"I hope you had the time of your life..." song lyric
My last days in Mali seemed to have passed ibn a blur, now looking back, although at the time the minutes felt like hours. That always happens to me when I am looking forward to something.
There was no agenda, just spending time with all of my favorite people and doing the things that I liked to do. Unfortunately our trip to Dogon country was cancelled last minute in a manner that did not allow us to resume plans on our own. That was disappointing but such is life.
Rodney and I were both through with Andrew in our last days. We decided to hang up our benefactor coats and let him rough it and get his own food and water the last few days. He literally spent whole days in his room with the door closed to the point where Rodney texted him to see if he was still in there and even resorted to shutting off the fuse for the room to see if that could make him come out.
In his defense, maybe he was licking his wounds after I shared with him my very truthful but not so positive perception of his behavior during our time in Mali. I said that perhaps it was too late to change what had occurred here but that he could take this as a lesson for moving forward in life because my guess was that he didn't have many friends if he treated everyone the same way he treated us. Really though I don't think it phased him. He is still at a point where everything is about what he wants and not what is fair and he worries not about the consequences of his behavior. We did try though.
Rodney and I decided to have a get together at our place for all the people who had been so nice to us. We realized quickly that a lot of them did not know each other and so tomake the get together less awkward and also to be realistic, as we couldn't feed hordes of people, we settled on inviting 5 people over, Constance, MAxime, Amadou, Mamadou, and Tacao. We could have invited Xavier (Moses), Safi, Ouima, and Safararou etc. but these were people who were likely not to come alone and ultimately we had to draw the line somewhere.
I washed the muddy terrace. Tacao had come over a few days before and frowned at it asking why I didn't clean it. Well I did but everytime it rains and wind blows, more thick mud. I'd rather hose it down but no garden hose... And why am I the one that has to clean it? Realizing that our guests would frown upon me once seeing the terrace I got out a mop bucket and began to mop and scrub at the stubborn mud spots. Within a second I was perspiring. Tacao came over and indicated that she would halp. I thanked her but refused. So she came over and took the large rag away from me. What I had been trying to do was use the large squeegee on a stick to swish the large rag around, similar to mopping back home. Different ball game folks!
She dipped the rag in the water, wrang it out with her hands (I had been trying to avoid that close contact with the water) bent at the waist and began moving the cloth around the floor with her hands. MUCH more effective! So I imitated her. Then she swished more water out of the bucket onto the stubborn mud spots and squeeged them too. In this manner we cleaned the entirety of the terrace, the steps and the garage. Rodney kept trying to get her to leave with him but she said no that we were cleaning. Grateful again! The terrace was sparkling when we finished and ready for our grand party...
Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The Truth About Cats and Dogs
"You can't walk alone. Many have given the illusion, but none have really walked alone. Man is not made that way. Each man is bedded in his people, their history, their culture, and their values." - Peter Abrahams
The interplay between men and women is always everpresent in discussions and in interactions here. And of course, marriage is the pinnacle of that interplay. Rodney and I have talked about the idea of cross-cultural relationships. Our time here as made is so very evident that such concepts are extremely difficult to navigate in reality. Both parties come to the relationship with different expectations and different ideas for how the marriage should work (as if there weren't enough problems with that within cultures.) And when those expectations are not met, the partners are either faced with disappointment, a sense of failure to meet certain standards (their own failure or that of their partners), anger, frustration, or even the ridicule of their peers.
Rodney said he was dating a woman in South Africa who mentioned that if they were to get married his uncles would have to fly there and negotiate with her uncles how many cattle they would give the family for her hand in marriage. Rodney, aside from not being ready to talk marriage with her, thought the idea was preposterous. Why should he pay the wife's family for his wife? Would that mean he had bought her, literally? While the idea was distasteful to him, the idea of not receiving a dowry was distasteful to the woman, whose family paid to educate her well, to standards higher than most around her, and who had come to expect that they would one day be receiving cattle for her hand in marriage. What other cultural landmines would lay beneath the surface of the road they might travel together or their joint life journey?
And Maxime's friend came into the store the other day and tried to convince Constance that she should be at home. She had told me before that Maxime didn't want her to work. The friend said at the very least she should close her boutique at 4pm when normal business hours ended and go home and tend to the family. I asked him if the family was not tended to and he said that wasn't the point. That a wife's place was at home. Constance ignored him and I'm sure it's nothing she hadn't heard before. But also being Malian and being raised in Mali she was well aware of the resistance she would be facing. And then I think of all the people who have tried to convince me to marry while here and I think that they would have absolutely no idea what they were in for, if I was foolish enough to take someone up on that idea, and I guess that goes two ways.
I have still been trying to wrap my mind around 15 year old, 8th grade Ouima getting married. She told me about the 15 outfits a tailor is currently creating for her. But when I gave Ouima and her sister Safaraou my contact information, Safaraou said that while she would email me, Ouima had neither email nor a cell phone. I guess she wouldn't at this point but I hope that gets rectified soon after she gets married. But what leverage is she coming into the relationship with...no job, no money, no phone, little education, no accomplishments on her own. And I know it is my Westernized background that leads me to think this way, but God help her if her husband is not generous with her.
Tacao was telling us that her father died when she was young leaving her mother and brother and herself without a man in the house. Her mother, a science professor who used to travel regularly to Canada and France, got remarried to a man who already had one wife and went on to marry two more, for a total of four wives. While he forbade Tacao's mother to work, neither did he give her money. The family lived on handouts from relatives and that is why 20 year old Tacao has refused to marry to date. She says it is most important that she gets an education and a good job so she can support her mother and younger brother. So while she studies she works braiding hair and doing nails and henna designs at her cousin Amadou's phone card stand.
Yet Mamadou, Amadou's friend, says that men are the ones that suffer from the Malian idea of marriage. Everything that is purchased for the house and the wife and the children, the man must buy, he says. Now I ask you, who is really a captive of this situation? Mohammed who is from Algeria says the same thing. That Malian women don't want to work but want to stay at home and spend a lot of money (Mohammed is divorced from a Malian women). Which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the women wanting to stay at home or the men insisting? The men giving money or the women wanting it? And if people want to move outside these constrictions is there room for that.
And with the women staying at home all day, many men in Mali don't cook. I mean at all. And they say this proudly. Rodney replies that he thinks everyone who eats should know how to cook, even if they don't cook, so they can be self-sufficient and not vulnerable to another. But then to me, Rodney says that women in Mali can't afford to be too busy to cook for their man because their competition will. I said that is true, but most of the women here do that and still their husbands are committing adultery right and left anyway so what gives.
When Mamadou said that men are the true captives, having to pay for everything for their families, I agreed. He was surprised. I said yes whenever you keep someone in prison, you yourself have to be in prison to keep them there. That if societal constraints were lessened reduced, partners could feel free to work together to set up their households in a manner that best worked for them. That rather than a woman waiting for her husband to give her money she could find work if she so desired. But as long as the great majority of men have the only household money (and thus power) and their wives are restricted to the house, the concepts of equality, partnerships, and a robust workforce will not change and the development of the country will continue to face roadblocks.
Note: Yesterday Rodney, Tacao and I went to the river and found a litter of three abandoned kittens. We called Constance if she wanted one for Sophie and brought it back. (A lot of people here are unnaturally scared of cats. They think they are withces.) The kitten began adjusting to its new home, walking amongst the cabinets and feet and chair legs in the store and drinking milk Constance had set out for it. I felt bad for the others we left but one of Constance's friends is interested in having one as well so we will go back. No one wants the female kitten though as she could get pregnant and have a litter. Life is hard for females of all species...
The interplay between men and women is always everpresent in discussions and in interactions here. And of course, marriage is the pinnacle of that interplay. Rodney and I have talked about the idea of cross-cultural relationships. Our time here as made is so very evident that such concepts are extremely difficult to navigate in reality. Both parties come to the relationship with different expectations and different ideas for how the marriage should work (as if there weren't enough problems with that within cultures.) And when those expectations are not met, the partners are either faced with disappointment, a sense of failure to meet certain standards (their own failure or that of their partners), anger, frustration, or even the ridicule of their peers.
Rodney said he was dating a woman in South Africa who mentioned that if they were to get married his uncles would have to fly there and negotiate with her uncles how many cattle they would give the family for her hand in marriage. Rodney, aside from not being ready to talk marriage with her, thought the idea was preposterous. Why should he pay the wife's family for his wife? Would that mean he had bought her, literally? While the idea was distasteful to him, the idea of not receiving a dowry was distasteful to the woman, whose family paid to educate her well, to standards higher than most around her, and who had come to expect that they would one day be receiving cattle for her hand in marriage. What other cultural landmines would lay beneath the surface of the road they might travel together or their joint life journey?
And Maxime's friend came into the store the other day and tried to convince Constance that she should be at home. She had told me before that Maxime didn't want her to work. The friend said at the very least she should close her boutique at 4pm when normal business hours ended and go home and tend to the family. I asked him if the family was not tended to and he said that wasn't the point. That a wife's place was at home. Constance ignored him and I'm sure it's nothing she hadn't heard before. But also being Malian and being raised in Mali she was well aware of the resistance she would be facing. And then I think of all the people who have tried to convince me to marry while here and I think that they would have absolutely no idea what they were in for, if I was foolish enough to take someone up on that idea, and I guess that goes two ways.
I have still been trying to wrap my mind around 15 year old, 8th grade Ouima getting married. She told me about the 15 outfits a tailor is currently creating for her. But when I gave Ouima and her sister Safaraou my contact information, Safaraou said that while she would email me, Ouima had neither email nor a cell phone. I guess she wouldn't at this point but I hope that gets rectified soon after she gets married. But what leverage is she coming into the relationship with...no job, no money, no phone, little education, no accomplishments on her own. And I know it is my Westernized background that leads me to think this way, but God help her if her husband is not generous with her.
Tacao was telling us that her father died when she was young leaving her mother and brother and herself without a man in the house. Her mother, a science professor who used to travel regularly to Canada and France, got remarried to a man who already had one wife and went on to marry two more, for a total of four wives. While he forbade Tacao's mother to work, neither did he give her money. The family lived on handouts from relatives and that is why 20 year old Tacao has refused to marry to date. She says it is most important that she gets an education and a good job so she can support her mother and younger brother. So while she studies she works braiding hair and doing nails and henna designs at her cousin Amadou's phone card stand.
Yet Mamadou, Amadou's friend, says that men are the ones that suffer from the Malian idea of marriage. Everything that is purchased for the house and the wife and the children, the man must buy, he says. Now I ask you, who is really a captive of this situation? Mohammed who is from Algeria says the same thing. That Malian women don't want to work but want to stay at home and spend a lot of money (Mohammed is divorced from a Malian women). Which comes first, the chicken or the egg, the women wanting to stay at home or the men insisting? The men giving money or the women wanting it? And if people want to move outside these constrictions is there room for that.
And with the women staying at home all day, many men in Mali don't cook. I mean at all. And they say this proudly. Rodney replies that he thinks everyone who eats should know how to cook, even if they don't cook, so they can be self-sufficient and not vulnerable to another. But then to me, Rodney says that women in Mali can't afford to be too busy to cook for their man because their competition will. I said that is true, but most of the women here do that and still their husbands are committing adultery right and left anyway so what gives.
When Mamadou said that men are the true captives, having to pay for everything for their families, I agreed. He was surprised. I said yes whenever you keep someone in prison, you yourself have to be in prison to keep them there. That if societal constraints were lessened reduced, partners could feel free to work together to set up their households in a manner that best worked for them. That rather than a woman waiting for her husband to give her money she could find work if she so desired. But as long as the great majority of men have the only household money (and thus power) and their wives are restricted to the house, the concepts of equality, partnerships, and a robust workforce will not change and the development of the country will continue to face roadblocks.
Note: Yesterday Rodney, Tacao and I went to the river and found a litter of three abandoned kittens. We called Constance if she wanted one for Sophie and brought it back. (A lot of people here are unnaturally scared of cats. They think they are withces.) The kitten began adjusting to its new home, walking amongst the cabinets and feet and chair legs in the store and drinking milk Constance had set out for it. I felt bad for the others we left but one of Constance's friends is interested in having one as well so we will go back. No one wants the female kitten though as she could get pregnant and have a litter. Life is hard for females of all species...
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Back to the Beginning
"You cannot teach a crab to walk straight." - Aristophanes
The landlord came over to fix the lights in our bedrooms and the kitchen. Four days before leaving, he finally comes to fix the lights we complained about when we arrived 7 ½ weeks ago!! What do you make of that?
We had our goodbye/thank you get together on Friday at Mieko’s house. Andrew organized his own ride there shortly before I arrived home as he said he didn’t know what the house plans were. I questioned why he had arranged something with someone else rather than arranging with his own roommates. That we have always gone to events together from the house. He said he assumed we had taken care of our own arrangements. I said no that once again we had considered him without him considering us and I asked why he would assume something without confirming with us. At any rate, Rodney had to go straight there as he left work late. And Andrew left me at the house to ride on a moto with his work colleague to the party that I helped organize. Gotta love it! So after taking my time so as to allow myself to release my frustration with him (yet again) I hopped into a taxi that ended up having engine problems. I was able to find another taxi but the ordeal wasted precious time and I arrived 45 min late.
Turns out the get-together wasn’t much of a party. Rodney says that when he arrived, Coumba and Sogonna were there as were Andrew and Kadiatou (Andrew’s colleague from work) and Andrew was reading a magazine while the three ladies looked at each other. Awkward! Rodney tried to facilitate a conversation but his French language skills aren’t on the same level as Andrew’s. Mieko served dinner and Coumba and Sogonna left after half an hour and I arrived shortly afterwards. Rodney made me a plate and Mieko asked where I was coming from since I had chosen this occasion to wear a Malian outfit. I said I was coming from home. Kadiatou frowned and whispered to Andrew shaking her finger. I guess she realized that he had her pick him up while leaving someone else at the house who was going to the same event. Rodney and I both noticed that he opted to leave with us though and not with her. I thought about telling him to go ahead and ride with her because he certainly wasn’t invited to share my taxi but I bit my tongue.
