so this is the new year

Tonight the glaring arbitrary nature of time seemed to unfold to me – the idea of “now” and “modern” and how much it contrasts between here and America. To me this really reveals the strange and, well, unrealistic way we think of time as if it doesn't need a context. We've entered 2010 now – a year that sounds incredibly futuristic, covered in chrome and white plastic and slow electronic music. And in America, 2010 means a certain type of modern: little hand-held computers like the Ipod touch and the global environmental crisis and stem cell technology and GM food, even the 3-D televisions I hear are about make its way onto the market. And its a necessity to have several cars per family and a laundry machine, or it has been for the past 50 years. But here, modern progress means schools that are based on a government regulated system (albeit loosely and haphazardly) and cell phones complete with the one square foot service spot in the middle of the cornfield, where I need to stand on a rock and wave my phone in the air. No matter that they missed an entire century of landlines. But reality here is that only the lucky few can even afford a phone, or have anyone they know outside of the village that they care to talk to. Hence, the only form of communication really accessible outside the village is the dusty RAC radio in the health center crowded with doctors and other staff from the region screaming about emergency calls from a city days away. And in the village we have the local Griot, a town crier who can yell the news to the only people they need to hear it from.And then there's the new car that the doctor just bought, easily the wealthiest person in the village, after maybe the Mayor. His 1991 Toyota with the scraped off paint and rusty stick shift is one of the shiniest things the village has seen. The donkey cart is the main mode of transportation. They thought I was crazy when I described a clothes washing machine; the one tap recently installed in our village seems like enough of a luxury when you can spend an extra minute drawing water from the well.
And hey, that's progress. That's now.

pocket full of peanuts

My pockets are full of peanuts - or rather, the little sack I bring around with me each evening as I make my neighborhood rounds - along with my soap for washing my hands, my sacred flashlight (the solar rechargeable batteries quickly fading), my notebook and a real ink pen which I splurged on at the Tubab store in Bamako. After my cold bucket bath beneath a fading orange sun - which blazed with fury 30 minutes ago - I lock my tin doors and walk down the short dirt path to Founeba's house, making sure to avoid the goat shit and broken Baobab fruit with its white chalky center scraped out by the grubby hands of some bare bellied toddler. I pass the piles of peanut shells, the last ground remains of the waning peanut harvest season, and stacks of irregular mud bricks freshly molded from the cool earth. Foune'ba is probably sitting on the low wood stool in front of a black iron pot licked by low flames, which is propped on a pile of dried mud, creating a stovetop of sorts. With a wood stick she is stirring the sauce bubbling in the pot - tiga dega na (peanut butter sauce) or saga saga na (a slimy leaf sauce) - which she'll taste and add more Maggi or peanut butter like precious bit of gold ore. I read to her as she tends to the sauce and her two month-old baby Omou who is swathed in bright patterned cloth with her brown little face quietly looking out. When the sauce is done she gives Omou her breast and I hand her the health manual from which I've been reading, and help her stumble through the Bambara translation which I can read fluently since I've grown up sounding out letters but she has only learned to read since her training to become a midwife. I envy her understanding even if she still confuses every n and m and I've learned that for both of us it will come, dooni dooni (small small). We read about AIDS in Mali as she gasps at the statistics, or about weaning children off breast milk without creating protein deficiencies, or the importance of vaccinations. And while yesterday she was angry at me for leaving to visit Kristen on the slow Saturday, and even more for my carelessness in leaving my chair and soap outside which to her feels like an ostentatious show of my money, we're over it. We both know were differed - I resent the mother like role she tries to take which is really just communal coexistence regardless of our professional relationship, and she doesn't always grasp my American independence. We're both learning.

After the darkness begins to filter in I say my night blessings and take off for my host families house as one of Founeba's daughters (or one of her husband's other daughters, she's wife number 4) follows with a bowl of sauce and rice sitting on her head without the slightest threat of its downfall. The women carry themselves with model like stability despite the threat of their dangling earrings. I eat dinner with my host father and his two younger sons; his older sons are off at the nearest high school, 2 hours away in Kita. I wash my hands with the soap which I have been offering them for months but they finally accept, which could have something to do with the big hand washing mural I've just finished on the wall of the health center. We all squat around the bowl on the floor as he grunts and holds the flashlight. Tonight Sani is making dublini, hibiscus tea. It is heavy and sweet with its fragrant magenta juice and equal parts sugar. A group of her classmates show up. Their presence is at a first glance imposing; their tall thin figures draped in bright panyes which don't match their skirts, which don't match their shirts or their headwraps anyway. Their swirling palate of color is lit by the bonfire which we sit around, and in fact all I can see are the distant family bonfires where the women squat on low stools around their endless children snacking on their after dinner roasted peanuts. The complete night scene is only broken by an occasional anonymous passerby with their flashlight whispering good evening with equally whispered responses from attentive ears. As the girls sit down the intimidation fades as I recognize each face - 13 and 14 year olds, strong and emboldened by their impending roles as wives and mothers only a year or two away. Even some classmates their age carry their notebooks atop their round stomachs.

As my host mother Hagie shells the peanuts in a weaved bowl the group alternates between pensive silence, complete and comfortable as they stare into the fire, and lively gossip about the village. I am slowly beginning to carve out the Malinke words and phrases from the dark cloud of sounds, which I can connect to the Bambara words I've learned and sew together with context, the quilt of Malian languages. Their chatter sounds like drum and base; their tongues heavy with h and j sounds, interrupted sporadically by the quick high pitched l's and k's.

