Travels in Mali

Me and my mom have been too busy even to look at a computer for the week she has been here. We went to Mali, hiked through the Dogon, had some eventful busrides, and floated around on the Niger river on a boat.

Okey- I should slow down, but when the stories are piled up like this, I just dont know where to start. I will start with busrides, the sweet and the sour and the wild. My mom compaired one truck (that we got a ticket to ride in at a bus station) to being inside a rock polisher. While she said this, I was busy with my eyes closed, imagining that I was in a chopper flying low over a jungle. The soundtrack of the things slamming around on the roof of the truck made it a realistic little daydream. Another van that we were squeezed in was the local commuter bus for about 23 older, jolly and toothless yokels who were coming back to their village after selling things in the city. They comfortably squeezed in together and laughed at us the whole way for being afraid the door would fly open under the pressure of so many bodies.

We arrived in Mopti, Mali, after a strange stopover night in Ouiugia, (yes, this is a differant town from Ouaga) near the border, and then a border crossing that included played checkers with the boarder guards. I was so excited to be back in the town, having left it and some good friends last April. There is a pottery village inside the city where I spent 3 weeks earlier this year. Good cheer all around, and I have changed my plans to spend a couple weeks there in March, befure coming home. The clay comes streight from the river there, and it is the only pottery town I found last year where people had invented a pottery wheel. The wheel spins by using oil in between two bowls. They are slippery enough, that with a steady hand you can make a pot, while with the other hand you spin the wheel. They use a glaze that is made of orange sand from a differant part of the river. The people are wonderful there too, and I came with some Raku glaze that we can experament with when I return next march.

Sadly, Mopti was a hungrier town then the one I had left 6 months ago. The french government has decided Mali is not a safe place to travel, and the result is a lot of empty hotels and desperate shopkeepers and guides. We were trailed by people offering us boatrides, and aggressive guides. Who can blame them really, their work is gone. Usually, Mali has a healthy french tourism industry, and it is completely dried up. But it didnt make it expecially plesant for us walking around the town.

Mom had found a wonderful guide, on the way up to Mopti, who we called to take us to the Dogon, the famous area of Mali that cliff dwellers still live, and you can explore anciant ruins and hike miles of beautiful trails and bluffs. We spent four days hiking though dogon villages, and I was surprised at the lack of fellow westerners there. I am usually pretty cautious about human tourism, i’m weirded out by looking at really differant people and taking pictures of them, but people were friendly and gentle and it didnt really feel like that. We met just the right number of international people, a few groups a day. Everyone being afraid of Mali had a positive result for us, apparently. It was a life changing and beautiful place, and a peaceful way to pass several days. I will think about those electricity-less villages while living in the city bustle of Ouagadougou.

We returned to Ouaga today, and hit the ground running. I went back to the people at my work, tried to intimidate them into getting things done for me before my mom leaves, and then ran around town, saying hello to everyone. The pace here is a hustle compaired to the villages, and we are back in it. I am on vacation from making things for two days more, until mom takes off, but I cam feel responsabilities enter my life again. My community is a socially demanding one, and requires a lot of drinking tea with everyone and conversations. I am happy to be home, though, and feel cozy in my little room again. (but I want my mom to never leave)

Playing around Ouaga.

