Thursday, July 30, 2009

Playing Frogger in the Regional Capital

Kayes is a pedestrian town with no pedestrian space. There is little public transport so it is common to walk 6-12 kilometers a day. Some neighborhoods live in secondary flood plains off the river and this makes walking around a perilous and exciting adventure (we toubabs play a game called – “don’t fall in the nyegen ji (toilet water).”

Yesterday I went on one of my cross town adventures. I was headed from Khasso neighborhood over to the Peace Corps house in Legal Segou to check my email. My friend Brandon (aka supreme Bamanan speaker and esteemed mayor of Bamako and Kayes)had graciously allowed me to sit in on one of his interviews, so that I could meet one of his many Kayes VIP contacts.

I walked down a narrow road along the river. The road, unlike most in Kayes, was paved. Decaying colonial buildings walled in the road. Large trucks transporting merchandise from Senegal lined the walled street, thus making the road narrower and narrower. The road cuts through a market and as darkness fell, people, cars, and motos dodged in, out, and around the layers of building and trucks. About half the way through my walk, pirogues coming across the river (the bridge is out and everyone and everything crosses in a small pinasse) were unloading massive bulls into the road. The bulls, whose legs were bound as if they were planning to win a 3-legged race, were shepherded by a couple of teenage boys holding ropes tied to their back legs. Four groups of bulls funneled out of the pirogues into the narrow road. I watched as the teenage boys struggled to control the bulls meters away from me. Cars zoomed up behind the bulls and only a few feet away noticed the thick walls of livestock zig-zagging along the road. Motos zoomed around the cows and I tried to stay a couple of steps behind them – always anticipating an impromptu and unscripted running of the bulls. Only in Mali would one worry about being hit by both a moto and a pack of bulls in a regional capital.

Yesterday we completed 17 surveys. Today it is raining (12 hours straight and counting): the roads are ruined and people are sleeping, so I suspect we will do none.

Goodbye Bamako, Welcome to Kayes

My first and only visit to Kayes was in 2003. Drissa and I were taking the train from Bamako to Dakar and we stopped halfway (24 hrs) through our journey. I remember eating delicious fish and rice during that brief stopover, but that is about all.

Besides the railroad, Kayes is famous for a few other things. It is fabled to be one of the hottest cities in the world (supposedly the iron ore below the earth pulls the heat in); Kayes was the original French colonial administrative capital in present-day Mali. The French built the firsts schools here in the 1880s. In a contemporary context, Kayes serves as a customs junction between the ports in Senegal and landlocked Bamako.

I arrived in Kayes on Sunday. My team and I are staying with my Aunt Djeneba (who ran for mayors)’s family. It is a large concession with trees in the middle. I’ve had to adjust to family-style living: no inside toilet – just an outside “nyegen” (a whole in the ground with cement walls around it, no personal space (my suitcase sits on a series of other suitcases along the wall – I rifle through my suitcases to find items as needed); I sleep outside on a bed with a mosiquito net surrounded by women and children watching TV (people greet me as I sit in mosquito net feeling rather like a pet or zoo animal). I had a David Sedaris moment the other day when I brought some butter cookies into the nyegen with me so that I could eat them in isolation because I didn’t want to have to share.

That said, the pros of my set-up completely outweigh the cons. That a family could so quickly accommodate 4 people is incredible. Completely unlike me trying to run a Bamako house, everything is done for me here. People assembly and disassembly my bed, they bring out food, buckets of water to wash with, chairs, etc. And the food!!! The food here is incredible. A couple of months into my fieldwork I had decided that I no longer liked most Malian food. Kayes has changed everything. I eat and love every sauce that is presented – even the leafy ones like fahgwe and saga saga. I try everything – a Peule woman cam by with fresh yogurt milk which I drank and I am currently sipping millet pourridge as a I write. The food in Kayes is so much better than the food in Bamako. I have asked people here why and they say that it is because the servants cook in Bamako and in Kayes the women in the family cook. Evidence A is my Aunt’s incredible 70/80 something mother who must sleep less than 4 housr a night, who tirelessly prepares breakfast for us every morning. The other theory is that Bamakoise eat out of their homes less often and are thus less invested in food preparation. Whatever the reason I am happy that my faith in Malian food has been restored.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Happy Retirement Mom

My mother has just completed her last day of teaching summer school and the last day of her 34 year career! Congrats Mom! Enjoy the rest of your summer and think about coming to Bamako!!!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Maggie's in Town

My best friend Maggie is visiting Bamako and doing a photo a day blog: www.bko24.blogspot.com.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Back in Bamako!

After 6 weeks in the US- Ghana - US, I was happily surprised how excited I am to be back in Bamako. I stepped off the plane into less than stifling heat that smelled like the Sahel ecstatic to be back home. Six weeks away had been a pleasant vacation - a nice rest from the wear and tear of hot season, but now a Bamako at 80 degrees was like a whole new (yet familiar) world. I came home to find my sub-letter in my bedroom and our cleaning guy Drissa living in my office. My courtyard has transformed into the neighborhood card spot. My dog - much to my delight and amazement - got fat! My nieces and nephews crawled and squirmed all over me as I distributed beenie babies from my grandmother. In thirty minutes they were already parading the stuffed animals across real livestock, attaching rubbery wire "leashes", and throwing them up into the air.

I have made a pact with myself to only update this blog while on Malian soil, but here I will offer a quick update of the last month and a half of activities. In 6 weeks away I conducted a mini East Coast tour (NYC-Ithaca- NJ-Philly) and saw great friends, family, my dog, and my husband. Activities included: house party in brooklyn, lots of Ithaca fun, my mom's retirement party, snuggling Zumana, and a weekend date with Drissa to Philly (I love that city). Then spent 3 weeks with 20 profs from all over Africa at the American Political Science Association Africa Conference in Accra. Accra was overwhelming - there was a mall and coffee shops and a Shoprite! In addition to the intellectual exchange, I got to check out dwarf soccer, bring Obama posters to local nightclubs, visit an Ashanti palace, and jump into freshwater in Africa for the first time ever. Go Team APSA Accra! Jokers foreva? A special shout out to my comrade Jessica - who traveled 12 hours overland to come visit me in Ghana - it was fabulous.

So, now back to work. It's nice to be home.