All posts tagged: bamako

on not knowing

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the accumulation of Things I Do Not Know has reached impressive proportions: i do not know the roads here, or the routes, or most destinations. i do not know half of what people say, or how i’m to feel about it, or how to reply. i do not know how to do my job, or whether i’ll be any good, or whether i’ll find it satisfying. i do not know what’s in most of the food i eat, how to cook over a gas tank, or recognize the things for sale at market. i do not know when to engage strangers, or how, or whether i appear as foreigner or fool when I idle in the street. i do not know how to be funny here, or when to smile, and I can’t quite figure out the tortoise who lives in the yard. and yesterday i realized that i Do Not Know how to tie a bathrobe. the string on the outside and the string on the inside and the loops on the seams don’t …

on control

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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 …

on hello in Bamako

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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.

on moving

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to move: to pass from one place or position to another.  A notedly simple, and full, description. Uprooting is a wild choice, not by definition prudent nor foolish, though it could be either and is, more likely, both. I once moved a distance of half a city block, and carried my belongings over dozens of trips in suitcase-sized loads, like the would-be runaway child that couldn’t, quite. Of the organizational challenges pursuing me, the most interminable is the issue of stuff. I’ve long been a purger; I haven’t too many things. And yet, I have too much, and must make choices. Which isn’t impossible in and of itself, except that the stuff we carry relates directly to the lives we live, and a largely-unknown life is difficult to provide for. Oh, there are sure bets: underwear enough, toothbrush and floss, sensible shoes, a bucket of insect repellant, Pepto Bismol. But I’m meant to forge ahead on a separate continent with only two suitcase-sized loads to start, and I’m intent on fulfilling that charge, so things keep falling into and …