Thanksgiving weekend trip

We took a road trip over Thanksgiving weekend.  Our first stop was Ségou, about 4 hours from Bamakao, where we spent the night at the Espace Bajidala Guesthouse.  Ségou is a nice little town on the Niger.  They host one of Mali's best music festivals every February and we're going to return for that.

Segou Waterfront

Rebecca at a Bogolon cloth workshop.  Ségou is famous for its Bogolon cloth.

 Sunset along the Niger on the outskirts of Ségou.

Our next stop was Djenné where we stayed two nights at a beautiful guesthouse on the river.  To say Djenné is magical is not much of a stretch.  It is an island city in what is called the Niger River's inland delta.  Djenné is famous for its mud architecture and especially its mud mosque.  We had a fun tour of the city with our guide Sory.  We also made time for our driver, Mr Mustafa Traore, to pray at the mosque which he had never seen before.  He seemed to really appreciate this.

 

Walking through Djenné

A women's collective celebrating a completed round of fundraising with dancing.

Our guide Sory explaining to Hans and Rebecca the significance of the ancient tomb to the right.

The mosque pictured from a nearby rooftop.

The next day we got up with the sun in order to make the 3 hour drive to Diafarabé for the annual Traversée Des Animaux.  Our drive through Mali's "inland delta" on dirt roads and paths through the brush was fascinating and beautiful.  We arrived in Diafarabé just in time.  Here's a video of some of what we saw.  This went on for about 2 hours.



The whole town was at this and the celebration afterwards -- the streets were deserted.  Everyone in Diafarabé was very friendly, especially the children.

Rebecca walking with some children and our driver.

 We hit the tree on the right but escaped with just some body damage.

 

Rebecca with Chadal, who owns the inn behind them.  The river is just off to the left side.  Our room was the entire top floor and balcony.

 

The sort of crazy male monkey at the inn.

The much sweeter female monkey at the inn.

 A fairly typical village for the region.  Note the mosque in the middle left.  Also, the two outhouse-sized structures near the foreground are granaries.  All the villages had many of these structures, which are raised about a foot off the ground to keep out rodents.

 We stopped for a couple hours to have our car repaired and this Sotrama came in.  You can see many unhappy sheep on top towards the front and unhappy chickens on the top towards the back.  It is fairly common to see sotramas loaded this high or higher with all sorts of items.

We had to make a roadside stop to change a tire and this friendly group of farmers appeared to watch the excitement.  Communication was difficult since Bambara is their first language and like many Malians, their French was worse then mine.  Also like many Malians they didn't smile for the photo until they looked at themselves on the back of the camera.  Then they grinned from ear to ear.  We gave them a bunch of random food items we had in the car and they seemed to appreciate it.

Tabaski Part Two; The Part Where We Eat

After a fascinating Tabaski morning Rebecca and I began the second half of our day: two Tabaski feasts.  Our first feast was at the home of our friend Modibo, a tailor who works on our property.  Modibo lives in Kabala, about 10km from Bamako's center, with his wife and 6 children.  He calls his neighborhood "la brose" (the brush). Kabala is on this map in the lower left corner:

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To get to Kabala we took a Sotrama for the first time. The image below is actually a piece of art at the Musée national du Mali, but it is a fairly good rendering of what a real sotrama is like.  They are small vans, always green, and almost always packed with people.  When traveling inter-city, it is not uncommon to see them stacked this high with stuff. 

Most sotramas are labeled maximum 18 or 20 passengers, but on the way to Kabala there were over 30 people in ours at one point (though many of them were children).  It was an interesting experience, and for the fare and convenience (about $.60 to go 10km), I'd do it again.  In fact we did do it again coming home from our second party.  (That Sotrama was much smaller, but still had over 20 adults in it at one point.)  No matter how full the Sotrama is, the "conductor" is always calling the destination looking for more passengers.

