Hello all! I am not quite sure what is happened (as usual) but I am in this really nice house in some neighborhood in Bamako and will be here until tomorrow, because someone is getting married. There are three young women who are nuts, in a great way. They are trying to convince me to either get Res to move here, or ditch him and marry some dude named Drissa. Marriage proposals are common, but this is the best so far.
Since last writing, we have moved into our homestays. I live in Magnambougou Faso Kanu, close to chez toubabu where we all stayed. I share a room with two university students, Mama and Asi, and there are tons of little kids. My jatigi (mentor)'s name is Bebe and she is wonderful and grandma-ish. Everyone is so nice, and the food is delicious. Those of you who asked, the food here is lots of rice and meat and sauce. Rice or couscous is served with sauce, either tomato, tiga dege (peanut butter), or leaf sauce. Meat is served in the sauce, along with some veggies. Bread is also eaten a lot. Lately, I have been getting really oily spaghetti with meat and onions, which from talking with the other tubabus I gather is the norm. Mutton and goat are the most eaten meats, I believe, because they are the animals I see the most. All the animals are free-range to the extreme, we've seen cows grazing in dumps before. Today I saw a donkey eating out of a tire. The food is delicious, and soon I'm going to start drinking tap water. There is a bathroom (with a toilet!! tres chic, n'est pas?) connected to my room, so if things don't go well I won't have to spend hours over a pit toilet. I really love the street food I've had, particularly muffins. Also, bisap juice (very sweet fruity juice) and gengen (sweet ginger drink) out of plastic bags are delicious.
Bogolan is going well, I am learning lots of idiograms, most of which are not used very much, and I have plans to bogolan a whole outfit for my final projet. I am in the process of dying some fabric with fixitive, so next will be painting, then painting again. Bogolan is a very time consuming art, but I love it. It's very tricky to work in negative space, but I will work hard to master this skill.
It is exhausting being unable to communicate properly, but I think my frambra (french-bambara melange) skills are improving, if not my french and my bamanakan separately. Living with a family is wonderful, though sometimes I miss having personal space. Next week, the toubabus leave on a 2 week trip through the country, and I am very excited!
Some pleasures of Mali that I have found:
1. Riding on the back of a moto through the crowded streets, feeling the wind beneath my toes
2. le fleuve Niger,in all its swollen majesty (it's rained way more than usual this year)
3. Delighting people with my limited Bamanakan
4. bats (they are huge and plentiful and for some reason I love them)
5. learning bogolan
6. muffins and bisap
7. scarification- this is something i have been thinking about a lot lately, one of the guys on the trip is thinking about getting some. The scarification practices here are incredibly attractive to me, and fascinating.
A bana ni kambe kofe (done and see you later)
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Hi Laura,
Drissa--interesting. Tell us more about him. Maybe Susan and I should contact his family and see if we can arrange something. Do they have the custom of paying a "bride price" (reverse dowry) in Mali?
Seriously, sounds as if you are doing very well and getting a wonderful exposure to a very different culture. I am glad this trip is working out so well.
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