Slices of Life in Mali

(the view from a hill above our house)


(street level in Djoumanzana, Bamako)

These are a few of the everyday details that may go ignored after three months in Mali but are nonetheless apparent this week through with my still-American perspective:

1. You’re barefoot all the time. Anytime you enter a house, you leave your shoes/sandals at the door. Consequently, you add another sensory layer by feeling the ground beneath your feet. Smooth concrete tells me I’m at dance class and cold, wet, tiles reminds me that I’m in bathroom. We recently purchased small rugs, doormats really, for each room and I nearly cried at the luxurious soft feeling of carpeting. Even though I’ve walked on carpet my entire life, I’ve never really noticed it’s wonderful texture.

2. You drink A LOT of water. Africa is hot and air-conditioning is non-existent. One way to keep ourselves cool is to put our sweat glands on overdrive. Even though we may drink around a gallon of water a day, we never seem to have to urinate. Our liquids come in various forms; from 1.5 liters of Tombouctou purified water to hot tea with sweeten condensed milk. One benefit of all this sweat, particularly from the buckets I release in dance class, is that my skin remains healthy and my pores dirt-free.

3. The fluorescent lights have seizures every time you turn them on. Maybe Mali uses a different type of electricity, but the lights require some sort of spark that is initiated by the light switch. And it may take thirty seconds of sparking for the gas in the lights to actually catch. There are two bathrooms on the second floor, one of which is notoriously slow for lighting. In choosing between the two, it’s a tough choice because despite it’s lazy lighting, this one has a mirror and toilet seats that are attached, of which the second is lacking. I usually go for the one with the toilet seat and try to ignore the strobe lights that bring me close to a psychotic episode. (I have to clarify that these are not complaints, rather humorous observations. I am surprisingly comfortable here in Mali).

4. Whenever we walk down the street, the local children run over to shout at us “Toubabou, toubabou!” and we reply, “Farafin, farafin!” This roughly translates to foreigner and black person, but this greeting has no basis in racism. Rather, it’s just children pointing out the extremely obvious; everything from our skin color to our clothes to our language, everything screams tourist, or at least someone who’s not from the area. Our reply is on their same level of obvious-ness and gets a lot of grins. The children make this place so less intimidating because they are quick to laugh and shout a mis-pronounced bonjour. They’ll come right up with a “ca va” and demand a high-five that can quickly turn into holding hands for the duration of the walk. As cute as that sounds, we know how dirty the kids’ hands are and pat their heads affectionately instead.

5) One of our morning rituals is Bambara lessons with our Malian professor Sekou during breakfast. We begin each meal with a local proverb and I love starting my day with this flip-calendar of wise sayings. Our first proverb was:
“D))ni d))ni k)n)nin bE nhyaga da” or “Little by little the small bird makes his nest.” To me, it speaks of patience, of working hard for something that doesn’t seem apparent at the beginning. Our first week here in Mali has been overwhelming at times. But it’s also been an amazing example of the human ability to adapt to new surroundings. In only seven days, we can now navigate the winding paths to dance class, we can quickly convert CFA to dollar in our heads, we can shrink our physical bodies to make room on a sotrama, most importantly, we can laugh together as we fumble to make Mali our new home.