Dimanche à Bamako

Although I'm actually writing this lundi (Monday), we had an interesting day yesterday that seemed worth a blog post.

I had been invited on Friday to go to a wedding for one of my (host) mom's family members. As the Amadou and Mariam song says, Sunday is a big day for marriages here, convoys of cars with honking horns go by all day long. My sister Fadima was supposed to call me and tell me what time we were leaving, but I never got anything more specific than "early in the morning" so I went over a little before 8, dressed in my bazin (the nicest Malian outfit I have). We didn't wind up leaving until after 10, but it didn't bother me so much because I got to eat my Tanti's cucumber and tomato salad with bread, which I love. Plus we could probably make it here at the apartment without too much trouble once everything is straightened up. Anyway, apart from the food I also got to watch Fadima and Na get ready. Because Na is one of the "bamusow" (big women) of the family this was quite a process. Here is a picture of the finished product.

So we got in a cab and headed to the wedding which turned out to be at a house I had visited once before last time I was here. It's in a neighborhood called Lafiabougou which is the farthest other side of Bamako that you can get. To get there you drive between Baco Djicoroni and Hamdoullaye, through an area of town where a lot of the nice hotels, government buildings, and bank headquarters are located. On the way back I spotted the American embassy (and the giant mosque Qaddafi built across the street). It is a weird area of town, lots of paved streets and huge wide boulevards with parks around them, but almost no one there. I don't know if police keep people off the roadside (maybe, I saw a guy getting arrested in front of the shiny Peugeot dealership), but it is so unlike the rest of bustling Bamako.

When we arrived at the house we went in to greet the bride and her family. Most of them remembered me, although only after Fadima explained that I had grossi (got fatter) and cut my hair since last time. At least being fatter is a compliment here, I've been hearing it a lot. We all got our picture taken with the bride and admired each others outfits. Then the griots (praise singers and musicians) arrived and (after I had been throughly embarassed by a drum solo) we all went outside to sit under a big tent and wait for the festivities to start.

As you can see from these pictures of the bride as well as Na and the other bamusow under the tent, the preferred asthetic of Malian women (particularly at weddings) is definitely more is more. More color, more sparkles, more embroidery, more jewelery, more makeup, etc. The effect is spectacular and would be loud even without the drums and the chatting and the praise singing. I didn't want to take people's picture without permission so I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of the ridiculous/amazing things some of the younger women were wearing, but you get the idea.

I wish I could explain what happens at Malian weddings better, but the whole thing is pretty confusing to the lone toubabou in the corner. What I can tell you is that they are gender segregated. I have absolutely no idea what goes on at the men's part of a wedding, maybe Neal can report back later. The part of festivities I attended was the beginning of the women's celebration. All of the women  gather and sit under this tent. People dance like crazy and the griots (djeli in Bambara) sing the praises of the important people present. Na's praising went on for quite a long time, but she has been to Mecca which I think adds a good 5 minutes to the song. At some point, the bride's close family would go with the bride to meet the grooms close family at the courthouse (for lack of a better word) where they actually sign the marriage certificate. Then the celebration continues. The bride and groom do not actually participate in the festivities, they sit in a room and get their pictures taken and collect money from guests. I do not plan on taking this tradition home with me (or the huge amounts of body glitter the bride was wearing).

Anyway, I left the wedding around 2:30 and came back to this side of the river to eat. My older host brother Madou is finally home (I hadn't seen him since I got here) so we talked to him and ate our zame (aka riz au gras or Malian fried rice...delicous). Then Neal got taken away to play basketball. He has been doing that a lot here with Job, who is my friend Robert's younger brother. The picture below is of them leaving for the first practice he went to. Yesterday was an actual match, and Job was very happy to report that Baba had scored a basket.

The rest of the day (as most days do) consisted of drinking tea and finding water to bathe with since we don't have any running water in our apartment yet, although that's hopefully getting fixed today. I did also go with Voldo to see the end of a local club soccer final. It went down to penalty kicks, but the team we were supporting (still not sure who they are or why we support them) was victorious.

Now I'm just sitting out on our front porch watching people go by, waiting for the electrician/plumber and hoping for rain. We finally got our first big rain on Saturday and it was glorious. All of our friends were wearing sweaters for the rest of the evening. Some of the clouds now, as well as the breeze and the oppressive heat, look promising but it is hard to say. There should be a project update in the next couple of days. Over and out.

(PS... Sarah actually wrote this, despite what it says below!)