and a few of us bought some material. Tchou Tchou took me to her tailor to have an outfit made, modeled after one of hers. Here it is more expensive to buy clothes in the store than have them made, the opposite of the States. This is a new experience for me. When I think of how frustrated I've been over the years with clothes that weren't long enough or were too loose here or too tight there, this answer seems so perfect. And if you design your clothes yourself all you have to have is infinite imagination of the possibilities. I wish I could have a whole wardrobe made.

I also took the dress I had made for the wedding to a tailor across the street to cut it a little more form fitted. While I was there waiting for my change a commotion came from behind the back of the shop where people live. Then in a flash a young girl came running through the back of the shop, naked save for a string around her waist, screaming and hollering. After her in a flash was a woman, presumably her mother, with a baby tied to her back, and a slight stick in her hand, brandishing it. The girl ran to the waiting area in front where I could hear her crying but could no longer see her. I didn't know what to do so I just sat there. The tailors talked with the mother at the back door seemingly joking and she left. Soon after I heard the girl cry out from the waiting room though and apparently the mother had gone around the row of shops and through the front door and had resumed beating the girl. The tailors rushed out and held the mother back and by the time I came out the girl had run off again. Wow!

Rodney came back full of stories but has only been able to share a few. he says in Timbuktu everyone rises at 4:30 to take advantage of the relative cool because by noon it is blazing and all business stops for the rest of the day. He said he went running once at midnight and it was still so hot that he threw up afterwards. The Sahara for real! He encountered some Nigerians and some Ghanaians walking from Nigeria to Spain by way of Mali, thousands of miles from where they had begun and thousands from where they would end.

He also said he spoke with a girl who was 15, married and had a child. Her sister was 16 married and had a child and her step-sister was 17 married and had a child. He said their lives ressembled those of 40 year olds, so much to do, so many demands and that up until that point, none of their lives had been of their own choosing. Their husbands were chosen for them and they were married off...not because they wanted to be but because that's the way things are. They are in the 6th and 7th grades. Five and six students study out of one book and the books were tattered when the schools received them 5 years ago. He asked them what keeps them going and they seem to realize that without education they have nothing. Many are married to men who do odd jobs and are not very well-educated themselves; their lives are hard. If the scholarships did not exist they would not be in school. Even with an education the area is so remote that some type of enterprise would need to be set up to make a difference.