A New Meaning to “Dirty Old Goat”

August 16, 2010 at 5:29 pm (Uncategorized)

A vision of the future for a week known as site visit.  What a surreal time.  I travelled with my homologue by public bus, leaving Bamako mid-morning on a packed and rickety bus.  I started out being quite excited to have gotten on the bus before the rain came.  Until the rain came.  Inside the bus.  Nine hours of fording impromptu rivers and sun making a sauna out of our quarters.  Stopping on the side of the road for bushes and gateau.  Through Segou and San.  Finally arriving at site at dusk and walking up the hill(an actual hill — what a novelty in this dry and deserted region!) covered in green and flowers and beautiful white goats.  The sun setting as we walked down the slope out over the fields and baobab tress.  Quick introductions to some of the gamily, a tour of my hut, dinner, and bed.

I woke up early the next morning, knowing that I was going into my regional capital, San, for market and to meet my site buddy and to see the stage house.  Hitched a ride with my homologue into the city in the car of the mayor from the next twon over.  San…still working on it.  The stage house is great, but the town mostly speaks Bambara, so getting around will still be a little difficult.  But all in all a great success.  The market is thrilling, full of people and color and movement and noise and fights and friends and life in all its glory.  I caught a ride home in the afternoon…on a donkey cart with my host brother.  And eight women from along the road.  And all of their market stuff.  The favorite question among the greetings is “How’s you husband?”  To which my automatic reply is “Oh, I don’t have one.”  Which leads to “Eeee!  Why not?”  Well, how to explain in Bomu?  What words do I actually have?  And how do I keep these wily women from trying to find one for me?  “Husband?  Husbands are bad.  Why would I want one?  They can’t handle me.”  This goes over extremely well.

Spent the next day walking the billage with my homologue, meeting the mayor, dugutigi, leadres of associations, schools, medical units, and getting an idea of the lay of the land.  It’s an extremely friendly village.  Quiet, green, about 2,000 people, no electricity, one small biti’i, lobely huts and tiny thatched graineries that make the whole village look like something straight out of Tolkein.  Baobab trees all over the village and beautiful white ashes.  The village is surrounded by fields, further surrounded by brousse country.  And averything is so clean.  Even goats and cows seem clean.

Spending a week getting a glimpse of life for the next two years was a bizarre and wonderful experience.  I want to be able to share everything, all impressions and ideas and plans and events, but it’s difficult to even know where to start.  Do I’ll dive into what sticks out.

My poor host family.  One meal came to me on my first night.  The worst food I’ve eaten in Mali.  Which is saying something.  So operation Cook-All-Meals-for-Myself-Out-of-Self-Preservation went into effect.  Which was the plan anyway, but I thought I might get through the week with a little help.  No.  So, I tried to explain that I wanted to prepare my own meals, which I thought worked out.  Until the next night when dinner arrived after I had already cooked.  I had ratatouille.  And then a knock with to and okra sauce.  You do the math.  Action plan?  Squisk it around a little to not be completely rude and re-explain the cooking thing tomorrow.

Result?  Tripping with said meal on my way out of the hut and sumping anentire bowl of okra sauce into by duffle bag.  This is a problem on two fronts.  1.  My duffle bag is full of snot sauce and all of my clothes are covered.  2.  When I take those dishes outside, my family will think I can’t get enough of this sauce.  Oh gosh.  Luckily, after the initial cleaning of the goo the whole situation just became enormously funny.

As did an incident with my host brother the next morning.  4:45, heading out on a run together.  Supposedly 5K.  A little fast, but the push felt good.  But halg an hour in and not really turning around.  When I ask where we’re goin?  “Oh, the pond is 5K out.”  I’ve been tricked into a 10K run.  In the Mali heat.  Hmm.  Okay, okay.  We’ll turn around, slow it up a little, and I’ll be fine.  So we turn around.  And — bam.  Hit with diarrhea.  5K home of periodically diving into bushes apologizing profusely.  That was funny pretty much immediately.  Particularly when I had the vision of a GoogleMaps, bird’s-eye view of myself, zooming out of the bush, realizing that I’m just somewhere in the middle of Africa.  Quite an amusing daydream.  And, well, I made it home.

Even in a week, my days took on a sort of pleasant flow.  Morning runs and greeting the family on the way in.  Coffee under my hangar and a little reading.  Midmorning I set off on a long ramble, making my self go through the busy part of town to greet and chat with anyone who happens to be working inther house.  And generally run into groups of women pounding millet who all want me to be pounding as well.  Do I do, for approximately three and a half seconds before they take the pestle (that weighs approximately as much as I do) away from me.  screaming with laughter.  I like these moments.

Leaving the town center, I walk out through the fields, watching the work and then out enbrousse where I can walk through the baobabs, following the cart paths and cow paths, taking time to tramp and daydream and imagine.  Back home for lunch and chatting with the women of the family, household chores, and downtime.  Cooking dinner and eating while the stars appear above me.  And these are stars with no electricity for miles and miles.

I’ve taken to talking to the goats in my compound.  They enjoy standing on my myegen walls and watching my bucket baths.  I don’t know what it means that my peeping toms are goats.  So we chat.  Although if they jump on me some day, we’re through.  Maybe these are inappropriate goats, but they look interested in my English.