Okay, so here's my counterpart, Ousmane Diallo. I've already spoken on him quite a bit. In this photo, we're at the Malian kiosk in La Pocatiere. We put up a booth at the local farmer's market, and served Malian food and drink. We played Malian music, and there was Malian dancing. The food was chicken and peanut sauce with rice, and the drink was some kind of fruit drink we'd never have again.
We would only have chicken once during our stay in Mali, and that was only for a really special occasion, and I think only because of Canadian request. Would have been more accurate to serve goat. The juice we drank in the village was something closer to grape juice, but I don't think there were any grapes, so it must have been one of the fruits that grew on the trees.
In this photo, Ousmane's wearing his prayer robe. He would wear that once a week, as some kind of tradition that I guess the others didn't follow.
This is my host father. His family name is Boffy Traore, and his village name is Dosun Traore. I called him Boffy. He was a really cool guy. Never beat his children or his wives, his kids all went to school, he helped me and Ousmane do our Educational Activity Day by giving a tour of the fields in the village and answering questions about agriculture. He seemed to reach out and support a lot of people when they needed it, and include them in the family. He came by and helped the Canada World Youth with group work a few times. He took an active interest in including me in the family. I really can't say anything bad about him.
He worked for the government, harvesting cotton, so he was one of the few people who didn't live in an entirely subsistence way. In Mali, everything is shared, though, so he didn't really get to keep his hands on it or give his family a lifestyle that was different from other villagers. The village lives in an entirely subsistence way throughout the year, with one exception. There is a "Marriage season" which I think is about one month, when all the marriage ceremonies happen. At this time of year, the people who are earning money from the government (cotton pickers and schoolteachers), give their money to the village, and they use it for the celebrations.
My host father's family had some mammoth bean harvest while I was there, too. Everyone knew about it, and all these visitors would come over and spend all day in the family, working and preparing beans. Apparently, it was a pretty noteworthy time, and brought a lot of honour to my family.
I regret not having individual photos of my host mothers. You can see them both in the family photo on my Gallery blog, and I've got a picture of Ma, standing with another village woman, but as I've explained, I was never in a position where I could take photos freely, and opportunity never really showed itself.
This is Baby Ali. The first photo is inside the first week of his birth, and the second photo is after two months. See? He changes colour. The lighting doesn't fully support me here, but you can still kind of see it.
He was able to recognize me by the time I left. When he would cry and nobody could calm him down, they would bring him over to me, and I'd calm him without fail. When he saw me, he would laugh and try to speak to me. I held him quite often. Everyone loved how he was named after me, and how he took to me.
This is Budjuh. This was the only kid that kind of got on my nerves. There's this phrase, Tubabu, which means "Whitey". The Canadians debated on whether or not it was a racist term. I thought it was kind of a misplaced sentiment, taking issue with the term, because racism doesn't exist in Mali, the way it does here. They've never had reason for there to be racial tension, so people remarking on the colour of your skin doesn't have any negative connotation. Rest assured, I learned the word for "Blacky" (Fatafini), and used it liberally.
But this kid was ridiculous. He would sit in front of me, and just say "Tubabu... Tubabu... Tubabu..." over and over again, with the most blank stare. He'd do this for HOURS. I was like, "Don't you have anything better to do?" I tried repeating "Fatafini" at him, but he always beat me on stamina. Even the other kids were getting annoyed with him. They'd say, "No, Budjuh! Say Ali! Say Ali!" Eventually he did learn my name, but he kept doing his thing... He'd sit in front of me, stare blankly at me, and say "Ali... Ali... Ali..."
I'm sure the next white person he meets, he's going to call "Ali".
In this photo, he's in a cotton patch. He followed me and Boffy out to work, when Boffy was giving me a private lesson in Malian agriculture.
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