All posts tagged: mali

on the colors of bazin

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Bazin, in all its sartorial glory: billowing swaths of starchy, stiff fabric, to make any regular person seem instantly regal (and, in the hot season, suspiciously insulated). Bazin is an Instant-Royalty sort of trick that nudges the back of your mind with thoughts like “Where’s he going?” “Who could she be?” and “What a handsome couple they make!” I hadn’t been to a bazin atelier previously, though I’d seen the flags of fabric clipped to clotheslines and flapping in the breeze from afar. A friend asked me to take a few family photos at just such a spot; It was a brilliant idea, and played beautifully in photographs. Here are a a few, mostly from the “B-roll.” Bazin is a Malian specialty, and ateliers pop up throughout the city and on its edges, inside markets, in back alleys, and in cramped residential neighborhoods. The women who dye work hard, bent at the waist over buckets of dark liquid, creating something akin to the most impressive tie-dye job you’ve ever seen, yielding a dignified stretch of fabric with haute …

on balance

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When extremes feel de rigueur, it’s a challenge to stay balanced. I want to walk life’s tightrope with confidence, as if it were a line painted on solid ground, but so often my thoughts – concerns, projections, expectations, memories – pull me in one direction, and then another, until my feet dance to the rhythms of my mind and they barely touch the ground. Yes and no, fear and courage, action and inaction, energy and exhaustion, pushing and pulling, intention and submission, giving and receiving, accepting and rejecting… But then, the extremes also feel natural, in a way that is wholly me, for better or worse. I wonder whether it’s the tension between them that keeps me upright–if not for that tension, Perhaps i’d have no momentum. Perhaps it’s the swing of the pendulum that keeps the clock ticking. It’s a bit frightening, as stillness of the mind is my ideal. But maybe i seek an unnecessary, false perfection. Perhaps movement is innate and, judgement aside, it can blossom into something steady, a thing to be counted …

what’s to eat: a christmas repas in west africa

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I spent Christmas Eve and day in Bandiagara, some 65 kilometers outside Mopti, in Mali’s eastern pocket. I was stuck somewhere between wanting to Christmas (ahem, I verbed that word) and wanting to avoid it altogether. Regardless, the night sky insisted I be at least grateful for family, friends, and good fortune, even if I felt momentarily far from all three. I recently read a few words on the magic of Christmas Eve, beyond religion, and this was the spirit I kept with me through the chilly night and the frosty beers. In the morning (well, more like lunchtime) the eating options in Bandiagara were scarce. All the brochette ladies were sold out; no one’s rice had come in yet. In the Christmas spirit of hasty mangers and serendipity, we made do at a small boutique with a front porch and a picnic table. Fresh baguette, omelette for three, and the kind of fried, canned meat whose mystery should remain just that. Actually, this was some sort of pressed chicken, although the Malians in my company insisted that all meat …

what’s to eat #20

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Frou frou, or millet flour beignets, served here with a street-side morning dish of slow-roasted lamb in a green sauce with fried, sweet plantains. This satisfied a breakfast quartet, eaten by hand on the floor of a dusty boutique in Dialakoroba village, south of Bamako.

on upheaval

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A good friend used to console me with the words of her father: The only thing constant is change. There are people who crave change, and others who crave consistency, and then people like me who want both, and neither. If change is on the horizon, I cower in fear; if the status quo is all I see for miles around, I become antsy to the point of agitated. That is to say, i’m not especially adept at riding the Waves of Life. I prefer to be out there on my life raft, hand on one hip in a panic, trying to boss around the tides. As you can imagine, i don’t regularly get my way. Leaving a destructive job is a big step; doing so in a foreign land with no back-up plan is a bit outrageous. Leaving a long-term relationship is a life-changing choice; going solo in a foreign land is, quite, literally, life-altering. Doing both in the space of one week is….let’s call it bold, shall we? Bold seems appropriately kind-spirited. The biggest urge during moments of …