My bed in Yangasso is a mat on the ground outside. It's pretty flat but there are small rocks embedded into the ground that feel pretty damn big around 3:00am.
This morning, I began my yalla yalla (walking around and greeting people). I started by heading down to the empty market area of Yangasso. Since Tuesdays are market days, the rest of the week there is a huge expanse made up of gwas which are small structures with four wooden posts and the top covered with either millet stock or dried grass. It's a cool spot during the week where old men hang out and listen to the radio.
I ended up hanging out with Mamadou Tangara. We basically sat and listened to a griot tell a story on the radio. Every so often, Mamadou would ask me about the United States... about the weather, snow or American houses... it was as if I had never left.
I then took off to look for a friend of mine Madu Konate who makes jewelry. He had made a braclet for me before I left Mali in '05, but it was stolen when I was in South Africa. He was happy enough to make another one and said it would be done by 5:00pm today.
In the cities, there will be four or five guys making jewelry at the same time so you get fast-paced rhythm repeated on top of itself again and again, but here in Yangasso it was a much calmer beat. I don't meditate but watching Madu create that braclet has got to be close to the idea of meditation... I must have spent an hour sitting there staring, listening and thinking about absolutely nothing.
Around noon, Madu invited me back to his house to have lunch with his family. We had bashi, fish sauce and lait caille. I'm not entirely sure this is correct, but Bashi is millet couscous. Millet is ground down to a flour and then cooked with a little bit of water so the flour clumps together into little tiny balls. The bashi was great and afterwards, I had my first Malian siesta in a long while. I forgot how hot it is here and how normal it is to absolutely pass out between 1:30 and 2:30pm... Even during the rainy season, the hours after mid-day are so hot that it is difficult to stay conscious. The only thing to do is pass out and revive yourself with Malian tea afterwards.
Since it is the rainy season, most people are out in the fields during the day weeding around their millet and making sure the crops are all right. Apparently, there hasn't been much rain this season. People are beginning to wonder if the millet is going to make it. It's a good reminder of the careful balance of life in this area of the world. For the most part, Malians hover right above the cut-off for existence. As long as there is rain during the rainy season, they can grow enough millet to last them through the rest of the year. If there isn't enough rain or if there crops don't make it for some reason, the ability to exist disappears. Just like that, a little less rain turns a thriving successful community into one of those ads you see on television with starving children covered in flies.
This all makes me realize why the culture and society is so important... why there is this amazing hospitality here. It is something they can have and control no matter what happens during the year. It's what makes them Malians... they will laugh and they will enjoy life.
TW
No comments:
Post a Comment