My month of deep inner searching has ended.
This month I:
--Spent three weeks sick
--Found out someone's been repeatedly breaking into my house
--Rode the emotional roller coaster of a lifetime
--Started meditating again
--Checked off my goal of "Ride something taller than a horse" when I had to ride on top of a bashi (bus) for 3-4 hours (totally fun too)
--Wrote a poem and story
--"Deep inner searchED" - past tense. Meaning, I think I pushed through the Malian blues and things are going great
As you can tell, it's been an interesting month. Everything from daily Mr.D to breaking my relationship with my host sister to finding a used condom in my trash can to trying to play with some kids who got beaten up by their dad because he thought they were being bad to selling fish, little bags of macaroni and sugary juice sachets in the market to making mud-dyed fabric.
I would characterize this last month as the Top Two hardest thing I've ever done. And I've done some hard work in my life and been through a lot. This month has been insane, but all in all, I am so grateful for it. Because, as my dad says, it made me a better person, a stronger person and a better volunteer.
The only real change we can make in the world is to improve ourselves.
Anyway, so let me tell you the story of the constant break-ins.
The past few weeks, when I would come home from spending time in my community, I would find my stuff not-that-noticeably in disarray. After the trip to Bamako for my friend's birthday, I came back to find my suitcase wide open, with my personal items strewn about. Someone had clearly been shuffling through my giant suitcase.
I thought, "No, there's no way. I have to be imagining this."
Then, I would come home to find the lid on my American food open. And food missing. Little by little, my American food was disappearing.
I thought, "No, I guess I just ate it all. That sucks."
And I would come home to find all my clothes sifted around. And once my host sister remarked that I "had a lot of clothes," and I remember thinking, "How the hell would she know that? That's weird."
And then there's the story of my host sister tip-toeing into my house when I was curled up in a ball in unmentionable pain, with no pants on.
And that time, the first thing I thought was, "Am I seeing things? Do I have a ghost in my house? What the hell is going on??!" But it wasn't. The person in my house was a woman wearing a red skirt. And her footprint was ingrained in the termite dust on my floor.
Another time I came home to find my jewelry box open, with my jewelry hanging out. I never get into that thing, but still, I brushed it off.
Finally, when I came home after being sick in Bamako, my make-up in my bathroom was on my sink. It's usually in my basket next to my sink. In addition, eye shadow was wiped all over my towel. My brand-new soap was opened.
I waited until the next day, when I immediately talked to my regional coordinator (who is awesome).
After that, I knew for a fact that someone had been going into my house. There's no way in hell I did any of that, and after I realized for sure someone had been breaking in, it all started making sense. All the little incidents started adding up.
When I got off the phone with him, I opened my eye shadow case to find it all crumbled and broken and scratched out. That's the eye shadow that was wiped all over my towel.
I looked at my American food. Gum and Chips Ahoy were gone. A bunch of chocolate was gone. Reeses were gone. In fact, 90% of my American food was missing.
I walked my regional coordinator through my house, showing him all the stuff moved and missing and wiped everywhere. He totally believed me and was sure someone had been breaking into my house.
The weird thing we couldn't figure out was...HOW were they getting in? There was no sign of forced entry. My windows have bars and screens on them. The only way...was if someone had a KEY. That's just creepy.
Well, when I was waiting for the carpenter dude to change my locks, I decided to burn my trash.
Malians will usually go through your trash and take things from it. After feeling as violated as I did, I didn't want someone peeking through my trash.
Well, there was a little surprise in my trash.
Right at the bottom, buried purposefully at the bottom, was a Peace Corps Med Kit condom wrapper and used condom.
Wasn't mine.
I looked into my Med Kit, and sure enough, someone had sloppily ravaged through my Med Kit, ripped off the condom and left them all at the top of my Med Kit.
I immediately filed a report with Safety and Security and staged an intervention talk with my regional coordinator and my host family.
If my host family can't keep me safe, then why the fuck am I living there? That's their number one priority as a host family...and with them being gone all day and with the prime suspect being my 17-year-old host sister...why am I paying them to live in a house that's not safe and secure?
The weight of the situation took some time to settle in. Someone was breaking into my house...with a KEY. That's scary. Someone could have been sneaking into my house at any time, when I was sleeping, showering, anytime.