Mieko gave us all the leftovers and while Rodney and I packed them up, Andrew waited in the livingroom. She called him to come and help but he didn’t. And when we had trouble carrying everything he carried only the salad and the cookies, the two lightest things. I decided then and there that I would no longer concern myself with being thoughtful where he was concerned. The program is officially over, though we don’t leave until Tuesday. I did my job as Group Leader, and I actually extended myself a lot more than others thought was necessary given the circumstances. And I’m done with that. He’s in for a rude awakening for the next few days because I will no longer be sharing my food, cooking skills, labor, water or energy with a cad. ANd thank goodness I no longer have to!
The landlord came over to fix the lights in our bedrooms and the kitchen. Four days before leaving, he finally comes to fix the lights we complained about when we arrived 7 ½ weeks ago!! What do you make of that?
We had our goodbye/thank you get together on Friday at Mieko’s house. Andrew organized his own ride there shortly before I arrived home as he said he didn’t know what the house plans were. I questioned why he had arranged something with someone else rather than arranging with his own roommates. That we have always gone to events together from the house. He said he assumed we had taken care of our own arrangements. I said no that once again we had considered him without him considering us and I asked why he would assume something without confirming with us. At any rate, Rodney had to go straight there as he left work late. And Andrew left me at the house to ride on a moto with his work colleague to the party that I helped organize. Gotta love it! So after taking my time so as to allow myself to release my frustration with him (yet again) I hopped into a taxi that ended up having engine problems. I was able to find another taxi but the ordeal wasted precious time and I arrived 45 min late.
Turns out the get-together wasn’t much of a party. Rodney says that when he arrived, Coumba and Sogonna were there as were Andrew and Kadiatou (Andrew’s colleague from work) and Andrew was reading a magazine while the three ladies looked at each other. Awkward! Rodney tried to facilitate a conversation but his French language skills aren’t on the same level as Andrew’s. Mieko served dinner and Coumba and Sogonna left after half an hour and I arrived shortly afterwards. Rodney made me a plate and Mieko asked where I was coming from since I had chosen this occasion to wear a Malian outfit. I said I was coming from home. Kadiatou frowned and whispered to Andrew shaking her finger. I guess she realized that he had her pick him up while leaving someone else at the house who was going to the same event. Rodney and I both noticed that he opted to leave with us though and not with her. I thought about telling him to go ahead and ride with her because he certainly wasn’t invited to share my taxi but I bit my tongue.
Mieko gave us all the leftovers and while Rodney and I packed them up, Andrew waited in the livingroom. She called him to come and help but he didn’t. And when we had trouble carrying everything he carried only the salad and the cookies, the two lightest things. I decided then and there that I would no longer concern myself with being thoughtful where he was concerned. The program is officially over, though we don’t leave until Tuesday. I did my job as Group Leader, and I actually extended myself a lot more than others thought was necessary given the circumstances. And I’m done with that. He’s in for a rude awakening for the next few days because I will no longer be sharing my food, cooking skills, labor, water or energy with a cad. ANd thank goodness I no longer have to!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Limitations
"Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them." - Albert Einstein
I left early for work and, in doing so, got a ride with Rodney and his coworker. They dropped me off at the Tour D'Afrique, a traffic circle with a monument to Africa in the middle of it and flags from all 54 African countries surrounding it. Rodney had assured me it was a 10 minute walk from that monument to my job.
Forty minutes later I arrived at work. Why did I keep walking and not hop on a Sotrame? Well for one I was convinced that I would get there any second, and after that it was to prove a point that I believe would be lost if I didn't time the walk the whole way. For the record it took me 43 minutes. Rodney apologized and said he guessed he was getting jaded with distances like the Malians. (When a Malian tells you something is 5 minutes away, run to the nearest Sotrame or taxi.)
I arrived just in time to take pictures of Coumba leading a module of a training session. I was heartened to see more women in this one, including Sogonna's little sister. After the module Coumba and I left to attend Sogonna's defense of her thesis on youth views on family planning in Commune VI in Bamako. We piled into a classroom at Ecole Superieur ANSUP (a university) in the Quartier du Fleuve (River District). Sogonna sat before a panel of two jurists, which became three an hour into the session.
I was surprised how hard and uncomfortable the benches in the classroom where, that windows were broken out and had not been repared so that people could jump in and out of the windows if they so desired, except that we were on the second floor, and so that holding class in the rain might be a near impossibility. But also some of the windows onto the interior hallway were also broken, allowing all of the hallway and courtyard noise from several levels to come into the classroom and drown out most of what was being said. Definitely not an environment conducive to learning.
Well Sogonna appeared nervous at times, presenting her thesis. And several times people came in and greeted the jurists while she was talking and then walked out. Are you kidding me? And then the jurists had their turn to present every problem they encountered. That went on and on and on and I started wondering if they would accept the thesis even though most of their issues were trite things like a missing s, or the annex and bibliography being combined. They asked everyone to leave and conferred and when we were invited back they congratulated Sogonna on the acceptance of her thesis. We had soda and pastries and took pictures.
On the way back home, Ouima called out to me. I went and sat with her and her nieces and nephews for a while in the shade of the tree in front of their house. And then Ouima suggested we show each other dances. She was particularly interested in the bellydancing Shakira does in her videos and I was interested in traditional Malian dances. I suggested we move into the courtyard (away from the eyes of the street) and we amused ourselves dancing until we were exhausted. Ouima announced it was time to eat. We washed up and sat on chairs in the courtyard ringing a large bowl on a stand. She gave me a fork which I appreciated and uncovered lunch... okra stew with beef!
God no! I'll eat anything but slimy okra stew where the sticky, viscuous sauce stretches from the plate to the spoon and slips in goops down my throat, eliciting my gag reflex. Come on Julayne you can do it! They are going to think you are rude if you don't eat. I reached forward and got a bunch of rice on my fork. The next bite was not so lucky, there was stew also in the bite. I forced myself to focus. Chew....now swallow...swallow!...try to swallow again!! Eat, eat! Ouima urged, as is polite to do. I smiled and nodded and got another forkful with some sauce on it. She pointed out a piece of meat and said I should eat it. I did, again chewing and swallowing with extreme concentration. You haven't eaten much, Ouima complained, pointing out the large dents in the bowl in front of everyone else, including the toddlers. You're right, I said. I just ate and I'm not very hungry (not exactly a lie if you count the pastry at Sogonna's graduation). I thanked her for the meal and moved away from the bowl to allow them to finish. Phew! Another disaster averted.
I left early for work and, in doing so, got a ride with Rodney and his coworker. They dropped me off at the Tour D'Afrique, a traffic circle with a monument to Africa in the middle of it and flags from all 54 African countries surrounding it. Rodney had assured me it was a 10 minute walk from that monument to my job.
Forty minutes later I arrived at work. Why did I keep walking and not hop on a Sotrame? Well for one I was convinced that I would get there any second, and after that it was to prove a point that I believe would be lost if I didn't time the walk the whole way. For the record it took me 43 minutes. Rodney apologized and said he guessed he was getting jaded with distances like the Malians. (When a Malian tells you something is 5 minutes away, run to the nearest Sotrame or taxi.)
I arrived just in time to take pictures of Coumba leading a module of a training session. I was heartened to see more women in this one, including Sogonna's little sister. After the module Coumba and I left to attend Sogonna's defense of her thesis on youth views on family planning in Commune VI in Bamako. We piled into a classroom at Ecole Superieur ANSUP (a university) in the Quartier du Fleuve (River District). Sogonna sat before a panel of two jurists, which became three an hour into the session.
I was surprised how hard and uncomfortable the benches in the classroom where, that windows were broken out and had not been repared so that people could jump in and out of the windows if they so desired, except that we were on the second floor, and so that holding class in the rain might be a near impossibility. But also some of the windows onto the interior hallway were also broken, allowing all of the hallway and courtyard noise from several levels to come into the classroom and drown out most of what was being said. Definitely not an environment conducive to learning.
Well Sogonna appeared nervous at times, presenting her thesis. And several times people came in and greeted the jurists while she was talking and then walked out. Are you kidding me? And then the jurists had their turn to present every problem they encountered. That went on and on and on and I started wondering if they would accept the thesis even though most of their issues were trite things like a missing s, or the annex and bibliography being combined. They asked everyone to leave and conferred and when we were invited back they congratulated Sogonna on the acceptance of her thesis. We had soda and pastries and took pictures.
On the way back home, Ouima called out to me. I went and sat with her and her nieces and nephews for a while in the shade of the tree in front of their house. And then Ouima suggested we show each other dances. She was particularly interested in the bellydancing Shakira does in her videos and I was interested in traditional Malian dances. I suggested we move into the courtyard (away from the eyes of the street) and we amused ourselves dancing until we were exhausted. Ouima announced it was time to eat. We washed up and sat on chairs in the courtyard ringing a large bowl on a stand. She gave me a fork which I appreciated and uncovered lunch... okra stew with beef!
God no! I'll eat anything but slimy okra stew where the sticky, viscuous sauce stretches from the plate to the spoon and slips in goops down my throat, eliciting my gag reflex. Come on Julayne you can do it! They are going to think you are rude if you don't eat. I reached forward and got a bunch of rice on my fork. The next bite was not so lucky, there was stew also in the bite. I forced myself to focus. Chew....now swallow...swallow!...try to swallow again!! Eat, eat! Ouima urged, as is polite to do. I smiled and nodded and got another forkful with some sauce on it. She pointed out a piece of meat and said I should eat it. I did, again chewing and swallowing with extreme concentration. You haven't eaten much, Ouima complained, pointing out the large dents in the bowl in front of everyone else, including the toddlers. You're right, I said. I just ate and I'm not very hungry (not exactly a lie if you count the pastry at Sogonna's graduation). I thanked her for the meal and moved away from the bowl to allow them to finish. Phew! Another disaster averted.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Bare Necessities
"Someone deprived of the basic necessities of food and clothing has no reason to love his country; he cares little whether his state prospers or perishes. Thus, the state stands to lose if national wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, and to gain if it is distributed equitably. Where there is gross disparitybetween the life standards of the rich and poor, it means the state has reached the brink of disaster." - Gabra-Heywat
"Sanaoulolo" by Malian singer Ami Koita on YouTube
Don't you just love technology?
This morning as I was on the Sotrame I started thinking about how little I had described the experience. You know that they can get very crowded and that they are tinderboxes in the heat. But did you know that they have both a driver and a "collector" who sits in the back and collects the money. He also hangs his head out the window calls out the names of the neighborhoods where they are headed, although somewhat intelligibly, and identifies people a mile away who want to get on. When this happens, he bangs on the side of the vehicle to get the driver to stop, jumps out the side door while the vehicle is moving (the side door is only closed when it gets crowded or when it is raining) and accompanies the prospective fare back to the Sotrame. If they are carrying a heavy bucket he takes it for them so they canboard quickly. Often the Sotrame will start moving again once the passenger is seated but before he is back in his spot and he will run after it and jump back on. Sometimes when it is crowded there is no place for him to sit so he hangs on to the side of the Sotrame with his lower half inside. When the Sotrame closely passes other vehicles he will duck his body inside. Craziness! And that's before you get to a major hub where a lot of the Sotrame's stop. The collectors all chase prospective fares and try to get them to get on their Sotrames and not any others (often times two Sotrames will be going the same place and they are very much competing with each other to fill up their vehicles and get the most fares.) Quite a way to start the morning amidst all that hustle and bustle.
A few nights ago Sophie was up all night throwing up. Constance took her to the hospital in the morning where she was given two shots to help her system fight malaria. She was better later that afternoon and she asked Constance to send a package of cookies home from the store. And that's in Bamako where there is a hospital, and people are likely to be able to get to it with relative ease. I shudder to think what happens in rural outreaches in the same case.
I asked Constance what she thought about excision - female circumcision. She said that she didn't believe in it. That it may be tradition but enlightenment has shown that it is dangerous and therefore we should act as if we are living in 2000s and not the 1800s. She said she would not excise her daughter. I asked if she was worried about someone else doing it and she said that doesn't happen in Bamako. The subject of excision is really hush hush here. Everyone knows that it is practiced but no one really talks about it. There are posters in the clinic proclaiming that parents should refuse to excise their daughters, but I don't know if everyone there agrees with that stance or if they just think that is the politics of the place they work. And even if parents refuse it, in many parts of Mali, another relative can legally take the child to be excised even if the parents are against it. So what protection is that? Rodney says he met a man whose two year old daughter had a life-threatening infection from being excised. And Constance said one of her cousins died at the age of 12 shortly after being excised. Furthermore, those that don't die can have other complications including the hemorraghing to death, transmission of HIV, painful intercourse, an increase in future risk of infections and severe complications during pregnancy.
I sat with Constance in her boutique for hours and then a friend of hers came in with a bag. I lit up because I could see that there were Koras inside. Are we going to play, I asked. Her friend nodded and said yes and handed the bag to Constance. She pulled a Kora out and handed it to me. I was getting ready to tell her that I didn't know how to play it, when I read the writing on the skin on the front of the instrument: Julayne (Fanta Cisse). The other said Rodney (Moussa Samake). My mouth was open for what seemed like ages. Of course, thank you, you shouldn't have, oh my god came out of it finally. Constance just smiled like she'd hit the jackpot. She said she'd told her friend to go get the koras the day before. And for all I know she could have said it in Bambara right in front of me and I'd have been none the wiser. Rodney was equally pleased with his when he dropped by the boutique later.
Rodney and I have been going through all of our pictures. We will be putting them online where you can access them with just a link. He has pictures of camels and outdoor classrooms and the sparse rural north. That was something to see. Can't wait to share it with you. We started packing yesterday so we would know ahead of time if we were going to have problems with our baggage. It seems like everything will fit though. My bags lost a lot of weight in toiletries so that's good.
The other day a man borrowed credit from Constance on the premise that he would pay her back when his money transfer came in later that day. But his transfer didn't come in as expected and when he wanted more goods she refused. He said he was upset with her. And she said he had been upset when he came in, that he must not have gotten the money he was expecting, but that it had nothing to do with her. Then he said he wasn't going to patronize her store again. She walked past him carrying a lot of sodas to restock the fridge. That's fine with me, she called over her shoulder, but I wonder what storekeeper you think will extend you the credit I extended you. He thought about this while fuming. Constance's friend told him not to say things he didn't mean out of anger and encouraged him to sit down and relax a while. He did and five minutes later we were all debating something completely different. Turns out we started debating in English because the man did not speak French well, neither does Rodney, and Constance's friend teaches English so he was fine. So Constance finished stocking the fridge and then she asked us if it was right that we were sitting in her store debating in a language she couldn't understand? She wanted to know if we thought that was normal? We apologized and began switching back and forth with people speaking what language they could and having others translate.
