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Published: November 27th 2008
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Well Thanksgiving is already upon us, and I can barely believe it. I would just as soon forget that it is, but Nora keeps reminding me that it’s her favorite holiday (it took me a while, but I got the hint that I can’t let this day go unobserved). Even knowing the month (and keeping track of that has been surprisingly difficult in this backwater that is Niono) is hardly a marker for the passage of time as one day looks remarkably like another. We don’t have big plans for today, and what plans we do have Nora’s made for us. Apparently I’m to make macaroni and cheese, yam casserole, and a salad. Nora’s going to pick up some roasted lamb in the market, and we’re to have a feast with Amelie, Keba, and Hame. Aside from that, I can probably count on my usual schedule of doing work in the morning, going to the hotel in town for lunch, and doing more work/hanging out in the afternoon.
You might guess that I’m ready to go back to Bamako now. And you’d be right. Fortunately, we head back on Sunday, that is, if a transport is available. We’ll spend a
week there and then we’ll head off to the vicinity of Tominion, close to the border of Burkina, to celebrate Tabaski with our good friend and host father Yaya at his village. Although it’s a three-day affair, we’ll cut out a day early to take Nora to the house where she’ll be staying to finish the rest of her interviews. I ultimately decided that I couldn’t afford to languish in another small town for another few weeks, as Niono has been enough of a break, even with the free wireless permitting me to get my work done. Instead I’m going to go back to Bamako with Yaya.
In fact, I should be pretty busy as soon as we get back to Bamako next week. I’ve decided to take another three weeks of Bambara lessons, and instructor’s schedule permitting, I’ll begin on Monday. At two hours a day, five days a week, I think that three weeks should get me up to speed. I’ll also be working out the rest of my IRB proposal for the University of Bamako IRB. It’s pretty much complete now, although I need to have it proofread because my French writing skills leave something to
Me with Hame
...notice a theme? be desired. I’ve also surprising found myself in the business of searching for a printer, which is a rare and valuable commodity here. After tallying 4,000 pages of surveys that I will distribute in the next couple of months, I nearly concluded that it would be cheaper for me to buy a laser printer in the U.S. and pay the $40 flat fee to have someone ship it to me with a couple of cartridges than pay the $.10/page charge that most Bamako businesses charge. Fortunately, one of the people that we met when we first came to Bamako owns a computer supply shop, and it seems that he’ll be able to give me a good deal.
Finally, once I have the means to start printing the surveys, I’ll have to distribute them. I don’t think that this will be too difficult. For one of the sets of surveys, I’m planning on handing them out myself. Although not too many people read French, I’m going to start off in the section of the big Bamako market where the books are sold and see where that leads me. For the other set of surveys, for which I’m targeting university students,
my plan is to ask some of the university student friends that we have to distribute surveys for commission.
All in all, the research expenses are not inconsequential, but then again this looks to be the beginning of a long, productive line of research for me. Besides, I’ve applied for some grants and feel that my chances are relatively promising. Keep your fingers crossed nonetheless.
In the meantime, I’m posting a few photos of Niono, which unfortunately do not capture the extremes of pastoral beauty and city filth that merge in this small town. On a rambling side note, Nora and I were just having a conversation yesterday with Amelie about the interesting psychology of people here. She was saying that when she was involved in a terrible car accident 18 months ago that killed three people, no one faulted the driver of the bus, who was speeding and driving recklessly, or the owner of the bus, who had bribed some officials to keep the otherwise unsafe vehicle on the road. Instead, people seem to resign themselves to accepting that they do not have much personal agency in what happens, refusing to complain about injustices or raw deals.
Even in spite of the strong feeling of community here, nowhere is this more evident to me in the cities, where people have long ago found it useless to keep their trash managed and sequestered. I mention it just because I’ve heard, and Nora has confirmed, that the villages are quite clean. I was expecting that the same would be true of Niono, which is home to only a few thousand people. It makes me wonder if there is a critical density or a critical number of people in one particular place beyond which, personally managing one’s trash for the collective good gives way to that resignation. Beyond that, my cynical side induces me to wonder whether or not this would be any different in other parts of the world that are supposedly less collectivistic. Just wondering…
On that note, Happy Thanksgiving!
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