We arrived in Kabala and made our way to Modibo's house, a one room barren concrete structure -- actually pretty nice by local standards.  Though we were two hours late and the family had already eaten, they treated us as honored guests, reheating mutton on the grill and also serving it in sauce with bread and couscous.  We also enjoyed a delicious tomato salad followed by watermelon and Malian tea (more on tea in a later post).  Below is a pic of Modibo serving us grilled mutton.

Modibo is wearing the traditional attire for Tabaski.  He has on matching pants which you can't see in the photo.

Above Rebecca enjoying a mutton rib.  If you're wondering what this delicious ram looked like the day before, please see Tabaski Part 1.

We were both really moved by Modibo and his family's hospitality.  But since we were running late, we had to make a hasty departure from Modibo's for stop #2: dinner with one of the first people I met when I moved to Mali - Mohamed the furniture maker.

I met Mohamed on the street while walking past his shop.  He introduced me to his good friend, roommate, and "brother", Adama, who became one of my French tutors. Mohamed and Adama invited Rebecca and I to join them, their wives (Fatim and Rokia), and Mohamed's baby daughter for their Tabaski feast.  We enjoyed their company on their rooftop and ate more mutton -- this time in a sauce with french fries and fried plantains.  We stayed until after dark and caught a sotrama home.

Unfortunately our camera was maladjusted and the photos are a bit blurry.

Tabaski was a memorable day and I feel fortunate to have been able to participate so intimately in the festivities.

And for those keeping score, I did mention that we attended three Tabaski parties.  The third party was the Tabaski equivalent of a work Christmas party.  It was held the Friday evening before Tabaski.  All of the faculty and staff and at Rebecca's school was invited to the headmaster's home.  His lawn was set with tables, there was a lively band, a traditional dance performance, and of course plenty of mutton.  A (live) ram was given away to one lucky staff member (all of the staff are local).  He seemed very moved and according to my friends he was quite deserving of the prize.  Every head of family is obligated to provide his family with a ram, and at about 100,000 francs, this is an expense almost equal to a full months salary.

Tabaski Part One (with somewhat graphic photos at the end)

WARNING: There are three photos that some people may find disturbing at the bottom of this post.

In this post I will recount some of the details of our neighborhood's Feast of Tabaski (Eid al-Adha) activities.  In my next post I'll recount the three Tabaski celebrations we were privileged to attend.

Leading up to Tabaski the streets of Bamako were teeming with les moutons (rams/male sheep).  Even the neighborhood's main soccer pitch was converted to a makeshift home for many rams.  As the day approached people began buying rams for their family feasts.  Below is a photo the tailor Modibo, whose shop is on our property, with the ram he purchased and drove home about 10km on his moped.

And here is a picture of Rebecca trying to feed the ram some squash.

Rebecca and I started our day at 8:30am with a walk around our neighborhood of Badalabougou.  We live sort of near the "B" on the map.

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We went out for an early walk because we were told that people would be sacrificing their rams and we wanted to see what that was all about.  As we approached the neighborhood mosque, traffic was stopped and men were lined up and down the nearby main street praying in the traditional Muslim style on mats facing Mecca.  I assume the mosque was full, and you could hear the prayers chanted over the mosque's speakers usually used for the call to prayer.

Soon prayers ended and people were streaming back home dressed in their finest clothes.  It is traditional to buy a new outfit for Tabaski -- especially for the children.  Rebecca and I sat on a door stoop on a main street near the mosque and watched the people walk by, offering many children and some adults the holiday greeting of "Sambay Sambay", which I don't understand.  We had our cameras with us, but both of us feel a bit uncomfortable taking pictures without permission, so we didn't take many, but as you'll see by the end we couldn't resist documenting a little.

By 9:30 or so, we noticed the side-streets were filling with people and hopeful we might see a ram sacrifice we continued our walk.

