I don't know how it happened! Everything has been very exciting and busy since I last updated and I'm sorry to say I havent been keeping up with my blog at Yeredon so I dont have a big update to attach right now, but it absolutely will happen, just probably in the week after I get home.
Kambé! (see you later!)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Day Twelve: Wednesday, August 20, 2009
Had class in the morning – I could feel that I had the day off yesterday…ugh – and then went to a djinadon, which was one of the absolute most bizarre experiences I’ve ever had in my life. Long story short, it’s like a trance ritual/ceremony for women and we were there for about four straight hours. Don’t have time to write about it now, huge catch up entry coming eventually!
Day Eleven: Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Recovery day from camping. It was the best and worst of times. Details later.
p.s. did my laundry today, miraculously didn’t lose any to the crazy wind in an afternoon mini-hurricane...I'm not kidding about the risk, Marlaina's sheets are now in a tree.
p.s. did my laundry today, miraculously didn’t lose any to the crazy wind in an afternoon mini-hurricane...I'm not kidding about the risk, Marlaina's sheets are now in a tree.
Day Ten: Monday, August 17, 2009
Omg we’re going camping in the bush for a festival tonight. The village is called Djinny Djen in the Balidougou region. Details later.
Day Nine: Sunday, August 16, 2009
Today was excellent! A very small group of us got up at about 5am to go to the baptism of a new Coulibaly baby that turned one week old today. To go with the theme of nothing quite going as planned lately, we showed up at the mosque to find no baby and no Coulibalys, but a few men who were clearly not so thrilled to have us barge in on their early morning prayer session. After an awkward few minutes, we left and walked over the Coulibaly house. It was worth getting up just for the walk…I’ve never seen anything as cool as the combination sun rising and thunderstorm starting. The family was all up and busy, particularly with sacrificing a goat, which happened right as we got there. Not the most fun thing in the world to see but supposedly they kill it in the least painful way possible. Also, the environmental pro of the day was observing them butcher it…absolutely every part of the animal is used; nothing was wasted. The best part of the animal, the liver, heart, and other organs, was cooked up in oil and offered to us first, as the guests, which was some pretty intense generosity, since there were elders of the family at the house. Fresh goat liver on French bread = breakfast of champions. Seriously, it’s delicious. I got to hold the baby (although I had visited her already, the day after she was born.) We were all really wanting to go back to sleep, so once the rain let up a bit we walked back home.
I slept until about noon, and then got up to go to the “Broadway Café,” an American diner in Bamako?! Best milkshake and pancakes I’ve ever had, ever.
We came back to get changed and grab some gifts to bring to the balané, which is basically a dance party, in honor of the baptism. There are traditional ones, like this one, with the usual instruments and singing, and more modern ones, with djs. It was really fun and a lot of people who now I recognize were there.
Environmental con of the day was seeing a man shoveling a pile of garbage into the river as we walked home, but beside that and a few other of the daily, emotionally-exhausting frustrations of being in a developing country, it was an awesome day!
I slept until about noon, and then got up to go to the “Broadway Café,” an American diner in Bamako?! Best milkshake and pancakes I’ve ever had, ever.
We came back to get changed and grab some gifts to bring to the balané, which is basically a dance party, in honor of the baptism. There are traditional ones, like this one, with the usual instruments and singing, and more modern ones, with djs. It was really fun and a lot of people who now I recognize were there.
Environmental con of the day was seeing a man shoveling a pile of garbage into the river as we walked home, but beside that and a few other of the daily, emotionally-exhausting frustrations of being in a developing country, it was an awesome day!
Day Eight: Saturday, August 15, 2009
Today the volleyball event actually happened…it’s exhausting to be so popular! Ha ha…I was pretty proud of myself though, I kept my group and my games basically under control, which is saying a lot. There are so many kids, playing with them can go from fun chaos to crazy chaos very fast.
I think I made a bad choice of reading material for this trip…in the JFK airport I bought Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which I’d been meaning to read for a while. There’s a lot of random, open time here, and mostly during the middle of the day it’s really just too hot to do too much of anything, so I’ve been getting really into it. While maybe some people would lose their appetite while reading it, since he exposes some nasty facts about the restaurant industry, the more I read it here, the more I crave every kind of food that is extremely far away from me. It’s not a good thing that only one week into this adventure I’m tired of the food. There is a French-style grocery store if I get desperate, which I already have once for cheese…dairy is nowhere to be found in local cuisine and, while that might be for the better, I miss it a lot.
We went to a hunter ceremony tonight that had been talked up all week…Michelle said she had been to some where people levitate, cut their tongues off and then heal themselves…lots of crazy stuff. This one turned out to be overrated to say the least. We sat (in chairs that other people got kicked out of to make room for us…guilt trip #234985 of the week) for two hours and watched people (in cool costumes, which counts for something of course) march in a circle playing the same song over and over, chanting in a language we don’t understand, and occasionally firing off their guns. Aspects of it were of course interesting, but adding in the bugs, heat, crowd, repetition, and overly high expectations…I was more than ready to go after two hours!