So far my mom and I have been winding around Dapoya, visiting my friends, (who all call her Mama,) and taking the taxi to parts of Ouaga that I haven’t been to. The day my mom arrived, our first order of business was to get her a Meningitis vaccine, because some doctor told her she couldn’t spend a day in West Africa without one.  I checked when I was due for the same thing yesterday, and discovered mine was also overdue, so we took the taxi back to the clinic, where a surprisingly gentle nurse pricked me in the shoulder. Most nurses here are terrifying and brutal with their sterilized weapons, slamming injections into whatever body part is closest to them, but my nurse was cheery and did her job kindly.  At 20.00, the vaccine is way to expensive for most people, though this is also apparently the most meningitis infected area on earth. Please Bill Gates- next thing to put on your to do list- Meningitis shots for all!
My friends are all really respectful to my mom, and she came with a marvelous bag of treats, gifts and goodies. We brought a bag of coffee to the boys at my work this morning and they were excited to prepare it in their way (fifty percent coffee, fifty percent sugar). The other bag of coffee I brought dissapeared in just a few days, as people made it  5 times a day in their enthusiasm. We will see how long this one lasts.  We passed the day doing things I have never done here, going to the museum being the first. The museum was completely empty except for us, and the exhibits were fun and dynamic. My mom, speaking a pretty sparse amount french, got quite theatrical about the parts of history that she didn’t and did approve of (example of first category- slavery,  men piercing their wives mouths shut, example of the second category- recycled plastic things and locally produced food.) Without language, my mom becomes a walking charades game, which continued out of the museum, where she can convince the most stern to smile for her camera.
After throwing a million plans around, we finally decided to head south for the day tomorrow to go to a national park, and then to return to Ouaga, tomorrow night. From there, we need to get my moms Mali visa and then will be aiming for the border. If all goes to plan we will be in Mali the night after Tomorrow. I wont be bringing this trusty little laptop, so when the traveling begins the blogging might get scarce. If this happens, we aren’t lost, we are just leaving the luxuries of the capitol city.

MY MOM IS HERE! But my friend is sick

Its not the first time I have peered through crowds of people in foreign places to wait for my mom to arrive off of an airplane, and I know it wont be the last. Her curly little head and cheerful smile, pushing a mountain of luggage (mostly gifts and food) made my heart skip and we both squealed like little girls in excitement. It was 10:00 at night, but we were both too excited to go home, so we walked all over the town in the dark. When we got to my room, my neighbor Alymata gave her a mattress to borrow for the visit, and she set to work on disinfecting my room and life (now we have a shoes off area of my little bunker of a room.)

In the morning, we set to work making american burritos for everyone. We went to my work, where they have a gas stove, (which is pretty rare and classy in these parts,) with a mountain of fresh rice and beans, three bags of shredded cheese, a giant thing of salsa, and forty flour tortillas. We made a mountain of  burritos and went around delivering then to everyone, starting with the boys at my work, and then moving on to my generous Togolese neighbors. Needless to say all forty burritos are gone, and many people licked their lips at our “mange american” (american food.)

The day took a turn for the sober, when I called my Ngoni professor Amedou to invite him for a burrito, and found out that the malaria he had last week hasn’t gone away. Worried, we went to meet him and found him really really sick, really skinny and pretty delerious. Amedou is a master craftsman, and the one who actually makes the Ngoni’s that other people sell and say they make. He is from a family of griots, and shoudn’t be as poor as he is, because he is an exceptional and talented human being.

He got sick last week, and I tracked him down because he didn’t return my phone calls. He had malaria, and hadn’t gone to the hospital because he didn’t have the 8 dollars to go. I sent him there on the double as in three days he had lost about 7 pounds. But because he went to the hospital late, the malaria returned. I talked to him yesterday and he said he had gotten better, but today he was really sick again. We all went to the hospital together, (which like every thing else is made of mud bricks and concrete and has open windows and walls. The hospital here has none of the squeeky clean feeling of a hospital at home.) The nurses here are pretty gruff and after interrogating him about medicine intake,  they lay him down and injected him with all sorts of things. My poor mom went from one extreme of the planet to the other in 24 hours. We crept out of the hospital to the sound of him throwing up.  My stomach clenches when I think about how without 8  dollers, Amedou could have died tonight. The average life expectancy is 45 here. Its sadder when you know it is such preventable things that kill people.

After getting immediately smacked in the face with the reality of Burkina Faso, my strong, adaptable and amazing mom is helping me plan a trip for us for the next week or so. I cant wait to leave the town for a bit, head to the village somewhere.

