Happy Thanksgiving
Hello again!!! I’ve had a really good last couple of weeks, and everything is going well. Of course there’s been frustrating moments, but the good has been outweighing the bad. Most notably, the seemingly impossible has happened… I have been cold in Mali! Most nights over the past week or so I’ve been wearing my sweatshirt. I actually woke up in the early morning wishing I had covered myself with more than just my usual thin bed sheet. Mind you, I’m definitely not complaining. I savor every second of the coolness as I think about the glaring mid-day sun and tuck away into my memory the moments one might consider too cold- I’ll do my best to remember them at the peak of the hot season in April. I’ve given up on trying to know the exact temperature since my first night back at homestay- when I realized it didn’t matter what the thermometer said if my mattress and pillow were soaked with sweat by midnight- but I don’t think it’s gotten any colder than 60F. Of course everyone else in Madoubougou is wearing the thickest coat they own after the sun goes down. My favorite thing to tell them when talking about the cold is that it’s probably cold enough to make water into ice right now in ND (that’s the best way I’ve found to explain it). They usually get a kick out of that.
Besides the weather, my conversations in Madoubougou lately have ranged from simple statements about what I’m doing at that very moment- “You’re washing clothes!” “Yes, I’m washing clothes!” -to differences between Mali and America- “Do they farm corn in America?” -to discussions of religion and explanations of cultural practices. The topic and pace of the conversation generally depends on the number of people involved, the amount that I have spoken with those people before, who they are, and how much my brain feels like working at the moment. I can generally have better conversations with fewer people because it means less people at once trying to explain the sentence I don’t understand. Everybody thinks that they’ll be the one I understand, even though most people don’t say it any slower or clearer. It usually gets easier the more I speak with someone, but some people just naturally speak more clearly (as with any language). Fusseini is especially easy to understand and he understands me better than anyone else, both because he’s the most educated person in Madoubougou and because he worked with the previous volunteer so much. Whether or not my brain wants to cooperate is kind of a crapshoot. Just when I think I’ve become fluent, it takes me 5 minutes to understand somebody saying something as simple as “Sit down and have a little tea before you go.”
Tea here is a big deal. It is… well, it’s tough to explain. It’s like the equivalent to both coffee and beer, depending on the situation. But it’s not your average tea, unlike anything I’ve seen before. I’ve heard it called “gunpowder tea” in English. It’s strong enough that it’s served by the shot and always comes with plenty of sugar. Making it is an art involving 2 small teapots (one for boiling the tea, one for mixing in the sugar), an equivalently small charcoal grill, lots of pouring between the appropriate teapot and 2 shot glasses, and lots of time. People drink it all day and into the night- anytime’s a good time for tea, and tea is always a good excuse to sit around and BS. It is at least part of, if not the main reason for, any social gathering. So I’ve had a lot of tea…
Other than sitting around, drinking tea, and having broken conversations in Bambara, there was one big event in Madoubougou last week. On Tuesday there was a huge funeral for the Imam that passed away 40 days before. He’d been really sick- I think Fusseini said it was something with his heart. They had a service the day of his death, 4 days after, 7 days after, and then finally 40 days after he’d passed away. Anyways, this last service was a really big deal, with people coming from all over- villages all over the region of Sikasso, plus Bamako, Cote d’Ivoire, and Burkina-Faso. My little village of 350 probably doubled in size for 2 days, everyone staying with family or sleeping on plastic mats with blankets outside in the Imam’s compound. After the service there was a huge feast, but by the next day everybody had left and Madoubougou was as quiet as ever.
Finally, I was able to upload some pictures!!! They’re all from down here in the Sikasso region over the last couple of months except for the 3 from swear-in, which was held in Bamako September 29th. Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to say that if anyone has any questions about anything at all, go ahead and post a comment or send me an email. I’ll do my best to answer either in a post (if it’s a request for a better description of something) or by email. Anyways, enjoy the pictures…
The Sikasso region country side, looking from the highway I take out of Sikasso to get to the turnoff for Madoubougou (the Cote d'Iviore road) in the general direction of Madoubougou.
A millet field on the southern edge of Madoubougou with some mango trees in the background. You might also see the rooves of some houses if you look closely.
A sunset I enjoyed from my front door, looking towards a neighbor's compound.
A corn field (about to be harvested) with a mango tree to the right and a papaya tree at center, looking from my compound towards Fusseini's compound.
