Joyeux Noël, Please Pass the Pork

This is the story of our Christmas in Bamako:

We were informed that Christmas Eve church would start at 9:30 and that we would be eating at 8:30. Even though nothing here ever actually happens at the stated time, Neal and I were fully dressed in our Jesus outfits and ready to go at 8:30.

Robert came to pick us up at 9:30, and informed us that no one actually wears their Jesus outfits until Christmas morning. We quickly changed, and set off for his house. After a meal of macaroni and pork that definitely would have been better warm, we set off for church. (Note: Pork is the official Christmas food here in Mali, I think just because Muslims can't eat it... except that many Muslims do eat pork on Christmas to celebrate with their Christian friends.) Anyway, Christmas Eve church was a somewhat painfully long affair featuring a variety of songs, a long sermon about basically every Bible verse in which God speaks to a person and that concluded with a side note on how Mary should be a model of submission to all women today, and a skit by the teenage girls in which we learned that converting to Christianity solves all marital disputes (all of this understood thanks to our helpful personal translator). I did enjoy the “hymns” the girls wrote for their skit, which I actually understood because they were all about food. Titles included “The chicken is done, Jesus come eat” and “Those who do not eat enough zaame will be judged.” After the almost 3 hour service was done, most of the congregation showed up to dance till dawn. Neal had been falling asleep during the sermon, so we were (thankfully) sent home to sleep with a joking admonition about how sinful it is to sleep in church.

Church on Christmas morning was supposed to start at 9 AM sharp, and we were told to be ready by 8 or 8:30. We should not have been surprised when Job showed up to get us at 9. Upon our arrival at church, there were no parishioners present, which gave us time to begin the endless stream of photo taking. The church decorations were now fully visible, largely made of sparkly garlands which apparently came with shiny party hats.

The morning church service was very similar to the evening one. In fact, the sermon was almost exactly the same (Neal says there are only a finite number of Bible verses about Jesus). The definite highlight came at the end of the service when members of each ethnic group represented in the congregation were invited to sing a hymn in their language. People got really into it and it is really cool to get to hear the linguistic diversity present in the community. The downside to this was that we were forced to sing a Christmas song in front of everyone. We (perhaps unwisely) selected “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” To further increase the farcical nature of the event, our Nigerian neighbor was forced to come up with us, despite the fact he had not been warned and did not know the song. Even better, this entire event was captured on video. I have not actually watched the video and prefer that no one ever discuss its contents with me, but it seemed unfair to deny you the spectacle. We're also including a video of the “junior choir” singing their hymn so you can fully understand how embarrassing our performance was. You can see the main choir in the background in their shiny new robes.

After church, we took even more photos before heading back to Robert's house. We ate delicious couscous and pork yassa (yassa is Senegalese onion sauce) and slightly less delicious dege  (yogurt drink). Robert's whole family was there and many of their friends, both Christians and Muslims, came to exchange greetings and get some food. There were too many great pictures from this process to pick just one – you can browse below to meet the Berthé family, see scenes of celebration, and see what happens when you make Job the photographer.

The day's celebration ended as all good Malian days do with us drinking tea. I will not claim I didn't miss the traditional trappings of American Christmas, but it was an excellent day.

And we didn't totally miss out – we came home to watch A Christmas Story on the computer (refusing Neal's suggestion that we start in the middle, as is tradition).

Our New Lizard Friend

As I went to take a shower this morning, I happened upon a new creature inhabiting our apartment. This time it wasn't a frickin' scary bug, but instead a lizard which (to the best of our understanding) eat the bugs that are the bane of our existence. It was only a baby, and Sarah graciously volunteered to rescue it from certain death by floodwaters.

On mange pas les haricots

Sundays, as they say here, are "top"! No need to wake up early. No ill-fated voyages to the post office (me to Sarah: "not one flat tire, but two! AND no package!"). No responsibilities. No pressure of any kind,* just a veritable lazy sunday.

