Well, homestay is finally over and training is coming to an end. Crazy to think I’ve been in Africa two months already. Crazier to think I have two years yet ahead of me. I can’t even begin to imagine the things I’ll see and learn. This morning I saw an old man in a violet booboo on a pink scooter with racing stripes and an old football helmet. I got up late my last full day of homestay and went out running. I was running straight into this big orange circle hanging in the sky that I couldn’t figure out what it was. It looked like the cover of my copy of Tai Pan. It couldn’t be the moon because that’s the side the sun comes up on and the bright side would be the wrong side, and Ramadan is only 5 days old, anyway. (I’ll get back to Ramadan) But it couldn’t be the sun, either, because I was staring right at it with no sunglasses and no problem, and it was such a calm orange, and so clearly delineated. Well, it turned out it was the sun, after all. But then I had to think about what the heck was going on with the atmosphere that made it look like that. I don’t know if it looks like that every day because I am usually turned around and headed back the other direction (into the breeze) by the time the sun breaks the horizon, but I kind of don’t think so. Then I thought, maybe the world was just preparing for being sucked into a black hole on Wednesday when CERN turns on the LHC. We do get the BBC here, you know. And I tune in religiously to Science Weekly. Because I’m that kind of girl. Aaah, the mysteries of the African sun.
But speaking of religion, Ramadan started either Monday or Tuesday. There is some confusion about that. For me, at least. So I come from a pretty religious host family, but I’m confused about that, too. My host father prays more than any of the other men in my concession (all five times, every day) but he never goes to the mosque. And he leads family prayer. I don’t know if that means he’s in “Imam himself or just knows how to do it. He did spend six years in Cote d’Ivoire, so maybe he learned a different tradition of Islam there. All the other men and two of the boys go to the mosque. All the ladies, the rest of the children, some of the neighbor ladies, and me all pray at home with the chickens and the cows. That right, I participate in Ramadan prayers. I think its okay, because they are really happy when I do and I’m pretty good at patterns, so I don’t embarrass Ameriki too much. It’s pretty easy. You put your hand by your head, you bend on over, you stand back up, you put your forehead on to the ground, you sit back, you put your forehead to the ground again, you stand up without putting your hands up, and you repeat. And you repeat, and repeat, and repeat. It goes on for a really long time. And you don’t get to eat until afterwards. I’m not really sure what we’re praying for, but I just suppose that we’re praying for peace. So, a couple observations: 1. You have to tie your headscarf (musoro) on super tight or it’ll just fall right off, and that’s really a hassle when you are trying to be inconspicuous. 2. Children at prayer in Mali are just like children at church in America. There’s a lot of whispering and giggling and pushing and shoving. We had a puker one night. That might be more of a Malian specialty. 3. Mine are the only knees that crack every single time we get down loudly enough that the other ladies all look at me funny. Which leads me right to 4. I don’t know how to tie my headscarf correctly, because I can’t look either direction without moving my entire torso. Maybe they like it that way. 5. Malian women seem to have super long legs and super short torsos, or maybe I just have super short legs and a super long torso, because when we all sit back on our feet I stick up a good six inches taller than all the rest, but we’re about even, standing. 6. It gets really freaking hot inside a musoro by the time you are done with all the praying.
Ramadan. Megan, this one’s for you. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. I believe the others are making the Haj, praying five times a day, giving alms to the poor – hmm... that makes four. I’ll get back to you on the last. Ramadan is also called (here at least) the month of fasting. It is WHEN it is because that was when the Koran was revealed to the prophet. But it doesn’t commemorate anything like the way we are used to in a more Judeo-Christian tradition. The purpose is more to remind one both that other people don’t have the food they need all the time, and that we are all people and we are alive by Allah’s will alone and that our needs and what we have to fulfill those needs are gifts from Allah. That’s how I understand it, anyway.
You know how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (say, roommate in first semester abnormal psychology, for example)? Well, a little language can be, too. I was having a (stilted and cursory) discussion with my host father about the upcoming American election, and I told him that in a few months, George Bush is going to die. Obviously I meant to say that in a few months his presidency would come to an end, but the look of horror that came over my host father’s face told me I had failed at that. But it did make me feel good about political stability in Mali, I had to ask my LCF to step in and fix that mess. But here’s something nice: it turns out that after I said George Bush would die I explained what I really meant well enough that he understood what I was trying to say. So here’s Dauda’s take on the election: Barack is very handsome, but we should vote for McCain because he’s older. There you have it – straight from the Malian village.
Have I mentioned material yet? Malian fabric is wild. Today, one of my host moms is wearing that thing at the fair that you hit with a mallet and the ball goes up and dings the bell on a lime green background. Sometimes you have toothpaste tubes or keys. Of course, there’s lots of the Virgin Mary in Kita, because she made an appearance there once. (I don’t think that’s the right expression – “made an appearance” makes me feel like I’m talking about Cher) My friend Therese has a complet of an advertisement for Senegal Air. It says: Twenty years ain’t nothing. In French. Anyway, last week we went to the national museum which had an exhibit on the textiles of Mali, which my mother might have found interesting, but I liked the archaeology part. And then we ate ice cream. That was the part I really, really liked. I had caramel and vanilla. In a waffle cone. For 1000 fcfa. I think, maybe, when I’m done with the Peace Corps, I’m only going to live places where they have ice cream.
So there are a lot of things about Mali already that are very frustrating and I’m learning how to deal with them. Audrey and I were talking about her host family and she said “They never hit the children.” Which is great, but its sad for me that that is said as something that sets her family apart from the others, like, say, mine. My menfolk don’t hit the children; they leave the smacking to the women. And the other children. Children are vicious. And Malians love medicine. Love, love, love it. But they don’t seem to be very good at moderation, nor at giving it only to whom it was prescribed to. I’m giggling right now thinking about what my host family would do to a bottle of Flintstones vitamins. Heck I think if PC started giving out Flintstones vitamins they’d have a much healthier volunteer staff. At least one day a month. PS Dad: I take my vitamins every day. Except last Sunday when I forgot.
Maybe only my Mom and maybe Ryan will appreciate this, but I saw a girl the other day in a Bibi Blocksberg t-shirt and I almost stole it right off her body. But I didn’t. For a lot of reasons.
I think often in the US about how hard it would be just to get through each day without the ability to read. I think about it a lot here, too. Of course, in Mali, it would be a completely different kind of hard. Everything is a different kind of hard here. It seems to me that basic functioning in America would require reading. Mali, in part because of its appallingly high percentage of functionally illiterate adults and partly with that as the result, is structured in such a way that a large chunk of the population can get through the day with no need to read. But then that raises, for me, at least, a whole host of other question. Now, don’t get me wrong, Malians spend a lot of their time working, but they also spend a lot of their time not working. How do they fill their time? How do they occupy their minds? I have to remember that I’m coming at this question as the daughter of a librarian, and an avid reader myself, but I still, after two months, can’t come up with an answer. I hope to learn
