First taste of "la brousse" of Mali

Mosquito net: check

Mosquito repellent: check

Anti mosquito spray: check

Compass: check….

… and here we were, ready for our first real African adventure. The past 4 months we were too busy finding our way in Bamako, the capital, but finally…. Segou, a ‘town’ 235 km east of Bamako, our first taste of the provincial Mali was waiting for us. 


Normally it is a 4 hours drive to Segou, except that finding the right way out of Bamako was our first 30 minutes challenge.

The Old bridge in the centre of Bamako

First test was to cross the Niger River, what shouldn’t be a difficult task knowing that there are 2 bridges in Bamako centre and one very old passage outside the city, which is only usable in the dry season and only if you pay a ‘baksheesh’ (or should I say bribe) to the police man guarding it. The logical choice would have been the closest one of the 2 bridges in the city centre, but because of an African logic, this choice was out of the question at this hour of the day. And now I can see the question marks in your eyes: “Why?” Because… this bridge is transformed in a one-way bridge for a few hours every day, twice a day during rush hours. It allows traffic to flow in to the city in the morning and out of the city in the evening. It was morning and we wanted out, an impossible combination.

So we decided for the second logical choice, the ‘baksheesh’ bridge outside the centre. After asking a few police men and receiving answers like “ça dépand = it depends” on our question if we can cross the river over that bridge, we finally made it to a path that actually did go over the river, better said, go IN the (luckily) not too deep water with one short unstable bridge section. The other side of the passage there was a branching dirt road waiting for us where the first item from our check list came in handy: the compass! We also tried asking people, but the word “Segou” (the second most important town in the country) was totally unknown for them.

Baobab tree

Petrol station

Once on the big road, little by little the traffic disappeared. The scenery changed as well. The mango trees and greenish grassland gave way to baobab trees and dry fields. The few “petrol stations” on our way were small huts, selling 1 liter bottles of fuel. Tiny villages with mud houses, some of them with cute miniature mosques, also build in mud, broke the monotony. Sometimes overloaded trucks passed by making us wonder how can they keep on the road, leaning so extremely to the side with their cargo. And sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, there was a cow slowly passing the road. 

African traffic jam

Hotel faro (not my photo)

Knowing how chaotic Bamako is, I was wondering already about the time that we would need to find our hotel in Segou, the second most important town in Mali. (I’m sure that those of you, who have been to this place, are now laughing at my naivety.) My concern was not necessary. Hotel Faro is situated before the city, well indicated. In between mud huts a dirt road brought us to a well-hidden paradise, along the Niger River. Build in a traditional Sudanese style, this place totally blends in the entourage. The owner, Nathalie welcomed us with the good news that our “pinasse “ the little boat that was going to bring us to Kalabougou village, was waiting for us at the “harbour”.  

Pinasse

Pottery in process 

Kalabougou is situated on the other side of the river, about 45 minutes by “pinasse”.  This village is producing pottery and … only pottery. In this scenery, where I had the impression that we were catapulted back in many centuries, if I had seen Jesus walking toward us, it would have seemed normal. It was the most mystifying visit of my life and when after 1 hour it was over, I thanked the Universe that I wasn’t born there.

The Chief

Local boy

Salif, our guide made our visit a lot smoother than when if we would have done it on our own. Instead of being swarmed by bagging children, the kids were following us politely, some taking us by our hands. The villagers only speak bambara, a local language and except “bonjour, ça va” there was no way to communicate with them. Salif was our translator and he also explained the rules. In Mali, if you want to visit a village, you have to ask permission from the chief of the village and eventually pay a tax, which was our case. After having paid 3.500 CFA (about 6 €) we were free to wander around and to take as many photos as we wanted. Salif explained us how the pottery is made, showed us the plants and stones that are used for colouring and when I asked him to see the oven for baking the pottery, he smiled about my “stupidity”.  Once a week, the villagers make a big campfire on a square and bake all the pottery produced by every family in the same time.

Kalabougou

What shocked me the most in this village was the poverty. There were only small mud houses with dirt floors, without doors and windows, no basic furniture at all. And no electricity! There was a tiny new school building though with a small sun energy system on the roof, providing enough electricity for that one building.


The way back to Segou the silence was dominating in the boat, being deep in our thoughts, trying to digest our visit…

Mosque in mud construction in Kalabougou

Kalabougou

The circumcision house

Anybody home?!

