Sacrifice sounds so gory

First and foremost, new photos are up! Check them out!

I read a book recently called "Dancing With Skeletons". It's by Kathrine Dettwyler, a nutritional anthropologist who spent several years here in Mali studying malnutrition. If you're interested in a pretty comprehensive picture of life here in Mali, I'd recommend picking up a copy. I found a lot of similarities between her experiences and mine. Amazon.com sells it, although I think $15 is a bit pricey. It's worth checking out your local library or used bookstore first: http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Skeletons-Life-Death-Africa/dp/088133748X

Additionally, I heard a report on NPR in the last year that claimed that there were more pirates circulating in the oceans these days than ever before. I didn't take much notice until recently, when the BBC started reporting on the kidnapping of an American captain off the coast of Somalia. Is anyone talking about it in the US? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7999350.stm

Now for the latest from site:

I thought I chipped a tooth while eating a carrot one day for lunch in my hut (it wasn't even a ripe carrot - it'd been sitting in the trunk where I keep my food for a day or so and was getting limp!) Turns out I just popped off the metal retainer that's been cemented in my mouth since 8th grade when I got my braces off. I took a quick trip into Bamako to see the Lebanese Peace Corps appointed dentist, who glued me back together, and off I went again, back into the brush.


It's mango season around here. Mangoes left, right, and center. Mangoes for breakfast, mangoes for 10am snack, mangoes for lunch, mangoes at 4pm, mangoes before dinner, after dinner, and before bed. That's a light exaggeration, but for a while, there were trucks coming into town daily to take loads and loads of mangoes out. Unfortunately, and for some reason I can't figure out, they're all gone now. I wish I would have known better, because I would have eaten more, and taken more pictures of the piles and piles that were around village. Here's the one I did manage to take.





I was invited to attend the sacrifices of one of my school teacher's elders late last week. From what I understand, forty days after the person dies (although I think they took some liberty with their counting on this one), the Senufo people (it's weird calling people I consider friends a "people". It sounds very academic and scholarly, and entirely removed) have a sacrificial ceremony for the deceased. The ceremony was scheduled for some time on Friday morning (basically whenever the religious leaders showed up, they'd start. Nobody would give me a definite time, no matter how many times I asked). People started arriving Thursday morning, and the family's compound just got more and more packed as folks moto'ed in from surrounding villages. We sat around Thursday afternoon and evening, chatting. I'd been more or less on my own with my school teacher's family Thursday morning, and was getting pretty bored, as they speak Senufo, a language I don't understand. I'd arrived before the rest of my village and had been passing the time spending napping, talking to various members of the family, and reading. And then, all of a sudden, half of my village rode up on their motos. And it was like night and day. Well, sort of.
As is perhaps normal, there have been times recently when I've wondered if all my time spent in village was really amounting to anything. After all, they speak Samogo, and I understand about three words of Samogo, so I spend a lot of time listening, or watching. It wasn't clear that I was actually making friends or acquaintances. But when the folks from my village showed up at my teacher's family's concession, I put those fears aside. It was like night and day. Well, maybe not night and day. Maybe like night and day in Alaska during the summer. I'd been sitting around with nothing to do and while I was still sitting around after the folks from my village arrived, at least I was sitting around with people I knew and recognized. I sat down Thursday night with one of them who I'd seen in passing in village before, but had never sat down to have a real conversation with. Madu, a 40ish year old father of 15 and husband of two (pictured below with my camera case in his hand ), and I had roughly the following conversation:


Madu: "Rokia (that's my name), in America, do you have mud?"
Me: "Yup!"
Madu, picking up some of the dust we were sitting on, "No, like real dust. Like this stuff?"
Me: "Yup"
Someone else from behind: "But Rokia, I thought everything in America was paved?"
Me: "Nope, behind my house in America, we have grass and dirt".
Madu: "Rokia, do you farm in America?"
Me: "We do, but machines do most of the work. But my parents have a small garden at their house where they farm corn and tomatoes with their hands"
Madu" Rokia, is there wind in America?"
And once the moon had risen, "Rokia, is there a moon in America? Is it the same as this one?" At that point, I turned on my flashlight and tried to illustrate the moon and it's relation to the earth and it's rotation.
Madu: "Ooohh...so once the moon leaves here, it continues on to America? What time is it in America right now?"

And on and on we went, comparing the things they know here in Mali to life in America. A conversation similar to this one happens often between me and folks in my village. They think America is only what they see on TV.

The next morning, folks woke up early (most of them had slept outside on mats) and sat around waiting for the teachers (the literal translation is teacher. They're really the Muslim spiritual leaders) to arrive. And suddenly, with no announcement that I could discern, people started heading to the hangar across the street from the concession to sit and listen to these teachers talk. The sacrifice ceremony included these teachers talking about Muslim teachings (from what I could tell). My school teacher got up and said a word or two, as did some other folks, but the ceremony was over in about an hour. And everyone went back to the concession, ate some rice and sauce for lunch, drank some Malian tea, and then got on their motos and went home. Just like that it was over.

Here are the "teachers":
And here's my friend giving his little speech:



There's more that's been going on, but unfortunately I'm out of time. Take a look at the photos for more shots of my village, the folks at the sacrifice ceremony, and the latest round of vaccinations in village.