So I was thinking about how weird it has been lately being at Tubani so. I miss site way more than I expected, I miss hanging out with my friends…drinking tea…. Speaking more Bambara than I actually can… and you know… all of that good stuff. It definitely has been good to get away. I have seen other PCVs that I usually never see… I have gotten to hang out with our LCFs a lot more and get to know them better. It’s not like I completely have forgotten that I am in Mali, but when you don’t have to sleep outside, or wake up every morning because someone is staring at you… or I don’t know how else to explain it.
Here is how I described it when I had some time to jot it down in Koulikoro: “So I have been having the hardest time figuring out what to writelately. I haven’t been at site lately, so things haven’t been normal for me. But, in another sense, things are more normal for me now than they have been for me in Mali. I’m back at Tubaniso, the first place I experienced in Mali, and the place that used to be the comfort zone. A little piece of America smack dab in Mali. American and Malian food, Bambara/French/English speakers, electricity, internet. It’s like being “home” in a sense.”
I have decided that I will only be at training for the month of July. I am going to go back to site and then just hang out there for the next year. Maybe if I am lucky, I can get a dog while I’m at it? I have had a lot of fun working with the PCVs, hanging out with our Program Assistant Yacou, hanging out with the LCFs. It has been nice to be working in an American-like atmosphere, but still be allowed to throw in French and Bambara, a few bean/fart jokes and be understood. I still miss site even more. What really seemed to prove it was this weekend. Fourth of July most volunteers crowd together in a city and celebrate everything American. I thought about going. Several people are going to disagree with this statement, but I swear I almost was going to go to Segou to find some old friends, but I realized it had been forever since I had been to Koulikoro, and I was really missing the gang that hangs out there. I left Tubaniso early Friday morning, got to the bureau to finish up a few things, then hustled off to the gare to catch a bus to Kkro. Usually before I leave the Kkro gare, one of the prentigis always says something smart to me, so we joke around for a bit and this usually catchers the ears of the other riders who get excited about the Bambara-speaking Toubab. This usually leads to a pleasant ride. People seem to be less crabby to a toubab when they know that they can understand the language. Fortunately enough there were a few Fulani (peuhl) guys sitting up front in the station wagon so I spent at least half of the ride explaining why Fulani’s weren’t really people.
I got dropped off by the bank in Kkro and started walking to the bureau. Before I reached our intersection, I decided to beep my friend Fofana, a Nat’l guard guy who is always asking about the next time I plan on being in town. I beeped him and within a moment I was rounding the corner and coming to the place where he usually works. He was busy staring at his phone about to call me when his friends start laughing and kept saying that I arrived. He got up from sitting in his chair, I smirked at him and greeted him, threw out my hand for him to hold. “I was just about to call you back” he said with a smile. “I just got into town I said” “Are you coming from Nyamina?” he asked. “Nah I was in Bamako” Fofana started to walk me towards the bureau. The guy can talk… let me just say that. We barely got halfway to the house and we probably had been talking for at least ten minutes. He told me that we would have to hang out later to catch up. I accepted the invitation. I looked towards the door of the bureau to find a gaggle of kids running around screaming and playing. I spotted Diarra amongst the group, sitting playing cards with another young woman. I whistled at him. He turned and smiled. DIarra is our guardian. He has always been a great, really respectful guy. Over the past half year that I have known him we have gotten pretty close. Everytime I’m in Koulikoro I usually hang out with him and the gang anyway. He is also a friend of DJ so I always have stories to tell him. He gave me the usually Diarra look. The one where he lifts his eyebrow, pretending to ask what I’m doing in town, not trying to show too much excitement…but that usually fades into real excitement because I start yelling at him (yelling in the good sense) about how much I have missed him, why he never gets out to my site…etc etc. He smiles and says “ I no don…(it’s your fault)” “Munan (why)” I ask… “Well who is going to watch the house if I leave… plus you never come to visit us anymore.” I smiled and patted him hard on the back. “ OOHHH Diarra!!! Tien don (that’s true)” I start to head into the house yelling “CA C’est Diarra!!” repeating it a few times, all the while the kids were laughing at this strange toubab shouting Bambara/French.
I quickly threw my stuff in the house only to find that Brendan Coulibaly had left some oreos for Amber and I. Thanks buddy. I needed that. Best present ever. I quickly ate a couple, gulped down a liter of water and headed back out to where Diarra and the kids were.
