The Weberian State?

The African state is often criticized for being both inept and omi-present. This is an exaggeration of the extremes, but it captures the basic jist of the irony of total dependence on a set of very weak institutions. If I could recommend any book to read for a better understanding of why this is/how this works - it would be Pierre Englebert's Africa: Unity, Sovereignty, and Sorrow (coming out in May of this year). Basically, the African state has exclusive control of legal sovereignty and finds a way to make itself needed in all quotodien interactions. Further more, it entangles members of society into is its web - as they all search out a little piece of the state.

To offer an example:

I had to get two research permits from the Malian government to conduct my research. One as a foreigner to conduct research here and a second to conduct survey research. On the applications for both research permits, I need to put an "official stamp" from the Malian government to certify it. It would be like having to put a post office stamp on an application that I was submitting to for a forestry permit in the US. The stamps are supposedly sold by mayor's office except when we went there, they said they didn't sell them there any more. So after going to a larger government office, we asked a nice police officer where we could find the mystery stamps and he called over the vendor who walks around wearing an array of phone cards and selling cough drops/assorted candies. He pulls some government stamps out of his pockets and sells them for 10 cents over their face - which appears to be a standard transaction. Many questions remain: where did he get the government issued stamps? Is he the exclusive vendor or are there a lot of telephone card guys that have govt stamps to? How does his stamp make my application more official? Could I attach a cough drop wrapper instead?

So, I go to office one and succeed in obtaining permit #1 - which costs me $20 USD. The office is air-conditioned and the guy working the desk is very nice and efficient and turns out to be a Professor who works on education and is excited about brainstorming with me (I am meeting with him later today). So despite the $20 (which equals about 4 days of food from my budget), this was a good interaction.

Then on to permit 2. I am a bit intimidated because I have to submit this one to the department of statistics and they want my methodology, copies of my questions, etc. Some of my questions include: Are their high schools in Bamako where grades on report cards can be altered? Name 5 high schools where this is prevalent. Do you believe that the President and/or any of his staff are involved in corruption? Despite what I know about Mali being a very open society I was still nervous.

I prepared my dossier and we drove downtown to the DNSI office. I inquired outside about where to find the reception and then walked up to the first floor. I opened the door to a small office with about five women and two men. One man was behind a computer and the rest were watching a soccer game and/or sleeping under the mildly air-conditioned breeze. I asked about where I could get file my application for a "stastics visa." They sent me up to the 3rd floor. I walked up the narrow staircase and asked a very competent looking man about the visas, who then informed me that I should go drop it off at reception. I explained I was just at reception and so then he sent me to ask for Mr. Fofana back down at the 1st floor. I went to the first floor knocked on that door and found two secretaries chatting with each other. They explained that Mr. Fofana had left and they didn't know when he would be back. I went back up to the 3rd floor and told my ally that Fofana was out and then he said to go back to reception and ask for Mr. Doumbia. So I go back to reception and ask again about the stastical visa. Mr. Doumbia is now out, but one of the five ladies picks up my appplication and says - oh a stastical visa (I had repeated that about 6 times before she read it on my seat). Sit down she says. Drissa is with me and people soon find out that he is my husband and that I can speak some Bambara so at this point the entire mood of the sleepy air-conditioned office changes and there is much laughter and joking about Drissa's ethnic group and our lack of children. Finally, Mr. Doumbia - the first man I spoke to comes back and then takes my application and tells me to come back in two days. I say great.

I come back on Wed to pick up my application. I am greeted with smiles and laughter. I go to Mr. Fofana's office and he is very kind and explains that my application has been approved, but that there are some mistakes on the approval letter that they have written. I look down on his desk and see my approval letter with a big red circle around Monsieur - where they should have written Madame. He tells me that they are correcting these problems and to come back Thursday.

I return Thursday. Again much laughter and joking -even Mr. Doumbia smiles and greets me with "daughter in law" how are you? He hands me my permit!! And I don't pay a cent! With patience and laughter, most things are possible here. A free research permit with less than a week turnaround - pretty impressive.

