I am getting more used to life here. Not many things surprise me as much as they did when I first got here. Though I am more aware of things now and not necessarily trying to just communicate and go where I need to go and get done what I need to get done. One of the most annoying things is how obsessed people here are with having a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Often they want more than one and often if you don’t have one they will try and get you one. This is frustrating for everyone here. There are nine of us. Eight girls and one guy. Most of our siblings/cousins have brought up dating to us and though five of the people in the group have significant others four of us don’t. Though that doesn’t really matter here apparently because they still want to go out with you. Let me relate to you a perfect example of the conversations that we have.
I am sitting with eating dinner and my cousin Abu who is few years younger than me sits down and I ask him how his day was and what he did. He told me that he went swimming with his girlfriend and how beautiful and big and dark she was. Then he asked me about the youngest person in the group and I told him her name, he asked if she had a boyfriend in the states and I said no. He then wanted to know all the names (Malian) of the girls in the group, and I got to one girl and said her name and he asked if she had a boyfriend in the states and I said yes, and he said “That doesn’t matter, it’s a balance: an American boyfriend, and a Malian one, it’s better this way.” Then one of my brothers asked me why I hadn’t gotten him an American girlfriend. I told him it wasn’t my job to find him a girlfriend. He laughed and kept telling me to find him one. I then started to pretend that I couldn’t hear him and he laughed and went and did other things. My cousin though had now been joined by youngest sister and started grilling me about why I didn’t have a boyfriend. Then they decided that I should date the one guy in the group and I told them that we were friends, their response was that friendship can turn into love. UGH! Then they kept asking me if I loved him as a friend or as boyfriend, that is when I got up and left. As you can see they are very persistent.
Another frustrating thing is that for dinner I often get spaghetti (with seasoning, but no sauce…), or an African Guacamole Sandwich (It is basically guacamole but seasoned with Maggi which is similar to Ramen seasoning MSG included I get it without onion and tomatoes though because I don’t like raw onions and the tomatoes are bitter, on part of a baguette of bread.) Now have actually learned to like Avocado much more than did in the States which is good, because I always wanted to like avocado, but just never could. So to remedy my eating situation I have started asking for different things that I used to get, but then they stopped for whatever reason. Like French Fries, or French fries and avocado which is what I asked for Sunday night and got it and it was AMAZING . The amazing thing about French fries here is that they are made with Palm Oil, which can taste like bacon, which is impossible to find because Mali is predominantly Muslim and they don’t eat pork . So I will be trying to figure simple but good dishes that have two types of food on them instead of just one.
Classes have ended and Today (Monday) and Tomorrow (Tuesday) are exam days. All weekend I have been writing essays to turn in. But it has been kind of fun because the first day Will and I walked, but then on the way back, we decided to be brave Toubabu’s and ride a Sotarama back to our neighborhood. Sotarama’s are a little scary because it is a van that has been gutted and wooden benches bolted into the floor and “oh Shit!” bars bolted into the top. A guy hangs out the side and calls the place that they are going. Depending on the time of day and the actual day you could get into a completely empty Sotarama or a completely full Sotarama. A full Sotarama is one of the most intense experiences I have ever had. I was pushed in a corner with my feet tucked under the bench because of a spare tire that was put there. Then this woman sat down next to me but was definitely too big for the space that was left by a women half her size. This means that she was sitting on me. I had my full backpack and a mostly full bottle of water to hold on to. Also it is almost impossible for me to get out of a Sotarama without bumping my head on something… but they are also super fun. One time when we got into a Sotarama these two unrelated people asked us our names (Malian) and then started fighting about our answers. Important fact: Last names are SO IMPORTANT here. Mine is Karabenta, that is a Bozo name our Joking Cousins (or people we used to be at war with but now just make fun of) are the Dogon’s, one of the other girl’s in the program is living with a Dogon family and whenever we talk about each other our families make little side comments. Doumbia, Will’s last name, is Bambara and once when we were walking to school a large group of people asked us our names and when he told them his they all broke into cheers! It was so awesome! Where I was going with this was that today has been very chill and I finished my written French exam pretty quickly, because that is just how I take tests. Tomorrow all we have to do is turn our Bambara Final and then take the Oral French final which I feel is goind to be pretty easy, I mean I have learned a lot of French here. And all that SIT and SU are looking for is that I learned something, and that I passed the class. Which I am pretty sure that I did, yeah today and tomorrow are basically just chill days.
