The Mali Beat

I survived another two weeks with my host family, and we’ve reached the one-month mark! Hooray! Throughout these past two weeks my language has improved immensely compared to the first two weeks. My host mother now cheers for me when I say more than three sentences in 10 minutes! She even calls the neighbors over when I learn new words- for example we were borrowing our neighbor’s donkey to mow our grass (at least that is what I have concluded…) and he started going crazy! He worked himself into a tizzy and wrapped his rope around the tree so he couldn’t go anywhere. I looked at my host mom and pointed to the donkey and said “Foli Fato” (which isn’t even a sentence just donkey crazy) and she cracked up and called the neighbor over and told her- “Marium said the donkey was crazy she learned a new word!" I also accidentally told her that horses eat bread in America.. whoops! You see, in the wonderful language of Bambara, one word has about 10 meanings! The word for house is “so” and the word for horse is “so.” I thought she asked if I ate bread in my house in America.. I only figured out that wasn’t what she said when she was surprised and asked if donkeys ate bread too..and this is all with my “immensely improved” language skills….its going to be a long 2 years!

One thing I have experienced that is so hard to explain in words is the happiness all Malians have. Everyone always has a smile on their face, and a song in their heart. The beat of Mali never stops..it is like the heart beat of Africa. I wake up to the sound of millet being pounded (at 5 am), followed by the trot of Donkey carts heading to the field, and of course the roosters chime in with the cocka doodle chorus. I fall asleep to the crickets chirping and frog croacking. Malians always have a reason to play music and party, a new baby in village? Lets party! Full moon=Party! Wedding in the Village down the road=Party! My kids drank too much tea and wont go to sleep so I’m going to give them a drum and make them walk around the village=Party! My all time favorite occurred one day walking home from language lesson we hear all this music and singing, as we round the corner as see almost all of the women in the village playing drums and dancing. When we asked why, or what the occasion was the answer we got was “Its Tuesday!” So every Tuesday we party in the in street with the ladies! It is so fun but once again there is no way I can express in words to you how amazingly wonderful and beautiful this is! Everyone wears their best clothes so it’s a sea of bright beautiful colors, all dancing so smoothly and together and right on beat. It is incredible! I try to dance with them but I feel inadequate compared to their gracefulness, and beauty. But that doesn’t stop them from pulling me in the circle to dance with them so once again I can make a fool of myself and they can laugh at the toubob!

One night we decided to cook supper with our language teachers at their house and as we were eating it started pouring down rain! It rained really hard for about two hours and wasn’t showing any sign of letting up so I decided I had better walk back to my hut before it got too dark. I had used my bucket in dinner prep and my teacher told me to put it on my head (I’m pretty sure she just wanted to laugh at me and call be buckethead) So I did and for the first time since I’ve been in Africa NO ONE called my name or laughed at me as I walked down the street because they were all inside and boy oh boy those Malians don’t know what they were missing!! There I was with a bucket on my head, trying to navigate my through the river of a street. I kept losing my shoes in the mud and then I would have to go back and yank them out of the puddle, walk three steps and do it again. I didn’t have one dry inch on me by the time I made it home! (Except for the top of my head! Haha)

I have found out where I am going to be living for the next two years, and I get to go visit next week! I’m headed to the Sikasso Region in the south of Mali. It is about 8k off of the main road so I have to take my bike with me on the visit. I will have my own concession, hut with two rooms, and my own Nyegen! My village is about 1000 people. It has a school grades 1-6. I will be working with my homolouge to help train a school committee, promote education, and possibly start a women’s literacy group. These are all of the requests that my village has of me, however I wont be able to start any project until I have conducted a community assessment in my first three months at site. My homolouge was really excited to meet me and seems to like me even though I haven’t had a real conversation with him yet-I’m saving up all of my Bambara for the 6+ hour bus ride with him on Sunday! Speaking of buses, let me give you the low down on Mali public transportation….you know those old conversion vans that no one in the states really want any more and probably have run up an enormous amount of miles…they get sent to Mali. They get painted green, and all of seats are taken out and sometimes even the windows are removed. Malians pay to cram as many people as possible inside and as much stuff as possible tied to the top. They drive down the road with no speed limit, not stopping for anything but possible passengers, not bikers, not motos, not cows, goats, sheep, not even other cars. So my ride to my village with my homologue, my big back pack, water filter and bike should be a great experience to add to my collection!
I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!