5.06.2011

Mango Madness and the Sweet Taste of Victory

Right now Mali is in the middle of hot season- also known as prime MANGO season!!! Recently I have been seeing women in my village carrying around big sticks, like 25 feet long! I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I was sitting with my friends, listening to the gossip while they braided each other’s hair, when all of a sudden we see old ladies run by the door carrying buckets, and their big sticks. My friend pops her head out the door and hollers to find out what is going on. I didn’t hear or even have time to process the answer before I was being grabbed, and drug out of the hut. I was handed a bucket and all my friend said was, “Come on! Hurry the mangos are ready!” Thinking she was crazy, I’ve been eating mangos for weeks, I obeyed and quickened my pace to keep up. We run out into the middle of a field where four mango trees stand side by side and are surround my fellow villagers. What happened next I like to describe as Mango Madness. I never saw anything like it. The trees were absolutely full of fresh, ripe- and by ripe I mean ready to eat and have juice run to your elbows ripe, mangos! As we got closer I realized that the trees were also full of children! The mango madness has taken over and children have lost all fear and suddenly have no problem climbing up a 50 foot mango tree to shake, and jump on branches, making the mangos fall down to friends with open arms and waiting buckets. The women also were over taken by the madness, they were hitting down mangos with their big sticks and actually fighting over whose mangos were on the ground! Older kids, who weren’t in the trees, were sent home with full buckets and returned for more mangos. For a while I just stood in amazement. I never saw anyone so excited over mangos.
When my friend realizes I’m just standing there, she yells for me to start filling her bucket. When I think the bucket is full, and tell her I’ll take it back and bring another, she walks over, clicks her tongue, shakes her head and says, “That bucket is NOT full!” After hours of collecting, and eating, eating, and collecting, we finally head back to my friends house, all of us with a bucket balancing on our heads. Well, I was holding mine in place, to the amazement of many villagers. So many tried to stop and talk to me, but I hurried along saying that I was only ½ of a Malian Muso because I can’t walk, talk, AND balance a bucket of mangos on my head. We enter her concession to find a cooking hut absolutely overflowing with piles and piles of mangos! She insists on my taking two big bowls home just for me to enjoy. After washing the sticky remnants of mango madness from my skin I head to the butiki for some rounds of tea. As I pour the tea from glass, to tea pot, and back I look around and take notice how the “mango madness” has now turned into “mango fullness” and watch as the old men sit with full bellies picking mango out of their teeth.

This week along with the sweet taste of mangos, I got to experience the sweet taste of victory. I went to visit the Dugutiki, to give him a gift from Italy, and let him know that I was back in village. To my surprise we was so happy to see me! Not because he missed me, but while I was gone my village played in a soccer tournament against surrounding villages, and tonight was the championship game! He was so glad that “The American Muso” was back in village to make an appearance at the game. He even for arranged for me to ride in his friend’s car so I did not have to ride my bike. Watching the soccer game was quite interesting. Having not played soccer myself, I really don’t know all the rules of game, and with no official uniforms, I had a little trouble remembering who was on our team and who was on the other. No one seemed to notice my lack of knowledge; they were too busy talking about me being there, and speaking Bambara with them. I’m not even sure whom, but someone made the announcement that since it was getting dark we needed to end the game soon. In the end the whistle blew, just as our village kicked the ball just out of the goalie’s reach scoring the winning goal of the game!

I have been in Mali long enough to be apart of lots of celebrations, babies being born, weddings, the 50th Anniversary of Independence, New Years, International Women’s day, to name a few, but NONE of those even compare to celebration that took place after wining the championship soccer game. The crowd went crazy and rushed the field to congratulate our players. I was quickly rushed to the car, being among the first to leave the scene. Wondering why we left so early, thinking the Dugutiki would want to celebrate, only to learn that we had to leave to tell all of the villages we pass through that we were the winners! We made it back to Sakoro with the sun setting behind us, only to be greeted by the ENTIRE village cheering for our victory! I was blown away by the noise, shouts, screams, music, drums, racing motos, revving engines, honking horns, someone even had an old rusty trumpet! I ran to my friend’s concession to tell her come celebrate, only to pass concession after concession of nothing but emptiness, -fires left to burn out, untouched bowls of toe and sauce. As I headed back to join the crowd I could see old ladies running in, late, from the fields with bundles of fire wood stacked on their heads, dancing and cheering their way into the crowd as if they were called by the beat of drums. As I got closer I could feel the heat radiating off of the hot bodies before me. I stood back and enjoyed the moment. Here I am, amongst a village of people who used to be strangers, and now all I see are friends, friends who are so full of pride-so proud of their village for winning a soccer game. The excitement is so strong, I can almost taste it!
Everyone was so full of prideful excitement the only thing they could do to express it was scream, shout, and dance. And boy did they dance! After dancing in one spot for a few hours they then paraded all around the village, they danced long into the night with the stars twinkling, and the a sliver of the moon smiling down on them. The next day I was surprised they weren’t all still dancing! I did greet a few people who had no voice from all the cheering. I’m pretty sure everyone in my village would agree when I say that the only thing sweeter than fresh, ripe mangos is the sweet taste of victory.