Bamako Jazz Festival

So in my last post, I mentioned the "music of Bamako." Most of the time, I under-utilize this tremendous resource. However, this weekend I took advantage of two wonderful live music shows! On Friday I went to see Moussa Diallo trio (http://www.moussadiallo.com/index.php) and Andra Kouyate and his wife Mah Bara Soumano (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0dXRoYhuzI). Moussa Diallo was probably around 50 something, but was in amazing shape and just exuding energy - jumping around the stage, laughing, and dancing. He was accompanied by a jazz guitarist and a percussion guy - they definitely played a type of fusion - jazz, calypso, malian, and pop. The husband group were very cute - they played more traditional malian fare, but she has this really interesting vacuous/scratchy voice. They both gave each other a lot of props throughout the show.

Then on Sat, I saw this amazing amazing outdoor spectacle. 110 Belgians traveled to Mali to perform with Mali's own Baba Sissoko in a collaborative endeavor called Mali-mali. They set up an outdoor stage at this large conference center, hung bogolan in the background and made a faux baobob tree out of sticks and hanging candles. Then they strung white lights around the whole stage. The Belgians were dressed in reds and oranges and browns. There was a chorus, huge horn section (french horn included), and a bunch of Belgians with African instruments (djembes, koras, tamani). I am guessing it was a mix of real musicians and people who had taken part in a 2 year long African music class learning how to play these things. The conductor/co author of this thing was a short, bouncy, smiling Belgian guy wit a skater (circa 1992) haircut- shaved on the sides and long down the middle. Baba Sissok is from a family of famous griots and didn't disappoint with either his singing or his tamani skills. The music was this quirky mix of Cuban big band, cheesy french 70s soundtrack, and Malian folk. I absolutely loved it and encourage you all to check out there music:http://www.malimali.be/pages/spectacle.html. Below the flashing add on the lower right had side you can click on the speaker icon and hear some of their stuff. It was fun because everyone on stage was totally into it. Another surreal Saturday in Bamako!

Top 10 Bamako

Bamako often gets a bad rap due to the chaotic layout, the dust, the pollution, and the whirlwind of people, kids, animals, motos, and cars flying about. This makes me sad because I love Bamako; I definitely have what you would call "South Side" pride (we live on the newer southside of the river). I read a travel blog the other day that was hating extensively on Bamako. In retaliation, I decided to write a top 10 list of things I love about Bamako. Sure, Bamako isn't (and probably won't ever be) a tourist haven, but its the little things that make me want to keep coming back here.

Bamako top 10 (in no particular order)

1. Cold, bottled cokes for $.40 a piece
2. Driving across the bridge at night watching the lights line both sides of the Niger
3. Sassy, confident women
4. Music (in clubs, live concerts, in cars, in shops - music music everywhere)
5. Malians' sense of humor - you have to know how to laugh at yourself/defend yourself with witty comebacks
6. Family and friends that embrace you like you were born here
7. Fresh food: fresh fish, sho (beans and onions cooked in oil), cheap fresh vegetables from the market
8. Bamako fashion - super loud colors, stylish accessories often with a retro, Middle Eastern, or American flair
9. athletic, creative, fearless children
10. Sitting on rooftops staring at the stars - knowing there are millions around you doing the same thing.

Serving Valentines Day Meal

Happy Valentines Day

I have never really been one to celebrate Valentines Day. However, sometimes being far away from home makes you crave stupid, unimportant holidays for some unexplainable reason. I remember being in Bamako during Halloween one time and buying a bag of candy that I handed out to all the kids of my block with a mini-lecture on Halloween (nothing informative - more like - it's Halloween in the US and this is what kids your age are doing...). Noone got it. This valentines day I might have imagined Drissa and I going out to hear live music or splurging on a nice dinner for two or maybe going dancing. Suprisingly, Bamako was well aware it was Valentines day and the local Shell station was selling cut flowers, candy, and used stuffed animals ($10 a pop).

However, I did not live out any expat valentines fantasies last night. Instead - we hosted Drissa's "geren" at our house. A "geren" is a group of men that you get together with to drink tea, make fun of each other, and talk about ex-girlfriends. Drissa gets together with his geren every Saturday. So every Sat - the 15 or so men all go to a different guy's house. Drissa's turn coincided with Valentines Day.