And...the worst part was...was someone having SEX in my house??? On MY bed??
I got my locks changed immediately. The next day we staged an intervention. It was so intense. The talk took about two hours and ended with me and my host sister crying.
I still don't know if it was her, but everything points in her direction. I asked every PCV who had been in my house about the situation, about the condom...and yes, there's still a chance that somehow the condom was from a PCV, but the way everything was done so sloppily, it doesn't seem feasible that a PCV I know so well would discard a used condom in my trash and not tell me. Plus, if an American were going through my stuff, I don't think they'd go through things so obviously.
Shame is one of the biggest deterrents in Malian culture. The worst possible thing a person can do is shame his/her family. Seriously, this is worth exile. Shame is hardcore here.
With that said, I don't think I will ever know who did it. If it was my host sister, she will NEVER, EVER, EVER admit it. Because it will SHAME her family like no other.
So, after this debacle, I decided I wanted to get away for a couple of days. I needed some space after feeling like someone violated my space so much.
I locked every door in my house - my kitchen door, my bathroom, my bedroom, double locked my front door...and embarked for the Niger River village-PCV getaway spot of Manatali.
I hope I can do the road to Manatali some justice. The trip to Manatali, after you've waited up for the bus to show up up to five hours late, is equivalent to driving a broken-down, smoking and bouncy bus down a ravaged riverbed.
The bus trip to Mantali from Kita can take anywhere up to four and a half to 12 hours. But, that's just the usual Malian way.
A few PCVs and I decided to go. The bus was full of enormous rice sacks covering the floor. There were wooden benches nailed to the walls of the bus for people to sit. People were squashed into the bus, like usual, with people occupying the rice sacks, the top of the bus and each inch on the bench.
On top of the bus, up to four or five feet high, was stacked with bikes, bags and mattresses and other furniture. There is no way in hell, unless you took some Ambien, to fall asleep on this extremely bouncy, jiggly, side-of-the-road maneuvering bus ride.
With no space left on the bus, my friend and I decided to squish ourselves onto the piles on the bus. For the next four or five hours.
It was a blast! I got snapped in the face by several trees and twigs, waved and greeted Malian passers-by, and talked music with a fellow PCV. When I got off the bus I felt like I had been lifting weights and I had cuts and scratches all over my body. My tip of my nose was sun burnt and there was a perfect line where my sunglasses had been. But it was worth every minute.
CHECK: Rode something taller than a horse.
CHECK: Saw monkeys.
Manatali is like a little beautiful river oasis in the dust-covered, treeless furnace that is Mali. It's the most aesthetically pleasing place I've been in Mali, and the river is right next to the stage huts.
People see hippos in the water and monkeys swinging in the trees. I too, saw Curious George when I was there this time. The little guy was playing with a plant under a hangar. He kept popping his head over the chair and staring at us. Then he would sink back down and pop back up. His little friend, a small baby monkey came to join him in basking and running in the sun. Curious George.
Turned out, leaving site for a few days after my break-in debacle was the best idea I've had.
When I came back, I felt ready to come back and excited to see everyone in my community. I felt like a lot of the tension I was holding after the break-in/Malian blues was released.
And now, things have been going great.
Each day, I wake up and meditate, get out and about somewhat early, walk to my service, rather than ride my bike, greet every person on the way, introduce myself and just wander around my village, meeting people and building relationships.
That's what I used to really enjoy about integration #1. I loved just wandering around, talking to people. Building relationships, joking around and witnessing Malian events I would never get the chance to see otherwise.
A couple days ago, I was chatting with the people at my shea service. Recently, I had wandered out to find some food. Around noon, it's hot as the insides of a bonfire, so all the people take their buckets and fly-infested goods and go home for the "heat of the day." You can't find anything to eat at lunch time!
A few minutes after I told Baba this, Younousa, the little guy I teach "What's up, homie?" to, came back with about three small pieces of goat meat on a ripped-off piece of used cement bag paper.
This meat probably cost the equivalent of 30-50 cents American, but the thought felt like a million bucks. It was my ultimate feared goat meat...a piece of the shag-carpet-like stomach and another piece or two with a bunch of fat and innards. I ate it anyway. It was actually delicious.
And each day, I watch Baba study in his steel and wooden wheelchair.
