Hiking/Selling popcorn/Bazan PICTURES!

These pics are of three separate events from the beginning of March. The first set of pics is from a SEDDIE group project in which me and two teammates had to sell popcorn in a Malian context. It was a great eye opener into the differences in business in Mali versus American business. Let's just say Malian business is extremely informal compared to how small business is done in the USA.

The second set of pictures is from a hiking trip some of my friends and I did in a neighboring village of our homestay site. Mali is flat like Kansas, except for these big rock formations and cliffs. One day we went to Nyemena, a neighboring village, and climbed around the top of the rock formations and checked out the caves.

The third set of pics are from another SEDDIE field trip we took, but this time, to Bamako. My particular field trip was seeing how a Malian business woman made and sold Bazan, a waxy and expensive fabric here in Mali. She is considered a successful businesswoman, but still, her business operated so differently from that of American business. She worked out of her home, did a lot of the work outside and her employees were related to her, most of them. She did her sales order by order, from France, through the grapevine. There was no marketing, and she operated mostly through word of mouth as her marketing strategy. She learned the trade through her aunt, who took her in as an apprentice. About five or so years into her business, she is still not seeing a profit because the interest on her loan is so high. She pays some taxes to the government, and doesn't consider herself a businesswoman, although she is an independent business woman living and operating her business out of Bamako. That's pretty unique for women here, and shows how successful she's been.

Kabanitigi - aka me, the popcorn owner - selling popcorn up and down the street. That's Marlow in the back selling the same popcorn I was selling to a kid for 25 CFAs. My popcorn was for 100 CFAs, basically a rip off. In the background is the main road that leads to Bamako, in Djialokorobugu, our homestay site.

One of our butikitigi (store owner) customers with his awesome bag of popcorn that we charged him 100 CFAs for. Ha we sold the same popcorn to the kids for 25 CFAs. This just goes to show you how fluid and quickly changing Malian business is. We changed our prices three times for the same product during the day. Also, this is a good shot of the inside of a Malian butiki (shop). 

Two words: MARY TELLEY. Mary Telly is my LCF (language and culture facilitator) and she is the best. I mean, the BEST. She is my language and culture teacher. Anyway, here is Mary Telley, in her Dogon muso outfit, and Sedou, my joking cousin and sho dunna (bean eater) with our kabani. We made Mary Telley pay an extra 50 CFAs for our popcorn just cuz.

These are my homestay site mates with our bags of kabani after we finally sold out to all the school kids. Notice our pagnes (skirts) in Malian fabric. That's the appropriate and popular "pants" for Malian women. 

haha guess who that is? This is me trying to sell popcorn (kabani in Bambara) to the school kids. They didnt like me and bought it all from Marlow. :) But our first marketing technique was to use the most popular American branding tool Ive seen in Mali - Put Barack Obama's name on it. First we called it "Obama Kabani" and then just switched to "Toubab Kabani" because no one really cared. The fact that we were American was probably the only reason we sold any popcorn. They were interested in seeing what Toubabs could do and sell. This project was interesting because we got to see the real differences in Malian business and American business. Most really small Malian businesses operate on the side of the road, or a well-inhabited area with no marketing strategy or strategic plan. That's way far ahead - from what I have seen - Malian businesses need the basics before they can get into marketing or strategic anything. It starts at working with illiterate accounting, counting skills, saving money, forming a plan to pay back the 22% interest on the loan, etc. 

Okay, that one American lady with the hat on - that's Marlow, my homestay neighbor on the day we sold popcorn (we made) to our homestay village, Djialokorobugu. It was for a SEDDIE project to understand doing business in a Malian context. Let's just say we changed our business plan about three different times during the day and found that little kids, right outside their school house, love popcorn for 25 CFAS and no more. This pic is Marlow getting bombarded by dozens of kids. 

Almost to the very top!

C'est moi in a little cave on our hiking trip

Here we are posing in a little cave on our hiking trip. 

 

Two of my friends, Hannah, and Josh, on our hiking trip. Yeah and I am rocking out a Rock Chalk Jayhawk University Daily Kansan T-shirt. ROCK CHALK ALL THE WAY!!

Getting closer to the top of the big rock formations on our hiking trip. You can tell that it looks kind of foggy. Dont be fooled - that's all the dust and sand that's constantly in the air. My friend with asthma is coughing a lot now because it gets in your nose, eyes, ears, throat, etc. Every time I blow my nose, dirt comes out and when I bathe, I have to scrub my skin because it's caked in dirt. Dirt's everywhere here. Including the nose.

Part of the "view" on our hiking trip

Ha I really hiked like this. This is a pic from the village Nyemena, outside of my homestay village. A bunch of PCTs and I went hiking up there. Mali has all these big rock formations and we heard it was good hiking. It was a blast.

This is a pic of Rosie the Riveter in Broadway Cafe, what they call the toubab restaurant. We went to eat there after our Bazan-dying fieldtrip for SEDDIES. I got a caramel milkshake and hamburger for $10 American, or 5,000 CFAs, which is a lot of money for PC salary, but worth it after eating rice, potatoes and TO every day, every meal. 

These are the goodies at the Toubab store in Bamako. The stuff in there is really expensive, but again, worth it. I got some nutella, which I demolished in two weeks, perfume and a bottle of gin. haha the gin is in case of an emergency. 

Here is a finished product, drying under the sunlight. Most Malian fabric doesn't look like this one, but if I could buy this one up, I would. Notice how different her "place of business" looks compared to what It would be like in America. Her product is made outside, dried outside in the sunlight, and is in general, a very informal process compared to American business. 

These are the little dudes and dudettes who hung out with us at the bazan dying expedition. They were the children of the lady who operated the business. Little Malian kids like taking photos and then looking at your camera to see what they look like. I dont blame them, no one has mirrors here!!

More of the bazan dying process. The fabric begins as white, and it is dipped into  these buckets with dye in them. You only know the color of the fabric by the color of the bubbles in the dye.