 

My adorable friends

So my mom is currently on an airplane, somewhere in the atmosphere over the Atlantic. I’m jumping around inside, in excitement. My mom happens to be the greatest travel buddy on this planet.

I have been trying to find out what good gifts are for my friends without asking them directly, that I can have cameled over in my moms duffle bag . If I ask directly, of course, the answer will be “Ipods all around!” I have found a few other ideas, and my mom is coming over with a goodie bag! I love my friends here so much, and thinking about them makes me want you all to know them too.

People at the Forge:

Omar: Loves sociology, and studying. if he had the opportunities that me and everyone in my economic group in America had, he would be a professor somewhere by now. He explains things clearly and knows about both current events and historical people that I definitely don’t know about. He takes night classes after sanding bronze all day. American place Omar wants to go- some university in Chicago that focuses on Sociology. American thing Omar wants: A copy book, with good paper.

Sada: The one person my age at the forge, Sada loves money, Rianna/ other cheesy music, and the idea of Las Vegas. He told me yesterday that if he had my ipod he would take everything I had off it except 2Pac and put on better music. Being the youngest, he works really hard doing all the little tasks, while serving tea and not getting the appreciation he deserves. Age is really really important here, trumping gender as far as respect goes, so its hard to give things to Sada. For example, if I buy food for people, everyone else gets it before him, even if he is the only person working for me, so if I want to give Sada a coca-cola, I need to buy 12, because there are always about 12 old doods sitting around not working and getting first dips on all things. American thing Sada wants: an SD card for his little mp3/ video player thing.

Baba- My sander. Baba is sweet and gentle. He likes peace and told me once he didn’t want to go to Las Vegas at all, if he could do something in America, he just wanted to swim in the Mississippi river, and see the forest. He is really interested in the native Americans and things related to them. Thing Baba wants in America- Native American things.

Isa- (“le bossman” on my telephone) Isa is a master bronze worker. I found his forge because he does amazing work. He does commissions for the government and the national museum from time to time. For all the little Spackles that me and Isa get into, I am really lucky to work with him. After my mom leaves, I am going to change the program a bit, and try to learn more about how to really run the forge myself, and build one myself. Isa is someone qualified to really show me everything.  Thing Isa wants from the US: A set of pottery tools for his work.

Artists:

Vivian: Vivian is my first and oldest friend in Ouagadougou. For the lack of resources he has, he is an incredibly talented and hard working painter. We critique each others work and he has connected me to the fine art community here, which is way more expansive than you would thing when you look at the shambled condition Ouaga is in as a city. Thing Vivian needs from the US- A gallery to represent him. Thing he wants- art books, movies, and paint.

Amedou: My Ngoni Professor. Amedou is a talented and skilled Griot. Actually he is really sick right now, and came to my house needing money to go to the doctor last night. I am worried about him, he seems to have lost 10 pounds in like three days. Going to check up on him today. Thing he needs in America: Someone to know how talented he is.