No Barbie but happy

Coulibaly Puppet Theater (Fête des enfants - part 2)

As I learn, to organize an End of the Year Party (or "Fête des enfants", how it is called in Mali) there are a few "got to know" rules.

Firs: an average Malian family has 4 children but having 6-8 children is very normal, especially because of the local law allows polygamy, so 1 man can have up to 4 wives.

Second: no alcohol. Well, finally the foreigners did negotiate for some beer. Also, as I understood, some locals do drink alcohol but they would never do it in front of the other Malian colleagues.

Third: loads of food. Being one of the poorest countries in Africa, food is very important therefore the success of a good party is based on the quantity of the meal. And the local cuisine is most appreciated so don't try to come up with an out of the ordinary menu. 

Yaya Coulibaly

Taking in account all the above mentioned I quickly realized that the only one point on the agenda where the fantasy can be exhausted is the ENTERTAINING. And knowing that at least 50% of the participants are children between 1-13 years, inviting the National Ballet to perform the Swan-lake wouldn't be a good idea. 

One proposal was accepted: the Coulibaly Puppet Theater. At first, I was a bit disappointed but after looking it up on the internet, my curiosity got the better of me and gave it a chance. And I must admit, it was fantastic.

The giant puppets

Yaya Coulibaly, the father of this puppet theater comes from an ancient family of puppeteers with roots in the Bambara Empire  of Ségou in Mali. Not only that he learned the magic world of puppets from his forefathers but also he studied at the Bamako National Institute of the Arts at the Institut International de la Marionnette en Fance.

He has a collection of hundreds of wooden puppets of all sizes, small, large, men, women, boatmen and riders, children, camels, hyenas, cows, toucans, antelopes, etc... many of which have come down to him through his family. And every puppet has its own name and story. Some of the puppet's mouth and fingers can be separately manipulated. It was an amazing performance for children and for grown ups.

See you at the next years "Fête des enfants".

The Giant Puppets

The Hyena?! 

The Camels and the Tuaregs

Waiting for the show to begin

On of the puppet performers

"Fête des enfants" (part 1)

The Father Christmas (a she actually:-)

About a month ago I was asked to help out at the "Fêtes des enfants", what could be translated as  "Children's feast". As I don't have children and I don't necessarily consider myself as a 'child-friendly' person, would have said no but as it was for my husband's work I accepted the invitation.

So what exactly is the "Fête des enfants"?  Was still not sure to be the right person to help out until I found out that actually it is the
Christmas Party/End of the Year Party (the name depending on the country where we were living before) that is organized ones a year for the employees and their families.

As I'm new in Mali and in Africa all together, I was more listening than giving ideas during meetings. I also learned that the name of this feast is not just the name this time, but it is actually focused only on the children. In other countries, this "End of the Year Party" would have been organized in two parts. The first part in the afternoon would have been for the children, with animation, Father Christmas, the gifts, etc... and the second part in the evening would have been for the "grown up" ones. I used to help out my husband making funny quizzes and we had great music for dancing, but all this was not necessarily this time. 


So when the group told me that they have the perfect job for me, I was right away looking for the door to escape while I was picturing myself dressed up as a clown entertaining the children. I must have looked really horrified because they immediately explained my job-description and had a good lough with my face. 
I was going to be the "official" photographer! Hearing this, all my doubts about attending this "fête" disappeared. Can you imagine?! Taking photos of beautifully dressed African women, men and children without having to negotiate for a permission?! It sounded like heaven to me!

 

Endless patience, secret of surviving...

Today I realized that, without even noticing, one month flown by and except working very hard to create an environment called "home" I even abandoned my blog. 

Badia checking out our bananas

Finally, I can say that the house starts to feel like "home" even if there are still workers wandering around every day. There are days when I have the impression that while they repairing something broken, consecutively something else brakes down. One step forward, two steps back...

Having endless patience is the secret for survival. I have tried  all kind of methods with the workers during the past month, from being very friendly to being extremely difficult and nothing made a difference. They just keep smiling and they always keep the same (slow) speed as before. And I have to keep double checking all what they do and quite often have to ask them to redo it all. Now I also know that if I ask them to come in the morning, they might arrive in the morning but the following day and if they say that they have work for 2 days, means that they will be there (not necessarily working) for at least one week. 

Tea making accessories 

Tea is very important for the Malian people. Everywhere on the streets you can see that same funny metal construction for the coal, the same small teapots and small glasses. Knowing about this tradition, my first decision was to offer those accessories to the 4 permanent guards in front of our house, together with the local tea and sugar. So now, not only that they offer me tea from time to time but they also take over the task of hospitality and they make tea for all the workers active in our house. Quite often there is a one big happy gathering in our carport with 10-15 people (workers, guards, driver, gardener, etc.) drinking tea.