I think I made a bad choice of reading material for this trip…in the JFK airport I bought Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which I’d been meaning to read for a while. There’s a lot of random, open time here, and mostly during the middle of the day it’s really just too hot to do too much of anything, so I’ve been getting really into it. While maybe some people would lose their appetite while reading it, since he exposes some nasty facts about the restaurant industry, the more I read it here, the more I crave every kind of food that is extremely far away from me. It’s not a good thing that only one week into this adventure I’m tired of the food. There is a French-style grocery store if I get desperate, which I already have once for cheese…dairy is nowhere to be found in local cuisine and, while that might be for the better, I miss it a lot.
We went to a hunter ceremony tonight that had been talked up all week…Michelle said she had been to some where people levitate, cut their tongues off and then heal themselves…lots of crazy stuff. This one turned out to be overrated to say the least. We sat (in chairs that other people got kicked out of to make room for us…guilt trip #234985 of the week) for two hours and watched people (in cool costumes, which counts for something of course) march in a circle playing the same song over and over, chanting in a language we don’t understand, and occasionally firing off their guns. Aspects of it were of course interesting, but adding in the bugs, heat, crowd, repetition, and overly high expectations…I was more than ready to go after two hours!
Day Seven: Friday, August 14, 2009
Started feeling better today, at least from the soreness perspective. We add a new step in class from each teacher every day, so the fact that I can make it through, and now can actually walk after class is over must mean something is improving!
The afternoon turned out to be kind of a bust…the weather was threatening so none of the kids came out to meet us for volleyball. I bought some phone credit; the whole communication situation has turned out to be way more frustrating than I expected. So 1000 CFA ($2 American) buys a credit worth exactly 5 minutes and 17 seconds. Since anyone who knows me knows that I talk longer than that in any given conversation, never mind one filled with all the ridiculousness that happens here, so I was out looking for one for 5000 CFA; 20ish minutes seemed like a more solid amount of time to work with. However, the little closet-sized shop across the street could only offer me five 1000 CFA credits. Annoying, but I guess it’s all the same and it’s been really nice to be able to call home at all…
At night a group of us headed out in a baché to see Nahawa Dounia’s concert. I was super excited because I’d studied her in my Popular African Music class. We got about halfway there, which was at least half an hour of driving, when someone called to say it had been cancelled for no apparent reason and replaced by a griot show, so we kept going anyway. The show was pretty amazing; it was in a huge auditorium filled with incredibly dressed Malians. (It’s been a while since I’ve been so obviously and so thoroughly eyed over by so many other adults.) The show was pretty amazing. Jeliws, (who I also studied this spring) who are female griots, sang praise songs of different significant families, representatives of whom came on stage and handed her toooons of money and expensive, beautiful fabric. The show was being filmed for tv, and at one point I looked up and there was an Africable cameraman in my face, panning across the group of toubabu. We could hear the rain start pouring down outside and I freaked out, realizing that the windows were open in our room. Fortunately, miraculously, everything managed to stay dry this time!
The afternoon turned out to be kind of a bust…the weather was threatening so none of the kids came out to meet us for volleyball. I bought some phone credit; the whole communication situation has turned out to be way more frustrating than I expected. So 1000 CFA ($2 American) buys a credit worth exactly 5 minutes and 17 seconds. Since anyone who knows me knows that I talk longer than that in any given conversation, never mind one filled with all the ridiculousness that happens here, so I was out looking for one for 5000 CFA; 20ish minutes seemed like a more solid amount of time to work with. However, the little closet-sized shop across the street could only offer me five 1000 CFA credits. Annoying, but I guess it’s all the same and it’s been really nice to be able to call home at all…
At night a group of us headed out in a baché to see Nahawa Dounia’s concert. I was super excited because I’d studied her in my Popular African Music class. We got about halfway there, which was at least half an hour of driving, when someone called to say it had been cancelled for no apparent reason and replaced by a griot show, so we kept going anyway. The show was pretty amazing; it was in a huge auditorium filled with incredibly dressed Malians. (It’s been a while since I’ve been so obviously and so thoroughly eyed over by so many other adults.) The show was pretty amazing. Jeliws, (who I also studied this spring) who are female griots, sang praise songs of different significant families, representatives of whom came on stage and handed her toooons of money and expensive, beautiful fabric. The show was being filmed for tv, and at one point I looked up and there was an Africable cameraman in my face, panning across the group of toubabu. We could hear the rain start pouring down outside and I freaked out, realizing that the windows were open in our room. Fortunately, miraculously, everything managed to stay dry this time!
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