Food Culture

My apartment is occupied almost exclusively by Togolese people. They speak Ewe, are christian, eat differantly, and are like me- strangers in a strange land. They are always calling me out to the center courtyard area where everyone eats Togoalese food every night together.  I have heard that usually the last thing to change in an immigrents lifestyle after moving to a new place, is the food. Someone can live in a new country for 20 years, and still want to make their own dishes from home. (I could live here forever and I would never under my own volition pound corn for an  hour with a wooden morter and pestle, in order to eat gloppy polenta, for example.) For me the food is pretty similar to Burkina food, but for them its totally differant. Reflecting the differance in climate, there is more plantain, more palm oil and more pepper, less boabob leaves and less cooscoos.
The Togolese food rituals keep the people of my little apartment connected to eachother, and in celebration of their own country. Because I live here too, I just participate in the little Togo celebration every night too. I Just came in from eating a mountain of fufu with 12 people.  Fufu isnt a food from around here. It is a coastal West African dish that grows on you but is a bit weird to eat. Think mashed potatoes mixed with flour and water to get it stickier. Really its cassava pounded for an hour and served with soup. People who love it, (almost all Ghanains, Togalies, and Nigerians) really love it.
The wonderful thing about fufu is that it is a community food. It is one of the foods that you really cant eat in any way except the traditional african way- One huge bowl, lots of people, no spoons. It takes a lot of work to make fufu, so it is not something people make for themselves alone. Compaired to the lonely american food culture of eating in the car or alone in front of a TV, food is a celebration here. Everyone is together.
My Togalise friends also come and sit in my room sometimes. I might be reading a book or painting, and they will just come in  and hang out. Often they arent even talking. I love it, but still havent worked up the courage to do the same in their rooms. In my western culture, you need a reason to just show up and sit in someone elses room uninvited. But here privacy isnt such a noble and important thing to protect.

Pictures! Finally!

Well, a few, at least. I was just about to write a blog, but someone called me to invite me to a horse race. Opting for plan B. Tell you about it later.

China is eating Africa.

My Camera is healed! Spontanius fantastic surprise! But OMG, I just waited an hour to load a bunch of pictures and it crashed. I WILL TRY AGAIN> YOU WILL HAVE PICTURES.

If you didnt have enough reasons to hate the impact of china on the world, here are a few more.
So, today, I was sitting drinking tea with Sada and Baba, and Baba through a broken steel “creze” (the thing you melt the bronze into) under a tarp. Afer a couple fires, they are unusable and break. I noticed a pile of others under the same tarp. I asked him what they do with those after they are done. He said the chinese buy steel for fifty CFA a kilo. That is 11 cents. My curiosity perked up. I couldnt really inagine a “pick up day” where China comes knocking and weighs out the steel you have for them. He told me there is a factory in Ghana so people collect it all together, weigh it out and send the steel to Ghana in a truck. This is all got going in the last ten years, and since then, you cant leave anything steel out as kids will steel it. Kids also strip electric lines to get the steel and sell. The Chinese buy bronze as well. 6 years ago bronze was 400CFA a kilo. Now it is 1750. It has more then quadrupled in the last 6 years. This is because it is getting really rare. China bought most of it and keeps buying it all. Everyone lauged at how upset I was. Yeah, China’s not good, but they are good because they have cheap things.
The cities in Africa, at least all of West Africa, and I can only image its the same everywhere, are choked with plastic. You buy water, food, and everything else in plastic bags. You can buy rice, they will put it in a plastic bag and you can slurp your whole meal out a corner after you bite a hole in the bag. People do this all the time. People burn plastic all over the place, for the fire they cook their food in, or on a fire indoors. I once saw a place where they roasted goats by tying them to big broken plastic things and catching the whole thing on fire like that. Plastic chairs, buckets, and teapots are fundemental parts of everybodies life, and they all come from China and they are broken in two months, and then people buy them again. Its not like when you or I buy a plastic chair again, for an amout that we can make with 2 hours of work. It takes a weeks wages to buy a plastic chair. When I was making 8 dollars an hour, after tax, I would take home something like 450 dollars a week.  So its like a chair costs 450 dollars, and then breaks after 2 months.
All the broken plastic crap comes in and all the steel and bronze go out, and there is not really a way to stop it.  I try to explain the idea of a strike or a boycott to people here at least every other day. Its my favorite subject. I brought it up in a dolo house once, drinking my millet beer in a calabash, and people just laughed at me. “If you think I should have more money, you should just give me some!” they said. And then my rant turned corners to my other favorite subject. “I am not a millioner, and I cant fix Africas financial problems.” But about striking: People are just hanging on by to thin of a thread. They cant refuse what they are given. Its also just culturally impossible to talk people into the idea that sometimes the guy on the top is bad and you have power to change things. Its a pretty hard core pecking order society, and people still stand by their own dictator presidents, evan as they are abused. (Also if people talk bad about the president they can be poisoned or killed. It happens here. Maybe people are just too scared to stick up for themselves.)
Maybe the era for strikers is over. If all of Burkina Faso refused to sell its steel to China, China would have plenty of other places to get it, and Burkina would be just a tiny bit poorer, and a tiny bit further away from having the resources to create their own factories for their own goods. But it is a tragic thing to watch while I am sitting in my bronze forge, and buying bronze is too expensive for the other artists here to make anything to sell. Everyones hands are tied together.
Sorry to fill this blog up with talking about money, and the lack of it here, but it is whats one everybodies mind all day. Unfailingly every single time I have watched a movie or a music video with someone here and people in the scene have a pile of money, or a fancy car, people go “ooooooh,” get really excited, and want to watch it over and over.
Sada wants to go to Las Vegas. If all I want to talk about is how people should boycott China, all he really wants to talk about is Las Vegas. He shoes me pictures on his phone, of blingy rappers.   There are people with computers who you can pay and put Jpeg files on your phone.  “Look” he sais “This is like Las Vegas.”

