French Studies in Mali

Our first couple of days in the capitol city of Mali behind us, we packed up our bags on the third morning for our first trip out of Bamako. Happily, somewhat miraculously, and none too comfortably, we all fit on one rickety bus which plunged into the heart of morning rush hour traffic (which is probably subject enough for an article all its own). As we neared city limits, the traffic and buildings thinned out to open countryside dotted with red earth villages, and the road devolved into little more than a rough dirt track. I'm guessing people in the villages weren't too accustomed to seeing a busload of American students bumping slowly down the road -- most people we passed stopped and waved and groups of kids ran to the road and shouted "Tubabou! Tubabou!" (which means "white person" in Bambara). Finally, late in the afternoon, we reached our destination: Nana Kaneiba, the village of Cherif's father. I guess our main occupation that first evening was meeting and playing with droves of kids from the area -- they lined up to greet us as we stepped off the bus, and we stooped and met them, a little uncertainly at first.

The kids in Nana Kaneiba deserve a page to themselves. They evoked this mix of emotions in me that is still hard to describe, even after thinking about it constantly this whole week. My first impression was shock: they were worlds away from the kids back home, who live safe, sterile, protected lives where I come from. The nana Kaneiba kids were covered in dirt and all had scraped knees, and some of them had ominous hacking coughs. They seemed to operate in a totally separate realm from that of their parents. So we stepped off the bus and waded into a waist-deep ocean of wide eyes and waving hads, trying out our rough Bambara where we could: "i togo?" "Whats your name?" Most of them knew only a couple words of French, and we didn't have much in the way of Bambara, but we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with them, playing soccer ad (of course) Frisbee, learning how to count to ten in Bambara and teaching them a couple phrases of English. I was totally blown away by their friendliness and, in some ways, maturity - its strange for my American eyes to see girls no older than six with their baby brothers tied in slings on their back. When I was six, I could barely feed myself, let alone look after one entire other person. The kids in Nana Kaneiba were loved but not coddled, and I get the feeling that they'd seen more trauma in their few years than I'll see in my whole life. But in spite of that, remarkably, kids are kids: happy, rambunctions, and straighforward.

The first night in Nana Kaneiba was New Years Eve and the village threw a party for our visit. After dinner, we gathered in the light of the school yard for drumming and dancing. We sat back and watched and listened for a little while, but soon enough the village funny grandma pulled us to our feet and into the circle of light in front of the drummers. We danced barefoot like total maniacs while most everyone else present satback and laughed openly at us -- not that I can blame them. We did look pretty ridiculous. At the end of the night, a troop of dancers stepped into the ring of light and performed wearing traitional costumes to represent and pay respects to the spirits of the brush.

The next day, Chérif's brother gave us a tour of the village. Nana Kaneiba is unique among villages of its size and remoteness for a lot of reasons. It is the center of operations for an NGO called Medicine for Mali, which was pioneered by the family of Carleton grad (and fellow native Des Moinser) Dr. Elise DeVore. Medicine for Mali works to promote health and economic development in rural Mali on several fronts, from stocking the village pharmacy to funding and guiding its small hospital, to exploring opportunities for renewable energy in the region. We saw the hospital, the forge, and the school, including a library with a desktop PC. Chérif and his brother explained how this blend of external involvement and internal development has served to elevate the standard of living in Nana Kaneiba and its neighboring villages. There is even a project underway to bring wireless internet to the one computer in the library.

The next day, we bumped back on the rough, dusty road to Siby, a larger town nearer to the city limits of Bamako. A late-afternoon bus ride from Siby brought us to the base of to the base of a soaring natural arch formation in the cliffs above the village. Standing under the arch, we could look out on a wide swath of the valley. Chérif explained the arch's place in Mandé epic lore: a commander leading his army to battle supposedly shot one arrow at the cliff face and blew out a passageway for his troops. It was one very illustrative example of how ancient oral traditions created a safe human space in a world of inexplicable natural phenomena. Or something. To tell you the truth, I was pretty distracted by the view.

We returned to Bamako and had the weekend to settle in with our families, which afforded a lot of time to reflect on what we'd seen. It seems trite to conclude that the voyage socked me with a heavy dose of perspective, but it really is true. Life in Mali so far has been a challenging, perspective-rich adventure, and we're all looking forward to exploring it further.