Mariko

Check this out:



That's a drawing of me, done by one of the village children. Right now, it is my Facebook profile image. No, I don't know what the red liquid is in that bottle or what's going on with my clothes.

The kid who drew this's name was Mariko. For a long time I thought his name was "Marko", because English names are used by Christians in Mali (whereas Muslims use Arabic names) and "Mariko" is a family name, but not one in the village. Well, it's true that it wasn't his surname, but truly, his name was Mariko Coulibaly. Using a surname as a given name isn't so noteable in North America, but in Mali, family names are serious business. It determines aspects of your self-indentity, including what kinds of relations you'll have with others, and the traditions you will be expected to uphold. Oftentimes, people refer to you, or you refer to yourself, by your surname. So, if people are calling Mariko by his first name, people will have different expectations of him, as a Mariko, than they would of a Coulibaly.

I asked my CP about it, and he seemed a little confused as well. He was all "You're sure that's not his last name? Maybe there's one Mariko family in the village..."

I guess it.. doesn't really matter, actually, now that I think on it. The main issue I was thinking of was cousinage. Certain families have special relationships with other families. When you speak to people you have cousinage with, you're supposed to dish out the verbal abuse. For example, let's say I, Ali Traore, am talking to... Mozo Diarra (The Traore have cousinage with the Diarra and Malei)

Ali: The Diarra are bad! The Traore are good!
Mozo: The Traore are the slaves of the Diarra!
Ali: The Diarra eat beans, and then they fart!
Mozo: You are my nephew, I am your uncle!
Ali: Your name is Mozo Traore!

Yeah, these were some of the standard insults. And each family seemed to have some that they preferred over others. The Traore liked to tell people they ate beans and farted, and we liked to do the thing where we replace the other guy's last name with Traore.

But contrary to what you might expect, these dissing relationships were actually really positive. If you ever run into trouble, it's those you have cousinage with that you can expect to come to your aid, and people go out of their way to spend time with people they have cousinage with.

Anyway, my entire point is that, Mariko's family name, Coulibaly, has cousinage with EVERYONE! Every single family name in Mali. Well, not quite, but so many that those who don't are the exception. Apparently my CP was the only one in the group who didn't have cousinage with the Coulibaly.

Sooo... if people who had cousinage with the Mariko mistakenly tried to forge cousinage relationships with this kid named Mariko, it wouldn't matter, because they'd probably still have cousinage with the Coulibaly.

Anyway, he was a really great kid. He was a favourite among the Canadians, because he went out of his way to teach us about Malian culture and how to speak Bambara. He was cheerful, talented, hardworking, approachable, kind to the other children, and shockingly good at communicating despite the language barrier. Here's a photo of him:



He's teaching me how to drive a donkey cart in that photo. He was sweet, but I wouldn't say he was my favourite. There were a lot of really sweet kids in the village.