So, bad news I think my camera is fried.

Hi world! Unfortunately this blog might only exist as writing now. I knew the electronics of this computer had problems, as I am occasionally electrocuted by the key-board. But suddenly both my hard-drive and my camera aren’t working. I think they got fried in an electronic surge. I have tons of music on my hard-drive and hope hope hope that they will randomly both start working again, but am not so sure.  In the meantime, we are all reduced to black and white. Michael Jackson said it doesn’t matter, but I think he wasn’t taking this situation into account.

Anyways, a story of last night. So it is really really complicated working with people who are this poor, and this is why: On new years, Isa asked me for an advance of money so he could have a party. I said no way, because he is really late with the two things I have payed him to make- 100 little animals, and 150 empty pendants. I gave him all the money at the beginning, and now it is taking forever. I told him the moment he is finished with the last job, I have more work for him, but I wont pay him for another advance. He told me he had no money in his pocket, and I said, then finish up the last job! Someone else apparently lent him money and he went out for new years. I didn’t do anything, and stayed home new years eve, because I felt like it was unfair for me to have a big party if they couldn’t.

Isa has been a bit sick for like five days. Last night he asked me for money again, and I said, Isa, I cant do that! I have lots of work for you, but you need to do it if I am going to pay you. But he actually is completely out of money- I have watched him for the last two days, and am convinced he isn’t lying. And if you are sick here for five days, you need to go to the doctor, and he cant. I didn’t have any choice but to give him money for the doctor. And I wanted to. But I was also very grumpy at his short sided-ness. Maybe poverty makes you live for the present financially, people here never save anything. I have put hundreds of dollars into their business, and somehow he doesn’t have 1 left. He had a big new years party and then couldn’t buy himself food the next day. I feel like the government bailing out a bank.

There is a part of me that understands it, because last July I lent 100 dollars to my friend Yanik to start a business, and it took him weeks instead of days to pay me back. I am extremely stubborn, and refused to return to the bank until he payed me back, after he was a week late. I just cant handle people thinking money comes from the trees in America, and I wanted him to know that he better pay me back. So I went two weeks with like four dollars. It was pretty intense, and I got hungry and bored and embarrassed and grumpy. When I found 2 US dollars in my bag and exchanged them for 900 CFA, I immediately bought a 600 CFA beer. Not a good idea, but I needed to somehow.

And I had created that situation. There was money with my name on it at the bank. The real version of this little story is how people live all the time here. Thus, Isa had a big new years party and cant buy himself medicine the next day. But I cant do normal business things or be consistent about paying people, because they have literally no backup plan, ever. The more I realize this the more intense that reality is.