The Sikasso area volunteers of the "Belushi" stage at swear-in(each training group is called a stage, and each stage is named by the previous. We earned our name for being huge and apparently knowing how to have a good time).
Mike (left) me and Peter LaFrancois (right) at swear-in.
The Sinsinakaw (people of Sinsina) at swear-in.
My House! The big tree in the background to the right of the house is a baobob. The roof peeking over the wall on the right is called a gwa. It's just there to create some shade.
Besides the weather, my conversations in Madoubougou lately have ranged from simple statements about what I’m doing at that very moment- “You’re washing clothes!” “Yes, I’m washing clothes!” -to differences between Mali and America- “Do they farm corn in America?” -to discussions of religion and explanations of cultural practices. The topic and pace of the conversation generally depends on the number of people involved, the amount that I have spoken with those people before, who they are, and how much my brain feels like working at the moment. I can generally have better conversations with fewer people because it means less people at once trying to explain the sentence I don’t understand. Everybody thinks that they’ll be the one I understand, even though most people don’t say it any slower or clearer. It usually gets easier the more I speak with someone, but some people just naturally speak more clearly (as with any language). Fusseini is especially easy to understand and he understands me better than anyone else, both because he’s the most educated person in Madoubougou and because he worked with the previous volunteer so much. Whether or not my brain wants to cooperate is kind of a crapshoot. Just when I think I’ve become fluent, it takes me 5 minutes to understand somebody saying something as simple as “Sit down and have a little tea before you go.”
Tea here is a big deal. It is… well, it’s tough to explain. It’s like the equivalent to both coffee and beer, depending on the situation. But it’s not your average tea, unlike anything I’ve seen before. I’ve heard it called “gunpowder tea” in English. It’s strong enough that it’s served by the shot and always comes with plenty of sugar. Making it is an art involving 2 small teapots (one for boiling the tea, one for mixing in the sugar), an equivalently small charcoal grill, lots of pouring between the appropriate teapot and 2 shot glasses, and lots of time. People drink it all day and into the night- anytime’s a good time for tea, and tea is always a good excuse to sit around and BS. It is at least part of, if not the main reason for, any social gathering. So I’ve had a lot of tea…
Other than sitting around, drinking tea, and having broken conversations in Bambara, there was one big event in Madoubougou last week. On Tuesday there was a huge funeral for the Imam that passed away 40 days before. He’d been really sick- I think Fusseini said it was something with his heart. They had a service the day of his death, 4 days after, 7 days after, and then finally 40 days after he’d passed away. Anyways, this last service was a really big deal, with people coming from all over- villages all over the region of Sikasso, plus Bamako, Cote d’Ivoire, and Burkina-Faso. My little village of 350 probably doubled in size for 2 days, everyone staying with family or sleeping on plastic mats with blankets outside in the Imam’s compound. After the service there was a huge feast, but by the next day everybody had left and Madoubougou was as quiet as ever.
Finally, I was able to upload some pictures!!! They’re all from down here in the Sikasso region over the last couple of months except for the 3 from swear-in, which was held in Bamako September 29th. Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to say that if anyone has any questions about anything at all, go ahead and post a comment or send me an email. I’ll do my best to answer either in a post (if it’s a request for a better description of something) or by email. Anyways, enjoy the pictures…
The Sikasso region country side, looking from the highway I take out of Sikasso to get to the turnoff for Madoubougou (the Cote d'Iviore road) in the general direction of Madoubougou.
A millet field on the southern edge of Madoubougou with some mango trees in the background. You might also see the rooves of some houses if you look closely.
A sunset I enjoyed from my front door, looking towards a neighbor's compound.
A corn field (about to be harvested) with a mango tree to the right and a papaya tree at center, looking from my compound towards Fusseini's compound.
The Sikasso area volunteers of the "Belushi" stage at swear-in(each training group is called a stage, and each stage is named by the previous. We earned our name for being huge and apparently knowing how to have a good time).
Mike (left) me and Peter LaFrancois (right) at swear-in.
The Sinsinakaw (people of Sinsina) at swear-in.
My House! The big tree in the background to the right of the house is a baobob. The roof peeking over the wall on the right is called a gwa. It's just there to create some shade.
posted by Rob McCann at 1:35 PM
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We made our Halloween the best we could... Jacq, a fellow PCV made this and I thought it was amazing :) 