He's studying kindergarten-level Bambara, learning how to read, write and do simple math.
Baba is at least in his 40s. And he's learning how to read, write and do math. The thought crushes my heart in a good way. He is so determined to learn it, he gladly shows off his work, writing and re-writing Ss and Rs and Js and doing "1+3=4" equations. He smiles from ear-to-ear and tells me all about his literacy classes, even inviting me to come with him some time.
I also like to walk through the market and greet people. I just go wherever the mood and flow takes me. I make sure to make friends with the ladies who sell pate and vegetables, as those are my favorite. As I walk through the market, random people will stop me by shouting my Malian name, first and last name, and ask me how I am, how my family is, if there are any problems and then finish the greeting by telling God to give me peace for my day.
I love the conversations with random entrepreneurs on my walk to work each day. I've had a carpenter ask me about the kind of work I do, and when I tell him that I teach people how to do business, he asked me to help him.
I have people exclaim how much they want to learn English and ask me if I can help them.
I have little kids screaming "TOUBABU!!!!!!! TOUBABU!!!" and then waving like a bat-out-of-hell at me, seriously grinning and flailing their little hands at me. I love these kids. I always bend down on my knee, get to their level, and ask them how they are and what their name is. The usually just say "Owo" (Yes) because they are too little to know the language yet, but they are starting to even learn my name. And even know that I'm not a Toubab, but an American.
The dudes who fix things, drink tea and chat on my street fully recognize the fact that I am indeed, an American muso, not a Toubab.
The little girls (ages ~6 months to 8-years-old) who sell sugary, frozen juice drinks in tiny plastic bags from a dirty cooler on the side of the street all know my name. They always go "I ni ce Aramata!" when I pass by on my way to the stage house.
The lady who sells pork meatballs (seriously pork is a rare thing here, as we are in a 95% Muslim country) on the side of the street knows me too. And she's always greeting me enthusiastically, with a big smile, a blessing and another chance to convince me to tell all my American friends to buy the pork meatballs from her.
Today, I got the pleasure of spending the first quality time with my 80-year-old host mom.
She's been asking me day after day to come visit her spot in the market where she sells random food items.
I wander all around the market every day, but I never see her. Finally, we made plans to go together and for me to sit with her as she sells chopped up fish, mini macaroni sacks, sugary juice sachets, and tiny spaghetti sacks, deep in the market.
The reason she is never home is because she and her daughter have to work in the market all day, every day to make ends meet. Making ends meet is probably an understatement, because I would be very surprised if she ever makes a profit. And if she does, it can't be more than the equivalent to $1 a day.
But every day, she wakes up with the sun at 5 AM to pray. Then her "work starts" as she tells me. She gets stuff ready for extravaganza in the market and "doesn't clean the house." Haha. She's really old so she delegates that task to my teenage host sister.
I find my host mom sometimes filling small bags with juice. She sells a kind of frozen sweet tea and mixes Foster Clark juice packets with water and freezes them to sell them from her mini cooler.
She also chops up fish and sells little piles of cooked fish. And she buys big bags of macaroni and spaghetti and portions them into seriously tiny bags. Pasta is expensive to the average Malian, so smaller portions makes sense and is more affordable in the short-term.
Today, we headed out to the market at 8 AM, carefully dodging the massive mud pits carved into the road after the past few days' downpours. As we walked, I saw her boobs swaying in and out of her over-sized Malian musokoroba (old woman) outfit. This is not uncommon. And it's not embarrassing at all. Women always walk around with no shirt or bra on. And my host mom does it all the time.
She stops to greet most of the people on the road, adding another 10 minutes of straight greeting to our walk. She happily asks them if they slept in peace, how their family is and how they are.
At one point, she greets her cekoroba friend, who grabs my hand and seriously gives me at least 10-20 blessings through his rotten, gapped and almost-toothless grin. He was nice.
When we get to the sugu (market), we weave in and out through alleys within the sugu. Finally, we find her spot, a random, well tucked-in table among two other women entrepreneurs.
She sits next to a woman selling small piles of peppers. The other woman is selling Maggi, the Malian equivalent to buillon cubes, crushed powders, salt, sugar bags. They kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. After wandering for more than an hour in the sugu and village, I decide to join them for a sit and chat.