What we saw was repeated in front of every home.  I'll describe it (somewhat graphically) here and there are a few photos at the bottom of this post.  As you can see above, entire families are standing in front of their homes.  One young man from the family, using a pick or shovel, digs a small pit in the road about the size of a large mixing bowl.  Then 2-4 men, depending on the size of the ram holds the ram to the ground on it's side with its neck positioned above the pit.  One man takes a sharp large knife and quickly slices deeply into the ram's throat, killing it instantly from what I could tell.

We saw this repeated countless times in front of nearly every house.  Walking down the street there was a ram being slaughtered every 25 or 50 feet.  Immediately after the sacrifice the rams are skinned, cleaned, and butchered.  Soon the pleasant smell of fresh lamb on the grill was wafting throughout the neighborhood.

As a meat-eater and an animal lover I have some mixed emotions about what I witnessed.  These animals led relatively good lives -- especially during their final days when they were well-fed.  They were slaughtered by familiar people in a familiar place in a relatively humane manner.  It sucks to see an animal killed, and I'm not sure I could do it myself.  But the fact remains that many animals have been killed by others on my behalf.

One final note: during their outdoor playtime on the day after Tabaski many of Rebecca's kindergarten students did a make-believe animal sacrifice, butchering, and cooking.  Some had certainly witnessed their family's sacrifice.  Though I'm not sure I'd want my five year-old child to witness something like this I cannot find fault in it either.  Butchering animals is a natural part of eating and an important part of their religion.

Below are three pics of the sacrifice and it's aftermath.  As I said earlier, we didn't take many photos. You have been warned!
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Les Griots and Joking Cousins

I'm trying to learn French and to that end I currently have two tutors.  It's coming along, though a bit more slowly than I'd like.  I'm also learning a lot about Malian culture from my tutors.  For example, on her first day one of my tutors, upon being introduced to my guard, started making fun of his last name.  The two of them teased each other about their families for a few moments, laughed, and parted.  Then I introduced her to the tailor who works on our premises and the same thing happened.  This was my first real introduction to the culture of joking amongst Malians.

Joking cousins is a bit hard to grasp, but it goes something like this: There are maybe 20 common family names in Mali.  Each family name is traditionally a noble, slave, or Griot (see below).  These traditional relationships and knowledge of family histories invite teasing amongst certain groups names.  For example the Coulibaly family is known for some reason as eating lots of beans, perhaps because they were traditionally slaves kings and had access to protein rich beans.  Pretty much anyone can tease a Coulibaly for this and everything that goes with it.  Another blogger, "Phil" wrote:

In a sotrama the other day, a man asked me for my name. I told him I had been given the name Boubacar Soumare. I asked for his name. Traore. I unleashed my only line of attack – you eat beans – in Bambara (I bay sho dune – phonetic spelling). Calling someone a bean eater is an actual insult and it is widely used. He denied that he was a bean eater and went on to say a number of incomprehensible things in Bambara about Soumare. The woman next to him started insulting me in French, explaining that that the Soumare’s are stupid, they don’t go to school, they are farmers, and they try to migrate to Spain in boats because they are too dumb to do anything else. Once I fully understood what she was saying, I took my gloves off as well. I told the woman she ate donkey meat and peanuts. She denied this with exaggerated finger wagging and maintained her “Soumare’s are stupid” line of insults. We went back and forth until we were both laughing and then we thanked each other. So weird and funny and awesome.

The Griots are an interesting and vital part of Malian culture.  At the wedding I attended several weeks ago, it was Griot women who led the song, dance and story-telling.  Traditionally Les Griots are a Malian caste alongside Nobles and Slaves.  Les Griots served as advisors, historians, soothsayers, mediators, and of course entertainers for the nobles.  Their status was between nobles and slaves.  Today the castes are not socially restricting as in the past.  But they do play an interesting role in creating the "joking cousins" relationships.  To complicate matters further, not only can one joke with certain family names, but also with certain ethnic sub-groups.