I asked Drissa if my friend Kadi could come help us cook. I have known Kadi since I first came to Bamako in 2002. She is married to Madou - who owned one of the Sotrama's Drissa used to drive. I always found Kadi and Madou's story inspiring. In a place where most marriages are arranged, Kadi and Madou actually fell in love and got married. They now have 4 kids. Kadi is my best female friend in Bamako. I love Kadi and I think she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. She has taught me more Bambara than anyone here. She doesn't speak French, is extremely patient, and speaks with a stutter. This means that she is slow and patient when she speaks with me. I knew that if I would be stuck cooking for 15 men - I would want Kadi on my side.

Kadi came around 3 and we went to the market to buy meet, potatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, oil, celery leaves, carrots, and mustard. We went back to my host family's house and peeled and cut vegetables and then slow cooked some meat (later pouring the vegetables on top). The whole cooking process took about 5 hours.

The men arrived at around 10. Drissa had set up chairs for them outside. They sat and talked and drank tea. I went over to check out the scene and asked Drissa when they wanted to eat. Then I went back and watched a Valentines Day poetry competition with Kadi at my host families house. At 10:30 it was time to serve the food. Kadi and I brought it over to my house and seperated it into 5 plates. We put the food out and then brought water so the men could wash their hands. Then we served them cokes and brought them water to drink.

Then we sat down in the house in front of our own plate of food. Some of my host familiy's daughters came over and joined us. As we were eating the men started to rush out to attend secondary Valentines Day parties. Kadi's husband Madou, who had joined the geren for tonight, drove Kadi and their youngest baby home on their motorcycle around midnight.

China in Africa

So my intern called me early this morning to explain that she couldn't come to work because all the roads were closed. Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting Mali and the Malian government has been busy closing down roads for him and declaring public holidays for civil servants (everyone got off a half day yesterday so they could line the streets for his arrival). Granted Mali has a population of 11 million and is one of the world's poorest countries, so it seems like a pretty big deal that the President of the world's largest state would spend the first two days of his Africa tour in Mali (He will also visit Senegal, Tanzania, and Mauritius). It was pretty cool to watch the news footage of him getting of the plane, the troops of Malian dancers and soldiers that greeted him. Drissa and I debated whether or not this type of thing could happen in the US. I explained to Drissa that Mali's population is not much larger than NJ's - so its sorta like if the President of China came to visit NJ. Drissa contends that NJ state employees would still not get half a day off for the visit. Regardless, in this age of democracy it is difficult to see this kind of spectacle - the moblization of the entire population for a grand welcome.

China gets a lot of bad press about their involvement in Africa - collaborating with the Northern Sudanese government, no-strings attached aid to countries like Angola, displacing indigenous manufacturers. Much of this is deserved. However, in Mali their material contribution is apparent. In a world where few donors want to fund large infastructure projects - the Chinese are all about it. They have built quite a few strutures in Mali already - but their newest contributions will be a hospital in Sikasso (I learned this from the billboard overlooking the highway) and a 3rd bridge for Bamako. For anyone who doesn't live in Bamako, it is hard to explain how amazing/important a third bridge would be. The Niger slices Bamako in half and everyday, commuters travel on one of two bridges to get to their job, go to market, or whatever business they have on the other side of the river. One bridge is just one way traffic from 7-10 or so and then reverse traffic from 4-6. You sit in line waiting to get on the bridge for an hour or so (without traffic this trip takes like 5 minutes) breathing in exhaust waiting for the cars to squeeze single file into the line for the bridge. A third bridge will clear up traffic, but also enable an entire economy and community farther up stream where the bridge will cross the river. Bamako will go from having two overworked arteries to three less-overworked arteries.

I can't quite understand the Chinese goodwill campaign. It is not unlike Libya's efforts to appear as a benevolent benefactor (thought Khaddafi's are of a much more personal nature). However, Libya is less efficient and has left Bamako littered with quite a few unfinished government buildings. But why the billboards proclaiming Chinese investment in Mali? Billboards of not - Malians respect that work of the Chinese. They might complain about the lack of quality in Chinese products but know that it is grace a la Chinese plastic motorcycle that many people don't have to walk or take public transit. Air Pollution definitely!! But between the cell phone/plastic moto explosion here in Bamako - I can say that things have really changed since 2002.

