The idea of leaving though has given me a certain ‘do or die’ attitude, because if I don’t do something now, I won’t have the chance again. This philosophy has led to several interesting situations: primarily, I managed to convince Julie it would be a good idea to witness a birth at the local clinic we work at in Sikoro. I then talk with the Sage-femmes (i.e. mid-wives) and ask if we can witness a birth. One woman looks me up and down and she seems to be judging me on the fact that I have never carried a child. She hesitates, and then invites us to spend the night with her at the clinic to watch a birth.
Julie and I return at 6pm the next day to spend the night. The clinic is bare except for a young man and squat women recording numbers from vaccination campaigns. We sit down, and wait. And wait for about 3 hours watching Malian television. At about 9pm it suddenly dawns on me that I have no idea what I am doing. In no way am I prepared to watch a life come into this world. I have not reached that level of maturity. I turn to Julie and explain my minor panic attack, and propose we leave—she seems rather relieved at my revelation. I then quickly stand up, explain to the squat woman that I have a terrible headache and so unfortunately will have to watch a birth another night. I then proceed to run away.
Looking back on it, it was probably good we didn’t go through with spending the night to watch a birth. We had nothing to bring to the table, we have no medical experience, we don’t know any of the Sage-femmes at all really. In fact, we would have been tourists to a birth.
It seems that so much of my time here I have worried about fitting in. At the beginning of my time in Mali, I was afraid to go out on my own, as I did not want to disturb Malian life. I was afraid to take pictures, as I did not want people to think I was just another American tourist.
Now though I realize, any attempt for me to fit in is utterly futile. I am white, I am American, and I can never walk down the street in Mali without getting some sort of special attention—whether is be kids crying out Toubabou (white man) or taxis honking to get a fare. I cannot fit in, and so I should not try to change what is essential about me. However this does not mean that I should stop trying to understand and learn from what is happening around me.
In fact, because Julie and I don’t fit in, we made it onto one of two of Mali’s television channels. Saturday night we wend out to watch one of our friends, Ba, sing. We thought she was going to be singing at a small bar or a local club, but no. We enter into the Palais Culturel to a theatre full of people arranged in sections. Each section was holding up sighs such as B12 or B6. After several minutes of confusion and eavesdropping on others conversations, slowly it begins to dawn on me that we are watching a game show. Ba will be singing in the opening act, and then the competition will begin.
The show consisted of 6 women who were fighting for the title of the women who best espouses the traditional qualities of a wife of a king. The show seemed to be an attempt to preserve Malian culture in face of modernization. The values they presented were that of subservience, respect and kindness (at least as far as I could tell, it was all in Bambara.) What was crazy though was the contrast between how boisterous and crazy the women were in the audience cheering for their ‘candidates’ and the tranquility of the candidates on stage. The voting process also seemed to reflect Malian culture in that the populaces vote did not win. Though people would text in who they wanted to keep on the show, this only counted for 50% of the ballot. The other 50% was decided by the ‘King of Mande’ and his counselors.
The audience was crazy, everyone dancing, banging on Tam Tams, and old water jugs. At one point in the melee, I look over, and there is this camera about 2 feet from my face. I become extremely self-conscious and start telling myself: just look ahead, act natural. Don’t look at the camera, don’t look at the camera. I look at the camera and smile painfully. Apparently, the cameramen like to zoom in and take long pauses on the 2 Toubabous in the room.
Kara informed us later that he had seen us on TV and we looked great. I laugh at the comment. Though I am rather excited to have had my debut on Malian television, I am not so much excited that the only reason I was on TV was because I am white.
It is strange that when I feel more at ease, when I feel more at ease with myself, I take my camera out more. Julie and I and one of our friends spent two nights in Segu, the ancient capital of the Bambara kingdom and a current economic hub of Mali and a MVP (Millennium Village Project) site. During those short days, my camera made more appearances than it has all trip. Perhaps this is because here in Segu I am officially a tourist, I am ok with standing out and looking ridiculous. In Bamako however, I am trying to get work done, and so I am afraid that by taking out the camera I become less of a worker and more of a tourist.
