So we've been here at the training center for two weeks for our in-service training, and gnawing our hands off. The excitement of being with 60 Americans all day for two weeks quickly wore off as we realized with horror that there was no nap time! Barely even time for even tea between our packed schedule of technical lectures and language classes, field trips and administrative sessions designed to remind us that we are, in the end, owned by the government. But at nights we pitch a fire, and hopefully someone pulls out a guitar and harmonica as we sing soulful recreations of Beyonce and Outkast to the drum of an upside down bucket. Or maybe we spark up the hookah and toast some pumpernickel bread using a rake (we all could sure use the fiber), enjoying the comraderie of people who are just slightly crazy enough to live in a mud hut for two years in West Africa.
Luckily I've gotten out of the walls of the Training Center into Bamako a few times, where we dance feeling uncomfortably modest next to the blue eyeshadowed Malian prostitutes. Finally we head home to the sound of the 5am call to prayer, waking up at 9am to grab ice cream before heading back to sessions.
Even though I never felt the urge to see him in the US, a bunch of us decided to go to the Sean Paul concert, a fundraiser for Malaria prevention. It turns out Sean Paul is as bad in Mali as he is in the States. As he finally stepped on stage about 4hours after his promised arrival, the Gendarmes started to grow anxious looking at the rowdy crowd, and started to push us all. We moved like cattle, and in the rush I lost one of my shoes. Thankfully I found another on the ground, albeit an inch lower, and we hobbled our way to the exit right as a chair was thrown. A wise exit, and a warning never again to go to a big concert here.
And so as IST comes to an end, off I go to hike through Dogon country among the villages carved into the mountains.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
A moveable feast
While short, this week at site was chockfull of excitement. I came at the start of Seliba (Tabaski), a Muslim holiday celebrating Abrahams sacrifice of a ram instead of his son Ishmael (yes, the Koran places Ishmael, not Issac, in the knife's path - an interesting deviation from the Torah). In the days right before seliba, herds of goats and sheeps seemed to appear out of thin air: blocking the streets of the teeming markets, nipping at my feet on the bus ride to village, trying their best to get into my yard by gnawing my wood gate. As I walked into my host family's concession, the slaughter was already beginning. On a tarp over the sand I watched as the goat was killed, skinned and cut into intricate shapes, taking it apart with surgical precision. I'll spare you the details. Over the next two days I ate a myriad of interesting, seemingly inpalatable body parts. Out came entrails flavored with Maggi, tounge, pancreas and lung (?) amid peanut sauce and potatos, a very gluey hoof, and a majestic bowl full of grilled goat's head. The last was (alarmingly) delicious. Grotesque, yes. But there is some beauty to this idea of sacrifice, a long forgotten acknowledgement of our need to kill these beasts for our own life. Until now I never quite grasped the disconnect that is present in cultures where access to proteins and micronutrients is a daily given. When most of the villagers can afford meat only every other week, if that, each part of that animal becomes an opportunity for their children to grow strong (cue the Lion King's Circle of Life). Yes, here even the gluey hoof is useful and worthy of attention, and damn good protein. Killing with love.
The rest of my time was spent in the usual way. Mornings at the health center weighing babies, painting murals, or just chatting with the patients, health workers, or the usual characters that just, well, hang out. Afternoons hiding from the sun, reading or listening to the BBC on my shortwave radio, getting water, etc. Since the cold season is approaching (despite the 90 degree afternoons), in the evenings everyone huddles around the bonfires pitted in the middle of the yard, drinking their tea and listening to radio. The hilarity has been lost on me as my body temperature has apparently switched to Sub-Saharan mode. The other day, shivering in my sweatshirt, I looked at my thermometer, which was at an embarrasing 65 degrees. I am sure it is snowing in New York by now. I can't really understand that.
The other night, as I headed to my hut for my usual 9am bedtime (what else is there to do with no electricity?) I heard drums rumbling somewhere in the dark village. The next day the beating started again, and I finally discovered the donkiliyoro (dancing place), where the young village women and some men were gathered in a circle in celebration of an engagement. The women were feverously dancing in front of the three drummers, their hands thrown up behind their back and their torsos bent - birds of paradise in vibrant flower prints. The three men pounded their djambes (drums) with "snares" made of pieces of scrap metal, in front of a small bonfire which softened the drum, creating a deep bellowing sound. Soon, almost on cue, the three women would move out and a new group of girls would twirl in, dancing synchronously as the crowd began a call and response song. They danced and sang with such enviable ownership. This culture, these traditions are not the dusty cliche of their grandparents. It is theirs and they create it with each village dance, with the rhythms that have been drummed for centuries. The headwraps flew and panye (wrap skirts) adjustments were made as the party raged on through the night. I went back to my hut around 10pm, finally falling asleep to the rhythmic beats of the drums.
The rest of my time was spent in the usual way. Mornings at the health center weighing babies, painting murals, or just chatting with the patients, health workers, or the usual characters that just, well, hang out. Afternoons hiding from the sun, reading or listening to the BBC on my shortwave radio, getting water, etc. Since the cold season is approaching (despite the 90 degree afternoons), in the evenings everyone huddles around the bonfires pitted in the middle of the yard, drinking their tea and listening to radio. The hilarity has been lost on me as my body temperature has apparently switched to Sub-Saharan mode. The other day, shivering in my sweatshirt, I looked at my thermometer, which was at an embarrasing 65 degrees. I am sure it is snowing in New York by now. I can't really understand that.
The other night, as I headed to my hut for my usual 9am bedtime (what else is there to do with no electricity?) I heard drums rumbling somewhere in the dark village. The next day the beating started again, and I finally discovered the donkiliyoro (dancing place), where the young village women and some men were gathered in a circle in celebration of an engagement. The women were feverously dancing in front of the three drummers, their hands thrown up behind their back and their torsos bent - birds of paradise in vibrant flower prints. The three men pounded their djambes (drums) with "snares" made of pieces of scrap metal, in front of a small bonfire which softened the drum, creating a deep bellowing sound. Soon, almost on cue, the three women would move out and a new group of girls would twirl in, dancing synchronously as the crowd began a call and response song. They danced and sang with such enviable ownership. This culture, these traditions are not the dusty cliche of their grandparents. It is theirs and they create it with each village dance, with the rhythms that have been drummed for centuries. The headwraps flew and panye (wrap skirts) adjustments were made as the party raged on through the night. I went back to my hut around 10pm, finally falling asleep to the rhythmic beats of the drums.
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