Culture Shock Explained: A Photographic Essay

I have just returned to Bamako and work after a blissful mid-mandate break in Djenné and Pays Dogon*, where I ate "cliff bread" and technicolour jam, survived a zombie beggar apocalypse, navigated a city made entirely of mud, trekked along the Falaise de Bandiagara for 4 days and drank tea, shopped and slept on rooftops under the starriest of starry night skies.

*(Pics soon, they take forever to upload to the blog but are pretty much impossible to upload to Facebook unless I do it one and a time, which I won't because I have marriage proposals to collect very important things to do.)

Upon my return which included a 10 hour, sweltering hot, overcrowded and fishy-smelling overnight bus ride, I looked forward to catching up on some zzzz's before starting work again. Truth be told, during my first night back I realised that I slept better outside on a mattress on a roof than I do in my own bed.

The weather is getting hotter and my bed is woefully uncomfortable. So at about 2am after hours of tossing and turning in the creakiest of beds with its wooden slats digging into my shoulder blades, I dismantled my bed in the dark and re-acquainted myself with the floor, cranked the fan and finally knocked out for a few short hours of much, much needed rest.

You see, in Mali a mattress on the floor is more comfortable than a bed, and instead of winter giving way to spring, the "hot season" is now transitioning to the "very hot" season, so I had beads of sweat trickling down my forehead while I sat idly behind a desk when my boss welcomed me back at work and remarked that the heat had returned.

My boss then informed me that I am to head out en brusque brousse again to identify microcredit superstar ladies and put them in charge of the funds in their wee villages. So after being back in Bamako for not even 4 days, and back at work for only 2 days, I've had 2 projects to wrap up before taking off tomorrow on yet another probably ill-fated, backcountry roadtrip where I'm sure to be exposed to all sorts of exhilarating(?!) things.

This got me to thinking about how incredibly different, absolutely everything is here and how I definitely still has the culture shock.

There are supposedly several stages to this affliction, but everyone experiences it differently, so I've dubbed the phases after my own experiences.

The first stage is the "Honeymoon Stage" where ZOMG everything is shiny and new and wonderful!!!

The next is what I like to call the "Mission Creep" (heyo, a little IS humour) where general loneliness, disenchantment and occasional despair creep up on you and make for long days and even longer, sleepless nights. Since I had such a rough introduction to Mali, I think that these two phases occurred concurrently for me rather than consecutively. This meant that my highs were exceptionally high and my lows were devastatingly low...or that I was more manic than Morrissey.

Now I am in the third phase, called "Resignation" where you let go of perpetually longing for things at home, learn to appreciate some of the things here (like beans! I really like it when my mom makes me beans!) and take one of 3 paths with the third being preferable:

1) "Go Native": wear the same brightly coloured, busy patterned outfit head to toe, enjoy the taste of palm oil, think nothing of the trou, find the most convoluted way to do something then do it, etc. This to me is the easier option.

2) Ex-pat Escapism: hang with other toubabs at over-priced toubab joints doing only toubab things.

3) Hybridize and Compartmentalize:  To me, the former is where you learn to love new things in your new home, while not losing yourself in the place. The latter is where you bring what you already know you love (ie: hiking, running, live music) to your new home and learn to appreciate the differences. This option requires constant effort, evaluation and a robust sense of humour, but on my good days, seems to serve me well.

Moreover, having for the most part acquiesced to the wretched taste of palm oil, the trou (although a trou in Djenné broke me, I finally met one I couldn't use) and people's at times perplexing priorities, I can now look back and chuckle at some of the things that I have had to adapt to in a short amount of time. So, over dinner  my Pays Dogon travel buddies and I drafted a list of blog-worthy, dichotomic, photographic comparaisons for your kind perusal:

Culture Shock Explained in Visual Pairings

Column A: Canada               Column B: Mali

Household Items: 

Of the non-glacial variety.                This also can be a dishwasher and a washing machine.

                                                       The 4:00 am call to prayer comes early.  

         

                                                                      Naa douminiké!

Time

 

Pets 

Yes that's a cat on a towel.                      These guys double as dinner          

Trash Disposal

          Where should I toss this?        You know what, here's good.

Multitasking

                                                     Walking down Bamako's main drag carrying twins and balancing a 20 litre bucket on her head.                                                    

Decency

Fidelity

 

High Fidelity: aka loyalty, Cusak style.                            Draper style.

Bathroom

 

                                         I'll leave you to figure the kettle out for yourself.