Saturday night I went by Mieko's place to say goodbye to Dana, who was leaving to go back to DC, and talk about the Speaker Series that I am putting together while we are here. (Friday we are scheduled to meet with the Malian representative of the CDC.)
I brought with me the dress I had made quickly for the wedding and Dana and Mieko were not impressed. They said the fabric quality could be better and the tailor could have done something more with the cut even if it was last minute. Mieko pulled some dresses out of her closet but since I have her by a good foot even though they fit me, they were much too short. Armed with the knowledge that absolutely no one else I know would be at the wedding, I got dressed the next morning.
Coumba came by to pick me up, lent me a purse that matched the dress and wrapped my head with my matching scarf. In the car were her friends Myriam and Bedi. The wedding was more like a reception since I didn't see any actual vows. Tents were set up in the middle of the street stretching for three small blocks. Inside two or three rows of chairs formed around a long oval. The outfits were colorful and gorgeous. I looked every single person up and down once or twice just to take it all in. All of the mother-in-laws (many still practice polygamy) were all dressed in white with light blue-green scarves and yellow and red decorations signifying their roles. Drummers played at one end of the tent and griots sang haunting tunes in falsetto with lots of ululations that sounded very Arabic to me and at the same time reminded me of Japanese opera.
Coumba and I went into the circle to dance a few times. People go in do a dance and then leave the circle and another comes in the center to take their place. When we left the circle a few of the mother-in-laws reached for my hand and said I did well. The mother-in-laws and the bride both gave out money and did a walk dance through the tent.
People offered me water. Here it is easily carried, stored and sold in clear plastic baggies tied with a knot. To drink it you simply bite a hole in the corner of the bag and suck out the water. Coumba deftly deflected all attempts to give me the water. I had my bottled water with me as I have been told that the water here could possibly make me sick.
Later we went into one of the houses just off from the tents with all the mother-in-laws and all squashed onto two couches and the floor in one room. I was introduced to them all and they chuckled with delight at the name I have taken in Mali. Then they took to speaking in Bambera and since I only know greetings and terms for taking the bus I settled down to observe. Their hands and feet, and those of the bridesmaids, were intricatly decorated with a dark henna, or indigo, maybe, in flowering, striped and checkered designs. They were such gracious hosts, an older woman standing to insist that I sat and I only took the seat briefly to be polite and then found a way to get back up so she could have her seat back. They offered me a soda and poured it into a communal tin with a hunk of ice in it. I apologized profusely and said the ice would make me sick. They apologized and gave me a hot soda instead.
Coumba had gone to pray when the large bowls of food arrived. I didn't see anyone get up to wash their hands. There was a bucket with water that I dipped my hands in but apparently that was for use after eating. They bade me several times to sit on a footstool in front of a communal bowl and reach my hand in and grab some food which was so hot it burned my palms and fingertips. I complied and focused on eating the food right in front of me that no one else had touched. On the second handful Coumba came in with a plate and a spoon so obviously for me and said Eh are you eating out of the bowl with everyone else? I said Awo, yes in Bambera. She said you're eating with your hands? I said Awo again. She said don't do that; here is your plate and spoon. While I felt relieved that I did not have to eat the entire meal out of the bowl with various unwashed hands in it, I also had been trying not to stand out as an outsider. The plate and spoon simply reinforced my outsider status, especially since there was no longer a reason for me to sit in one of the circles around the bowls. But feeling like an outsider outweighs getting some intestinal sickness. The meal was rice and cabbage and fish, with various spices and lots of lemon juice sprinkled over it.
Coumba said besides I do not know how to eat with my hands and I tip my head back to drop food in my mouth, making myself liable to choke, rather than rolling it into a ball and popping it into my mouth. For the record, I try to roll it but it doesn't stay together. She has been telling our coworkers about the way I tip my head back and they all laugh. I'm happy to provide the fodder for laughter.
Back at the party we danced some more and then left. We had been at the wedding for six hours and had literally been sweating under that tent the entire time.
Coumba took me by her parents' house and I met her sister who had lived in DC for a time. I also met both her father, mother, and her other mother and various other people in the house which is more of a compound. Doors open onto bedrooms and whole other livingrooms with rooms off of them. When Coumba said I was from the US her mother said she was sorry. Sorry for slavery, sorry for the fact that I have been estranged from my heritage, or sorry that I live a Western lifestyle or...? Her father had recently come from a visit to Paris and we spoke in French and English and I shared with him the Bambera that I knew. He laughed at me when I stared at the tree in his yard and said I had never seen mangoes growing on a tree before. Also in the yard were two peacocks and a goat. Her mother was pretty quiet but when I left she held my hands and kissed both cheeks.
When Coumba took me home I showered, dressed and headed to Daley's where the rest of the gang was already. I had a little trouble deciphering which house with high walls was his and stumbled upon the places of people who worked for the embassies of Germany and France before finding his place. Again we are so obviously roughing it. Inside his house I was so lulled into thinking I was in the States that I was halfway through a drink with ice before I thought to ask about the ice. He said it was triple-filtered and I would be fine.
Everyone else was already done eating and the guys were in the kitchen chatting. I ate curry goat, rice and peas, and spinach patties with Tabitha, from Alabama who works at the Department of Defense. She was the sole other female since Mieko just left to pick someone up at the airport. In addition to Rodney, Andrew and Daley, I met Morgan, a recent Morehouse grad, finishing up his Fulbright Scholar year in Mali. The food was delicious, even chocolate crepes with vanilla ice cream for dessert, and Rodney's drama with females provided for great, rousing conversation.
Daley was very understanding of our limited amenities and tabletop range and packed us a huge to-go bag of leftovers, including soy milk which Rodney and Andrew have been trying to find in every supermarket. For the next two nights we ate the leftovers cold because we were out of cooking gas and did not know how to replace the canister. Our stove is actually a tabletop range with two burners connected by a hose to a canister of cooking gas that sits under the table. To turn on a burner you have to turn the valve on the canister a bit and then turn the burner on and then light a match and hold it to the burner. When you are done cooking you have to remember to close the valve after turning the burner off.
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