My host mom proudly yells to anyone and everyone approaching who I am. It was cute. She tucks the money she makes, small coins, under the cement sack she uses to cover the table.
As she hands people their cut up fish, she wraps it in an old typed report the previous volunteer wrote about Kita, with English notes scribbled on it. Probably some paper she found in his trash.
When I decide to leave, she runs after me, barely missing the globs of mud in the crevices of the "road" - to introduce me to a random young man selling shiny, waxy bazan fabric. I have no clue why she really wanted me to meet this dude, but he was nice.
At that point, I was pursuing a Malian dude with a blue shirt with a huge American flag on it that sparked with the amazing word - "AMERICA" on it. I asked him if I could buy the shirt off his back. (This is not totally uncommon for Malians to let you do this.)
I promised him to buy him another shirt and pay him for it. He actually ended up being a complete trampoline douche about it and led me to believe he was going to let me buy the shirt off his back. He didn't.
I didn't give up on my "America" shirt.
As I was browsing the dead Toubab clothes piles, at one of my favorite clothes shack, I saw a shirt with an American flag on it.
I asked how much. They said "keme duru" which, if you're reading and you know how much that is for a used American T-shirt, you know that's freaking OUTRAGEOUS. "Keme duru" is 2,500 CFAs, or about $5. No Malian in their right mind would EVER pay that much for one of these shirts. That's more than 2,000 way toooo much. He was just giving me that price because I'm white.
I throw the shirt down and stalk off. Saying, in English, how there's no way in freaking hell I was going to pay that. I usually don't buy from people who give me such outrageous prices like that, it's a principle thing.
Then, a guy who bought me a pair of tights when I had a similar fit, just gave me the shirt. So, all in all, my American shirt pursuit worked out.
As I browsed more piles, I found an even better "America" shirt - big, American flag - that says "AMERICA" on the top and "THE Place" under the flag.
How perfect.
This month I:
--Spent three weeks sick
--Found out someone's been repeatedly breaking into my house
--Rode the emotional roller coaster of a lifetime
--Started meditating again
--Checked off my goal of "Ride something taller than a horse" when I had to ride on top of a bashi (bus) for 3-4 hours (totally fun too)
--Wrote a poem and story
--"Deep inner searchED" - past tense. Meaning, I think I pushed through the Malian blues and things are going great
As you can tell, it's been an interesting month. Everything from daily Mr.D to breaking my relationship with my host sister to finding a used condom in my trash can to trying to play with some kids who got beaten up by their dad because he thought they were being bad to selling fish, little bags of macaroni and sugary juice sachets in the market to making mud-dyed fabric.
I would characterize this last month as the Top Two hardest thing I've ever done. And I've done some hard work in my life and been through a lot. This month has been insane, but all in all, I am so grateful for it. Because, as my dad says, it made me a better person, a stronger person and a better volunteer.
The only real change we can make in the world is to improve ourselves.
Anyway, so let me tell you the story of the constant break-ins.
The past few weeks, when I would come home from spending time in my community, I would find my stuff not-that-noticeably in disarray. After the trip to Bamako for my friend's birthday, I came back to find my suitcase wide open, with my personal items strewn about. Someone had clearly been shuffling through my giant suitcase.
I thought, "No, there's no way. I have to be imagining this."
Then, I would come home to find the lid on my American food open. And food missing. Little by little, my American food was disappearing.
I thought, "No, I guess I just ate it all. That sucks."
And I would come home to find all my clothes sifted around. And once my host sister remarked that I "had a lot of clothes," and I remember thinking, "How the hell would she know that? That's weird."
And then there's the story of my host sister tip-toeing into my house when I was curled up in a ball in unmentionable pain, with no pants on.
And that time, the first thing I thought was, "Am I seeing things? Do I have a ghost in my house? What the hell is going on??!" But it wasn't. The person in my house was a woman wearing a red skirt. And her footprint was ingrained in the termite dust on my floor.
Another time I came home to find my jewelry box open, with my jewelry hanging out. I never get into that thing, but still, I brushed it off.
Finally, when I came home after being sick in Bamako, my make-up in my bathroom was on my sink. It's usually in my basket next to my sink. In addition, eye shadow was wiped all over my towel. My brand-new soap was opened.
I waited until the next day, when I immediately talked to my regional coordinator (who is awesome).