I saw a man last night sitting out on a bench on a main street, one with overhead lights, and reading with a stack of books next to him. I thought he was waiting for a Sotrame, but it turns out he was just taking advantage of public electricity to do some night reading.
Heard on the Street: The director of an NGO that will remain unnamed was recently in an accident that totaled the car, an expensive luxury model. Rumor has it that the accident was karma for having misappropriated funding from the NGO to buy the luxury car and build a stately mansion from the ground up from which only the director and family were to benefit.
"Sanaoulolo" by Malian singer Ami Koita on YouTube
Don't you just love technology?
This morning as I was on the Sotrame I started thinking about how little I had described the experience. You know that they can get very crowded and that they are tinderboxes in the heat. But did you know that they have both a driver and a "collector" who sits in the back and collects the money. He also hangs his head out the window calls out the names of the neighborhoods where they are headed, although somewhat intelligibly, and identifies people a mile away who want to get on. When this happens, he bangs on the side of the vehicle to get the driver to stop, jumps out the side door while the vehicle is moving (the side door is only closed when it gets crowded or when it is raining) and accompanies the prospective fare back to the Sotrame. If they are carrying a heavy bucket he takes it for them so they canboard quickly. Often the Sotrame will start moving again once the passenger is seated but before he is back in his spot and he will run after it and jump back on. Sometimes when it is crowded there is no place for him to sit so he hangs on to the side of the Sotrame with his lower half inside. When the Sotrame closely passes other vehicles he will duck his body inside. Craziness! And that's before you get to a major hub where a lot of the Sotrame's stop. The collectors all chase prospective fares and try to get them to get on their Sotrames and not any others (often times two Sotrames will be going the same place and they are very much competing with each other to fill up their vehicles and get the most fares.) Quite a way to start the morning amidst all that hustle and bustle.
A few nights ago Sophie was up all night throwing up. Constance took her to the hospital in the morning where she was given two shots to help her system fight malaria. She was better later that afternoon and she asked Constance to send a package of cookies home from the store. And that's in Bamako where there is a hospital, and people are likely to be able to get to it with relative ease. I shudder to think what happens in rural outreaches in the same case.
I asked Constance what she thought about excision - female circumcision. She said that she didn't believe in it. That it may be tradition but enlightenment has shown that it is dangerous and therefore we should act as if we are living in 2000s and not the 1800s. She said she would not excise her daughter. I asked if she was worried about someone else doing it and she said that doesn't happen in Bamako. The subject of excision is really hush hush here. Everyone knows that it is practiced but no one really talks about it. There are posters in the clinic proclaiming that parents should refuse to excise their daughters, but I don't know if everyone there agrees with that stance or if they just think that is the politics of the place they work. And even if parents refuse it, in many parts of Mali, another relative can legally take the child to be excised even if the parents are against it. So what protection is that? Rodney says he met a man whose two year old daughter had a life-threatening infection from being excised. And Constance said one of her cousins died at the age of 12 shortly after being excised. Furthermore, those that don't die can have other complications including the hemorraghing to death, transmission of HIV, painful intercourse, an increase in future risk of infections and severe complications during pregnancy.
I sat with Constance in her boutique for hours and then a friend of hers came in with a bag. I lit up because I could see that there were Koras inside. Are we going to play, I asked. Her friend nodded and said yes and handed the bag to Constance. She pulled a Kora out and handed it to me. I was getting ready to tell her that I didn't know how to play it, when I read the writing on the skin on the front of the instrument: Julayne (Fanta Cisse). The other said Rodney (Moussa Samake). My mouth was open for what seemed like ages. Of course, thank you, you shouldn't have, oh my god came out of it finally. Constance just smiled like she'd hit the jackpot. She said she'd told her friend to go get the koras the day before. And for all I know she could have said it in Bambara right in front of me and I'd have been none the wiser. Rodney was equally pleased with his when he dropped by the boutique later.
Rodney and I have been going through all of our pictures. We will be putting them online where you can access them with just a link. He has pictures of camels and outdoor classrooms and the sparse rural north. That was something to see. Can't wait to share it with you. We started packing yesterday so we would know ahead of time if we were going to have problems with our baggage. It seems like everything will fit though. My bags lost a lot of weight in toiletries so that's good.
The other day a man borrowed credit from Constance on the premise that he would pay her back when his money transfer came in later that day. But his transfer didn't come in as expected and when he wanted more goods she refused. He said he was upset with her. And she said he had been upset when he came in, that he must not have gotten the money he was expecting, but that it had nothing to do with her. Then he said he wasn't going to patronize her store again. She walked past him carrying a lot of sodas to restock the fridge. That's fine with me, she called over her shoulder, but I wonder what storekeeper you think will extend you the credit I extended you. He thought about this while fuming. Constance's friend told him not to say things he didn't mean out of anger and encouraged him to sit down and relax a while. He did and five minutes later we were all debating something completely different. Turns out we started debating in English because the man did not speak French well, neither does Rodney, and Constance's friend teaches English so he was fine. So Constance finished stocking the fridge and then she asked us if it was right that we were sitting in her store debating in a language she couldn't understand? She wanted to know if we thought that was normal? We apologized and began switching back and forth with people speaking what language they could and having others translate.
I saw a man last night sitting out on a bench on a main street, one with overhead lights, and reading with a stack of books next to him. I thought he was waiting for a Sotrame, but it turns out he was just taking advantage of public electricity to do some night reading.
Heard on the Street: The director of an NGO that will remain unnamed was recently in an accident that totaled the car, an expensive luxury model. Rumor has it that the accident was karma for having misappropriated funding from the NGO to buy the luxury car and build a stately mansion from the ground up from which only the director and family were to benefit.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Landlocked
"I think I can. I think I can..." - The Little Engine That Could
Seven weeks down, one to go, and of course, the last week is already proving the most difficult. It's obviously a period of transition. Projects are ramping down and connections are ramping up. But my mind is already in Ghana, where I will be next week, and this process is a bit frustrating for me.
I am actually starting to feel the effects of being landlocked if that's possible. At every stage in my life I have always lived near a major tidal body of water. Part of that was intentional having grown up in California with the ocean playing a significant role in my life and well-being. And here in Mali, I am beginning to feel claustrophobic. Seriously. Perhaps I am used to movement of water as well as of things in my life and the pace is considerably slowed down here.
My next door neighbors come out of their apartment early in the morning and set up chairs, a stereo, and paraphernalia for tea. There they remain all day, watching the comings and goings of the street, perhaps crossing the street if they run out of tea, or to get in the shade of a stand there. When I leave for work they are there, as when I return. When I leave again for the evening they are there, as when I return. No matter the time of night it seems they are there holding court in front of the building. How can they just sit there day in day out just drinking tea and greeting people who pass by? These are young people! Some of the country's human capital is wasting away in my driveway...call the authorities!
Yesterday I wore a Malian outfit and noted the different reactions to me. Normally when I get on the Sotrame I say 'Aw Ni Sogoma' (Good Morning) and those on the bus respond with 'Nse' if they are female or 'Nbah' if they are male. Yesterday absolutely no one responded...a first. And instead I got curious looks. The same thing transpired when I transferred to my second Sotrame. In addition when I said the same thing I say everyday to get off the Sotrame there seemed to be confusion. I was asked to repeat myself again and again. Finally they stopped the Sotrame said something in Bambera about my pronounciation and laughed. That's never happened before but then again it was clear before through my dress that I was definitely not Malian.
On the way home I walked through the gas station across from Constance's boutique and she said she herself did not recognize me until long after she had been looking at me. Maybe there is something to the idea that the more you resemble something else, the more the parts of you that do not resemble it stand out. Maybe my pronounciation was not nearly so noticeable or unforgiveable as when I look more Malian. Like approaching infinity, the closer you get, the more distance you find you still have to cover. And how hypocritical am I being too when I want to fit in, but I also don't want to in some cases and I have no problem letting people know that I am not from here and I find their behavior toward me unacceptable. (Recently used when a guy grabbed my arm in an effort to keep the conversation going as I was walking away.) At any rate, Constance insisted I looked like a real Malian, and that I take a picture for my mother and my friends who read my blog so here goes.
Rodney says Constance had the right idea in mind when she opened her store. It makes her self-sufficient in a way that many other women are not. And it provides a way for her to be out of the house meeting people and living life. When I told Constance about Ouima she too expressed concern that 15 was too young to be married. That is the general sentiment in the city, though in Gao where Ouima is from that is a normal practice, and sometimes the girls are as young as 12. Recently a national law was passed to ensure that girls are not married before the age of 14 but how can it be implemented in these remote outreaches where officials do not necssarily agree... I asked Constance what a 15 year old would do once married. She said cook and have babies. Yeah ok, then what? I feel like I have stepped back in time.
The joke was on Constance with that tirade she launched on the guy who had asked for me. Turns out he is Zimbabwean and not Nigerian. Well then why do you hang out with Nigerians, she asked. He said they are his friends and Constance said he should watch the company he keeps or perhaps he is in Mali to sell drugs too. (Yikes! No inter-country issues here!) He insisted he is in Mali on legitimate business and that he eventually wanted to return to Zimbabwe and become president. Constance looked at him, laughed and said Are you sane? Aw, Constance don't be a dream killer.
Last night Maxime came by the store just before closing. He said he was going home. Constance asked him if he would take Jean, who was already sleeping, with him. He said when have you ever seen me carry babies around? Mohammed (who is from Algeria and is pictured above on the right) said Maxime that's your son! Maxime turned to me and said Tell her I am a man and babies do not concern men. Would you expect your husband to carry babies? I said actually yes I would. Where I'm from both fathers and mothers concern themselves with their babies. It's not too much to ask for you to carry your own son home in the car so Constance doesn't have to carry him on her back later is it? He said men here do not carry babies. And that was that. Constance had said nothing else. But I noticed she packed up a lot later than usual. I asked if Maxime wouldn't be waiting and worried and she said no, but sure enough her cell phone rang and he wondered what was keeping her. I have an idea he left her with Jean to ensure that the range of things she could do would be limited. And I have an idea that she came home later than usual just to let him wonder. Just my own thoughts...
Sunday Rodney scored a kilo of green beans at the market and I made a huge vegetable stew with lots of green vegetables. I haven't seen this much green in ages. It looks, feels, and tastes like heaven! Andrew only came out of his room on Sunday to eat the breakfast that Rodney cooked and the lunch/dinner that I cooked.
Fa came over briefly yesterday while she was borrowing her brother's moto. I saw her zip past the boutique and I started on my way home because I knew that's where she was headed. When I got there she was outside. She said she couldn't stay long, that she just wanted to say hi. She came up briefly where we ran into Andrew. After I introduced them he said hello and then walked off. Later she said that she didn't like him, that he wasn't nice. When I asked her why (because I wanted to hear it from her mouth) she said that she said when you meet someone you should show some interest in them. That his behavior had been rude. Indeed!
Amadou, who sells the orange cards, was telling me that Rodney and I seemed to enjoy people and that meant we could go anywhere in the world. That as long as you enjoyed people, they would take an interest in you and vice versa. Then he recounted that while Rodney and I have sat out evenings with him and his friends, debated, played checkers, listened to music and just swatted mosquitoes, Andrew only comes to get a phone card and does an about-face on his heel and leaves immediately. Amadou says that if Rodney and I needed anything people up and down the block would come to our aid, but that Andrew would be in for a rude awakening. Tacao, Amadou's cousin, came over to chat with Rodney the other day and Andrew left her standing outside a locked door in the dark while he went to tell Rodney someone (as if he didn't recognize her) was here to see him.
Saturday night though Andrew did heat up some of the odds and ends we had together in the house and fry some potatoes too to make a meal. I told Rodney I was happy that he was trying and he said let's be honest about what he did here. He heated up food that we made and paid for and sliced a potato or two and cooked it. Well, when you put it that way...lol!
Note: Right about now I would do just about anything for a hot shower with excellent water pressure, sushi, lots of leafy green vegetables, korean bbq, a freshly baked cake with frosting, a massage, manicure and pedicure...
Seven weeks down, one to go, and of course, the last week is already proving the most difficult. It's obviously a period of transition. Projects are ramping down and connections are ramping up. But my mind is already in Ghana, where I will be next week, and this process is a bit frustrating for me.
I am actually starting to feel the effects of being landlocked if that's possible. At every stage in my life I have always lived near a major tidal body of water. Part of that was intentional having grown up in California with the ocean playing a significant role in my life and well-being. And here in Mali, I am beginning to feel claustrophobic. Seriously. Perhaps I am used to movement of water as well as of things in my life and the pace is considerably slowed down here.
My next door neighbors come out of their apartment early in the morning and set up chairs, a stereo, and paraphernalia for tea. There they remain all day, watching the comings and goings of the street, perhaps crossing the street if they run out of tea, or to get in the shade of a stand there. When I leave for work they are there, as when I return. When I leave again for the evening they are there, as when I return. No matter the time of night it seems they are there holding court in front of the building. How can they just sit there day in day out just drinking tea and greeting people who pass by? These are young people! Some of the country's human capital is wasting away in my driveway...call the authorities!
Yesterday I wore a Malian outfit and noted the different reactions to me. Normally when I get on the Sotrame I say 'Aw Ni Sogoma' (Good Morning) and those on the bus respond with 'Nse' if they are female or 'Nbah' if they are male. Yesterday absolutely no one responded...a first. And instead I got curious looks. The same thing transpired when I transferred to my second Sotrame. In addition when I said the same thing I say everyday to get off the Sotrame there seemed to be confusion. I was asked to repeat myself again and again. Finally they stopped the Sotrame said something in Bambera about my pronounciation and laughed. That's never happened before but then again it was clear before through my dress that I was definitely not Malian.
On the way home I walked through the gas station across from Constance's boutique and she said she herself did not recognize me until long after she had been looking at me. Maybe there is something to the idea that the more you resemble something else, the more the parts of you that do not resemble it stand out. Maybe my pronounciation was not nearly so noticeable or unforgiveable as when I look more Malian. Like approaching infinity, the closer you get, the more distance you find you still have to cover. And how hypocritical am I being too when I want to fit in, but I also don't want to in some cases and I have no problem letting people know that I am not from here and I find their behavior toward me unacceptable. (Recently used when a guy grabbed my arm in an effort to keep the conversation going as I was walking away.) At any rate, Constance insisted I looked like a real Malian, and that I take a picture for my mother and my friends who read my blog so here goes.