Bad Day

Yesterday was a bad day. First of all, I had been struggling with a weird kind of strep/flu thing when all of a sudden on Monday - I noticed a swelling on the right side of my neck. It was tender and sore to the touch. I always a little bit freak out about stuff like this - like I have some bizarre tropical disease - but given the sore throat, fever, etc - seemed likely to be a swollen lymph node. Monday night I demanded that Drissa take me to get a remedy - a cheeseburger, fries, and coke float from the only american restaurant in town (way on the other side of the river). Unfortunately, neither cheeseburger nor the American film I watched via itunes (the secret life of bees) kept my swelling down or fever away. I took some cipro thinking that this would wash away all the bad strep bacteria. Cipro is a tough medicine - it kills the good and bad bacteria and leaves your body feeling like a trampled battleground.

So I wake up wed and the swelling is worse. Rex proceeds to eat my computer power cord to the AC adapter (prob cause I have been sick and haven't given her attention lately). I wave this off and ask that Drissa give my RAs some data entry work to do and proceed to sleep for the day. I later im with my Aunt and cousin (who are the best fake doctors I know). Later my mom and her school nurse send word that cipro doesn't work for strep. I stop taking cipro and try to find some other antibiotics. I get my Malian Aunt to write a prescription for penicillin - (basically her writing onto a doctors sized notebook, but no stamp or letter head or anything), but the pharmacy says they only carry injectable penicillin - well I don't want that. Drissa sends his little brother to get their family doctor to write me a prescription - which after a lot of discussion - he does and then Yacouba (drissa's bro) brings over Ampicillin - which ends in cillin and should be ok. "Where there is no Doctor" reports that it is a suitable replacement for amoxicillin - so I take it.

Meanwhile, Drissa discovers that someone has stolen our car radio. He runs off into the night and tries to bounty hunt the culprits - which he is pretty sure - live in the neighborhood. I watch like 2 episodes of the new bachelor (which I don't even like but was the only thing I could find on youtube) and then fall asleep before Drissa is back.

Today I feel better. Besides the swelling and fatigue - my body feels good. I am going to force myself stay in bed again all day today and see what happens tomorrow.

The After

Here's the after shot of my feet. Oh that secret chemical indredient - poloni = rat poison!!!!

Beautified

In two days I have undergone extreme makeover - Malian Edition. Yesterday I went and got my hair braided. Now that the hot season is coming, braiding helps keep you head ventilated - so you don't sweat under your hair. There is the added side benefit that everyone thinks you are like 5 times as beautiful. I've gotten complements from my coaches, Drissa's uncle, kids on the street, the ladies who work at the Shell station. I am sure part of it is my willingness to embrace "farafigne" style, but I honestly also get a dramatic reaction from people as if I'd gotten liposuction or a nose job.

Today, I embarked on stage 2 of my beautification - I got my feet hennaed. This is like a 4-5 hour procedure - so I planned to do it at Drissa's family's house - thus earning me extra points with the inlaws. (In Mali, you get social "credit" by sitting and visiting. You don't necessarily have to bring any great conversation or party tricks - just gotta log hours sitting next to people.) There was extensive discussion over what henna procedure I should get. There is a temporary kind - that is painted on using "black Japanese hair dye" or there is "jabi" (henna) which is then turned black with "poloni" (some kind of chemical that smells like peroxide). Drissa's sisters decided that I should get jabba done but then there was some debate over whether my feet would be able to handle the poloni - which supposedly burns. At first I was going to opt for regular henna (my argument being that in India and Morocco they use red/orange henna), but Drissa's uncle and one of his brothers put their feet down and demanded that I have black henna. The family reached a compromise and determined that we would try the poloni for 25 minutes (as compared to the regular 45) or until my feet start burning.

First, a girl from the neighborhood cut strips of white tape with a razor blad along my feet. I was a bit nervous at first because she was cutting out designs with the blade along my feet (at least it was a new blade). After the designs were cut, henna was applied to one foot by one sister - while the design specialist started on the left foot. Then the left foot and my left hand were hennaed. After being hennaed - they wrapped my feet in the omnipresent black plastic bags. Then, they proceded to put socks over the plastic bags. The entire time - a gaggle of children was wriggling and watching with anticipation.