After that, I knew for a fact that someone had been going into my house. There's no way in hell I did any of that, and after I realized for sure someone had been breaking in, it all started making sense. All the little incidents started adding up.
When I got off the phone with him, I opened my eye shadow case to find it all crumbled and broken and scratched out. That's the eye shadow that was wiped all over my towel.
I looked at my American food. Gum and Chips Ahoy were gone. A bunch of chocolate was gone. Reeses were gone. In fact, 90% of my American food was missing.
I walked my regional coordinator through my house, showing him all the stuff moved and missing and wiped everywhere. He totally believed me and was sure someone had been breaking into my house.
The weird thing we couldn't figure out was...HOW were they getting in? There was no sign of forced entry. My windows have bars and screens on them. The only way...was if someone had a KEY. That's just creepy.
Well, when I was waiting for the carpenter dude to change my locks, I decided to burn my trash.
Malians will usually go through your trash and take things from it. After feeling as violated as I did, I didn't want someone peeking through my trash.
Well, there was a little surprise in my trash.
Right at the bottom, buried purposefully at the bottom, was a Peace Corps Med Kit condom wrapper and used condom.
Wasn't mine.
I looked into my Med Kit, and sure enough, someone had sloppily ravaged through my Med Kit, ripped off the condom and left them all at the top of my Med Kit.
I immediately filed a report with Safety and Security and staged an intervention talk with my regional coordinator and my host family.
If my host family can't keep me safe, then why the fuck am I living there? That's their number one priority as a host family...and with them being gone all day and with the prime suspect being my 17-year-old host sister...why am I paying them to live in a house that's not safe and secure?
The weight of the situation took some time to settle in. Someone was breaking into my house...with a KEY. That's scary. Someone could have been sneaking into my house at any time, when I was sleeping, showering, anytime.
And...the worst part was...was someone having SEX in my house??? On MY bed??
I got my locks changed immediately. The next day we staged an intervention. It was so intense. The talk took about two hours and ended with me and my host sister crying.
I still don't know if it was her, but everything points in her direction. I asked every PCV who had been in my house about the situation, about the condom...and yes, there's still a chance that somehow the condom was from a PCV, but the way everything was done so sloppily, it doesn't seem feasible that a PCV I know so well would discard a used condom in my trash and not tell me. Plus, if an American were going through my stuff, I don't think they'd go through things so obviously.
Shame is one of the biggest deterrents in Malian culture. The worst possible thing a person can do is shame his/her family. Seriously, this is worth exile. Shame is hardcore here.
With that said, I don't think I will ever know who did it. If it was my host sister, she will NEVER, EVER, EVER admit it. Because it will SHAME her family like no other.
So, after this debacle, I decided I wanted to get away for a couple of days. I needed some space after feeling like someone violated my space so much.
I locked every door in my house - my kitchen door, my bathroom, my bedroom, double locked my front door...and embarked for the Niger River village-PCV getaway spot of Manatali.
I hope I can do the road to Manatali some justice. The trip to Manatali, after you've waited up for the bus to show up up to five hours late, is equivalent to driving a broken-down, smoking and bouncy bus down a ravaged riverbed.
The bus trip to Mantali from Kita can take anywhere up to four and a half to 12 hours. But, that's just the usual Malian way.
A few PCVs and I decided to go. The bus was full of enormous rice sacks covering the floor. There were wooden benches nailed to the walls of the bus for people to sit. People were squashed into the bus, like usual, with people occupying the rice sacks, the top of the bus and each inch on the bench.
On top of the bus, up to four or five feet high, was stacked with bikes, bags and mattresses and other furniture. There is no way in hell, unless you took some Ambien, to fall asleep on this extremely bouncy, jiggly, side-of-the-road maneuvering bus ride.
With no space left on the bus, my friend and I decided to squish ourselves onto the piles on the bus. For the next four or five hours.
It was a blast! I got snapped in the face by several trees and twigs, waved and greeted Malian passers-by, and talked music with a fellow PCV. When I got off the bus I felt like I had been lifting weights and I had cuts and scratches all over my body. My tip of my nose was sun burnt and there was a perfect line where my sunglasses had been. But it was worth every minute.
CHECK: Rode something taller than a horse.
CHECK: Saw monkeys.