Rodney says Constance had the right idea in mind when she opened her store. It makes her self-sufficient in a way that many other women are not. And it provides a way for her to be out of the house meeting people and living life. When I told Constance about Ouima she too expressed concern that 15 was too young to be married. That is the general sentiment in the city, though in Gao where Ouima is from that is a normal practice, and sometimes the girls are as young as 12. Recently a national law was passed to ensure that girls are not married before the age of 14 but how can it be implemented in these remote outreaches where officials do not necssarily agree... I asked Constance what a 15 year old would do once married. She said cook and have babies. Yeah ok, then what? I feel like I have stepped back in time.
The joke was on Constance with that tirade she launched on the guy who had asked for me. Turns out he is Zimbabwean and not Nigerian. Well then why do you hang out with Nigerians, she asked. He said they are his friends and Constance said he should watch the company he keeps or perhaps he is in Mali to sell drugs too. (Yikes! No inter-country issues here!) He insisted he is in Mali on legitimate business and that he eventually wanted to return to Zimbabwe and become president. Constance looked at him, laughed and said Are you sane? Aw, Constance don't be a dream killer.
Last night Maxime came by the store just before closing. He said he was going home. Constance asked him if he would take Jean, who was already sleeping, with him. He said when have you ever seen me carry babies around? Mohammed (who is from Algeria and is pictured above on the right) said Maxime that's your son! Maxime turned to me and said Tell her I am a man and babies do not concern men. Would you expect your husband to carry babies? I said actually yes I would. Where I'm from both fathers and mothers concern themselves with their babies. It's not too much to ask for you to carry your own son home in the car so Constance doesn't have to carry him on her back later is it? He said men here do not carry babies. And that was that. Constance had said nothing else. But I noticed she packed up a lot later than usual. I asked if Maxime wouldn't be waiting and worried and she said no, but sure enough her cell phone rang and he wondered what was keeping her. I have an idea he left her with Jean to ensure that the range of things she could do would be limited. And I have an idea that she came home later than usual just to let him wonder. Just my own thoughts...
Sunday Rodney scored a kilo of green beans at the market and I made a huge vegetable stew with lots of green vegetables. I haven't seen this much green in ages. It looks, feels, and tastes like heaven! Andrew only came out of his room on Sunday to eat the breakfast that Rodney cooked and the lunch/dinner that I cooked.
Fa came over briefly yesterday while she was borrowing her brother's moto. I saw her zip past the boutique and I started on my way home because I knew that's where she was headed. When I got there she was outside. She said she couldn't stay long, that she just wanted to say hi. She came up briefly where we ran into Andrew. After I introduced them he said hello and then walked off. Later she said that she didn't like him, that he wasn't nice. When I asked her why (because I wanted to hear it from her mouth) she said that she said when you meet someone you should show some interest in them. That his behavior had been rude. Indeed!
Amadou, who sells the orange cards, was telling me that Rodney and I seemed to enjoy people and that meant we could go anywhere in the world. That as long as you enjoyed people, they would take an interest in you and vice versa. Then he recounted that while Rodney and I have sat out evenings with him and his friends, debated, played checkers, listened to music and just swatted mosquitoes, Andrew only comes to get a phone card and does an about-face on his heel and leaves immediately. Amadou says that if Rodney and I needed anything people up and down the block would come to our aid, but that Andrew would be in for a rude awakening. Tacao, Amadou's cousin, came over to chat with Rodney the other day and Andrew left her standing outside a locked door in the dark while he went to tell Rodney someone (as if he didn't recognize her) was here to see him.
Saturday night though Andrew did heat up some of the odds and ends we had together in the house and fry some potatoes too to make a meal. I told Rodney I was happy that he was trying and he said let's be honest about what he did here. He heated up food that we made and paid for and sliced a potato or two and cooked it. Well, when you put it that way...lol!
Note: Right about now I would do just about anything for a hot shower with excellent water pressure, sushi, lots of leafy green vegetables, korean bbq, a freshly baked cake with frosting, a massage, manicure and pedicure...
Saturday, July 21, 2007
On the River
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." - Mohandas Gandhi
I have officially seen it all...two men on a moto, sandwiching between them a hog-tied sheep. A live sheep! Are you kidding me?
For a full week now, we have not had water in the taps during the hours between 7 am and 11pm. It makes for an exhausting, hot, sticky, smelly, and frustrating day. Sometimes there is water available in the downstairs spout, the one in the garage. So we fill up bottles and tote them upstairs and use them for all sorts of needs. Today there was water all day long. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way for the duration of our time here.
Recently I have heard Malians complaining about their diet. Rice, rice, rice, they say. Every day rice! (I thought I was the only one longed for more variety.) Granted there are potatoes and beans, as well, but even then... I have definitely gained an appreciation for being able to eat foods when they are out of season.
When I was sick and Constance brought me tea several nights ago she also brought a plate of food that I couldn't even think about eating at that moment. I thanked her and put it in the fridge. The next day I went to eat the plate of food and it was nowhere to be found. You guessed it! Andrew ate it.
When I confronted him he said he thought it was left over from the night before. I said it was, but it wasn't yours. He said he thought I had cooked and left the plate for him. I said Andrew I was in bed sick all day, I haven't been cooking. Furthermore when have you ever seen anyone cook meatballs or any meat in this house? He said he didn't know. I said well when you don't know you ask someone. There is plenty of community food that you could have eaten but you went straight for something that you weren't sure about and devoured it. He brusquely offered to pay me back the value of the food and I accepted.
Rodney said he liked how Andrew ate food that was clearly not his and then only apologized and went to his room without offering to somehow make amends somehow whether it be a replacement dinner or a refund. Glad I was persistent and tapped on his door so we could come to a real resolution. Rodney and I figured it was probably because the water was out in the taps and he was being lazy and didn't want to have to heat up other food and then go downstairs to get water to wash out the pots.
Friday we had a meeting with the head of Africare in Mali. On our way back Rodney and I stopped at Constance's boutique and chatted with her. Just as we were going to leave and go home to heat up some food she insisted we stay and eat there. And she uncovered a platter of a Senegalese rice and fish, with eggplant, yam, carrot, cabbage and a hint of tamarind and lemon. I asked Constance to eat with us and she said that we should eat. I asked what she was going to eat and she said not to worry about her, that she was at home. We scraped every last bit of food out of that platter. Not only was it delicious but it was nice to eat something that we didn't have to toil over. So then Rodney and I simultaneously got the same idea.
An hour later we were back at the boutique with a meal for Constance. Now it's not a meal I would write home about (well technically I guess I am) but we fried plantains, made grits and served over the grits the "boot" sauce we made on Sunday with everything but our boots in it. Seriously, it's a tomato sauce with tomatoes, lentils, potatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, peppers, carrots, and lots of spice. Well Constance loved it so much that she called Maxime to come from their house to come taste it. Another of her friends tasted it and said he wanted the recipe. Are you kidding? And they had never thought of eating grits in that way. They boil them with milk and sugar and eat it as a dessert. I guess though we eat the same things a slight difference in how you cook it can make it interesting to someone else.
I hung out with Fa yesterday. She is so spirited and fun that I always enjoy myself. She and her sister Aisha turned the music up and we danced. Fa asked me to translate Celine Dion's "Goodbye" for her and though I did on the first go round she made me listen to it many more times. The pics above are her but she took her braids out in case you can't recognize her. Somehow we got to talking about the US and she and her sister told me in school they learned that we had 52 states. No we only have 50 I said, that's why there are 50 stars on the flag. They said really? And then honestly I started to doubt myself. What could possibly be confused for the other 2 states? Puerto Rico sure but the other??? Rodney said maybe it was the US Virgin Islands. Not sure but interesting...
Fa told me that Ouima, the 15 year old with whom I can talk very little with, is engaged to be married to a cousin who asked for her long ago. He is a 32 year old doctor so at least she will be living well, but my god the marriage takes place in a month. A 15 year old getting married? She's in 8th grade for crying out loud. (There is a picture of her above as well in a green top.) The funny thing is when I first met her I asked if she was married and she said no I'm only 15. I'm still a child. So when I found out I said Ouima, I heard you were getting married and you didn't tell me. I upset with you. She said it wasn't true. For a second she had me, but then when I asked about the details I had been told, she alternated between denying it, giggling behind her hand, and asking who had told me. So I said congratulations and best wishes for her marriage (what else is there to say) and she said thank you.
This morning Rodney and I got up early, took some food on a hike and ate it on a hillside overlooking Bamako. Nice view, very relaxing. Then he showed me around the dock area where small wooden boats are made and pitched with tar; trucks come in to get wet sand for construction purposes; and everything is bustling.
As we walked near the water some men offered us a boat ride. We declined because of a language barrier and we thought they were looking to be paid. Then as we continued to walk along the banks we saw them out on the water and waved to them. They pointed to an area where they could dock and indicated that we could still come out with them. So we took them up on the offer and joined them and a small toddler out on the boat.
Everything is beautiful when you're on the river. We saw people using large flat rocks to wash their clothes and lay them out to dry, children swimming. Even one of the men in our boat jumped in to swim and came back with two fish that someone had given him. One woman was singing and washing her clothes with a friend. This sounds so cliche, but her voice was beautiful and I could have listened to it all day. We docked and they told us they were going to wash so we scrambled up the hillside to give them some privacy.
In the distance there was a gorgeous house overlooking the river with a wraparound porch. My God that would have to be a lovely view night after night. When one of our friends joined us later he said the land we were on is owned by Salif Keita, a famous griot who recently did a remix of his 1989 song "Nou Pas Bouger (We Won't Move)" with popular urban Malian group L'Skadrille. The song is in protest of the French government's repressive policy toward immigrants, specifically those of African origin and 17 years later it is still relevant enough to have been remixed and re-released. It is very popular here.
Since I have been in Mali my mom has ordered some African films through Netflix and enjoyed seeing some of the relationships and issues I have described. The following movies are set in places as far apart and varied as Mali, Senegal, South Africa, and Chad but they come with mom's recommendation. Yesterday is about a Zulu woman struggling to raise her daughter in rural South Africa, who is further troubled when she learns that she has gotten HIV from her husband who is away working in the city. (I saw this one and it is excellent!) Moolaadé depicts a Senegalese village as it tackles the issue of female circumcision. Life on Earth: 2000 Seen By... is about life in rural Mali and a man who weathers a world disaster in a bucolic village. A young man in Mali travels to find his uncle in hopes that he might be able to help him solve his problems in Yeelen. Mandabi is about a Senegalese man who hits one bureaucratic roadblock after another as he tries to convert a money order from a wealthy relative to cash. Abouna is about two boys in Chad who set out to find the father who has abandoned their family; and, Xala is a Senegalese comedy about the trials and tribulations of a man with three wives.
Also a new book recommendation The Marabi Dance by Modikwe Dikobe. It tells the story of youth in South Africa caught in the gap between the old world and its ways and the new world post-colonization.
I have officially seen it all...two men on a moto, sandwiching between them a hog-tied sheep. A live sheep! Are you kidding me?
For a full week now, we have not had water in the taps during the hours between 7 am and 11pm. It makes for an exhausting, hot, sticky, smelly, and frustrating day. Sometimes there is water available in the downstairs spout, the one in the garage. So we fill up bottles and tote them upstairs and use them for all sorts of needs. Today there was water all day long. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way for the duration of our time here.
Recently I have heard Malians complaining about their diet. Rice, rice, rice, they say. Every day rice! (I thought I was the only one longed for more variety.) Granted there are potatoes and beans, as well, but even then... I have definitely gained an appreciation for being able to eat foods when they are out of season.
When I was sick and Constance brought me tea several nights ago she also brought a plate of food that I couldn't even think about eating at that moment. I thanked her and put it in the fridge. The next day I went to eat the plate of food and it was nowhere to be found. You guessed it! Andrew ate it.
When I confronted him he said he thought it was left over from the night before. I said it was, but it wasn't yours. He said he thought I had cooked and left the plate for him. I said Andrew I was in bed sick all day, I haven't been cooking. Furthermore when have you ever seen anyone cook meatballs or any meat in this house? He said he didn't know. I said well when you don't know you ask someone. There is plenty of community food that you could have eaten but you went straight for something that you weren't sure about and devoured it. He brusquely offered to pay me back the value of the food and I accepted.
Rodney said he liked how Andrew ate food that was clearly not his and then only apologized and went to his room without offering to somehow make amends somehow whether it be a replacement dinner or a refund. Glad I was persistent and tapped on his door so we could come to a real resolution. Rodney and I figured it was probably because the water was out in the taps and he was being lazy and didn't want to have to heat up other food and then go downstairs to get water to wash out the pots.
Friday we had a meeting with the head of Africare in Mali. On our way back Rodney and I stopped at Constance's boutique and chatted with her. Just as we were going to leave and go home to heat up some food she insisted we stay and eat there. And she uncovered a platter of a Senegalese rice and fish, with eggplant, yam, carrot, cabbage and a hint of tamarind and lemon. I asked Constance to eat with us and she said that we should eat. I asked what she was going to eat and she said not to worry about her, that she was at home. We scraped every last bit of food out of that platter. Not only was it delicious but it was nice to eat something that we didn't have to toil over. So then Rodney and I simultaneously got the same idea.
An hour later we were back at the boutique with a meal for Constance. Now it's not a meal I would write home about (well technically I guess I am) but we fried plantains, made grits and served over the grits the "boot" sauce we made on Sunday with everything but our boots in it. Seriously, it's a tomato sauce with tomatoes, lentils, potatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, peppers, carrots, and lots of spice. Well Constance loved it so much that she called Maxime to come from their house to come taste it. Another of her friends tasted it and said he wanted the recipe. Are you kidding? And they had never thought of eating grits in that way. They boil them with milk and sugar and eat it as a dessert. I guess though we eat the same things a slight difference in how you cook it can make it interesting to someone else.
I hung out with Fa yesterday. She is so spirited and fun that I always enjoy myself. She and her sister Aisha turned the music up and we danced. Fa asked me to translate Celine Dion's "Goodbye" for her and though I did on the first go round she made me listen to it many more times. The pics above are her but she took her braids out in case you can't recognize her. Somehow we got to talking about the US and she and her sister told me in school they learned that we had 52 states. No we only have 50 I said, that's why there are 50 stars on the flag. They said really? And then honestly I started to doubt myself. What could possibly be confused for the other 2 states? Puerto Rico sure but the other??? Rodney said maybe it was the US Virgin Islands. Not sure but interesting...
