Random Observations on Insects, Families, Akon, etc...

Now that we finally have water (I am so happy every time I take a shower it is ridiculous), the new battle in our apartment (and sometimes out of it) is insects. I feel like every traveler's account of Africa discusses our little many-legged friends, so here is my contribution. Our weirdest encounter thus far has been with what appeared to be, at first glance, a fuzzy black caterpillar like a wooly bear at home. It had wandered in when we had our doors open at night for ventilation. When Neal scooped it up to escort it out of the apartment however, long threatening looking spikes emerged from the fur...freaky. Our more everyday visitors are flies, mosquitos, and ants. I would like to lodge a complaint with the powers that be that it is extraordinarily unfair that bugs enjoy biting/stinging me more than those around me. I currently have a lovely collection of new mosquito bites, obtained while washing underwear the other night, including some in highly unfortunate locations. In addition, I have been stung 3 times by weird flying ant/wasp things, which hurt a lot. Neal has not gotten any bites...or stings...arg. To clarify, I don't want him to be attacked by bugs, I just think it is unfair that the bugs single me out.  Today I went into the apartment to get my phone and noticed that a huge column of the tiny little ants was moving from our living room into an empty cabinet under our kitchen sink. There is something so business-like and impressive about social ant activities that I felt bad sweeping them out of the place. However, if they had gotten into the Luna bars I might have killed someone.

On the subject of families, I am finding it a bizarre exercise in life to be simultaneously returning to my place in my host family and building an independent family with Neal/Baba. I think starting to see yourself as part of a new family-unit is weird in general, but it is complicated by never being quite sure what my familial obligations are to my Malian family. For example, Neal and I were feeling quite pleased with ourselves because we had finally bought some things for the apartment, among them some plates and silverware. When Fadima found out about this she was highly offended and told on me to Na, my host mother (low blow, Na is so scary), who was also offended and proceeded to tell me quite firmly that I was supposed to ask for everything I needed because this was my family, and hadn't she told me this before??? I didn't know how to explain that to us, the fact that the family is already feeding us at least once a day and doing all of our laundry feels like an unfair imposition on them, so I just apologized and asked for a knife. Now we have a truly motley collection of dishes, since Na gave us several mugs, a couple saucers, and a water cooler, but still no knife. This particular matter of confusion comes down to remembering the centrality of generosity as a virtue in Malian life. Giving stuff away makes you a good person, not providing for your family (even your relatively wealthy toubab family) is a disgrace. Meanwhile, I also struggle with the fact that privacy, at least as we typically think about it, is not highly valued. Some of this is practical, there are just a lot of people in a Malian house and it is hard to get time alone. But the desire to have time alone is in itself considered strange, and by some even a sign of witchcraft. This means that Neal and I have to rely on those trusty excuses "We're tired" or "I have a stomachache" in order to escape to find time to sweep the apartment or bathe. Unfortunately, using these excuses does not help us in our quest to be seen as something other than extremely fragile. Once at home, the door has to be kept locked if we don't want Job, Neal's basketball-playing friend, popping in to say hello. Fortunately people now seem to be accepting our strange habit of wanting to work on our computers in the morning and mostly leave us alone during that time. On a total side note, we paid our first electric bill this week, right around 3 dollars.

Finally, a moment of extreme cultural dissonance from our adventures yesterday. We made a trip to Azar, the big supermarket in Badalabougou to see what sort of Western food we might want in our apartment where we can't cook anything. There is nothing more confusing than hopping out of a sotrama and walking in to an air conditioned supermarket with a clean, shiny meat counter. I felt like I was going to start hyperventilating. We picked up some toilet paper and tissues, a thing of nutella, and an electric kettle which Neal was able to use to make Nescafé this morning although he did trip the breaker several times in the process. As if this store, full of wealthy Malians, Europeans of various stripes and some Arab families wasn't weird enough, as I was standing in the school supplies area the Akon/Lonely Island song "I Just Had Sex" came blasting over the overhead sound system. Say what??