Manatali is like a little beautiful river oasis in the dust-covered, treeless furnace that is Mali. It's the most aesthetically pleasing place I've been in Mali, and the river is right next to the stage huts.
People see hippos in the water and monkeys swinging in the trees. I too, saw Curious George when I was there this time. The little guy was playing with a plant under a hangar. He kept popping his head over the chair and staring at us. Then he would sink back down and pop back up. His little friend, a small baby monkey came to join him in basking and running in the sun. Curious George.
Turned out, leaving site for a few days after my break-in debacle was the best idea I've had.
When I came back, I felt ready to come back and excited to see everyone in my community. I felt like a lot of the tension I was holding after the break-in/Malian blues was released.
And now, things have been going great.
Each day, I wake up and meditate, get out and about somewhat early, walk to my service, rather than ride my bike, greet every person on the way, introduce myself and just wander around my village, meeting people and building relationships.
That's what I used to really enjoy about integration #1. I loved just wandering around, talking to people. Building relationships, joking around and witnessing Malian events I would never get the chance to see otherwise.
A couple days ago, I was chatting with the people at my shea service. Recently, I had wandered out to find some food. Around noon, it's hot as the insides of a bonfire, so all the people take their buckets and fly-infested goods and go home for the "heat of the day." You can't find anything to eat at lunch time!
A few minutes after I told Baba this, Younousa, the little guy I teach "What's up, homie?" to, came back with about three small pieces of goat meat on a ripped-off piece of used cement bag paper.
This meat probably cost the equivalent of 30-50 cents American, but the thought felt like a million bucks. It was my ultimate feared goat meat...a piece of the shag-carpet-like stomach and another piece or two with a bunch of fat and innards. I ate it anyway. It was actually delicious.
And each day, I watch Baba study in his steel and wooden wheelchair.
He's studying kindergarten-level Bambara, learning how to read, write and do simple math.
Baba is at least in his 40s. And he's learning how to read, write and do math. The thought crushes my heart in a good way. He is so determined to learn it, he gladly shows off his work, writing and re-writing Ss and Rs and Js and doing "1+3=4" equations. He smiles from ear-to-ear and tells me all about his literacy classes, even inviting me to come with him some time.
I also like to walk through the market and greet people. I just go wherever the mood and flow takes me. I make sure to make friends with the ladies who sell pate and vegetables, as those are my favorite. As I walk through the market, random people will stop me by shouting my Malian name, first and last name, and ask me how I am, how my family is, if there are any problems and then finish the greeting by telling God to give me peace for my day.
I love the conversations with random entrepreneurs on my walk to work each day. I've had a carpenter ask me about the kind of work I do, and when I tell him that I teach people how to do business, he asked me to help him.
I have people exclaim how much they want to learn English and ask me if I can help them.
I have little kids screaming "TOUBABU!!!!!!! TOUBABU!!!" and then waving like a bat-out-of-hell at me, seriously grinning and flailing their little hands at me. I love these kids. I always bend down on my knee, get to their level, and ask them how they are and what their name is. The usually just say "Owo" (Yes) because they are too little to know the language yet, but they are starting to even learn my name. And even know that I'm not a Toubab, but an American.
The dudes who fix things, drink tea and chat on my street fully recognize the fact that I am indeed, an American muso, not a Toubab.
The little girls (ages ~6 months to 8-years-old) who sell sugary, frozen juice drinks in tiny plastic bags from a dirty cooler on the side of the street all know my name. They always go "I ni ce Aramata!" when I pass by on my way to the stage house.
The lady who sells pork meatballs (seriously pork is a rare thing here, as we are in a 95% Muslim country) on the side of the street knows me too. And she's always greeting me enthusiastically, with a big smile, a blessing and another chance to convince me to tell all my American friends to buy the pork meatballs from her.
Today, I got the pleasure of spending the first quality time with my 80-year-old host mom.
She's been asking me day after day to come visit her spot in the market where she sells random food items.
I wander all around the market every day, but I never see her. Finally, we made plans to go together and for me to sit with her as she sells chopped up fish, mini macaroni sacks, sugary juice sachets, and tiny spaghetti sacks, deep in the market.
