back in the states + PHOTOS!!

have many people discovered the fabulousness that is virgin america airlines? yesterday morning boarding the plane i felt - with the low purple lighting and the ambient music - as if i were entering a dance club, much less an airplane. but yet i was on a plane from heading from new york to san francisco, the last leg of my several plane flights home to the bay area. a fat issue of vogue (i'm trying to get inspiration for my new short hair cut) in tote, i sensed that the combination of an airplane-turned-dance club and a fashion magazine filled with more advertisements than actual content was an abrupt transition back to american consumer culture.
on the plane, i embraced the free music, TV and music videos VA's "Red" onboard entertainment system had to offer. instant gratification. technology is wild.

mali was a different sort of wild, in the best way possible. i was fortunate to have a homestay experience in addition to a foreign study program experience living with other students in the house my professor and her husband built. being in a homestay, knowing nobody in mali for the first two weeks of my stay was, well, fabulous. i don't think i would have been challenged in the same ways had i been a part of a large group program. i tagged along with coulibaly family members to visit people's homes and talk over 3 cups of tea. i was around the women during parts of the day - saw how early they would wake up, how hard they worked during the day to keep the household up and running.

i made friends, ones that i will continue to carry with me as i go back to school this week. and i am very excited to see where those relationships go from here. one thing's for sure - i'm going to have to start speaking better bambara. good thing my friend amadou refused to let me return his bambara dictionary.

i wasn't able to upload photos while i was in mali, so now i will bestow upon you a sampling of pictures from my journey. enjoy!

a shot of doumanzana, the quartier (neighborhood) i was living in


the moto i took many a ride on; unfortunately didn't get to drive it, that was ibrahim

pics are taking a while to upload so i will try to figure out a better way to post them for friends and family to view!

much love,
djene

nostalgia

as i spend my last week here in bamako, i find myself already missing mali, feeling a bit of nostalgia for the places and people that have become my life over the past month and a half.

i will miss the tigadegena (peanut sauce), playing with the Coulibaly kids and the children at the local centre d'écoute, dancing with Sali and Mba, making faces at the drummers, Sekou calling me "zoza" (meaning rabbit in bambara), being the "second wife" in the trio that is Omilade, Michael and myself...also - people thinking i'm chinese and braying at me (hee haw) when what they are really trying to say is "ni hao"; riding on the moto; eating mangoes; greeting nearly everyone while walking around the quartier. i find it hard to figure out how to leave mali, not knowing when i will be back. but i certainly do have the sense that this has only been a beginning. the friendships i have made here couldn't possibly just end here...that would almost be unnatural, given the connections i feel to people here.

michelle and her dance company (plus some other people who came to dance/work/study in Mali) came here on the 6th, so we've all been hanging out and dancing and playing together since then. michelle's working on a project on malaria prevention and is planning on using the arts and education to increase dialogue and awareness about preventing malaria in Mali. malaria kills more than AIDS does in Mali, but it is AIDS that gets all the funding. waste management is a big issue - the large amount of sewage and standing water in bamako makes for a whole host of breeding grounds for the mosquitos who spread the disease. many people live near small creeks where trash piles up and mosquitos thrive. so, one aspect of the project is trying to work with people in the community to get children involved in making educational theater about their thoughts concerning malaria prevention. it is this that has taken up a lot of my time lately. that and spending time with the people here who have made this experience truly transformative. omilade left yesterday and i will truly miss that girl. she's the big sister i never had.

and the Coulibalys. oh my word. what a family.

"family" - the word has taken on a completely new meaning for me here in mali. i see now how powerful a support structure the family can be, and i realize that i have been neglecting line for quite some time now, either because i'm too busy or too detached to be the sister and daughter i'd like to be. fortunately, i'll be spending some time in california before heading back to school and will be able to chill with the family in a few days.