On Wednesday we will be going on our Grand Excursion. This means that we will be traveling for twelve days through Mali: Ségou, Teryabougou, Djenné, Sangha, Mopti, back to Ségou, and then home to Bamako. After that I will be starting my Independent Study Project I will be studying the Underground Homosexual Culture in Bamako. This is kind of dangerous for me because one my family is very against homosexuality and if they found out that I was researching that they won’t understand, and they might decide that I was a homosexual and then kick me out. Interestingly enough, I am not technically homosexual. I identify as Pansexual which means that I don’t like gender and will date people for who they are not for what they present their gender as. So this is going to be an interesting month, when my family realizes that I don’t have school and meeting with random people, and they ask me what I do with my time. I had talked to Modibo about it and he said to just say that I am studying Gender Relations, and that that is close enough to the truth that it won’t raise too many questions.
So I have been having to buy water for about a month, because the tablets that I bought ran out about a month in, and so I have been buying water when I am not in school and can’t borrow a SteriPEN from my fellow students. Water is about 400 cfa for 1.5 liters, I need two during the day and two at night so that is 1,600 cfa, a day. But NOW I finally got the package that my Dad sent from the states which has a beautiful SteriPEN in it!!! Now all the money that I would have been spending on water can be spent on things like clothes, and going to the cyber to post this blog, and going out!!! I am so friggin’ excited! Also in this beautiful package came a voice recorder, so that when I start my ISP I can recorder people and then run it back later and type up what they said instead instead of scrambling to right it all down, though I will still take notes, it will just be easier when going over them!! AND in this AMAZING package is my French-English dictionary!! This will make things a lot easier when my family is telling me something and I have no clue what they are talking about!! Oh this package is going to make my life so much easier!!! So now I am just waiting for the package that my Sorority sent me which has a bunch of fun stuff, I hope that comes tomorrow, so that I have fun things on the Grand Excursion. I feel like my Dad and my Sorority sent my packages around the same time… maybe it is in Bali, or Malawi.
So I am having my tailor make a faux Vera Bradley bag that I designed! I get it tomorrow (Tuesday)!! I am so excited about it!! I am going by today so that I maybe it will be done, and maybe I will get it sooner, and maybe some of the dresses I am having made will be done, but I don’t really care about those, what I want is my BAG!!!! It is yellow, with black swirls on it, and it has two pockets in the front, and a pouch for my computer, a pouch for the cords, a pouch for miscellaneous crap and a big pouch for my books and notebooks!! There will be pictures on Facebook of it!! OH! And one of the best parts is that the inside is NOT going to be black. I made sure that it was yellow, so that I can find shit in there! My tailor wanted it to be black his reasoning being that it when it gets dirty it will show less if it is black and more if it is yellow, and I said “AYI! Jaune!” which is “No” in Bambara and “Yellow” in French. And on the outside I am having a diamond pattern stitched into it in alternating colors of Red, green and blue. This bag is costing about 7,500 cfa but it is so worth it, because in the states a VB bag like that is $60 but here it is about $16! I am so excited!! My tailor is funny, but crazy. He wants to marry me, or at least someone like me “because I am so big and strong.” This is an interesting point of cultural intersection. Women here are praised for being bigger, but there are also a lot of pressure to be more western, which as we all know means not big. So one thing that is particularly Malian is the phrase “belebeleba” which is a big woman, now depending who you are talking to and the situation there may also be the connotation that a “belebeleba” may also be a woman who is more assertive. I am fine with this definition, but again it varies from person to person, and depends on the situation.
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