(One quick sidenote… So in Mali… most people drink water from what I like to call the communal cup. There is usually a clay pot filled with water with a plastic plate on top serving as a lid. On top of said lid lies a 1 L plastic cup. When I first got to Mali, I used to carry a water bottle with me everywhere. Taking tiny sips here and there. Even when someone would bring me the 1 L cup to drink from I would take two small sips and then hand the cup back. The day I drank a whole 1 L cup in one gulp, my friends cheered. Amahfah said “I kera malien yere yere” The docs here recommend us to drink at least 4 L of water a day. More if we seem to be losing more water… I have found now the easiest way to count the water, and drink it fast so I didn’t have to carry a water bottle constantly. Plus, I guess doctors do say that if you get thirsty, that means you are already dehydrated in a sense or something like that… so you gotta battle it before it starts)
I stepped outside the door and took a seat next to Diarra. I got introduced to a guy from my village’s nieces and we hung out and talked for awhile. The kids were excited to hang out and meet me. It was actually really neat because these were all kids/siblings of the people I usually hang out with in Koulikoro, so it was almost like celebrating the Fourth of July like old times. Respet family reunion, but with only one Respet. The kids were a blast. My name was of no interest to them… Toubabu was more fun for them to say… with the occasional Nana thrown in there. I have gotten over the whole toubabu bit… kids are going to say it whatever, as long as they are saying it out of love rather than malice… I can deal with it. I mean c’mon, who can get mad at a cute kid that says “hey mom… have you met my toubab yet? Do you know toubab’s name? Her name is Nana, she is my Toubab.”
And so my Fourth of July weekend had begun. The kids and I were busy playing, but I had the urge to just get up and walk around for awhile. “Let’s go to market” I said. It’s funny here, because when I walk with a gaggle of kids, people assume that I am using them to find my way around town etc. Well the kids had no idea what direction I was going in and I think they figured out a new shortcut to market. A new gaggle of kids were loitering next to a wall and immediately started calling me Toubabu. Sidibe’s daughter Tati was not going to have that. “Her name is NANA” she screamed. And she sung out a bunch of insults that I just dropped my jaw at. The girl has a mouth on her. For only being seven years old you would think she was already 17 or even some really old woman. She talks a lot, and she speaks her mind.
I hope she never changes (granted she censors some of the stuff she says… and does it respectfully) but hopefully in the future, she is going to keep her husband in line. Men don’t marry this type of woman…they get married by this type of woman. (In Mali, when talking about marriage, one must always say that a man is going to marry a woman… a woman can never marry a man… I hope this is making sense. Being the person that I am… I always make sure to say “when I marry my husband” I am immediately corrected by most Malian men… who think that ohh maybe I messed up because Bambara is a hard language. I quickly correct their correction and explain that “I will choose my husband.. I will marry him.. and if they don’t like it… tough”)
So unfortunately, market was not all it was cracked up to be. I bought a few cucumbers and that was it. I did run into one of the ladies that was in the car with me when I first got to Bamako a few weeks ago. She told me that the senile old woman that was in the car with us died the day she got dropped off in Bamako. I kept thinking about it. How weird to see someone, be with someone the day they die. Especially when you don’t see it coming. This woman, while senile, was still very fiery. The whole time on the ride to Bamako she had to be persuaded to sit down, she tried crawling out of the window, kept hitting her son who was sitting next to him to tell him to let her go. She paused briefly when she saw me on the bus. For a brief second she wasn’t senile. She knew my name, knew where I was coming from, asked how I was doing and everything. We dropped her off at my friend Bamoussa’s uncle’s house. They had said they were going to take her to the doctor. I don’t know what exactly happened after that, but she passed away that very day. Strange how that happens.
We headed back home and the kdis were more than excited to tell the story about how we went to market and how they told off the little kids that were calling me a Toubab. What heroes J.