Fa told me that Ouima, the 15 year old with whom I can talk very little with, is engaged to be married to a cousin who asked for her long ago. He is a 32 year old doctor so at least she will be living well, but my god the marriage takes place in a month. A 15 year old getting married? She's in 8th grade for crying out loud. (There is a picture of her above as well in a green top.) The funny thing is when I first met her I asked if she was married and she said no I'm only 15. I'm still a child. So when I found out I said Ouima, I heard you were getting married and you didn't tell me. I upset with you. She said it wasn't true. For a second she had me, but then when I asked about the details I had been told, she alternated between denying it, giggling behind her hand, and asking who had told me. So I said congratulations and best wishes for her marriage (what else is there to say) and she said thank you.
This morning Rodney and I got up early, took some food on a hike and ate it on a hillside overlooking Bamako. Nice view, very relaxing. Then he showed me around the dock area where small wooden boats are made and pitched with tar; trucks come in to get wet sand for construction purposes; and everything is bustling.
As we walked near the water some men offered us a boat ride. We declined because of a language barrier and we thought they were looking to be paid. Then as we continued to walk along the banks we saw them out on the water and waved to them. They pointed to an area where they could dock and indicated that we could still come out with them. So we took them up on the offer and joined them and a small toddler out on the boat.
Everything is beautiful when you're on the river. We saw people using large flat rocks to wash their clothes and lay them out to dry, children swimming. Even one of the men in our boat jumped in to swim and came back with two fish that someone had given him. One woman was singing and washing her clothes with a friend. This sounds so cliche, but her voice was beautiful and I could have listened to it all day. We docked and they told us they were going to wash so we scrambled up the hillside to give them some privacy.
In the distance there was a gorgeous house overlooking the river with a wraparound porch. My God that would have to be a lovely view night after night. When one of our friends joined us later he said the land we were on is owned by Salif Keita, a famous griot who recently did a remix of his 1989 song "Nou Pas Bouger (We Won't Move)" with popular urban Malian group L'Skadrille. The song is in protest of the French government's repressive policy toward immigrants, specifically those of African origin and 17 years later it is still relevant enough to have been remixed and re-released. It is very popular here.
Since I have been in Mali my mom has ordered some African films through Netflix and enjoyed seeing some of the relationships and issues I have described. The following movies are set in places as far apart and varied as Mali, Senegal, South Africa, and Chad but they come with mom's recommendation. Yesterday is about a Zulu woman struggling to raise her daughter in rural South Africa, who is further troubled when she learns that she has gotten HIV from her husband who is away working in the city. (I saw this one and it is excellent!) Moolaadé depicts a Senegalese village as it tackles the issue of female circumcision. Life on Earth: 2000 Seen By... is about life in rural Mali and a man who weathers a world disaster in a bucolic village. A young man in Mali travels to find his uncle in hopes that he might be able to help him solve his problems in Yeelen. Mandabi is about a Senegalese man who hits one bureaucratic roadblock after another as he tries to convert a money order from a wealthy relative to cash. Abouna is about two boys in Chad who set out to find the father who has abandoned their family; and, Xala is a Senegalese comedy about the trials and tribulations of a man with three wives.
Also a new book recommendation The Marabi Dance by Modikwe Dikobe. It tells the story of youth in South Africa caught in the gap between the old world and its ways and the new world post-colonization.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Marriage
"That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility." -Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Coumba and I got caught in the rain the other day. Heavy cold rain. At one point she tried to turn onto a road on which her car had no traction. We seemed to be spinning and going nowhere as her tires found only loose rocks and more water. She turned the car around and we went to her friend's house to wait out the storm. We both got soaked running from the car through the courtyard. Unfortunately all the doors and windows were open at the friend's house and the fan was on. By the time the ordeal was over. I was well on my way to being sick.
Coumba says she needs a vacation. She says being married makes her tired. How so I asked. Every day I have to cook dinner for my husband, she said. Oh that's not so bad. Make something that lasts a few days or go to a resturant once in a while. Coumba laughed at my naivete. That's easy when you are only cooking for two people. But here we cook for the whole household, parents, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews...you don't have leftovers with a crowd that big. There aren't any others to help you cook or trade days with, I ask. Only the maid helps because it's my responsibility, she responds. Restaurants here are only for business engagements and... mistresses I chime in. Coumba looks at me astonished. How did you know?
I found myself in such a restaurant. If one just gave it a cursory look one would think one was in a luxury resort in the Caribbean...during a blackout. Though there were thatched tiki huts, winding garden paths with private alcoves strewn throughout, music, and bars...all of it was pitch dark. Since we weren't currently experiencing a blackout, I started to put two and two together wondering why a restaurant would need to be pitch dark, why patrons would not want to see the food they were eating...unless the truth was that they did not want others to see them.
Constance called me to let me know she was at our downstairs door. She had left the boutique attended only by her nephew Michel and Mohammed so she could bring me a pot of tea with citronella in it. She had gotten a ride on the back of someone's moto. She didn't stay long so she could get back to the store. After the tea I fellike I was well on my way to recovery.
I've been thinking a lot about women's health here in Mali. I am frustrated to find that married women are not as empowered as single women are much of the time to safeguard their health. While family planning has frequently been used in the context of marriage to give each child the time at its mother's breast that it needs to grow strong, many concern themselves only with pregnancy prevention to space children out and not with HIV prevention.
Understandable if people are married, but that is a false and perhaps fatal assumption to make in this environment that accepts adultery as normal. So while many wives/mothers come in for DepoPrevera shots to ensure their children will be at least 2 years apart, not many married women use condoms. And in the long run it is much more expensive to do so. But what to do when society accepts that husbands will commit adultery... that they may or may not use protection when doing so, and thus may bring unwanted guests including HIV into the marital bed. Talk about sleeping with the enemy.
And conventional wisdom is easier preached than practiced. Many husbands work in other regions or neighboring countries. When they return how many of their wives will insist on HIV testing, even if they are mindful of the risks. Even if they insisted, how many husbands would consent? Who in the end will back the woman's right to insist on a test or the use of condoms until the test is conducted or the right to refuse her husband if he consents to neither? Mali is not the only country facing these issues and I am interested to see what developments arise as more countries become wise to the patterns of behavior that continue to allow the disease to spread amongst unsuspecting victims.
Coumba and I got caught in the rain the other day. Heavy cold rain. At one point she tried to turn onto a road on which her car had no traction. We seemed to be spinning and going nowhere as her tires found only loose rocks and more water. She turned the car around and we went to her friend's house to wait out the storm. We both got soaked running from the car through the courtyard. Unfortunately all the doors and windows were open at the friend's house and the fan was on. By the time the ordeal was over. I was well on my way to being sick.
Coumba says she needs a vacation. She says being married makes her tired. How so I asked. Every day I have to cook dinner for my husband, she said. Oh that's not so bad. Make something that lasts a few days or go to a resturant once in a while. Coumba laughed at my naivete. That's easy when you are only cooking for two people. But here we cook for the whole household, parents, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews...you don't have leftovers with a crowd that big. There aren't any others to help you cook or trade days with, I ask. Only the maid helps because it's my responsibility, she responds. Restaurants here are only for business engagements and... mistresses I chime in. Coumba looks at me astonished. How did you know?
I found myself in such a restaurant. If one just gave it a cursory look one would think one was in a luxury resort in the Caribbean...during a blackout. Though there were thatched tiki huts, winding garden paths with private alcoves strewn throughout, music, and bars...all of it was pitch dark. Since we weren't currently experiencing a blackout, I started to put two and two together wondering why a restaurant would need to be pitch dark, why patrons would not want to see the food they were eating...unless the truth was that they did not want others to see them.
Constance called me to let me know she was at our downstairs door. She had left the boutique attended only by her nephew Michel and Mohammed so she could bring me a pot of tea with citronella in it. She had gotten a ride on the back of someone's moto. She didn't stay long so she could get back to the store. After the tea I fellike I was well on my way to recovery.
I've been thinking a lot about women's health here in Mali. I am frustrated to find that married women are not as empowered as single women are much of the time to safeguard their health. While family planning has frequently been used in the context of marriage to give each child the time at its mother's breast that it needs to grow strong, many concern themselves only with pregnancy prevention to space children out and not with HIV prevention.
Understandable if people are married, but that is a false and perhaps fatal assumption to make in this environment that accepts adultery as normal. So while many wives/mothers come in for DepoPrevera shots to ensure their children will be at least 2 years apart, not many married women use condoms. And in the long run it is much more expensive to do so. But what to do when society accepts that husbands will commit adultery... that they may or may not use protection when doing so, and thus may bring unwanted guests including HIV into the marital bed. Talk about sleeping with the enemy.
And conventional wisdom is easier preached than practiced. Many husbands work in other regions or neighboring countries. When they return how many of their wives will insist on HIV testing, even if they are mindful of the risks. Even if they insisted, how many husbands would consent? Who in the end will back the woman's right to insist on a test or the use of condoms until the test is conducted or the right to refuse her husband if he consents to neither? Mali is not the only country facing these issues and I am interested to see what developments arise as more countries become wise to the patterns of behavior that continue to allow the disease to spread amongst unsuspecting victims.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Short and Sweet
"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home." -Jalal ad-Din Rumi
I woke up sometime during the night and was thrilled to find our water was on. I thought about going back to sleep in hopes that it would still be on when I got up for work hours later but quickly came to my senses. Instead I showered right then and there at 4 am and I was smart to have done so. By 7:30 nothing more than a trickle was coming out of the taps.
Today at work we had an evaluation team go through the clinic. I was wondering if the clinic staff would be tense or worried but they seemed not to pay the evaluators any mind except when asked a specific question. I don't know if I previously mentioned it but the reactive needed to conduct HIV testing did indeed come in at the beginning of the month.
In other news, Sophie fell and hit her head yesterday, earning a trip to the hospital to get stitches. She didn't miss a step though and was soon bouncing around again, albeit with a bandaid over the patch of her scalp where her braids were shaved off. I told her that I too had fallen and hit my head at about her age and had to have my hair shaved off for stitches. She didn't seem too concerned. Come to think of it, I wasn't too concerned at her age either.
I woke up sometime during the night and was thrilled to find our water was on. I thought about going back to sleep in hopes that it would still be on when I got up for work hours later but quickly came to my senses. Instead I showered right then and there at 4 am and I was smart to have done so. By 7:30 nothing more than a trickle was coming out of the taps.
Today at work we had an evaluation team go through the clinic. I was wondering if the clinic staff would be tense or worried but they seemed not to pay the evaluators any mind except when asked a specific question. I don't know if I previously mentioned it but the reactive needed to conduct HIV testing did indeed come in at the beginning of the month.
In other news, Sophie fell and hit her head yesterday, earning a trip to the hospital to get stitches. She didn't miss a step though and was soon bouncing around again, albeit with a bandaid over the patch of her scalp where her braids were shaved off. I told her that I too had fallen and hit my head at about her age and had to have my hair shaved off for stitches. She didn't seem too concerned. Come to think of it, I wasn't too concerned at her age either.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Poverty and Gris-Gris
"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." - Michele Lord, Aboriginal Activist
Constance's nephew Michel (on the right) with his friend in front of the store
Constance with her journal of poetry
Men chatting on the storefront porch
The food stand in front of Constance's boutique
The name Fatoumata here is like Elizabeth in the U.S. in that the name is extremely common and there are multiple nicknames. While Elizabeth has Eliza, Lisa, Liz, Beth, Betsy and Betty, Fatoumata features Fa, Fanta, Fati, Fatou, Fatime, Fatouma, Time, and Tiou Tiou. And it seems like every third person I meet is called by a derivative of the name.
When I lived in New York, I wore comfortable shoes to and from work and nice but not necessarily distance-friendly shoes at work. Here people wear nice not necessarily distance-friendly shoes to and from work and they slip into comfortable shoes inside.
Unfortunately our water situation has not gotten better. Saturday night I "bathed" using an almost full liter bottle of water that I patiently coaxed out of several taps. This morning the same thing. What is the deal already!? There was just enough water Sunday morning for Rodney to wash the dishes that were piled high in the sink but that was it. It's too hot not to have water to bathe and flush toilets and wash dishes, to clean in general. It makes me reflect on the plight of the millions in the world whose access to water is limited. And it puts some perspective on the health and sanitation problems in the world.
On a recent walk through the neighborhood I noted how many of the buildings that are currently being constructed already have people living in them. They have a roof and a floor. They have three walls but the fourth is open to the public like a staged play and therein they conduct their daily business. Just in front of their open room they cook, wash laundry, and themselves, and children play. And across the street there are huge mansions with high walls on which iron spikes sit and multiple windows from which the inhabitants can look down upon their neighbors, if they so choose.
I was in Constance's store when an old man ran in and said something to her in Bambera. She handed him a bar of soap and he ran out. Did he pay? I asked her. No, she said, He's poor and his wife is giving birth right now. Oh, so he has a midwife. No, he doesn't have anything to pay the midwife, Constance said. So you mean he's attending the birth by himself, I ask incredulously. She nodded and said he would wash the newborn child with the bar of soap. I thought for a minute and then asked what the child would eat. Mother's milk, she said. No, after a few years, I said. She clapped her hands together horizontally, opened them and quickly threw them down palms up. In this occasion the gesture meant nothing. They will have to go door to door to beg. I soaked this up and then said, he's kind of old to have a newborn... The man had walked, more like hobbled, with a stooped gait and he appeared quite grizzly. He's not that old, Constance said. Being poor just aged him quickly.
The next day a woman came to the store and greeted us from just off the porch. She was well-dressed and appeared to be in the middle of a pregnancy. Twins, a boy and a girl, followed behind her. Constance came out from behind the counter and dropped a coin into her bucket. After the woman moved on, Constance sucked her teeth and said it was not good that she was pregnant again as she couldn't feed the two that she had.
Saturday Rodney and I went to the Artisan Village where all types of artwork was on display. Sand paintings like those the Navajo make (another coincidence), musical instruments like djembe drums and the kora, ceremonial masks, sculpture, bags, cloth paintings, material, jewelry, handmade crafts. And there were other interesting things as well, dried heads of rabbits and monkeys and snakes.
