africa what?

so im gone now... no more bintou in mali...bintou must resume the name claire. the last few days in mali were intense and it was really hard saying bye to my friends and especially my family. but i will leave it at that i dont think its something i can really blog about.

anyway, im currently in capetown, south africa with the fam undergoing major culture shock. this city is suuuuper cosmopolitain and i feel like ive just been thrown back into the western, consumerist world with no fair warning (silly of me to expect it would be anything like mali). this place is really beautiful and interesting. it is so lush and there are huge hills and mountains dropping right off into the ocean... really incredible. its also crazy to see the after effects of apartheid... i cant even begin to understand the complexities of race relations here.

im having a hard time coping with consumption... i cringe everytime i have to flush a toilet and couldnt really handle the amount of water i was wasting when i took my first hot shower since january (i did cold bucket showers for all of mali). i had to turn the shower off to soap up because i felt too guilty leaving it on. eeerrrrg we waste so much in the west! its also weird not greeting every single person i pass and asking about their health/family/day. and eating food on individual plates instead of sharing a dish in one big bowl. i cant finish the huuuge portions they bring at the restaurants here and i asked tonight and the just get rid of the food that isnt eaten!!! ah! that killlllllls me! (i dont know if i ever mentioned this, but in mali, no food ever gets thrown away... walk outside your door and there are plenty of people that would love to eat whatever you couldnt finish).

anyway, i guess i have to adjust back to the 'west' at some point, it just kind of sucks when i think of how carelessly we can consume. i dont want to partake in that. it would be interesting to try to lower my consumption to malian levels back in the US. i think im going to try. any joiners?

oh man!

grrrrr! i just got in this mega-lose-your-cool kinda fight with this idiot in the cyber cafe who was trying to tell me that there are 52 states in the US. ARRRRGHHHH he treated me like I was stupid and kept saying things like "you should go study your country theres a lot you must not know" and oh man what an ass. and he kept using things to prove it to me like "why would they put 52 stars on the flag if there were only 50 states?" AH DUMB! and then he said "havent you ever heard of B-52's? thats bc there are 52 states!" at one point he said some random place in the US ive never heard of where he must have a relative or something and he asked if i knew of it and i said no and he goes "wow you dont even know your own country!" oh man at first i just laughed at him because i thought he was kidding or just misinformed but he was so STUBBORN and RUDE and DISRESPECTFUL to me i cant wait until he goes home and looks at the american flag he has on his wall and decides to count the stars...

anyway, other than that mean man making me angry, things have been great and super busy lately. im all over the place trying to close things up before i go home. basically that means spending lots of time on the hill playing music with les rasta friends. bob marleys bday came and went... good times. there were loads of rastas at this great cultural space (called carrefour des jeunes) jumping and dancing.... dreads flying everywhere ahhhh! those boys are so silly!

cyber times almost out so i must be running. love to my homies in the 50 nifty united states!
bintou

ps - mom can you guys bring me another memory card or two for my camera? gracias

Bintou goes to Bamako and looses her booty

This blog entry has 2 meanings:
1. my cell phone got jacked on saturday night! boooooo! (the last week!)
2. my butts gone! i dont really have a mirror in my house so i didnt realize. but then i went to my friends house and was commenting on how all my clothes feel huge and went to take a look in her mirror and OH MAN! no butt! it just doesnt feel right...

today was really awesome... my paper is done done donnnne and handed in (hot fire!) so it was a celebration of sorts. my friend aida and i went to the cooperative to work a bit with the women and show them my finished product (all nice and bound). then in the afternoon, we went to our rasta friend ablo's house.

oh man his house is so great... he lives right at the bottom of these huuuuge hills and rock formations. we went up to the roof and there was this incredible wind and the sky got all dark and the red color of the rock formations became brilliant. plastic bags from the ground were swept up and flew in the air like birds. we had his gonie (this amaaaazing instrument) and played some songs (i can play one!) and sang and drank tea. my friends bidé and ibra were there too it was a big music fest. and THEN it started to raiiiin! the rain felt cold it was soooo wonderful! we kept playing and aida and i danced in the rain. i never thought i could appreciate water the way i do in mali.

leaving ablo's house, all the roads (dirt roads mind you) became rivers of mud that felt great to sink your feet into. every few minutes, lightning illuminated the sky making it daytime for an instant. its still drizzling and im just so happy for all the farmers in this country that are getting an effing break! woo!