On another note, if you read more of Phil's blog, which I find quite interesting, he got both dysentary and malaria in Mali.  I have yet to know anyone to get either.  I feel like health concerns are very real, but a bit overblown for those with access to mosquito prevention measures, safe food, and quality health care.  I hope my luck continues!

Time to get caught up

The Internet here pretty much sucks.  Oftentimes (in fact I'd say the majority of the time between 8am and 11pm, the Internet is slower than a 56k dial-up connection.  Since I use the Internet heavily for work, I don't really enjoy using it for pleasure.  I've stopped reading much in the way of news, which I used to do all the time, and, as any of my readers can see, I've cut back on my blog posts.  I'm going to try to get back into blogging though.

Today I'm going to throw a couple random thoughts out just to get caught up and after today I'll try to post more diligently.  I do enjoy the writing, and I hope you enjoy the reading.

The important Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha (called Tabaski in Mali) is next week.  The exact date of the holiday was uncertain until a couple weeks ago.  Then it was declared to be November 17 (by whom, I don't know).  Also, in Mali there seems to be a tradition of the government declaring, just days before a holiday, that the holiday will be celebrated for two days instead of one.  So in this case, it is expected that the government will declare Novemeber 18th to also be a holiday.  I don't know who makes this decision, but I like to imagine the president  looking at his date book a few days before the holiday and deciding whether or not he can take the extra day off.

Right now the streets of Bamako are brimming with sheep and goats.  It is my understanding that nearly all of them will be slaughtered and eaten on Tabaski.  There is also lots of gift giving.  For example, we will be giving all of our employees (a gardener, two guards, two French tutors, a pool maintenance man, and a housekeeper) fairly substantial gifts (5,000 - 20,000 CFA depending).  We are invited to two Tabaski parties: one tonight and one on Tabaski.  More on that later.

I want to comment on cleanliness and poverty.  I think back on my expectations in coming to a poor, hot, dry nation and one thing I expected was for people to have, by necessity, poor personal hygiene.  I was wrong.  People take great care with their personal appearance and cleanliness.  As far as I can tell, many families lack running water, but they still seem to stay very clean.  I'm not exactly sure how the adults do it, but it is common to see small children washing themselves in the street in front of their houses.  Women are always seen washing laundry by hand in the street.  People wear very clean clothes -- though it does appear socially acceptable to wear the same outfit 2 to 3 days in a row as long as it still is "clean".
 
About a month ago Rebecca and I visited Senegal for a week.  We had a great time and I'll write more on that later.  But there's one thing I noticed visiting Senegal from Mali  that I would have been blind to coming directly from the Untied States:  Senegal is significantly more prosperous.  Here are some things I noticed:  horses pulling carts instead of donkeys, men who were strong and muscular (read: access to plenty of protein and the free time/energy to work out every day), very limited numbers of open sewers, a beautiful shopping mall, several luxury hotels, less cooking with charcoal and more cooking with gas.  The interesting thing is that it's all relative and would be easy to miss for an outsider.  This is just a guess, but if one were to say that Mali's per capita income is $1000/year, Senegal's is probably $1500.  Both countries are extremely poor, but Senegal is still way ahead.

I've heard some amazing musicians lately

When I told people I was going to Mali, if anyone knew anything about it, it was that the music here is supposed to be great.  But my early musical adventures were a bit of a bust, so I was beginning to think that Mali's music scene was more myth than reality.  But things recently took a turn for the better!

Last Friday night Rebecca's school hosted Bassekou Kouyate & N'Goni Ba for a fundraiser. As you can see from my (low-res cell phone) picture, it was outdoors.  It was a perfect venue and a beautiful night.  Bassekou Kouyate plays only traditional instruments, and they really jammed.

Then Saturday, after the football match.  Rebecca and I jumped in a cab and raced to the French Cultural Center to see Vieux Farka Touré performed in front of a capacity crowd of about 300.  Vieux is a great guitar player and his jams reminded me of classic American guitarists.  Here's a short video of one of their closing songs.