There is one other interesting element in the Malian culture. People eat with their (right) hands. And not only people on the street or the workers but also people at the offices, like in the kitchen at my husbands office. And they are really good at it because when I tried to do the same, the food was all over the place (my blouse especially) but not in my mouth. But I will keep practicing...

Pirogues

Last Sunday, friends invited us to their "paillotte". Don't worry, I had to ask myself, what that was exactly. :-) They are the "equivalent" of what we would call summer houses, little cabins with straw roofs, except that they are very basic with pounded earth floors and no electricity. Expats rent them for the weekends to get away from the polluted, hectic and hot city. 

The paillotte

This paillotte was next to the Niger River at a breathtaking place, 1 hour drive, outside of Bamako. 

Fisherman greeting us

We had a very nice afternoon, with picnic, watching hundreds of pirogues passing by and me, looking at my friends bathing. They did convince me about the nonexistence of crocodiles and hippopotamus, but the dark brown color of the water wasn't inspiring me, so I turned down a swim in the Niger River... just to see my first crocodile swimming in that same river this morning... Quite a shock seeing them NOT in a cage, like we are used to in Europe! ;-)) 

Never a dull moment in Africa! 

Ah, the French world...

Cover of My Fair Lady

Mostly having lived in an anglo-saxon environment for the past 18 years, for me, adjusting to the 'Francophone' world is not so simple.


Quite often a quotation from my favorite musicals "My Fair Lady" pops up in my mind; 


"The French don't care what they do actually
As long as they pronounce it properly"


And there are so many contradictories... Taking for example the French language. The letter endings in French are at least a half a page long, sometimes longer than the actual message it self:


"Veuillez agréer, Madame, l’expression de mes salutations distinguées."


The English version would be "Kind regards".


But on the other end, french people love to use abbreviations.  And those abbreviations are used in every day life as well as in newspapers, or the news and political discussion. 


So talking to french people can be quite frustrating because  they bomb you with abbreviations, rarely making an effort 'decoding' them for you (or in most cases because they don't speak any other language, they don't even realize the difficulty for non French people to understand those 'codes').


Conversations like these can get stressful: "Let's meet at CCF and there I will explain you how to go to CMF but first I must pass by a GAB." Hellooooo????


Translation:
CCF = Centre Culturel Français
CMF = Centre Medical Français
GAB = guichet automatique de banque (ATM, cash dispenser)


The other day I went to a "Bamako Accueil" meeting, the French version of the "International Women's Club" which by the way I'm still trying to discover here in Bamako. I met a few nice people at this meeting but somehow I still felt an outsider. We are so different in many ways. For example, French people (even if they are between friends) can talk for a half an hour just to make you understand that they don't like your new haircut. If you ask me, it's such a waist of time. Just say what you want to say and go on with your life. 


But the best remark of the meeting was when a French lady asked me if I'm Russian. Me?!?! With my olive oil skin and dark hair I was taken for Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Lebanese, Albanian ... but never before for RUSSIAN!!!  And when I asked why she thought that I was Russian, she told me, because of my accent (which is Hungarian, by the way). According to her, as I was not African black, I must be Russian. 
When I said to an other French woman that I'm hungarian, she said: "Great, than you can give us some EXOTIC cooking recipes."


And when someone asked me if I spoke English and I said that I did, among 7 other languages, she just looked at me like she just met an extraterrestrial. 


And one more frustrating episode: 
Canalsat/Canal+, is (to my knowledge and I'm still hoping that I'm wrong) the only one satellite provider in Mali and even buying the most expensive package with about 100 channels, except Euronews and CNN in English, there is not one single program in an other language than FRENCH. Not even BBC World!!! Heeeeeeelp!

Airport experience... never again!

After having had a hilarious first experience at Bamako airport this evening, the temptation was too high, I decided for my laptop, in stead of going to bed.

A few weeks before, I already described the "Arrival" at Bamako Airport but I think that the "Departure" beets it all! I will never forgive myself for not taking my camera with me this evening and I think that I will buy a tape recorder because like the conversations from this evening are priceless.

After arriving in Mali 21 days ago (and my first time ever in black Africa), my husband had to leave for a mission and me (very naively) proposed to accompany him to the airport. With my western standards my idea was to go with him and the driver to the airport, let him check in and have a coffee together before his departure. Wrong idea!

