This and That...

Hey, remember how my exotic African infection got me an appointment with my doctor ahead of time? Yeah, well, it's been about a week, and I just got a response from the infectious disease specialist, saying when he'd be able to see me. That's... March 5th.

Okay, so including the 5 days in March, the week or so left this month, and the week I waited for the phone call return, that's almost two months of waiting.

And if the infection doesn't get into the bloodstream for two months... Well, this makes for a very close shave. Especially since I was infected for roughly six weeks prior to my meeting with the doctor. And March 5th is only when I get my evaluation, no guarantee as to when I get treated. Oh well, I guess I'll just let this thing hit me. Looks like I'm stuck in Guelph another month, too...

I got the rest of my photos developed that I want to send to Mali. I never brought any photos of Guelph, and when I got there, I was kicking myself. It was on the list of stuff they suggested you bring... but I just thought "Who would want to see boring ol' Guelph?"

Well, remember how I said my camera scrambled photos, and it was a real pain to find the villagers the pictures you took of them? With any given person, the first couple times I had to scroll through my La Pocatiere photos were never dull. I remember the first time, bracing myself, and then hitting the "Next" button over and over, as fast as I could, to find the photo I wanted as fast as possible, when a child who was watching over my shoulder whispered, in awe "Canada photo!"

That was when I first realized that they found photos of Canada pretty cool. So I'm sending them a picture of my house, a picture of a street, and a picture of a pine tree. I'm also sending them five La Pocatiere photos, and I'm sending them 20 photos that I took of their family.

It'll be cool for them to see snow... I'll label what each photo is on the back. They can take them to their neighbour, Sedio, to translate the French into Bambara. I can label a couple of them in Bambara, too...

I felt awkward getting just three photos developed, and wound up developing eight more, for myself and to show other's when I tell stories. I really only want to post photos that give a real "Pop!" I want them to be of decent quality, and I don't want them to be redundant or boring to the viewer. I got a pretty nice setup on FB, with it's 101 pic album, but every time I add some more on here, I'm afraid of diluting the visual balance.

But whatever. I posted the eight photos I developed for myself onto Gryphon's Gallery, anyway. I even put explanations for each of the photos, including the ones that were already on the blog.

http://gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com/

Three of them were taken by other people. I tried to find relevant images among other participant's albums, to fill in the places I neglected. I could never find a good image of the Sirakorola market, or of Bamako. I guess it makes sense, when you think about it. At the Sirakorola market, most people would demand you buy something if you took a photo, and in Bamako... Well, when people on the street are yelling at you, grabbing at you, following you around... It kind of kills the mood for taking photos. If you whip out something as fancy as a camera, somebody might just swipe it out of your hand.

I haven't developed any photos of individuals yet, unless there's special significance to it, because, like I said before, the variation in quality, and uneven distribution of attention don't always come out evenly, and there's... just so many. If I evelop a photo of one child, I feel obligated to develop photos of every one of them, or else I feel like I'm favouring some over other's.

Funfact: Malians don't smile for photos. They have a really intense, serious face they put on when they get their photos taken. You might try to call my bluff, with the evidence that I've published plenty of images of smiling Malians, but believe me, in all those instances they were trying to look serious, but couldn't contain their happiness.

I was reading Wikipedia's article on Mali, and I noticed they have a page for the Bozo people. It's right here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_people

Do you know why this article is funny to me? Because in Mali, Bozo is a racial slur, denoting a type of dark-skinned fishing-people. It's similar to what we would call a "Redneck". But look how they treat it like it's a proper term for a respected people who consider themselves as such. To illustrate, I'll write a partial article for rednecks in the same format they used for Bozo.

"The rednecks are a North American ethnic group located predominantly in the Southern United States. The name redneck is thought to derive from the colouration of skin surrounding the neck, caused by continual exposure to sunlight. The people accept the term as referring to the whole of their ethnic group but use more specific clan names such as Thompson, Hookey, or Backhouse themselves. They are famous for their agriculture and are occasionally referred to as the "Masters of the Fields""

See? That doesn't quite communicate the true meaning of the term, now does it?

Yeesh. I couldn't think of any redneck names, so I scrolled through my friends list on FB to find names that "sounded redneck". I hope they never see this post...