To paint a picture: if we were of the colonial persuasion, Sundays would be spent on our shaded veranda wearing khakis, sipping a gin and tonic, and discussing the latest cricket scores in an absurd British accent. We don't have khakis and haven't made gin and tonic or discussed cricket; I make no comment on the veracity of that last claim.

A lazy Sunday indeed. For dinner, we "inviteéd" Baïssou and Robert to our favorite Chinese restaurant. We weren't sure if they would like the food... for how incredibly bland (and awful) some of the Malian staples are, anecdotal evidence suggested that many Malians really aren't interested in tasty food.**

However, much to our delight, both Robert and Baïssou absolutely loved the Chinese food. It was a bit of an adventure trying to teach them to use chopsticks, but they learned quickly as you can see in the picture below. We talked a bit about Malian politics; apparently there is an all-out strike today and tomorrow to get the President, "Son Excellence" ATT, to fire some incompetent ministers from his cabinet. Baïssou, it turns out, would really like to become a politician, perhaps first by becoming mayor of Niamakoro.

Altogether, another successful Sunday and start to a new week. Now we're just counting the days until Christmas!

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* Up to and including "no water pressure."
** Where "tasty" is defined as cuisine from pretty much any other country.
*** For those of you wondering about the title of this post... as part of the "joking cousins" system here in Mali, we must maintain that we do not eat beans (haricots). However, we do love the sautéed green beans at the chinese restaurant.

A few of my favorite things...

At the beginning of this week (and at various other times) I was complaining a lot about things here, so I made a mental list of some of the things I love about Mali/Bamako.

The Morning Call to Prayer: You might think that getting woken up at 4 in the morning would be on my list of things to complain about, but I think it is a beautiful sound and when I hear it I am reminded that I am somewhere I like to be.

Paté: Malian food is consistently a subject for complaining, but patés help make up for it. To clarify, I am not talking about liver paste, I am talking about delicious fried dough pockets filled with savory goodness. We have recently found a new paté lady who makes hers with large chunks of hard-boiled egg. We see her every day and this makes me happy. I also enjoy that when asking for paté (or any food) in Bambara you say: “six paté children.” No one can tell me why, but language is like that.

My name: One of the best parts of my day is still when I reach the place in Niamakoro where kids stop yelling “Toubababou!” and start yelling “Baya.” My Malian name is basically the reverse of my American one, Baya is a very uncommon first name and Traoré is an extremely common last name. The upside to Baya is that when people call random names at me on the street they never come up with the right one. The upside to Traoré is that it connects me to thousands of people, not only my fellow Traorés but also Diarras and Konés my.....

Joking Cousins: I have already explained this to many of you, but it remains a super awesome thing. When Soundiata Keita founded the empire of Mali, he laid down a series of laws called the Charte de Kouroukan Foukan . These laws included a system of “cousinage” intended to mitigate tensions amongst ethnic groups and families. The result of this is that now, whenever I meet a Diarra or a Koné, upon learning their name I must immediately begin insulting them. Common choices include: you eat beans, you are my donkey, or you are my slave (I generally try to to avoid this ones on the grounds of massive historical baggage). Apparently “Traoré” sounds like the Bambara phrase for “comes when called” leading Diarras to explain that I am their slave who comes when they call, or simply to ask “Who called you?”. I still have not learned the appropriate response to this, but I enjoy shouting “you eat so many beans” to Diarras I meet along the way.

Crossing the River: My favorite place in Bamako may be the middle of a bridge. To get from our neighborhood to downtown, or to come home again we get to cross the Niger river. I love the view off the bridge where you can see the biggest, most modern buildings in downtown Bamako and the fisherman in the same kind of pirogues (like canoes steered with poles) people have been using since before the French set foot in Mali. I hold out hope that one day I will see a hippo (Mali means hippo in Bambara) which would make the view even cooler.

People: I am almost always complaining about someone, but the people I meet are still the reason I love it here. People are, on the whole, overwhelmingly kind and generous. The kids at school, though often super frustrating, make my day when they draw me a creative picture, remember to greet me when they come in the door, or finally grasp how to construct an negative sentence in English. Our friends help us navigate everyday life, make us tea, and laugh with us (and sometimes at us). Tanti and Nene feed us, Fadima fills me in on the gossip, and Asu is still the cutest thing in the world. Somehow it is possible to be both constantly aware of all the ways we will never fit in and simultaneously feel like we belong.