The airport is about 15 km from the city center and the ride is quite fascinating for someone like me, who is new in Mali (or Africa all together). A big chaos was greeting us outside of the airport even before arriving to the parking area. The driver pools in as close as possible to the entrance, we agree that first he parks the car and after that he will come to find us inside.

The moment we got out of the car, like flies, a few dozens of sellers attached us, trying to sell us a hugh range of products like toilet paper, telephone cards or bidding mats (some of them even very sophisticated, with a compass integrated). Eager to get inside the airport, we bravely fight our way trough the mess but at the door we bumped into an impressive police man blocking the entrance, saying; Not so fast, show your tickets firs! So, my husband shows his ticket and tells the police man that I'm accompanying him till the passport control.

'Pas de ticket, pas d'entré", no ticket, no entry he tells us. With our stupid western mentality it took us a few seconds to realize that what he was telling was that without a ticket or a visitors badge, nobody can go inside the airport. While we were discussing with the police man, the driver arrives (of course with a visitors badge on his neck), he takes over the discussion in bambara and after a short conversation he tells us in a low voice "continuer". So despite the police man's protests behind us, we both walk inside to find ourselves in a different kind of chaos, with about 300 passengers waiting all over the place, without clear queuing up system, in a space that even a person not suffering of claustrophobia could easily get an attack.

My husband already did check in online, he had his seat and he only needed to give his luggage but there was nobody who could tell where to go. Meanwhile the police man arrives with the driver behind him and he orders me IMMEDIATELY out of the airport. Being impressed by the tight security, I say goodbye to my husband and while I follow the police man to the exit, the driver proposes to find out about the luggage.

Once outside, the horde of seller/business men attacked me again, but this time (being a white woman alone) with a slightly different business proposition. Among other things like a camel ride in the desert, some wanted to sell me camels, others were proposing camels as a payment for me. Even if the whole conversation was quite friendly and funny, after a few minutes I gave up and to the same police man's incredulity I dared to step 1 meter inside the airport again. As an answer to his protest, I told him that it was his duty to get rid of the bunch of sellers as well and as long as they are there I'm going to wait over here. Realizing that he is going to loose the battle with me, he just gave up 1 meter of his precious territory.

Back in the car, on our way to the centre, I told the driver that I was impressed by the serious security inside the airport. He looked at me, deciding if he would enlighten me or not and probably thought that it was his duty to help me out of my naivety.

The REAL STORY was that while talking in bambara the police man asked him 5000 CFA fancs (7.5€)  for letting me inside but the driver didn't want to give him more than 1000 CFA fancs.

And suddenly it struck me the reason why the police man knew and shook hands with so many passengers. ANYBODY who wanted to go inside the airport, just slipped a 'tip' in his hands while 'saying hello'. Welcome to Africa!

"To holiday or not to holiday..."

Probably because we are new in Mali, we are flabbergasted about the local traditions. We knew that it was the end of the Ramadan yesterday and today is a holiday, what we didn't know was  that in Mali determining the end of the Ramadan is not that simple. The Grand Mufti must actually SEE the Moon before deciding about the end. 

There is something that I should tell you; right now it's the rainy season in Mali and a clear sky is very rear. So, if because of the clouds, the Grand Mufti will not see the Moon, there will be no holiday tomorrow. And the Grand Mufti's decision will be followed by an administrative decision about an eventual second day of holiday, depending on ... (the Moon, I guess). So, forget about planning a long weekend...

Yesterday (cloudy day) at 9.30 pm nobody yet could tell if today (Thursday) will be a holiday or not. At 11 pm was still only "probably not". So this morning we wake up, my husband is getting ready for work, usual routine, till the moment that we see that our driver didn't show up. We ask the guard (there is one 24 hours) who tells us that at 3.30 am this morning the decision for ending the Ramadan was taken and today is a holiday. We wish him "Happy Ramadan" and ask if it will be 1 or 2 days of holiday. "We don't know that yet, - he says - it will only be decided today". 

So hear we are, Thursday evening 11 pm, not knowing if tomorrow will be a working day or not. I wonder if the administration is out on a balcony with binoculars, hunting for the Moon before taking the decision?! Nobody can tell if, for example, tomorrow an embassy with 50 employees will have a normal working day or a holiday like today!!! How exciting... 
...
And the confirmation came at 1.30 am: Friday IS a holiday! :-))