The venue was amazing too -- the photo below was taken from what might be considered the "worst" seat in the house.

Then Monday night we went to a small cocktail party at Rebecca's school and saw some former bandmates of Ali Farka Touré play.  I really enjoyed this intimate show as well.

Malian music is as good as people say and 'm looking forward to hearing more.

...also I'm learning to play drums ("tom tom").  I take a class once a week.  At this rate I should be able to keep a beat within a year or so.

Football

Last Saturday night Rebecca and I went to the 7pm Mali v. Liberia football match at the Stade 26 Mars.

We cabbed it there, and sometimes cab drivers will pick up a second fare on your trip.  That happened to us for the first time so we got an interesting detour.

On arrival we bought tickets from what seemed like a random guy on the street with a booklet full of tickets.  But I think he was an official ticket seller.  Price ranged from $2 - $10.  We splurged on the $10 VIP seats.  Rebecca also bought $2 tickets for four boys standing there.  That turned into a bit of a frenzy, and I'm not sure exactly how it turned out since we hightailed it out of there.  Hopefully none of the tickets were partially ripped since that is how the gate keepers were marking used tickets.

Then we got in the most interesting line I've been in lately.  It snaked about two hundred yards through a dirt lot, some scattered trees and a parking lot.  It reminded me of kindergartners lining up to go to recess in a perfect single file line, with each child tightly pressed against the child in front and the air filled with excitement.  It was very orderly and fun.

After we got in we ended up, by chance, sitting on the "seated" side of the stadium.  While the other side stood and cheered the whole game, people in our section were actually once scolded by security and told to sit.  The stadium had no concessions, but outside where were all of the typical Malian street vendors selling food and drinks -- and not even at inflated prices.

The game was exciting and Mali won 2-1.  As a side note, I saw no other white people there, and there were hardly any women either.

This short video features a clip during the game and the celebration after -- people are running out of the stadium for no apparent reason besides joy.

Walk in the new National Park of Mali and the old Bamako Zoo

Tuesday morning I joined a group for a walk in Bamako's brand new National Park of Mali and the Bamako Zoo. The park is beautiful and highly manicured. The zoo is old, and though the animals appear healthy, I would not call it a happy place. Here are some pics of the Park and the zoo.

A new restaurant in the new park

A Hyena at the zoo

The hyena compound at the zoo

A jackal at the zoo.  It smelled pretty bad here.

A closeup of a leopard.

A wider angle shot of the leopard's cage

A chimpanzee relaxing

A lion relaxing

The zoo had these monkeys on leashes.

The view from the deck of the restaurant at the new park.  Prices at this restaurant were quite high.  About $20/entree.  Given that jobs in Bamako that are considered "good" pay less than $200/month, not many locals will be eating here.



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A wedding in Bamako

Last Sunday we were invited to the wedding of Rebecca's African dance teacher, Shaka.  The celebration was held on the street in their neighborhood underneath a canopy structure.  This seems typical for celebrations in Mali.  We arrived around noon and shared a typical Malian meal of rice with meat and vegetables with the other guests.  The men then left and sat nearby under a tree while the women and children began celebrating in earnest.  About an hour into the celebration Shaka and his bride, pictured below, stopped by to say hello.  It was a fun and interesting afternoon.  We left at about 3:30 and the celebration was still in full swing.  Be sure to check out the video at the bottom of this post

Rock Climbing in Sibi

A week ago Saturday I went rock climbing with some friends in Sibi, about 25 miles from Bamako. It was a fun day. There was about 8 bolted routes with lots of fun problems. The rock is really nice too: solid and grippy. It was my first time climbing in a long time and I look forward to returning. The street photos are in Sibi. Saturday is their market day, and though I didn't get any good pics of the market, you can see lots of people coming and going to the market.


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