Hilarious Misunderstandings and Misadventures

My son IS hot

Perhaps it's the heat or the anti-malarials, but I find this comic so very hilarious and worthy of risking redundancy.

Further to my email, which was clearly sent too soon, and my last blog post which was published in haste, this has been a little over a week of mostly, but occasionally not so, hilarious misunderstandings and misadventures.

Marriages and Misunderstandings: 
In my last post, I despaired that I had received no new marriage proposals that week which was kind of surprising to me, because I had just changed families and was sure that there were some lurking around the corners of my Peul Palace. There was no need to despair. Indeed, later that evening as I ran laps unchaperoned around a dusty soccor field, a man saddled up next to me, told me that he thought I was beautiful and that I would be his wife. He then asked me if I agreed with that, and I said no. Then he said again, "I want you to be my wife, do you agree?". Again, I said "no, I don't agree." This happened once more as I tried desperately to make my lame lungs work better to pick up speed to ditch this cassanova. Eventually, he dropped off and I didn't see him again. Definitely the boldest proposal so far, and slightly hilarious.

Last week, my older and younger brother fought in the yard over tea about who was going to marry me right in front of me.

I told them, "fellas please, one at a time!."

No, I didn't. I told them to eat their hearts out, because  I have a imaginary fiancé waiting for me back home. The little one was crestfallen.

That brings my total to: 8 but I'm sure that my village adventure this week will invite some more.

I'm trying to see past the tip of the iceberg to understand the greater cultural and contextual implications that lie below the surface, as my intercultural sensitivity teacher advised I should, with this marriage proposal business, but it's hard for me not to feel a little uncomfortable when some man I hardly know at all talks about making me his wife. I also find it difficult to talk about my "fiancé" with a straight face, because I seriously revel in my own "immaturity" sometimes since to me it's a conscious choice.

Anyway, an exchange with my maman's cousin did help me understand a little bit. After first asking me to get him a Canadian visa (because, being pasty means that you're an immigration counsellor here), he told me that he would help me find a Malian husband ( because that's the game that's played here).

I said no, nay, never, and he looked at me totally perplexed. "Then why did you come to Mali, if you don't want to find a husband?"

I explained to him that I came with a temporary work visa, and his MIND WAS OFFICIALLY BLOWN. He sincerely had no idea that a woman would want to come to Mali for any reason other than to find someone to marry.

 Economic nonsense:
On a slightly more banal front, I encountered my first experience with the "double economy" as it's occasionally called here. Having been warned that although I am in Africa, there are some things that will be quite expensive if there is little demand for it. As an insatiable adventurer who uproots herself  somewhat frequently, I did not think to bring anything for the walls of my office and room before I left, figuring they would either already be decorated or it wouldn't bother me if they were bare. Well, it did end up bothering me that the walls were bare and I also miss your faces and want to look at them, so I asked my local friend to help me get some photos printed. It ended up costing over $1 a photo for some less than quality prints. Fortunately, it cost next to nothing to get some regular paper prints made of the 3 loves of my life: Leonard, Bob and Neil for my room. In the end I spent over $25 (that's akin to "ballin'" here), but it was worth it in the fight to stave off homesickness.

The Case of the Cursed Panties:
Last Monday after I sent my email chronicling some of the misunderstandings I've encountered with right hands, left hands and dirty hands, I experienced my most hilarious misunderstanding of all. This was not covered in my predeparture training, nor was it raised as an issue with my previous family, nor did my Ivorian-Canadian colleague warn me of this cultural trespass, so it caught me completely unawares.

My crime:
I gave my laundry, all of my laundry (re: underwears included) to the maids along with the rest of the family last Monday morning.

Later that night, when everything was hanging up to dry in the yard, my maman says to me with great concern:

"Hey, did you give your "bas"** (underwear) to the maids to wash?"

Confused, I replied "yes", shoulders shrugged, brow furrowed.

"Il faut pas faire ça ici! Tu ne savais pas ça?" (You must not do that here! Didn't you know?)

I said no I didn't know that and asked her why I shouldn't give my underwear to the maid to wash. She then explained that people could see my underwear, take it from the line and "work on it" to make it so that I would bleed all the time. She continued by kindly telling me that there were people in the neighborhood that were not happy that I was there, and that they could come in the yard and take my panties and essentially curse them. Naturally, this did not help my occasional paranoic tendencies - the people in my neighborhood not liking me part, not the cursing my panties part - but I also found it tremendously hilarious.

I then asked her if socks, pajama bottoms and bras were ok to give to the maids, and she confirmed that they were, but I have since taken to washing my own panties. At any rate, it's the only chore that I have to do for the next 4 months, so I think I can deal.

**Side note: "bas" usually means "socks" in Canadian french, so I was initially even more confused as to why this was a problem.

Misadventures "en brusque Brousse":

Earlier this week my boss asked if my colleague and I wanted to go to the little village of Zantiébougou with him on the weekend. Seeing as he is the boss, we said we'd love to spend our Saturday in a tiny village listening to a meeting that happened almost entirely in Bambara. Still, we had fun getting there, and passed a nice day wandering around the village and meeting our colleague's enormous family. We gathered our things, said our goodbyes and at around 3pm, we hit the road home. Everything was going well....

Then the motor died.

This would be our view for the next 4 hours

Two hours in

It's not dark yet...

But it's getting there...

Hour 3.

We tried pushing the car to start it in second.....

That failed, so I took a moment to stargaze on top of the car.

We ended up in the tiniest of villages, appropriately named "Solo".

I got "cold" for the first time in Mali, so my boss lent me his blazer. Believe it or not, this look got us a ride.

After pushing the car to Solo, we tried to wave down a bus to take us to a bigger village called "Ouelessébougou" where our Canadian companions that work for Kilabo live so we could pass the night there, rather than sleeping in the car on the side of a road in a village where you couldn't buy water or find a "trou" (there, you make your own trou). Eventually we flagged down a truck that dropped us off there for the night, a little weary, desperately wanting a toothbrush, but not worse for wear.

We ended up spending the next day "en brusque" (roughing it) and didn't make it home until 9pm the next night. We enjoyed the change of pace the village offered, but when I finally saw the sights and smelled the smells of Bamako, I was overjoyed to be back in my new home. Alas, the place is stinky, swarmy, crowded, polluted but amazing and I love it all the same.

Tomorrow morning I leave for another backcountry sojourn to meet potential partners and promote inter-village synergy (like a boss!), but this time I will bring ample water, toothpaste and *gasp* a sweater, just in case. I learned my lesson.

Allah ka siradjia (May God bless the road I travel on).

Allah ka ngoumanyé (May God bring me home safely).