Constance says the latter is used to do gris-gris. She says frogs are used too. She says a sorcerer can put gris-gris on a frog and it will come find you to put a spell on you whether you are in another city or another country. Even the U.S., she says. I can't tell if she is trying to spook me or if she really believes it.
Frogs come out in her patio at night. Constance keeps her distance. I amuse myself by throwing peanut shells near them and watching as they go from being statue-still to leaping and flicking a tongue out at the peanut shells in a split second. If the peanut shells been insects they wouldn't have stood a chance. Neither do they stand a chance with a newfangled contraption that Maxime and Constance call Chinoiserie...from the Chinese. Maxime came out with a tennis racket. I was wondering if he played. But he simply pushed a button on the racket and started waving it in the air like a wand. It kills mosquitoes he said, and then he handed it to me. I waved it and then was surprised when I came across a mosquito and the racket zapped it. I heard the zap sound and saw a spark. A little gruesome for sure but considering I have no less than 8 mosquito bites at the moment, I can't protest.
At Mieko's on Sunday Rodney and I cooked again. We had pasta bursting with vegetables of every kind, eggplant ratatouille with curry, paprika, and nutmeg (yum!), salmon croquettes, and plantains. It's funny to me that I haven't been here that long but I am already craving Malian dishes that I haven't had in a while, the spicy tomato sauce over rice and a Senegalese dish of rice and fish cooked with lemon and tamarind. After eating, we made up our own game of Scattergories. We wrote the letters of the alphabet down on scraps of paper and tossed them onto a tray and created different playing cards with different fields. How creative we are! We had a rousing game and I ended up winning. Rodney says Mieko and I cheated because he was ahead for a long time but we both passed him at the end.
Constance's nephew Michel (on the right) with his friend in front of the store
Constance with her journal of poetry
Men chatting on the storefront porch
The food stand in front of Constance's boutique
The name Fatoumata here is like Elizabeth in the U.S. in that the name is extremely common and there are multiple nicknames. While Elizabeth has Eliza, Lisa, Liz, Beth, Betsy and Betty, Fatoumata features Fa, Fanta, Fati, Fatou, Fatime, Fatouma, Time, and Tiou Tiou. And it seems like every third person I meet is called by a derivative of the name.
When I lived in New York, I wore comfortable shoes to and from work and nice but not necessarily distance-friendly shoes at work. Here people wear nice not necessarily distance-friendly shoes to and from work and they slip into comfortable shoes inside.
Unfortunately our water situation has not gotten better. Saturday night I "bathed" using an almost full liter bottle of water that I patiently coaxed out of several taps. This morning the same thing. What is the deal already!? There was just enough water Sunday morning for Rodney to wash the dishes that were piled high in the sink but that was it. It's too hot not to have water to bathe and flush toilets and wash dishes, to clean in general. It makes me reflect on the plight of the millions in the world whose access to water is limited. And it puts some perspective on the health and sanitation problems in the world.
On a recent walk through the neighborhood I noted how many of the buildings that are currently being constructed already have people living in them. They have a roof and a floor. They have three walls but the fourth is open to the public like a staged play and therein they conduct their daily business. Just in front of their open room they cook, wash laundry, and themselves, and children play. And across the street there are huge mansions with high walls on which iron spikes sit and multiple windows from which the inhabitants can look down upon their neighbors, if they so choose.
I was in Constance's store when an old man ran in and said something to her in Bambera. She handed him a bar of soap and he ran out. Did he pay? I asked her. No, she said, He's poor and his wife is giving birth right now. Oh, so he has a midwife. No, he doesn't have anything to pay the midwife, Constance said. So you mean he's attending the birth by himself, I ask incredulously. She nodded and said he would wash the newborn child with the bar of soap. I thought for a minute and then asked what the child would eat. Mother's milk, she said. No, after a few years, I said. She clapped her hands together horizontally, opened them and quickly threw them down palms up. In this occasion the gesture meant nothing. They will have to go door to door to beg. I soaked this up and then said, he's kind of old to have a newborn... The man had walked, more like hobbled, with a stooped gait and he appeared quite grizzly. He's not that old, Constance said. Being poor just aged him quickly.
The next day a woman came to the store and greeted us from just off the porch. She was well-dressed and appeared to be in the middle of a pregnancy. Twins, a boy and a girl, followed behind her. Constance came out from behind the counter and dropped a coin into her bucket. After the woman moved on, Constance sucked her teeth and said it was not good that she was pregnant again as she couldn't feed the two that she had.
Saturday Rodney and I went to the Artisan Village where all types of artwork was on display. Sand paintings like those the Navajo make (another coincidence), musical instruments like djembe drums and the kora, ceremonial masks, sculpture, bags, cloth paintings, material, jewelry, handmade crafts. And there were other interesting things as well, dried heads of rabbits and monkeys and snakes.
Constance says the latter is used to do gris-gris. She says frogs are used too. She says a sorcerer can put gris-gris on a frog and it will come find you to put a spell on you whether you are in another city or another country. Even the U.S., she says. I can't tell if she is trying to spook me or if she really believes it.
Frogs come out in her patio at night. Constance keeps her distance. I amuse myself by throwing peanut shells near them and watching as they go from being statue-still to leaping and flicking a tongue out at the peanut shells in a split second. If the peanut shells been insects they wouldn't have stood a chance. Neither do they stand a chance with a newfangled contraption that Maxime and Constance call Chinoiserie...from the Chinese. Maxime came out with a tennis racket. I was wondering if he played. But he simply pushed a button on the racket and started waving it in the air like a wand. It kills mosquitoes he said, and then he handed it to me. I waved it and then was surprised when I came across a mosquito and the racket zapped it. I heard the zap sound and saw a spark. A little gruesome for sure but considering I have no less than 8 mosquito bites at the moment, I can't protest.
At Mieko's on Sunday Rodney and I cooked again. We had pasta bursting with vegetables of every kind, eggplant ratatouille with curry, paprika, and nutmeg (yum!), salmon croquettes, and plantains. It's funny to me that I haven't been here that long but I am already craving Malian dishes that I haven't had in a while, the spicy tomato sauce over rice and a Senegalese dish of rice and fish cooked with lemon and tamarind. After eating, we made up our own game of Scattergories. We wrote the letters of the alphabet down on scraps of paper and tossed them onto a tray and created different playing cards with different fields. How creative we are! We had a rousing game and I ended up winning. Rodney says Mieko and I cheated because he was ahead for a long time but we both passed him at the end.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Tower of Babel
"And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language...and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do...Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city." - Genesis 11: 6-8
15 year old Ouima and her older sister
Grinding millet
Mom with twins
Oldest daughter
Safi my first Bambera teacher and her sister
Fa
I went to visit Constance at her boutique and Mohammed was there again. He and Constance were saying that the world was changing so quickly and that French was not as important a language as it used to be. French is only used in France, North and West Africa, the Congo, Haiti and a few other islands, Mohammed complained. But even the Arabs in North Africa are abandoning French and are teaching English in their schools. At least Spanish is spoken in all of the Americas save for Canada, Brazil and the US. Constance agreed and added that in a few years anyone who did not know English would be obsolete. Mohammed said that a group of engineers had been confounded by how to put a system together upon delivery because all the instructions had been in English. You picked the wrong second language, Mohammed said with a laugh. I thought about why products come with instructions in only one language, ignorance...arrogance?
Like the engineers, who are unable to complete their work due to language barriers, isn't the work of the international development also confounded by the inability to truly understand another? Isn't as well basic human interaction and understanding? Aren't we all just trying to create a common basis for knowing the other, to work across these language barriers to achieve the great heights we have imagined for ourselves, to come back together once again as we once were...
It hasn't rained as much as it should have by now and the result is that water is turned off in a random selection of neighborhoods in the city throughout the day. Of course there is no advance notice. This is how I happened to be in the middle of bathing early on Friday morning when the tap ran dry. Luckily I had one bottle of water left in the shower for situations such as these and I was able to rinse off. But as for washing dishes or flushing toilets, there is currently no water available for that. Nice!
Friday morning we met with Mary Beth Leonard the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Mali. She says she is only in the US once a year and after we talked about the different ways that the US supports infrastrucure, governance, health and education here she was eager to know where we were from, where we were headed after this trip, and what we thought of the candidates for the upcoming 2008 elections.
After the meeting I headed to the Ghanaian Embassy to secure my visa for my upcoming trip. As I begin to fill out the application form in quadruplicate, I realized that I would need 4 passport photos and not just two, and that I also needed names and addresses of my contacts in Ghana. Hmmm. So I set off down the road looking for a passport photo place and luckily there was one not too far away. One of the women there it turns out has a sister who lives in Los Angeles...small world. Then I ended up playing a lovely game of call people in the US very early in the morning to get the address info. Thanks mom and Shirley for being such good sports!
Friday night I went out to the Hogon, a music venue owned by a famous Malian singer Fatime something or other who regaled us with her sultry voice, with Brahms and his friend Mamadou. The music was lovely. I discovered that the instrument that makes me think of asian influences is the Kora. It a harp-lute string instrument with 21 strings stretched over a long neck of rosewood and plucked with the thumb and index finger of each hand. The sound it produces is not unlike the Chinese lutes I have heard before. At any rate, I enjoyed the music and the singing but I wasn't aware that the venue was going to be outdoors so I provided a lovely feast for the mosquitoes that were out. I said a prayer this morning when I took my malaria pill.
A patron at Constance's store asked if I was her little sister. She said yes. He said then that she should give her little sister to him. I was shocked and didn't look up. I just told you this is my little sister, Constance said. Why would I give her to you when I don't even know you. You would get to know me once you gave her to me, the man replied. I would have said something if I had known what to say but literally the shock evaporated all of my words. Constance laughed and said I don't think so.
He continued to press his case and she said, You're just like all the rest. You want to marry her and once you have 2 or 3 kids you'll leave her and go back to Nigeria. The man insisted that he would not. Yes you're like the rest Constance said. Why do you all do that? Marry Malian women, give them children and then desert them? I wouldn't desert her. She's pretty...Yes, she is, Constance said, so you would need to have a lot of money to marry her. And she's smart so you need to be educated too. Have you graduated from University? What do you do? I didn't think so. Keep on! I was still shocked at this point and trying to get over my momentary concern that she might actually agree on an arrangement.
Then he attempted to talk to me calling me "Cherie," a term of endearment. Constance told him to stop making a nuisance of himself. He said he was just having a discussion. Well, we don't like your type of discussions, Constance said. Now I was really disconcerted because a few of his friends were outside the boutique and they kept peeping in on me and Constance and the progress of the conversation. Night had begun to fall and I was planning to meet Rodney at our place in a few. Maybe I should sneak out the back door, I whispered to Constance. No, you go right on out the front door, she said, pointing in the direction of my place. And send me a text when you get home. She stood out on the porch walking me walk away and I texted her shortly after saying I had safely arrived.
Earlier I stopped and chatted with Ouima and her older sister. The pictures above are of them and the sister's kids, her twins and the older daughter. I saw that she had a maid, a young adolescent girl, and I asked about her as I had been curious about the situation. Most hourseholds have one. They appear to be very young and impressionable. I have noticed that Constance's maid seems to be very nervous in social situations and laughs a lot to cover this. I was wondering if there was some depth to the situation that I am not able to perceive. Also I noticed that many of the maids wear their hair in similar styles, that I haven't seen on anyone else.
So Ouima's sister explained that the maids are girls from very poor families in very poor villages. Their families usually have up to 10 kids and can barely afford to feed them, let alone clothe them. And indeed Rodney said on his travels throughout Mali that clothing for kids seemed to be a luxury...most were running around with nothing on or at most a long t-shirt. Since the girls are nearing marriage age, they work as live-in maids to save up the money to buy things for their wedding trunk, clothing, household things etc. I hav noticed that there is a big leap between the way that the average unmarried women dresses, in t-shirts or tank tops and a length of fabric wrapped around the waist into a skirt, and the way the average married woman dresses in matching skirt and top tailored ensembles in various fabrics and cuts. Ouima's sister said her maid receivs free meals, room and board and 7500 CFA a month. In two or three years she will have saved enough to buy what she needs to return to her village, get married and start out her life with her husband.
15 year old Ouima and her older sister
Grinding millet
Mom with twins
Oldest daughter
Safi my first Bambera teacher and her sister
Fa
I went to visit Constance at her boutique and Mohammed was there again. He and Constance were saying that the world was changing so quickly and that French was not as important a language as it used to be. French is only used in France, North and West Africa, the Congo, Haiti and a few other islands, Mohammed complained. But even the Arabs in North Africa are abandoning French and are teaching English in their schools. At least Spanish is spoken in all of the Americas save for Canada, Brazil and the US. Constance agreed and added that in a few years anyone who did not know English would be obsolete. Mohammed said that a group of engineers had been confounded by how to put a system together upon delivery because all the instructions had been in English. You picked the wrong second language, Mohammed said with a laugh. I thought about why products come with instructions in only one language, ignorance...arrogance?
Like the engineers, who are unable to complete their work due to language barriers, isn't the work of the international development also confounded by the inability to truly understand another? Isn't as well basic human interaction and understanding? Aren't we all just trying to create a common basis for knowing the other, to work across these language barriers to achieve the great heights we have imagined for ourselves, to come back together once again as we once were...
It hasn't rained as much as it should have by now and the result is that water is turned off in a random selection of neighborhoods in the city throughout the day. Of course there is no advance notice. This is how I happened to be in the middle of bathing early on Friday morning when the tap ran dry. Luckily I had one bottle of water left in the shower for situations such as these and I was able to rinse off. But as for washing dishes or flushing toilets, there is currently no water available for that. Nice!
Friday morning we met with Mary Beth Leonard the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Mali. She says she is only in the US once a year and after we talked about the different ways that the US supports infrastrucure, governance, health and education here she was eager to know where we were from, where we were headed after this trip, and what we thought of the candidates for the upcoming 2008 elections.
After the meeting I headed to the Ghanaian Embassy to secure my visa for my upcoming trip. As I begin to fill out the application form in quadruplicate, I realized that I would need 4 passport photos and not just two, and that I also needed names and addresses of my contacts in Ghana. Hmmm. So I set off down the road looking for a passport photo place and luckily there was one not too far away. One of the women there it turns out has a sister who lives in Los Angeles...small world. Then I ended up playing a lovely game of call people in the US very early in the morning to get the address info. Thanks mom and Shirley for being such good sports!
