All posts tagged: mali

on a funeral

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There was a funeral to attend, of a well-known and well-loved gentleman from the North. I was set to go with hair wrapped up, sporting a red and gold djellaba. Outside the home of the recently deceased, men mingled on overlapping carpets under a tent set in the road, some waiting to ride to the cemetery, where men alone are permitted. I headed inside the adjacent house to join the women, whose task it is to mourn and comfort the newly widowed wife. The front hall was lined with somber women seated on chairs. I gave a weak greeting, Bon soir, and the name of the person I hoped to find. A few hands pointed through a doorway and down another hallway. I passed through and found more women: on the floor, on carpets, on woven mats, on chairs, standing. I repeated the name of my inviter. They pointed up the stairs. I climbed up and, at the landing, I looked down over a railing into the courtyard: every square inch was packed with women, …

on the invasion

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Where I come from, you make an invitation to the morning. The morning waits for you, at your leisure, until you’re ready to ease back the curtains, slide into slippers, and entertain the gentle follies of birds beyond the window. Not so, in this place. Here, the morning creeps into you, pries you open, and delivers a weighty blow. It starts with the noise, and the noise starts early: a 5am call to prayer from the mosque across the street. and then the heat, lingering just beyond the front door. the brazen sun has no need for stalking; it lies still, waiting for victims to stumble out of their homes and into its stifling trap. Once you’re there, the blurred white noise of the street crystalizes into its thousand pieces, and they come at you from all angles: a cow bellows, ambling by; a huddle of goats next door gab through breakfast; motos tip and dip across holes puckering the dirt road; neighbors call out and chatter; children shriek and cry; dogs bark, hammers clank. …