Zrig in the late morning, Timbuktu style: fresh milk water millet sugar spices. Thick, sour, sweet, with cinnamon-nutmeg flavor. Someone called it “Timbuktu wine.” Served with guests and a jumble of conversation in sorai, arabic, and french
Control is crazy-making. It’s impossible to live and let live when information, opinions, and judgements invade the screens we live by at a breathtaking pace; when we organize our time on calendars in clouds; when modern impulses conspire with gadgets, driving us to decide, allocate, schedule, confirm, reach out, touch base, and on, and on. I am victim to these same urges, even as I realize the mechanisms control me more than I care to admit. Control is a wicked illusion; it is a mindset of denial, of keeping fears–inadequacy, incompetence, chaos, confusion, imperfection, disturbances–at bay through sheer will. Control is a (highly soothing) barrier to reality, but it is ultimately futile, and exhausting. So here I am, newly without a home of my own, without a car of my own, without a smarty-pants phone. I eat the food that is fed to me; I go to the places others are going and I stay there until they leave; I use electricity when it is available and I don’t when it’s not; I bathe from a …
Different Bambara greetings for distinct times of day. Phonetically: Ee nee sogoma for morning Ee nee kle for 12-2pm Ee nu la for 2-dusk Ee nee shu for nighttime This is merely the beginning: full greetings are a thorough volley of, by my count, 4-7 calls and responses per person. I practice…slow and steady wins something, maybe a grand prize of satisfaction. Today: I stopped for breakfast (croissants, pains aux raisins, juice) at café Le Relax en route to office. I headed to the village of Dialakoroba for market day, involving 40 or so surrounding villages. Came home, ate lunch (Rice! Lamb! Yucca! Orange squashy thing! A really really hot pepper!), promptly fell asleep for several hours. The evening holds promise of more sleep, and tomorrow is ripe with the possibility of a swim. *Photo of n’ga so, or my home.
outerNotes 