Segu in itself though is stunning. It is on the Niger and from Segu’s port you can take a boat all the way up to Timbuktu (which takes about 3 days). Julie and I attempted to take a much shorter journey in a pirogue to the other side of the Niger. Before we got in to the boa though, a slick looking boy came up to us and told us that Toubabou’s couldn’t take this pirogue for 150CFA (about 35 cents); we instead had to take a private boat from the other side for 7500CFA. Naturally, being college students, we decided to pursue the cheaper option and climbed into the pirogue. The boat filled up with people and wood and chickens and I think a motorcycle. As the crew began to push off, a man waded through the water and presented his license from the office of tourism to us. He promptly asked us to get out of the boat. I jumped out a little too enthusiastically and got my jeans soaking wet. It turns out that we Toubabou’s can’t take the cheaper option out of respect for the people who live here, because this ride is a joy ride for us, but it is a way of life for them.
The PiroqueThe trip to Segu was absolutely stunning, the place so weighted with history. The means of getting back to Bamako though is another story in itself. For any writer currently suffering from writers block I highly suggest they take some public transportation in the developing world. I guarantee they will leave with a good story. For example, we left Segu to go on a day trip to the Bridge of Markalla, about 40km away. The bridge was built in the 1940’s by hand using forced labor. About 4,000 people died in constructing the bridge. To get to the bridge we jam our way into a public taxi. As we start out, the taxi man is obviously looking to pick up other fair, though at this point I could not imagine why—the taxi was already full.
In returning from Marakall to Segu, we get in a normal taxi with space for 5 people. Except there aren’t 5 people in the car there are 8: 4 in the front and four in the back. I have the joy of sitting in the back next to a Malian woman about twice my size. The front window is completely cracked and the doors have all lost their handles. As we start off down the road, I begin to plot favorable reactions and possible escape routes in case of an accident. Fortunately, I did not need to use any of these possible escape plans, however we did have the misfortune of a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and the second misfortune of this very sketchy taxi man not having a spare. After waiting around for a couple of hours, another taxi man in an equally sketchy car gave his spare tire to us and we were on the road again.
However, the joys of developing world transport do not stop with public taxis. One really must experience the charter bus. After we missed our first bus in the name of lunch, and after we sat at the bus stop for about 4 hours, we finally caught a charter back to Bamako. The bus is completely packed and with no air conditioning. This lack of circulation remedied by leaving the buses door open. I manage to grab a seat near the front. I look to my left and notice that the boy sitting across from me is holding a box full of pigeons that are not making a sound.
Malian bus rides coincide nicely with Malian philosophy as far as I can tell. There are many rest stops in the Malian bus ride, and each rest stop is accompanied by food. When the bus pulls over, a horde of venders crowd around the bus—sometimes entering—selling everything from hard-boiled eggs to cakes to edible roots and milk. This might be silly to write, but I could not help by think of how much I would hate that job: sprinting up to buses to make a single sale, selling things to people that they don’t really need, and to watch them drive away again while you are let behind to make the next sale.
Going back to the idea of fitting in, Julie and I had some Malian clothes made for us. We came home, or at least I came home from the tailor, giddy like a little girl, clutching at the dress. Yet when I put it on, it fits alright, only the chest is huge. I had never thought myself to be particularly deprived in that department, but in this top I am practically swimming in it. Julie’s too doesn’t fit quite right, one pange is too long, another shirt too wide. I take of the dress in anger, throw it on the bed, then come back five minutes later, put it on and pin in the extra fabric. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got I suppose.
It’s fairly similar to another sight I’ve seen a lot in Mali: little boys riding men’s bicycles. At first, I thought to myself: wow that is rather strange that all these boys are borrowing bikes from their older brothers, and then I realized that they don’t have bikes for children here. The boys are just working with what they’ve got.
So I can’t blend in here, the dress will never fit perfectly. And so I realize that I should stop worrying about standing out because of the way I look or dress or act and just be myself. I might not be able to fit into a Malian tailor’s idea for a dress, but I certainly can rock the pinned one I am wearing right now. And though I may not ever be able to walk down the street like a Malian woman, that doesn’t mean I still can’t bring something valuable to the table.
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