Friday night I went out to the Hogon, a music venue owned by a famous Malian singer Fatime something or other who regaled us with her sultry voice, with Brahms and his friend Mamadou. The music was lovely. I discovered that the instrument that makes me think of asian influences is the Kora. It a harp-lute string instrument with 21 strings stretched over a long neck of rosewood and plucked with the thumb and index finger of each hand. The sound it produces is not unlike the Chinese lutes I have heard before. At any rate, I enjoyed the music and the singing but I wasn't aware that the venue was going to be outdoors so I provided a lovely feast for the mosquitoes that were out. I said a prayer this morning when I took my malaria pill.
A patron at Constance's store asked if I was her little sister. She said yes. He said then that she should give her little sister to him. I was shocked and didn't look up. I just told you this is my little sister, Constance said. Why would I give her to you when I don't even know you. You would get to know me once you gave her to me, the man replied. I would have said something if I had known what to say but literally the shock evaporated all of my words. Constance laughed and said I don't think so.
He continued to press his case and she said, You're just like all the rest. You want to marry her and once you have 2 or 3 kids you'll leave her and go back to Nigeria. The man insisted that he would not. Yes you're like the rest Constance said. Why do you all do that? Marry Malian women, give them children and then desert them? I wouldn't desert her. She's pretty...Yes, she is, Constance said, so you would need to have a lot of money to marry her. And she's smart so you need to be educated too. Have you graduated from University? What do you do? I didn't think so. Keep on! I was still shocked at this point and trying to get over my momentary concern that she might actually agree on an arrangement.
Then he attempted to talk to me calling me "Cherie," a term of endearment. Constance told him to stop making a nuisance of himself. He said he was just having a discussion. Well, we don't like your type of discussions, Constance said. Now I was really disconcerted because a few of his friends were outside the boutique and they kept peeping in on me and Constance and the progress of the conversation. Night had begun to fall and I was planning to meet Rodney at our place in a few. Maybe I should sneak out the back door, I whispered to Constance. No, you go right on out the front door, she said, pointing in the direction of my place. And send me a text when you get home. She stood out on the porch walking me walk away and I texted her shortly after saying I had safely arrived.
Earlier I stopped and chatted with Ouima and her older sister. The pictures above are of them and the sister's kids, her twins and the older daughter. I saw that she had a maid, a young adolescent girl, and I asked about her as I had been curious about the situation. Most hourseholds have one. They appear to be very young and impressionable. I have noticed that Constance's maid seems to be very nervous in social situations and laughs a lot to cover this. I was wondering if there was some depth to the situation that I am not able to perceive. Also I noticed that many of the maids wear their hair in similar styles, that I haven't seen on anyone else.
So Ouima's sister explained that the maids are girls from very poor families in very poor villages. Their families usually have up to 10 kids and can barely afford to feed them, let alone clothe them. And indeed Rodney said on his travels throughout Mali that clothing for kids seemed to be a luxury...most were running around with nothing on or at most a long t-shirt. Since the girls are nearing marriage age, they work as live-in maids to save up the money to buy things for their wedding trunk, clothing, household things etc. I hav noticed that there is a big leap between the way that the average unmarried women dresses, in t-shirts or tank tops and a length of fabric wrapped around the waist into a skirt, and the way the average married woman dresses in matching skirt and top tailored ensembles in various fabrics and cuts. Ouima's sister said her maid receivs free meals, room and board and 7500 CFA a month. In two or three years she will have saved enough to buy what she needs to return to her village, get married and start out her life with her husband.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Mind Boggle
"In cultural synthesis, the actors who come from "another world" to the world of the people do so not as invaders. They do not come to teach or to transmit or to give anything, but rather to learn, with the people, about the people's world." - Paulo Friere
Thursday morning I woke and dressed for work as usual. When I left my bedroom I saw that the front door was wide open. Not just unlocked, WIDE OPEN! I walked onto the terrace and it seemed no one was around so I called Rodney who seemed the likely suspect. He said he was at work and Andrew had left after him. I wrote Andrew a note letting him know how upset I was at having been left in such a vulnerable position. That night Rodney and I were chatting about work projects when Andrew knocked on my door and asked if we could talk.
I said sure and he passed me the note I had written that morning and said why don't you read this note you left me again so we can discuss it. I said I'm familiar with what it says. He then passed the note to Rodney and said well why don't you read it. I said Rodney doesn't have anything to do with the note. I wrote it so if you have an issue you should take it up with me. Then he goes on to say that the note did not make him feel good. That he's been having a hard week as it is the anniversary of a family death. I told him I empathized with him on the family death as I know from personal experience how hard that can be. I also said that we have no idea whether things are good or bad for him as he is never around to have a conversation and when I tried to start a conversation two days earlier he ended it curtly and left the room.
All this has nothing to do with the note though, I said. The note was not intended to make you feel good. It was intended to convey my distress at learning that I was both asleep and then in the shower while the front door to our apartment was wide open. He never really apologized and I didn't expect an apology anyway, so the conversation moved on taking several turns and finaly resting on the recent ramping up of his aggressively boorish behavior. After we pressed him he admitted that he has been taking out his anger on us. The cause of the anger, you ask? Because last Friday when Rodney and I went to the market and bought food, and cooked a pot of soup and a pot of rice, we brought our plates into the livingroom to eat, and though we invited him to eat if he was hungry (although he appeared not to be - why else had he waited for us to get home and begin cooking at that late hour) we did not fix him a plate and bring it to him. So after all that he was angry with us?! You can't make this stuff up folks!
I said Andrew it's not enough that we go to the market while you laze about; it's not enough that we have put out a cash advance for the share of the food that you are going to eat since you only pay after money has been spent and food digested; it's not enough that we have to prepare and then cook food when we get home even though you get home hours before we do, but now you want us to serve you a plate too? Are you kidding me? I told him that I found it utterly ridiculous that he would be angry enough to be rude to me while still taking the daily opportunity to partake of the food I cooked and was generous enough to continue to share in spite of his boorish behavior. The very idea still boggles my mind every time I think about it.
Thursday morning I woke and dressed for work as usual. When I left my bedroom I saw that the front door was wide open. Not just unlocked, WIDE OPEN! I walked onto the terrace and it seemed no one was around so I called Rodney who seemed the likely suspect. He said he was at work and Andrew had left after him. I wrote Andrew a note letting him know how upset I was at having been left in such a vulnerable position. That night Rodney and I were chatting about work projects when Andrew knocked on my door and asked if we could talk.
I said sure and he passed me the note I had written that morning and said why don't you read this note you left me again so we can discuss it. I said I'm familiar with what it says. He then passed the note to Rodney and said well why don't you read it. I said Rodney doesn't have anything to do with the note. I wrote it so if you have an issue you should take it up with me. Then he goes on to say that the note did not make him feel good. That he's been having a hard week as it is the anniversary of a family death. I told him I empathized with him on the family death as I know from personal experience how hard that can be. I also said that we have no idea whether things are good or bad for him as he is never around to have a conversation and when I tried to start a conversation two days earlier he ended it curtly and left the room.
All this has nothing to do with the note though, I said. The note was not intended to make you feel good. It was intended to convey my distress at learning that I was both asleep and then in the shower while the front door to our apartment was wide open. He never really apologized and I didn't expect an apology anyway, so the conversation moved on taking several turns and finaly resting on the recent ramping up of his aggressively boorish behavior. After we pressed him he admitted that he has been taking out his anger on us. The cause of the anger, you ask? Because last Friday when Rodney and I went to the market and bought food, and cooked a pot of soup and a pot of rice, we brought our plates into the livingroom to eat, and though we invited him to eat if he was hungry (although he appeared not to be - why else had he waited for us to get home and begin cooking at that late hour) we did not fix him a plate and bring it to him. So after all that he was angry with us?! You can't make this stuff up folks!
I said Andrew it's not enough that we go to the market while you laze about; it's not enough that we have put out a cash advance for the share of the food that you are going to eat since you only pay after money has been spent and food digested; it's not enough that we have to prepare and then cook food when we get home even though you get home hours before we do, but now you want us to serve you a plate too? Are you kidding me? I told him that I found it utterly ridiculous that he would be angry enough to be rude to me while still taking the daily opportunity to partake of the food I cooked and was generous enough to continue to share in spite of his boorish behavior. The very idea still boggles my mind every time I think about it.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Seen Around Town
"And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street..." - Dr. Seuss
- T-shirts from US colleges and universities and decade old cheerleading camps. Today a girl on my sotrame was wearing a Long Beach t-shirt so I asked if I could take a picture. Erika this one is for you...
Girl w/Long Beach t-shirt on Sotrame
- Women who shave all their eyebrows off and then redraw them dark and wide and high in two semi-circles on the low forehead. Once I saw that a woman had taken the time to draw eyebrows on her months old baby girl too...that was the scariest looking baby I ever saw.
- It does me good to see that breastfeeding is no big deal here where American Puritanism is not in effect. When babies are hungry women either pull their sleeves aside to allow access, some sleeves drop as low as the waist, or they lift their tops or lower their tops, all in public. No one bats an eye and no one considers it as anything other than nature in effect. In fact people are grateful because it keeps children from crying and keeping up a fuss, especially during close, claustrophobic Sotrame rides.
- Unpotty-trained babies not wearing diapers. Hmmm, I wonder what will happen...Sure enough the baby boy in mention was soon standing, albeit off-balance, in a puddle inside a store. He cried only because his feet were wet as he had no clothes on waist down. Someone brought a plastic jug and a rag and the mother washed him down with a little water and mopped the floor with the rag. Interesting. I guess it makes sense if the kids are playing outside, especially since diapers are 5500 CFA a pack, but I kind of had an issue with the pee on the floor. And was there some bleach on that rag? At any rate it appeared the mother had been waiting for him to go, perhaps why she removed his pants, and she took the opportunity to use her last "diaper": a strip of cotton cloth laid in the middle of a piece of plastic that she drew between his legs and tight around his waist.
- People who buy beer in a store, duck in a corner to avoid being seen and drain the bottle in seconds before walking back out onto the street. Is it that serious?
- At the Projet Jeunes clinics more women than men come in for STD treatment but more men than women submit to voluntary HIV testing. This is troubling since exposure to STDs can often mean the opportunity for exposure to HIV. It seems the women shy away from knowing their status. In 2006, almost 3% of men who came to Projet Jeunes clinics for voluntary testing were positive while just over 7% of women were. Likely this is a reflection of the polygamous and adulterous relationships previously discussed. Unfortunately the reactive needed to conduct the tests is available in spurts and so in 2006 they were only able to conduct a third of the HIV tests that they conducted in 2005.
- T-shirts from US colleges and universities and decade old cheerleading camps. Today a girl on my sotrame was wearing a Long Beach t-shirt so I asked if I could take a picture. Erika this one is for you...
Girl w/Long Beach t-shirt on Sotrame
- Women who shave all their eyebrows off and then redraw them dark and wide and high in two semi-circles on the low forehead. Once I saw that a woman had taken the time to draw eyebrows on her months old baby girl too...that was the scariest looking baby I ever saw.
- It does me good to see that breastfeeding is no big deal here where American Puritanism is not in effect. When babies are hungry women either pull their sleeves aside to allow access, some sleeves drop as low as the waist, or they lift their tops or lower their tops, all in public. No one bats an eye and no one considers it as anything other than nature in effect. In fact people are grateful because it keeps children from crying and keeping up a fuss, especially during close, claustrophobic Sotrame rides.
- Unpotty-trained babies not wearing diapers. Hmmm, I wonder what will happen...Sure enough the baby boy in mention was soon standing, albeit off-balance, in a puddle inside a store. He cried only because his feet were wet as he had no clothes on waist down. Someone brought a plastic jug and a rag and the mother washed him down with a little water and mopped the floor with the rag. Interesting. I guess it makes sense if the kids are playing outside, especially since diapers are 5500 CFA a pack, but I kind of had an issue with the pee on the floor. And was there some bleach on that rag? At any rate it appeared the mother had been waiting for him to go, perhaps why she removed his pants, and she took the opportunity to use her last "diaper": a strip of cotton cloth laid in the middle of a piece of plastic that she drew between his legs and tight around his waist.
- People who buy beer in a store, duck in a corner to avoid being seen and drain the bottle in seconds before walking back out onto the street. Is it that serious?
- At the Projet Jeunes clinics more women than men come in for STD treatment but more men than women submit to voluntary HIV testing. This is troubling since exposure to STDs can often mean the opportunity for exposure to HIV. It seems the women shy away from knowing their status. In 2006, almost 3% of men who came to Projet Jeunes clinics for voluntary testing were positive while just over 7% of women were. Likely this is a reflection of the polygamous and adulterous relationships previously discussed. Unfortunately the reactive needed to conduct the tests is available in spurts and so in 2006 they were only able to conduct a third of the HIV tests that they conducted in 2005.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
For the Love of Money
"For the love of money, People will lie, rob, they will cheat, For the love of money, People don't care who they hurt or beat...I know that money is the root of all evil, Do funny things to some people...For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight...It'll keep on - it'll keep on - changing - yeah - changing up your mind, I'm tellin' y'all, People, don't let money, don't let money change you, Almighty Dollar!" - The O'Jays 'For The Love of Money'
Almost every day I spend 400 CFA on a large bottle of water, 300 CFA for the two sotrames I take to get to work (I get a ride back), 200 CFA on breakfast, 450 CFA on lunch (I thought about bringing my own lunch to work but not only do we lack sufficient Tupperware at our place but there are no facilities at work to heat the food), 300 CFA for one hour on the internet (and let’s be honest if I am blogging, checking emails and uploading pictures it’s more likely that I will be there for 2 hours).
All this comes to a total of 1650 CFA (1950 if we count the second hour of internet time). This translates into about $3.50 - $4.20 per day in a country where 90% live on less than $2 per day. So on the average day I spend 75 - 110% more than the average Malian and I have not yet eaten any snacks, dinner, called or texted anyone, engaged in any form of entertainment, gone anywhere but to work or considered the cost of electricity, cooking gas, or rent for the apartment. Talk about privilege.
