BaSeBa

This is my village!

There's 4 of us staying in Missalabugu for training. It's a really small village, with only about 250 people, most of whom are children. It's also pretty isolated; we have to bike for 30 minutes over rugged dirt roads to get to a slightly larger town where we can buy a coke or fruit. From there, it's a 20 minute taxi ride to get to the market in the next town.
The day we arrived, we were greated by the entire village with drums and music. Then we were taken to a shady spot with four chairs where the chief formally welcomed us. We presented Kola nuts to the elder of the village, recited a brief speech of "we're happy to be here, our mothers and fathers greet you." and then everyone formed a circle and two men in wooden masks and hula skirts did some crazy complex dance moves. It was pretty amazing.
Life has quieted down a lot since then. In a typical day, I wake up with the sun and roosters, bathe, eat breakfast (I've taught them to make scrambled eggs and toasted bread), then go to "school."



This is my classroom. It's just 4 chairs under a tree. We spend all morning here, come home for lunch, go back to school, come home for dinner, and then go to bed when the sun goes down. There's no electricity or running water, so there's not much you can do after it gets dark.
Last week we went to the market and bought 4 chickens to have for dinner. We tied their feet together and brought them (alive) back to the village. Uor teacher cut their throats and de-feathered them, then we cut them open and took out the guts (most of which we ate!). I haven't been served a goat head, but I've now eaten chicken kidneys, livers, fish heads the look like snake heads, and lots of random mush.
Learning Bambara is endlessly amusing. There are so many compound words that totally crack me up. For example, the word for arm (bolakala) is hand + stick, a butt (bobara) is poop + bowl, and anus (boda) is poop + door. The word for freckles (alakadabaji) literally means ink dots made by Allah's feather pen. Mr. D (konoboli) is stomach + run, and petrol (taji) is fire + water. The cardinal directions are also funny: north (kokodugu) is the village of salt, south (worodugu) is the village where you get Kola nuts, west (tilelan) is sun + lay down, and east (koran) is mecca.
My host family is really wonderful. Polygamy is very common in Mali, so the dugutigi (chief of the village) has 3 wives. They don't make much distinction between who's child is who's, and just pass the babies around from naked boob to naked boob. It was a bit shocking at first, but like everything else, I'm getting used to it.

I've been given a Malian name: BaSeBa Tarawele, which they think is much easier to pronounce than Mary. I'm named after the chief's mother (ba = mother) and everyone tells me that means I'm the mother of the whole village.
More pictures to come when I get another break from training!