Gunshots(?) from the Gaddafi High school?

We've recently been hearing what sound like gunshots, coming from the direction of the Muammar Gaddafi High School.

It turns out, New Year's fireworks start very early here. As for why the sounds were coming from Gaddafi's high school? Chalk it up to the coincidence that there are a lot of people living in the same direction, but conspiracy theories abound...

Happy early new year's, everybody!

Holiday Concert and Day on the Town

Another week gone, another week closer to Christmas! Yesterday, Sarah and I spent the afternoon in downtown Bamako on what could be considered our first "date" on the African continent. We had heard through the ex-pat listserv that there was going to be a holiday rendition of Handel's Messiah at the local branch of the Catholic Church. At some point I realized I had never heard this performed live, and so being a Classical music enthusiast, I piled into a rickety sotroma with Sarah and off we went to the Bamako Cathedral.

The Bamako Cathedral: one of many colonial landmarks.

Surprisingly, our sotroma ride was very pleasant. It wasn't crowded, and it even stayed on the right route. Typically, our luck runs out just before we cross the river, and we end up having to take a cab to get to where we're going. But, like clockwork, we arrived at the Cathedral 15 minutes early!

I'm not sure where our expectations/understanding of the event got mixed up; we had assumed it would be free and very low-key (who in their right mind would pay to see Handel's Messiah in a Cathedral with no organ?). Instead, we felt under-dressed, and the Cathedral was completely packed with primarily anglophone toubabs (white people), along with the occasional french or german family.

As for the music? It was put on by an English ex-pat choir. They were very earnest, and hats off to them for assembling a modest orchestra and choir in Bamako to do a holiday production of the Messiah. When they finished, the crowd was quick on their feet to give a standing ovation. Let's just say the bar for a standing ovation must be very low here; I was expecting the Hallelujah chorus to start only after the choir had stopped singing. But, as abysmal as it was, the concert was still very lovely and we had a fun time.

Afterwards, we took a short detour to the French Cultural Center, where there was a photography exhibit about the Malian Hunters, who play a large role in the Sundiata epic. Apparently our last name (Traoré) is a hunter name. There was also an artisan market out in front, where we purchased a very beautiful Tuareg creche (nativity scene). The man at the booth also threw in a free pair of earrings for Sarah, because he and I shared the same name.

The evening concluded with another visit to our favorite Bamako chinese restaurant, where we stuffed our faces with delicious chinese food. It always happens that our eyes are bigger than our stomaches, but true to tradition (Sam, Austin, Mark, you'd be proud!) we finished all of the food, hopped a return sotrama, and rather quickly collapsed into a food coma at our apartment. A lovely sunday, indeed.

The Gift of Books

We cannot believe it is already December. Watching the transformation of the library from a half-finished pile of cinderblocks to a bright space full of kids and books has been a remarkable adventure. This is not even to mention the adventures of trying to get running water (still not resolved), riding sotramas, and battling giant bugs and Nigerian scam artists. Tis officially the season for holiday giving, and I want to make a pitch that you consider us in your giving/gifting this holiday season.

Before...

After!

I know that many of you who read our blog(s) are not exactly the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (though if Bill and/or Melinda happens to be reading this I hope you will get in touch), but a very small contribution can make a huge difference here at the library. We are not yet an official non-profit, but if you were considering giving us a personal Christmas or Hanukkah gift, please consider putting that money towards a gift that will give far more joy for five dollars than anything else I can think of.

There are a gazillion great organizations out there (seriously, if you aren't donating to us look up Heifer, Camfed, Oxfam, or MSF), so why should you give to us? Apart from the fact you (hopefully) like us, I believe this project stands on its own merits.