In contrast, it isn’t abnormal for folks here not to have enough money to put credit on their phones so they can make as well as receive calls and texts. Fa went to the doctor ages ago for a stomach malady that bothered her from time to time and she still has the prescription though she hasn’t had enough money to fill it. Constance has customers who owe her money as they needed goods even when they did not have the funds to pay for them. One woman owes Constance 20,000 CFA and pays back only a few thousand CFA here and there. Another man left town owing her 5,000 CFA and she’s not sure that he will be coming back.
Yesterday evening I stopped by to see Fa. She was studying for a big test on Monday and so I left after not too long there. She considered taking me back to my place on her brother’s moto but he had the keys and he was up on the roof chatting with two of his friends. Instead of heading back up to the roof she hung her head back and howled something in Bambera. They live in a 2 story apartment building with 3 sections on each level. A few people looked but it took Chaick a while to come to the edge of the roof. He looked down at his sister and frowned and asked, Do you have any sense and dropped the keys down. I laughed because I was thinking the same thing but Fa just fixed her doe eyes on me and flashed a coy, dimpled smile, Oh you understood what he said? Unfortunately the moto was out of gas anyway so we walked. When we got to my place I fried up 2 plantains to snack on while Fa watched astounded. You know how to prepare food, she asked. Yes, I laughed, why not? Because you’re American, she said. You don’t think Americans eat too, I asked. We ate our snack while a dub of Damon Wayan’s family sitcom played in the background and then I walked her back to the halfway point.
From there I went to Constance’s boutique. Constance and Mohammed, Constance’s friend from Algeria, were chatting away and so I sat down and joined them. We got on the subject of the cost of living. Mohammed was shocked that rent is as high as it is in the US. He says he pays 47,000 CFA or $100 for a very spacious apartment. When he askes me questions about the US they tend to be all or nothing questions. I point out that some of everything exists in the US, that there are extremely rich and extremely poor that don’t live too far removed from what I have seen in Mali. He looks at me shocked. I continue to tell him that in some places in the US people don’t have running water or electricity. He tells me he can’t fathom what I am saying, that this exists in the most powerful country in the world. He shakes his head. Constance pipes in with support. She says she has seen it with her own eyes on television.
Is it true that people don’t stop and share pleasantries with each other and have tea, he asks. In some places they do but in the cities they don’t. People are in a rush. That’s one thing I appreciate about being here I said, people have been so hospitable and it’s not quite like that at home. There people have to know you from somewhere, from work, from church, from a social group, from friends etc. before they just invite you over their house for tea or a meal. I think we tend to have more mistrust for strangers…And here I am in Constance’s boutique making change for customers while she is breastfeeding Jean who is especially irritable as he is teething. What would life be if we didn’t take time to greet each other, to talk and inquire about health and family, to take tea together, what would it be if I didn’t share my food if you didn’t have some… It’s capitalism, Mohammed finally says. It makes people only care about money and not other people. Everyone for himself. It’s sad.
I see his point, but I have also seen in Mali that there are blind beggars, that little boys in clothes so tattered and dirty that you can’t even tell their original color go about with buckets singing in their beautiful Viennese choir voices and asking for people to provide blessings (money) from Allah, that women also wait by stoplights with buckets to collect whatever monies passerbys might give, with one baby strapped to their back and another, older or younger no doubt only by 9 or 10 months, strapped to their front. Not everyone here is sharing with their neighbors.
Almost every day I spend 400 CFA on a large bottle of water, 300 CFA for the two sotrames I take to get to work (I get a ride back), 200 CFA on breakfast, 450 CFA on lunch (I thought about bringing my own lunch to work but not only do we lack sufficient Tupperware at our place but there are no facilities at work to heat the food), 300 CFA for one hour on the internet (and let’s be honest if I am blogging, checking emails and uploading pictures it’s more likely that I will be there for 2 hours).
All this comes to a total of 1650 CFA (1950 if we count the second hour of internet time). This translates into about $3.50 - $4.20 per day in a country where 90% live on less than $2 per day. So on the average day I spend 75 - 110% more than the average Malian and I have not yet eaten any snacks, dinner, called or texted anyone, engaged in any form of entertainment, gone anywhere but to work or considered the cost of electricity, cooking gas, or rent for the apartment. Talk about privilege.
In contrast, it isn’t abnormal for folks here not to have enough money to put credit on their phones so they can make as well as receive calls and texts. Fa went to the doctor ages ago for a stomach malady that bothered her from time to time and she still has the prescription though she hasn’t had enough money to fill it. Constance has customers who owe her money as they needed goods even when they did not have the funds to pay for them. One woman owes Constance 20,000 CFA and pays back only a few thousand CFA here and there. Another man left town owing her 5,000 CFA and she’s not sure that he will be coming back.
Yesterday evening I stopped by to see Fa. She was studying for a big test on Monday and so I left after not too long there. She considered taking me back to my place on her brother’s moto but he had the keys and he was up on the roof chatting with two of his friends. Instead of heading back up to the roof she hung her head back and howled something in Bambera. They live in a 2 story apartment building with 3 sections on each level. A few people looked but it took Chaick a while to come to the edge of the roof. He looked down at his sister and frowned and asked, Do you have any sense and dropped the keys down. I laughed because I was thinking the same thing but Fa just fixed her doe eyes on me and flashed a coy, dimpled smile, Oh you understood what he said? Unfortunately the moto was out of gas anyway so we walked. When we got to my place I fried up 2 plantains to snack on while Fa watched astounded. You know how to prepare food, she asked. Yes, I laughed, why not? Because you’re American, she said. You don’t think Americans eat too, I asked. We ate our snack while a dub of Damon Wayan’s family sitcom played in the background and then I walked her back to the halfway point.
From there I went to Constance’s boutique. Constance and Mohammed, Constance’s friend from Algeria, were chatting away and so I sat down and joined them. We got on the subject of the cost of living. Mohammed was shocked that rent is as high as it is in the US. He says he pays 47,000 CFA or $100 for a very spacious apartment. When he askes me questions about the US they tend to be all or nothing questions. I point out that some of everything exists in the US, that there are extremely rich and extremely poor that don’t live too far removed from what I have seen in Mali. He looks at me shocked. I continue to tell him that in some places in the US people don’t have running water or electricity. He tells me he can’t fathom what I am saying, that this exists in the most powerful country in the world. He shakes his head. Constance pipes in with support. She says she has seen it with her own eyes on television.
Is it true that people don’t stop and share pleasantries with each other and have tea, he asks. In some places they do but in the cities they don’t. People are in a rush. That’s one thing I appreciate about being here I said, people have been so hospitable and it’s not quite like that at home. There people have to know you from somewhere, from work, from church, from a social group, from friends etc. before they just invite you over their house for tea or a meal. I think we tend to have more mistrust for strangers…And here I am in Constance’s boutique making change for customers while she is breastfeeding Jean who is especially irritable as he is teething. What would life be if we didn’t take time to greet each other, to talk and inquire about health and family, to take tea together, what would it be if I didn’t share my food if you didn’t have some… It’s capitalism, Mohammed finally says. It makes people only care about money and not other people. Everyone for himself. It’s sad.
I see his point, but I have also seen in Mali that there are blind beggars, that little boys in clothes so tattered and dirty that you can’t even tell their original color go about with buckets singing in their beautiful Viennese choir voices and asking for people to provide blessings (money) from Allah, that women also wait by stoplights with buckets to collect whatever monies passerbys might give, with one baby strapped to their back and another, older or younger no doubt only by 9 or 10 months, strapped to their front. Not everyone here is sharing with their neighbors.
Community Forum
Talking about AIDS and condom usage
Mamadou, Amadou and ??
Current construction
A bit of NY in Bamako
Yesterday as I was coming home from work Amadou, the phone card vendor, asked me what I do during the day. When I told him I am a volunteer at Projet Jeune working in the field of reproductive health, he asked if I could do a presentation for the young people that gather at his stand at night. Good idea Amadou! The work day is never done when we are working with the community... We made an appointment for 10 pm in the evening...
At home I cooked some spinach with onions, tomatoes and garlic to go along with the couscous Andrew made the day before. And I heated up some of the fish I made on Sunday. (Constance had melt-in-your-mouth pork, onions, and plantains waiting for me on Monday. I honestly had forgotten what pork tasted like and didn’t think I would see any in this country.) I was happy to see that Andrew had finally bought some things for the household, although he had not checked to see if we already had some of them. I asked him how his day was and he gave a curt fine. So I said Oh that’s wonderful, drawing it out. He took his food in his room and closed the door. Oh teenaged angst!
I told Rodney about Amadou’s request so he could accompany me. I said I didn’t have a prop for the condom usage demonstration and we searched around for one and decided that the batons for his doumba drums were perfect substitutes. On our way there we was stopped by another group of youth. Never have they stopped us before so I think it had to have been divine providence that they asked where we were going and then requested that I do a presentation for them as well. What are the odds of that happening? I invited them to the presentation but they said they would rather have their own since they were a large group and already had enough seats for everyone. I'll have to see if I can do that one tonight.
When we got down to the phone card stand there were about 6 people total including, Amadou, the phone card vendor, his friend Mamadou, their friend Amadou whom they call Vielle (The Old One), a sixteen year old, another who came later and whose name I didn’t catch, a young woman who lives behind the phone card stand, and 20 year old Tacao (pronounced Taco), who has found a way to communicate with Rodney despite having only a little bit of French in common as far as languages go. Tacao is related to either Amadou or Mamadou and she braids hair and paints nails at the phone card stand.
I started by asking what they knew about AIDS and how it is transmitted. Then we delved into the three part strategy to fight AIDS: abstinence, and in lieu of that fidelity to your partner, and condom usage. They were very attentive although Mamadou wanted to ask about every rumor he ever heard about AIDS including some very off the wall ones. Later I asked Rodney why someone would belive all those crazy rumors and he said drily, We're in Africa. Crazy stuff happens here. Would you believe it if someone came and told you that in the next village strangers were chopping people's hands off? I looked at him and said what? That's exactly what the Belgians did in the Congo to get people to produce more rubber, he said, and those who believed the rumors had a chance to keep their hands. Whoa!
Rumor has it that AIDS was created by a white man who forced an African woman to have sex with an animal, that it was created by condom manufacturers to increase profits, and that manufacturers put the virus in condom lubricant. They wanted to know how it started. I admitted that I didn't know as I hadn't been there but Rodney said the first case was in Tanzania in the 60s. I said that lubricant did not contain the virus and that whether or not it was created to increase profits it was here and had to be taken seriously. That if people were so concerned about the profits they too could go into creating and or distributing condoms to join in on some of the profit-making. They also wanted to know it mosquitoes transmit AIDS or if they can get it and die from it. I said research has shown that mosquitoes do not transmit AIDS and I have no idea if they can die from it, although I suspect that they are not susceptible to human diseases.
We discussed strategies to convince an unwilling partner to use condoms. They wanted to know why more funding was given to AIDS than to malaria which kills more people, according to them, and I let them know the difference between communicable and non-communicable diseases. We played a handshake game that I devised in Brooklyn for my teen girls, with the handshakes symbolizing unprotected sexual relations, and me serving as the starting point for AIDS. It became clear how quickly one person can affect many others.
We also talked about how some traditions including levirat, the tradition of a brother taking on his dead brother's wife as his own, and sororat, the tradition of a sister taking on her dead sister's husband as her own, and even accepted practices such as polygamy and adultery can serve as conduits to further the spread of AIDS. They wanted to know what I thought about levirat, sororat and polygamy. I said that those were practices that were not in my culture but that I wasn't there to judge, but rather to inform them of the dangers. That perhaps if they were to partake in levirat or sororat they should insist on voluntary HIV testing first (and determine the true cause of death) or that when engaging in polygamy or adultery condoms should be used to decrease the risk.
And finally I broke out the doumba baton and did the condom demonstration. This was the highlight and all of a sudden people that had not originally been in attendance came out of nowhere. I did notice that Taco disappeared sometime during the forum. Amadou said he thought it was more important that young women be informed since so many of them refuse to use condoms on the basis that they are not prostitutes. I agreed and said that it was also a function of unequal levels of education. He insisted that I should be talking to a group of young women right now. I said yes but let's be real, it's 10 at night there are no groups of women outside. I have to think of places where perhaps other groups of women congregate but that most often occurs during the daytime. They wanted to know how big of a problem IAIDS really was in Africa and Rodney helped to quote some stats for them, some especially scary ones coming from where he has been in South Africa where it is estimated that 20% have HIV or Botswana or Swaziland where it is estimated that 50% have it. While Mali's incidence rate is still very low, lower even than most communities in the US, the conditions here are ripe for a explosion.
I told them at work that I did what they call an animation last night at the phone card stand. They were so thrilled that they packed my bag full of condoms and gave me a wooden penis on a stand so that I could be that much more effective.
I’ve been looking up more on the ethnicities in Mali and the Puel ethnicity, specifically, the one that I have been told I resemble. And have found the following:
The main ethnic groups of Mali are the Mande, including the Bambara, Malinke, and Sarakole, accounting for 50% of the total population. Other groups include the Peul (or Fulani), accounting for 17%; the Voltaic, making up 12%; the Songhai, constituting 6%; the Tuareg and Moor 10%; and other groups 5%. The Bambara, mostly farmers, occupy all of central Mali bounded by the Côte d'Ivoire frontier in the south and Nara and Nioro in the north. Malinke live chiefly in the regions of Bafoulabé, Kita, and Bamako. The Peul (or Fulani), semi-sedentary herdsmen, are to be found throughout the republic, but mainly in the region of Mopti. The Songhai—farmers, fishermen, and merchants—live along the banks and islands of the Niger River, east of the inland delta. The nomadic Tuareg, of Berber origin, are mainly in the north, in the Adrar des Iforas. The Minianka, largely farmers, populate the region of Koutiala, and the Senufo, also farmers, are found principally in the region of Sikasso. The majority of the peoples in Mali are Negroid; the Tuareg are classified as Caucasoid; and the Puel (Fulani) are of mixed origin.
The Fulani of Mali, also known as the Fulfulde or Peul, are estimated to range between 850,000 to 1,000,000 people. The majority of the Fulani are from a sub-group known as the Futa Jalon. The Fulani people comprise the largest nomadic society in the world covering at least six nations in West Africa. Fourteen million Fulani are spread throughout Northwest and Central Africa. The major concentration of Mali's Fulani population is located within a 150 kilometer radius of the city of Mopti. Most urban Fulani tend to be sedentary, commercial people, whereas the rural Fulani tend to be migratory herdsmen.
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