Countdown to Ameriki

Fieldwork can sometimes seem like its in another dimension. As you attempt to sync up with local rhythms, requests back home (aka USA), funding deadlines, crucial facebook status updates you find yourself caught in this timewarp - void of real deadlines for your actual work=dissertation research and just a string of responses and mini-obligations. Despite my penchant for personal disorganization and chaos, I am actually a super-planner/list maker. This type of behavior (extended timelines and masterplans) doesn't fly so well here. Malians keep things pretty short term - probably since things are always popping up here and there. For instance, last Friday, one of my RAs informed me that he had to go to a wedding in his village for his cousin for the first three days of this week. "You know," he said, "if I don't go - they will speak badly about me." I told him to just keep me informed as to his plans.

Weddings and baptisms pop up just like that. No save the date. Just one day - someone will tell you - oh there is an important wedding this weekend. I have to confess - I have been hiding from weddings this trip because, although they would no doubt contribute to my Bambara acquisition, are really tiring and eat up your weekend days. But every Thursday and Sunday - you are constantly reminded that there are weddings all around. Motorcades drive thru the city. Or better put - gangs of moto drivers who think they are stunt drivers fly around the city. Driving to teach English on Sunday - we surrounded by a flock of wheely popping motos - doing figure 8s around the two lanes of traffic. Everything was a 1/2 second near miss. I felt really bad for the car drivers - who had moto drivers coming straight onto them in a bad game of wedding chicken. I seriously felt like I was watching a 70s action film. I remember going with Drissa to a village for a wedding once - this kind of crazy driving business was exxagerated there - where people were driving buses and cars in circles to the point that some of the cars broke - and everyone cheered. I am trying to think of a US equivalent - destruction and risk to celebrate permanent life choices/transitions. I don't know that getting wasted at a wedding is quite the same.

In 2 weeks and 1 day, I leave Mali for a mini vacation in the US and then a conference in Ghana. I will be back - thank goodness! but its the first time that calendars and deadlines have really slapped me in the face. In Accra, I am attending the American Political Science Association Africa Workshop - along with 3 other US grad students and 20 Professors from Africa. I need to present a paper by then, so there is a mad scramble to get voting data. The municipal election data - from about a month ago, is still not available - so I am trying to go after the 2nd and 3rd best participation proxies until I can get my hands on that data (hopefully before I leave). Meanwhile, my friend and colleague Pablo is coming to visit early Saturday morning. We are planning a roadtrip out of Bamako to visit my former-coworker's village, Mopti, and Segou. I don't know the exact dates yet - because Bara wasn't comfortable scheduling this far in advance. So, maybe we will leave Sunday....