Mali Notes

You know those days the mind is wondering and your on automatic pilot going in the direction of the usual routine when you meant to go somewhere else. I had a morning like that. Saturday I left my house for my morning bike ride a little later than usual and started taking the turns for work. This just confirmed what I had been thinking. Everything has gotten routine.

Sitting at my favorite street food vendor at the market I noticed for the first time in a while that there was the usual dirty water and trash in the walkway and it didn’t take my appetite away any more.

It seems that I can still make the children cry. The other day sitting at work a young girl who was babysitting a baby for someone in the tailor school got sight of me grabbed the baby and ran into the tailor class. Awa the Bogolan apprentice saw the whole thing and started laughing. As I laughed I drew up my hands in a boogie man pose wrinkled my face and said mean toubab (technically a white French person its used for all white people today).

Koro is my best friend.

Road protocol still puzzles me when my daughter was here she told me I scared her every time I crossed the street. I have learned to think of the road in small sections to be navigated as opportunity presents its self and not wait for the whole way across to be cleared. This has been a especially useful in Bamako, the capital city. When making a turn either on a bicycle, moto or in a car you can actually give a hand signal and anything on the road will respect that and let you take small spaces of the road over to your destination. Another maneuver for turns is that you go across the road when the opportunity presents its self and ride on the shoulder on the wrong side of the road until your turn comes up. This scares me when I do it and when someone else does it.

Maybe it’s just that food is plentiful now but my cuisine repute has gotten better. The list includes French toast, Thai peanut sauce, Russian beet salad, and a variety of salad dressings. Today I even su su’ed something to cook. That’s a process using a big mortar and pastel thing made of wood and smashing vegetables to use in sauces.

My Malian name is Kounandy Diallo. Kounandy means privlidged one or lucky one. It was given to me by my home stay mother during training. I kept that name and changed my last name to Koro’s which is Diallo. Diallo is a Falani name, Falani’s herd cattle and many are still nomads in the northern regions of Mali but there are Falanis all over West Africa. Awa at work had a baby in October and named her daughter after me. She is so cute. At work I hold her so Awa can work when I am not busy.

With routine came homesickness. I miss my friends and family. Fortunately I can skype (internet phone service) and people back home can even call me. On New Years day I talked to my bicycling group in Marysville Washington. The internet has made the world a very small place.