the last few days have been craaazy. time is disappearing!!! i went to this awesome free concert a few nights ago... it was a mix of slam poetry, traditional malian music, and griot! soooo cool! there were probably 10 or 15 people on stage (including a few white dudes) and everyone was soooo talented, from the griot who sang to this one slam poet/rapper dude who slammed in bambara, to a sweet beat boxer who could mimick a sax solo while it was being played (!) to the most amazing kora player. djembe player, balafon (tradish malian xylophone), calabash, everything. im really going to miss the music scene in mali.

tonight theres im going to a big outdoor concert that my friends and i have been excited about for a couple weeks now.

tomorrow our rasta friends' (from my hill) band is playing a bob marley tribute show because...

may 11 is bob marleys birthday! ahhhh! thats a really big deal here and everyone for the past like, 2 months has been asking 'so, what are you doing for may 11?' appently there are lots of festivities at the cultural spaces around bamako, so hopefully ill be doing some dancing...

anyway, i dont know what to do about this whole time disappearing thing. the worst part is how much worrrrk i have to do! i had my isp presentation today and it went just marvelously. now i have to finish the paper which is quite a feat. ive learned so much from my work at the cooperative, and plan on going next week even when the paper is done. thinking about leaving makes me sad.

oh guess, what? i was in a car accident yesterday. realllllly not a biggie, it was in the sotrama. we hit another sotrama that was next to us and it made a big ol crash and their mirror came off, but it didnt even shake me up at all. i just got up and left the sotrama and walked the rest of the way to my destination. it was so anticlimactic, i forgot to tell anyone about it (so you all are the first to hear!)

sporradic jump-rope games with street girls (m+d, bring some long jump ropes)
little Mamadou cuddling with his 7 foot uncle (my brother), Sa
really really dirty money
patchwork fabrics
first-call-to-prayer-hour bird songs hoot hoo hoo hoooot hoot
boys that help grandmothers in gardens and sing the whole time
barefeet covered in mud
photographs taken by people who have never held a camera

BT

its raining!!! ahh!!! its rainnnnning!
the rainy season isnt supposed to start until june! good ol' global dubs.
ahhh i have so much paper writing to do ahhh help me!

a nice image

i really should be writing this 20 page paper thingy buuuut yesterday was the best day ever so let me leave you with this image:

dancing on the side of my hill to the djembe beats of my new rasta friend Yege (who is apparently an internationally known drummer) and the beautiful music of the kora, with my friends from all over west africa (and my american friend aida), barefoot in my yellow dress, at sunset (with a breeze), looking out over bamako, under the mango trees

a little external celebration of life in da afrIKa
(reminded me of the last scene in "black orpheus")

i dont wanna gooooo

because tim wants to procrastinate...

heres a picture of Lala (my neice, left), me (the white chick), kadi (the adoooorable next door neighbor that likes to hold my hand and walk with me, right) and aminata (the maid who is wonderful and has the best laugh, standing)

so yesterday, my phone rings and guess who it is? (you wont guess) nikki stennes! my wash u friend studying in scotland at the moment and the worlds greatest weather woman. it was super exciting to be talking to her (ohhh technology!) andddd she told me her mom reads my blogs which is kind of exciting... shout out to Mrs. Stennes!

anywho, i worked at the coop for 4 hours yesterday and had some really solid interviews with the women. i think my research is coming a long just lovelyly. then theres the whole paper writing thing... well see how that goes. i was going to do that now but tim wants to procrastinate and all...

malians really love mayonnaise too much. who knew? very popular: mayonnaise sandwich. there are these really horrible billboards for mayonnaise that say the brand at the top and then have a picture with 1. a salad 2. a dead fish with its eyes missing (on the salad) 3. 5 large globs of mayonnaise on top of it all. its really the most unappetizing thing ive ever seen and somehow several mayonnaise brands have chosen to use the same image. yuck.

beautiful things of the day:

1. people that hold strangers' children on their laps on the sotrama because the stranger has more than one (not uncommon)


2. little bright red furry spiders that emerge in the garden after it rains


3. adiaratou's (woman at the cooperative) laugh when i say something surprisingly complex in bambara


4. the song: dunuya sira ka gelen by my rasta friend ablo


5. koran classes held under street lamps


6. women that get down on their knees to pray in the middle of the garden in 110 degree heat


7. fire hydrants that arent near anything even remotely flammable


8. refrigerated mangoes


9. oranges squeezed into orange juice right before your eyes

i want to upload pictures from the cooperative but this computer is being a butt.

mom- i cant believe tomorrow is your bday... can we skype video chat? perhaps in the morning? call and we can make a date.