After an hour and a half - my feet were freed from their enclosures and washed off - revealing a rich orange/red henna. The whole process felt rather nice - I guess anytime you have 3 people working on your body it feels very relaxing - like a manicure and massage at once. So then came the moment of truth - to see if the toubab could withstand the poloni. They covered my clean feet with this chemical mixed into another substance and then re-wrapped with socks and plastic bags. 15 minutes - so far, no pain - people were impressed. I heard gossip in the background - it must be that my feet are tough from sports. They looked at my feet, but it wasn't dark enough yet - so they put them back for another 15 mintues. Finally, my feet began to itch a bit and they figured they should wash off the final solution. My feet emerged rather rainbow colored - red and green and yellow and grey - a bit like a tye dye bob marley birthday tribute. Everyone laughed a little, but assured me they would become black. Now my feet have almost turned all grey/black - revealing a nice geometric zig zag pattern around the tops of my feet and darkened soles. I am planning to put on some heels and go out for a beer or two tonight and show them off.

Nescafe fueled Training

It's about 9 pm and I am exhausted. This is partially due to the dust. It's like dustbowl everywhere in Mali - it is on your skin, in your hair, and you can just feel it in your lungs. Many people riding motorcycles wear those Air France/Air Morroco sleeping masks over their noses. I haven't figured out how to pull that off (or the bandana look) while coaching baskteball without looking like a bankrobber or sorta OCD. However, the bizarre thing is you wake up with a cold feeling like a complete dork (like I haven't spent the last two and a half year of my life in Freezing Ithaca) and need to remind yourself that it was dust-induced. Today, Drissa brought me some Lipton full of pepper as a remedy, which tasted good but then seemed to take all my energy away. I swear I need to google pepper to see if it has some crazy healing/body cleansing characteristics.

The second factor is my week long training. So back at Cornell I ran 3 hour long discussion sessions (in English). Now I lead a training from 8 am to 4 pm (in French) - we dicuss various topics and then we usually do some computer training (word, excel, etc) then we eat lunch then I work with one student on Bambara lessona and I give random tasks to the other two (translation work, reading articles, fixing my written french). As I mentioned before - I have two recent undergrads (maitrise in Sociology and another in Econ) and an intern who is still at university. The intern is supposed to have school 3 times a week and come to our trainings the other days. So far, every day her school has been cancelled or the profs haven't shown so she has come.

Sample material - Week One:
Monday - state formation, sovereignty, legitimacy, nationalism, etc
Tuesday - Education as a tool - statebuilding, nationalism, socialization of citizens, teaching democrats, building legitimacy, and intro to educational trends in West Africa, ed stats in Mali; word and excel training
Wednesday - Research methods - hypothesis formation, causaliity?, different types of variables, observable implications, different research methods etc; composition and budget creation in word and excel; translation
Thursday - review of my hypotheses, primary descriptive data questions, methods for obtaining that data, discussion of: why parents send their kids to different types of schools? why certain schools are built in certain places?

It's tough and tiring, but I feel like we are covering a lot of ground. It's awesome to have them gut check my assumption and quesions. It's also great to work with them to come up with research questions they think are interesting or ways to get data on phenomena (diploma-buying) that ministries or schools don't keep stats on. So far we have come up with some really fun side projects - doing interviews with univesrity students about the easiest and hardest highschools in Bamako and looking at the politicians's use of soccer games when they announce their candidacy.

We do the training at my house. I have food brought from my host family's house for lunch each day. The funny thing - in the US once you say work/training is over - people generally go home. However, my team has a tendancy to just sorta hang around after we are done. The Malian way? I've got a lot more learning to do.....

Mali Music Video

So my brother Tommybear aka Zander just finished putting together the video that he shot in Mali. I am 80% recommending watching it because I am proud of my brother and 20% recommending it because there are some beautiful images of our beloved Mali! Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9_4SBuAuw&fmt=22 and you won't be disappointed! (Look out for Drissa's mom - in the back of the sheep feeding scene and our nephew - "boi fitini" running with the kids chasing my brother.) You can catch Drissa and Deriki aka Soft-touch in the car pushing scene.