We are clearly filling a need. At 8:05am the last two Saturday mornings, the library was completely full and we had kids waiting outside the door. We open at 8:00am. During every available free hour of the day, kids come in to read comic books, study their French textbooks, and stare curiously at our world map. I think they also come to learn in a space where no one calls them “imbécile,” and where they are encouraged to ask questions and explore.

If you've been reading our project blog you've seen the dismaying statistics. Mali has the worst recorded adult literacy rate in the world, as well as the worst literacy rate amongst women. Less than 1 in 5 Malian women can read and write. A child's educational future is determined by tests given in a language which is not their own and which 9 years of teaching in overcrowded, under-resourced classes has not taught them. We are trying to change this horizon for our students, and I believe we will.

The best reasons to give, of course, are human ones. We have (at least) 450 really good reasons to give walking in and out of our library every week. This is about the 9th grade boy who spent 40 minutes with Harry Potter and the Dictionary to get through the first two paragraphs but keeps coming back for more. About the adorable kindergarteners who come up during their recess to turn pages in the picture books we read them during story time. About Moussa who comes to read painstakingly through the same picture book and has finally learned to read “va bientôt” by sounding it out. About Ousmane who wants to be a journalist, Aïchata who wants to be a doctor, and Balla who wants to be a soccer player and/or in the government. Not to get overdramatic, but this is about the future of this country and of our world. This is about undoing some small part of the massive injustice that prevents these kids from having the education that most of us enjoyed.

Ousmane

The ever-adorable kindergarteners

Moussa and his friend

We need more books and more art supplies and we need to be able to pay our staff a salary that will allow them to commit to the project as fully as they want to. We want more stories for the kindergarteners and hopefully the rest of the Harry Potter series once the student I mentioned gets through the first one. You can help us achieve these goals and add a little more learning and reading and fun and thinking to our students' lives. It really doesn't get any better than that. If you are interested in giving, check out the donations page on our website.

The new routine

           Since the library opened, daily life has shifted around quite a bit, so I thought I'd write a blog on my new routine.

             Monday-Saturday I get up a little before seven, get dressed, lament the lack of water in our apartment and head off to the library. When I walk to school my twenty minute trip takes me through the small streets of Niamakoro, highlighting how the neighborhood differs from our own and taking me past landmarks like the water tap, the turkey courtyard, the corner that smells like sour milk, and the street with the big mango trees. I see lots of kids going to school and grown ups going work, including the crowds of girls in black headed to the local medrasa. Once I get within three or four blocks of school, the ubiquitous chants of Toubabou, toubabou (white person, white person) change to kids calling out my name to say hello, which always brightens my morning.

          Mornings at school are taken up with teaching literacy activities to the elementary schoolers and English lessons to the middle schoolers, overseeing free hours with small groups of readers, preparing new lessons, adding the school's books to our catalogue, etc. I'm really enjoying the chance to interact with the kids and I feel like some of it at least has to be good preparation for having my own classroom next year. Afternoons are mostly free reading time and they tend to be a little crazy, with dozens of students showing up and often dozens more waiting outside the door. I'm getting really good at Bambara phrases like “wait,” “Put that book down!” “Where is your book?” etc. I still need to perfect “we don't hit people in the library.” 

          I get done around 4 each day and come home to lament the lack of running water, take a bucket shower, go to the cyber, and/or go hang out with our host family. I have been screening Disney movies on my computer at night which is a huge hit. Bebe Tene, the world's most sassy and forceful toddler has learned the word for computer and now says (in Bambara) “Take the computer out right now!” before bursting into hysterical giggles. She repeats this phrase until the computer is taken out or she is informed it isn't coming. Asu the wonder baby (as I call her )continues to do well, and has learned to say “Nene” (her mother's name)! I love her despite her tendency to slime me and seeing her is a highlight of my day. We usually go to bed after 11 because we wait up for the BBC to switch back to English to get our news.

         We also had a lovely break from the routine this weekend with our friends Stephanie and Pierce at a restaurant called Comme Chez Soi which is absolutely beautiful and totally worth the long and expensive (by Malian standards) cab ride. I ate chicken with polenta and Neal had steak with bleu cheese sauce. Quoi???