After long stretches of silence I feel I've put in some decent "family time" and move on to the next concession over, Soliba's house. Here I sit down amidst a warm chorus of greetings and bubbling children who run up to me and smile. I sit down on the wood bench, relieved that they don't scurry to get me a better chair - the respectful motion always embarrasses me, and anyway I'd much rather sit next to my friends with their children at my knees. Some of the toddlers lay on my lap and try to play with my hair, which they still can't believe is connected to my head, and mutter questions that I have no chance of understanding with their lispy Malinke tongues. I am teaching Soliba English, and we've gotten a few phrases down that she's asked to learn. These are of the utmost importance here: "Come eat!" "Lets go to Behon," and "How is your family?" These frequent Malian phrases sound random and quite useless in the American English. But of course language is so much more than just a string of sounds; it is entwined with all the peculiar way each culture lives, what they value, what is respectful or even trivial in this little Malian culture that is, well, the whole world. At least to them, and for this moment me too.

Monsieur BonBon

I'm back in Bamako after an incredible hike through Dogon country.
We took the 12 hour bus ride up to Sevrae and spent the night there. We ate ouijila, a huge ball of dough in curry like sauce, surprisingly delicious and a lovely deviation from rice and peanut sauce. The next day we headed out to Sam's village in Sanga. As we bounded through the sandy road, the beige sandstone huts reminding me of Jerusalem, we were accosted by the pleasant aroma of chives, one of their primary sources of income. The kelly green fields were quite a contrast to the sandy mountains, the only vegetation besides the tall thick baobab trees stubbornly pushing through the rocks, their bulbous fruit hanging off the almost bare branches like macabre Christmas ornaments. We all teemed with jealousy as we climbed up the cliff to get to Sam's house, located on a summit overlooking the green chive valley and streams, the
mountains looming in the distance. We slept on the roof and woke up each morning up to dusty sunrises.

We spent a few days in Sanga, climbing our way over to the marketplace where the women sold dyed indigo fabrics, mangoes and wood carvings. The Dogon mask festival was beginning, and it was strange feeling like a tourist as we bumped into groups of westerners. While officially Muslim, most Dogon people still hold fast to their traditional animist beliefs of spirits which they call "genies." Many of the houses had different mud decorations on their roofs, signifying each person's profession: medicine man, goat hunter, clothmaker. We visited the house of the "Oldest Man," who acts as an arbiter for disputes among villagers. The low ceilings prevented any man from standing up so that no man is above another, even in the heat of an argument.
Christmas night we watched a dance competition. Men and women in blue indigo robes spun and danced with the fury in the middle of a crowd of spectators. Still, it felt limp in contrast to the drum circles in my village, maybe less inspired in front of the crowd of spectators. Or maybe I just miss my village. Afterwards we had a huge Christmas dinner that Sam and her host family made at the Mayor's house, complete with a roasted goat on a huge spit, and millet beer. After dinner her villagers surprised us with a welcoming dance. Each quartier of the village presented themselves, dancing in line to the persistent beat while playing their wooden flutes. As they reached us they began to crouch down, holding a medallion of mirrors and white tile. Finally they would end up on their knees, offering the plate to us as everyone in the circle shook their hips and sang. After each neighborhood went they began to pass the medallion to each of us, and we followed suit in presenting ourselves to the villagers.


The next day we began our three-day hike. It began with a steep climb down the mountain, where Malian adolescents rushed to help us down the gaping drops and slippery rocks. We continued on to some of the villages in the cliffs. Each village seemed piled vertically on the side of the mountains, at incredible heights for daily hour long trips to get to water or food. Its amazing what people can get used to. Centuries of isolation from the surrounding cliffs with little water has proven the endurance of the Dogon people. Our guide explained that these villages were located among the higher cliffs where they could see approaching tribes that threatened to steal their goats or children. As we entered each village we were accosted by long-legged Malian children, their faces pale with the desert dust. Divide and conquer they would, following us with their well rehearsed French phrases asking for very particular items: "Monsieur BonBon?" (Mr. Candy?), "Cava Bidon?" (How are you, water bottle?), or "Madame Bici!" (Mrs. Pen!). After almost six months in our villages, we've become a bit jaded with the these children, after all we have our own village kids to take care of! And we're all more concerned about their protein intake then their sugar. Although we were happy to pass off our empty water bottles. We passed the various sacrificial spots, where goats would be killed for good health, or a potion of millet and baobab fruit are offered to increase the town's fertility. After 10 kilometers of hiking up and down the mountain we stopped exhausted for lunch, all 16 of us passing out on concrete slabs immediately afterward. We woke ourselves up for another 5k walk through the thick sand to our hotel. The church behind us was having their service - singing and dancing for hours. We slept on the hotel roof, freezing in the desert air.

The next day, despite our aching legs and blistering feet we headed out again. We began to feel better as we climbed, breathing the clean air. After passing a few villages on the way we reached the old Telem villages, which are roundish irregular stone dwellings carved into the side of the mountain. Its no wonder that the Dogon tribe, who overtook the Telems, believed that the Telems could fly when looking impossibly high homes on the almost vertical rockcliffs. The Dogon now use those cave-like dwellings as burial places, using rope to lower the bodies from the higher cliffs into the chambers. At last we made it to the mountain peak and sat watching the sweeping panoramic of the plateau below us.

Incredible. But I can't wait to get back to my village. I miss my home.