I am not going to get a dog. This is my mantra and I am staying strong. I met this french nut in Timbuktu last spring who was trying to grow saffron in the Sahara and make his millions. I wanted a dog back then too, and he told me African dogs have wild hearts and can never live in civilization. At the time, I felt he was reciting some twisted doggy version of “Heart of Darkness,” but then again, the dogs here are out on their own all the time and none of them has ever sat for anybody. That is why I like them, as actually I like cats more, and the dogs here are like cats in that people just sort of provide for them. But I don’t want one. It its decided. And though the hormones in me that would otherwise fixate on babies are dog focused, I will use the same stubbornness I used when I didn’t go to the bank for two weeks.

 

My second batch of babies are sanded and back from the solderer. When they come out of the molds, there are little holes in the bronze where it pours unevenly, and I take them to a man who solderers the holes shut. Then I take them back and sand them more. So if the cronoglogy of african lost wax is still unclear, it goes like this:

PT 1

1-Get clay and donkey poo and smash them together with a hammer

2-Vague sketch in clay.

3-Filter the wax by melting it and pouring it through a screen. (today I bought wax with a 3″ rock in it and got pretty pissed off.)

4-(The artsy part) Make the sculpture, on top of the clay mold. The wax is about 1/8th of an inch deep at the least.

5-cover the wax in more donkey poo clay

6- Wait a day, and then wrap the mold in wire and steel posts, for reinforcement.

7- Another layer of clay

8- Fire the molds, the wax melts out and there is left a ceramic negative.

PT 2

The fire- I think I pretty much explained how the fire works, earlier

PT3

1 Knock the mold off the bronze, using a hammer and  a big nail to crack the mold.

2 Sand, Sand, Sand, Sand, Sand

3 Give it to the sauderer who fills the holes

4 Sand some more

5 The patina- Brush al lsorts of creepy chemicals onto the piece while it sits on a charcol fire and fizzles.

Vuala! After all of that, ART!

I forgot my camera chord today, but I will put pictures up. All that is left is the patina on this batch. That is 10 more pieces finished. And at least 8 that are through phase 1. It feels good to be making  much, im on some sort of frenzy. We are going to have a fire again in two days. I have been learning about when to be generous and when not to be. If I am too nice everyone tries to guilt trip me into buying them beer. But I have learned to buy everyone coca-cola and meat for my fire. That way, even if it is a lot of work, people want me to have a fire, and work hard.

I took a long walk around the barrage today, thinking about the past year and what I have been doing and learning. Besides a much needed 4 months a home in the middle, I spent 2011 here. This new part- managing a bunch of workers is really something I haven’t done before, and is a hilarious challenge. Learning a musical instrument is also something that has been on my to-do list forever, and i’m loving it. My french is stumbling forward, though I speak with an African accent. Its sort of like learning English in Jamaica.

I am totally counting down the days until my mom comes. I love that lady!!!

 

Happy New Years!

New years day was fun. It was another day of being shuffled from party to party, dressed up families and too much food. In such a generally boisterous culture, house parties always strike me as a bit formal and quiet here, kids wait on everybody, you sit down and are served a plate of food, meat and salad are popular party foods, as they are more expensive then rice. People don’t talk as much at parties as they do at home, and sometimes everybody just watches TV. Parties are usually only thrown by people who have money and there are different connotations here for everything, so dressing up, eating salad, drinking coca-cola, and watching TV is a new years party. I got the job of family picture taker, and took formal, family sitting together, pictures.

There is a greeting here that is sort of like the french cheek kissing thing. You touch for heads with someone, the left side of your head, the right side of your head the left again and the right again. I think its really cool but I have heard complaints that on new years you end up with a sore neck, and now I know why. When you do that with everyone you greet for new years it gets tiring.

I am jazzed because my mom is coming in two weeks! I cant wait, and shifting up my routine will be fun. My second batch of pieces should be finished with the sanding in a couple days, and I am going to go on a frenzy until my mom comes, making as many pieces as possible, so that I can take a vacation from bronze when she does.