Several hours probably passed by with me not really doing a whole lot other than chilling and talking with the gang. I can’t complain about that. I later hung outside the place where Fofana was guarding. Chatting with him and his crew. The guy can talk… like I said before. He talks.. and talks…. And talks… Occasionally asking me a question here and there, but before I’m finished speaking he starts to go off on some tangent. I am really curious if he actually understands any of the Bambara I speak to him sometimes. Or, maybe… he just really likes to talk. Dinner time hit and I headed back to the house to eat some homemade mac and cheese… which was actually more like macaroni and milk with cheese chunks in it. There is a reason that your wheel of cheese will only cost 300cfa…it usually means that it has turned into rubber instead of being cheese now. It was still good… with a side of vinager cukes which remind me of pickles… yum. I hung out for a bit, headed outside to be greeted by the gang. It is always nice to see those kids (this time I mean the group including Moussa, Aboucary, Sidibe, Diarra, Coulibaly… the kids who are really adults). We hung out for a bit and then Fofana called me to go hang out with them. Fofana once again did most of the talking, which I was cool with because it was already pretty late and I get into this weird state at night. I get into this thinking mode. I think about home, site, etc… anything that is specifically on my mind that moment. Most of the time though… It’s usually about home. Koulikoro is a special place like that because, well, it reminds me a lot of home. There is asphalt, electricity (street lamps) etc. I could sit and just watch, watch the few cars and motos pass by. I always have this weird feeling when I sit at night in Koulikoro. I always sit facing the big round about. At night the lights illuminate the spot… there is a faint orange glow. When it gets real late… the cars stop coming by… people aren’t outside anymore…wandering the streets. Last night… Diarra and I were hanging out at 1:30 am. He had just got back from running an errand (yeah I know pretty late for an errand… but its kkro… people don’t sleep by 8 pm) The power had just gone out so it was super hot inside the house. I was setting up my bed outside when I heard Diarra come back… “Current tigera (the electricity cut out)” he said. “yeah it’s hot out I’m going to sleep outside”. He too started to pull out his bed and we were just randomly chatting. After our ebds were set up I told him that we should go outside and sit at the door because the wind will be blowing more outside the concession walls. Well the wind was barely blowing but it was still a lot cooler than it had been inside. I teased Diarra for wandering off. I told him I had gotten some fire and was ready to brew some tea with him but he took too long running errands so the fire died. He frowned and apologized. I told him it was alright… I just wanted to tease him since he was always teasing me. We sat a little bit in silence and he said “ohhhh noooo Nana, sisan a kera Nyamina yere yere…” I asked him why he said it was like bing in Nyamina now… He started laughing and said “because there isn’t any electricity…”I started laughing and he continued speaking “plus there isn’t a single person outside… It’s almost like the world has ended… no one exists anymore except for me and you” We sat in silence thinking about this a little… then suddenly one of Diarra’s friends walked up having a really hard time lighting his cigarette. “Tea isn’t ready yet?” he asked. “Nana hasn’t started brewing it yet” Diarra replied. “I came back with the “well I got the fire but you wasted too much time running your errands that it died” I asked the kid his name. I thought maybe I recognized him… but it was so dark out, plus he wasn’t sitting that close to me. Diarra quickly answered with the name Basa (it means lizard). “nooooo” said the guy “my name is Pomme…” It was almost like Pommaranian… but I am pretty sure that wasn’t his name. It was too hard for me to say so I just ended up calling him Basa. Fofana was still awake and stopped by to talk for a bit, but that didn’t last too long since we were all pretty tired and it was pretty late for a broussie volunteer like me to still be awake. In slumber party like style, Diarra and I laid down in our beds, unable to fall asleep exactly at that moment and we just gossiped and laughed for a little bit. It was the best way to wrap up my Fourth of July… though I guess you would say the Fourth was already over… but I mean even in Duluth fourth of July lasts to the fifth, right??
Earlier and the day also felt like holiday. I spent a lot of the time hanging out with the gang playing cards, making tea, playing with the kids. Like I said earlier, it was already like a family reunion because all of the kids had returned back for summer break. It was really nice. This was later accompanied by a discussion about the United States of America, Michael Jackson… Many American presidents… the differences between France and the states… Old Peace Corps volunteers from the 90s that served there. I later made something that was a little like putin… French fries with an onion sauce and some of my rubber cheese to act like cheese curds in it. Diarra and I ate that and just hung out.
This morning I ended up waking up somewhat early still feeling exhausted. I headed to market just to walk around and wake up… and figure out what was for breakfast… As I was returning home I ran into a kid that bought some furu furu… Realizing that it had been quite a while since the last time I had some I asked him where he bought it and headed in that direction. I bought some extra so I could split it with Diarra. Diarra had heard me locking the door and asked me where I was going. “I’m going back to Bamako” I said. I walked into his room to hand him his share and he said “Wow.. you really are going” he noticed my pack on my back. I told him I would be back sometime soon. We said the usual goodbyes and then I was off on my way.
Now here I sit.. trying to figure out what to do with my evening before I head back to TSo in the morning. I have been trying to figure out if Kelly was going to be back tonight… but I guess you could say I haven’t really been trying all that hard… because… well.. I haven’t even called her to ask.
So that leaves me now… ready to be done writing this… and probably leaves you feeling like you were done reading it since the first paragraph.
Hope all is well back at home and wherever you may be.