The reason she is never home is because she and her daughter have to work in the market all day, every day to make ends meet. Making ends meet is probably an understatement, because I would be very surprised if she ever makes a profit. And if she does, it can't be more than the equivalent to $1 a day.
But every day, she wakes up with the sun at 5 AM to pray. Then her "work starts" as she tells me. She gets stuff ready for extravaganza in the market and "doesn't clean the house." Haha. She's really old so she delegates that task to my teenage host sister.
I find my host mom sometimes filling small bags with juice. She sells a kind of frozen sweet tea and mixes Foster Clark juice packets with water and freezes them to sell them from her mini cooler.
She also chops up fish and sells little piles of cooked fish. And she buys big bags of macaroni and spaghetti and portions them into seriously tiny bags. Pasta is expensive to the average Malian, so smaller portions makes sense and is more affordable in the short-term.
Today, we headed out to the market at 8 AM, carefully dodging the massive mud pits carved into the road after the past few days' downpours. As we walked, I saw her boobs swaying in and out of her over-sized Malian musokoroba (old woman) outfit. This is not uncommon. And it's not embarrassing at all. Women always walk around with no shirt or bra on. And my host mom does it all the time.
She stops to greet most of the people on the road, adding another 10 minutes of straight greeting to our walk. She happily asks them if they slept in peace, how their family is and how they are.
At one point, she greets her cekoroba friend, who grabs my hand and seriously gives me at least 10-20 blessings through his rotten, gapped and almost-toothless grin. He was nice.
When we get to the sugu (market), we weave in and out through alleys within the sugu. Finally, we find her spot, a random, well tucked-in table among two other women entrepreneurs.
She sits next to a woman selling small piles of peppers. The other woman is selling Maggi, the Malian equivalent to buillon cubes, crushed powders, salt, sugar bags. They kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. After wandering for more than an hour in the sugu and village, I decide to join them for a sit and chat.
My host mom proudly yells to anyone and everyone approaching who I am. It was cute. She tucks the money she makes, small coins, under the cement sack she uses to cover the table.
As she hands people their cut up fish, she wraps it in an old typed report the previous volunteer wrote about Kita, with English notes scribbled on it. Probably some paper she found in his trash.
When I decide to leave, she runs after me, barely missing the globs of mud in the crevices of the "road" - to introduce me to a random young man selling shiny, waxy bazan fabric. I have no clue why she really wanted me to meet this dude, but he was nice.
At that point, I was pursuing a Malian dude with a blue shirt with a huge American flag on it that sparked with the amazing word - "AMERICA" on it. I asked him if I could buy the shirt off his back. (This is not totally uncommon for Malians to let you do this.)
I promised him to buy him another shirt and pay him for it. He actually ended up being a complete trampoline douche about it and led me to believe he was going to let me buy the shirt off his back. He didn't.
I didn't give up on my "America" shirt.
As I was browsing the dead Toubab clothes piles, at one of my favorite clothes shack, I saw a shirt with an American flag on it.
I asked how much. They said "keme duru" which, if you're reading and you know how much that is for a used American T-shirt, you know that's freaking OUTRAGEOUS. "Keme duru" is 2,500 CFAs, or about $5. No Malian in their right mind would EVER pay that much for one of these shirts. That's more than 2,000 way toooo much. He was just giving me that price because I'm white.
I throw the shirt down and stalk off. Saying, in English, how there's no way in freaking hell I was going to pay that. I usually don't buy from people who give me such outrageous prices like that, it's a principle thing.
Then, a guy who bought me a pair of tights when I had a similar fit, just gave me the shirt. So, all in all, my American shirt pursuit worked out.
As I browsed more piles, I found an even better "America" shirt - big, American flag - that says "AMERICA" on the top and "THE Place" under the flag.
How perfect.
Vest—I had no idea you were Peace Corp-ing. Will definitely be following your adventures.
ReplyDeleteThis is a bright, mostly happy blog. I'm glad things worked out. I knew your sister had done that once but not all those other incidents. Laura-I would have been freaked out and I'm glad u did something. You and I match now cos I lost my shoes wading in the lake and slipped, got cuts all over my feet and ankles. Then tried to climb back up and slid, grabbed a bunch of tree branches and have cuts and scratches all over my arms.So we match. Everything else sounds really good (except the condom) and your attitude is much better. I knew you would get throuh it. Love you-mom.
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