bamanan muso = malian woman

today my dance teacher mba painted a design on my feet and my left hand with a henna-like substance. i'd seen designs on women's feet at weddings or out in the town on the public transportation vehicles (sotramas). very pretty and elaborate designs. sali, our other dance teacher, had her feet done and since omilade and i took interest, they decided that we should be tattooed as well. it was nice to have mba do my design because the first time i met her she was at her house drawing a design on her daughter's feet. she told me, "il faut essayer" (french for you must try) and i drew a random design that came to my head on her hand. now it was her turn to draw on me and i must say that my feet and hand came out quite pretty, though i managed to smudge my hand a little. the color is more black and dark green than henna, which comes out more auburn-ish brown on my skin. ibrahim saw me while mba was doing the design on my feet and he said that i was becoming a bamanan muso (bambara for malian woman) and that that was a good thing.

we had dance class again this morning. we added another dance, didadi, which is one i did in class last semester with my dance professor, michelle. "didadi" translates as "honey and honey." didadi has this wonderful, joy-filled beat that is simply contagious. makes me smile every time. anyways, the didadi we did with mba and sali was different than michelle's version. there are more hips and swaying involved, and less jumping. unfortunately, less jumping doesn't mean it's less aerobic, because it certainly gets my breath going and my heart pumping.

the panafrican women's day was on thursday and there was a huge celebration at the palais de la culture in bamako. mah comandeered an empty sotrama that was in service and loaded us in with her friends, everyone dressed in the pink fabric bearing the panafrican women's organization logo. mah spotted a friend in a sotrama that was in-service and got our "chauffeur" and the driver of the other sotrama to both pull over so that all the women dressed in panafrican fabrics in the other vehicle could load into our car. i wonder how many women in bamako can hire an in-service sotrama as a personal taxi cab and make other sotramas pull over to transfer riders. not many. basically, mah's hot shit.

the celebration was full of energy. the band was fabulous - featured some koras, djembes, a dun dun, a talking drum, and lots of talented singers. important female leaders spoke about how african (and specifically, malian) women are crucial to the fight against poverty. this year's theme focused on the effects of globalization on the continent.

i went again to the children's center and spoke with the director (or, as he told me in french, chargeur des programmes), whose name is bakary. bakary told me a lot about the center - because it was in french, i had to ask questions occassionally, but for the most part, i understood what he had to say. yippee. the center was born of a local association interested in youth development in doumanzana (the quartier of bamako where i'm staying). it welcomes all children to come and play and just be kids. all new visitors to the center go through a preliminary interview and survey, so that the animateurs can understand the social history of each child. from these files, children in difficult situations are identified and solutions to whatever problems they face, be it a physical handicap, parents who are unable to support them, etc., are sought by the center personnel. because many children are unable to go to school due to common household circumstances in doumanzana, the center mainly runs an orientation program meant to put children in local public and - for the older children without schooling - vocational programs. for many children, barriers to getting an education rest heavily on their parents' not having the means to send them to school, either because they don't have a birth certificate or they can't pay school fees or they can't afford to not have the children in the street working to add to the household income. the center seeks to make education a reality for these children by giving reading and writing classes (meant to prepare children for school), doing activities such as debates or skits to educate kids about their rights, health issues, healthy parent-child relationships, etc., and working on their dossiers so that they can be accepted to local schools. a partnership with an education group makes it so that fees are waived for many of the children working with the center.

what tells me that the center is doing good work is the fact that the second the gates are open, children flood the basketball court and playground. the kids know where bakary lives and they go to his house for help or to tell him to open the center. mothers bring their children there because they hear of its good work and they want their children to succeed. while i was visiting, a young mother of 6 came by with her children to see the center. she had visited bakary the day before and told him of the death of her husband, who was killed by his fiance over some dispute. she knew that the center would be a good place for her children to have their needs assessed and addressed.

i asked bakary what the needs of the center are, and from what he told me, the main issue is a source of sustainable funding. i'm going to do more research about possible partners the center can link up with and see what sorts of alternative funding methods NGOs are using... i want to figure out how to find funding for the center, so that it can better meet the needs of children in this peripheral quartier. bakary and the others need more support. the children need more support. i hope that in the next couple of weeks i can get started on figuring out how to get the center on a budget de fonctionnement as bakary called it. so here i must end my blog, so i can use my time in the cyber cafe to do some research. anyone with ideas - please send me an email (michele_baer@brown.edu).

peace and love,
djeneba/michele