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An Ka Taa... the States...

It's already that time?! But I just got here! Yes, unfortunately we leave for the States early early Thursday morning, and although you know I love you, my fearless readers, I may have to forsake you in order to soak up the most that I can in the next few days.
But FEAR NOT!  My blogs will surely continue once I get back to the States with lightening fast internet speed and the ability to post SO MANY VIDEOS!!  Or AS MANY AS GOOGLE WILL ALLOW!!  Either way I have much more to say and it might as well be online.  Or at least most of it.

I ni ce!  See you soon.

A Visit to Yaya Coulibaly's

On Sunday we were treated to a private show at Yaya Coulibaly's house.  Yaya is a puppeteer who has an internationally renowned troupe, and whose work inspired the artistic direction for the Broadway production of Lion King.  Yaya’s philosophy is that art and cultural exchange is the only way to survive and prosper as a human race.  He’s saddened with the idea that with the present economic and political situations around the world, art will surely be the first victim.  Thus he says by practicing and mastering a technique, as well as meeting other artists, it is possible to keep these traditions alive, and to even make money at it!  It was a very moving speech, and after seeing his performance, I understand what he means. 

An anteloupe puppet.  It came so close I got to pet it!

After seeing the performance, it's not hard to see the link between this and the Lion King production.  Yaya has been in this work since he was little, and learned it from his father.  He tries to represent all people, every animal, and many other things with his work, and whenever he makes a puppet, he makes two!  One to stay at home and one to travel with his work.  If this video below every loads you'll get a first hand look at our private viewing.  I'll try to upload more later.

 Sekou Kamara and Yaya Coulibaly

Food!

The food here has been phenomenal, if only a little repetitive.  Most days Nafi Coulibaly (our wonderful cook, Sedou's sister-in-law, who also cooks for the whole Coulibaly clan - almost 30!) gets us a good serving of rice/pasta, some salad, and a meat, and sometime fruit salad too!  Sometimes she doesn't have the chance, understandably, and we have to improvise.  Yogurt in a bag from the corner, or eggs on white bread.  We eat a lot of white bread.  For breakfast it's mostly white bread and PB, jam, or maybe eggs if we have them.  But I digest...

My first favorite dish was clearly Pate (with a fancy accent at the end).  It's ground beef in a fried dough shell.  What's not to love?  Goes great with ketchup, served best with french fries.  Though sometimes you get one that has too much dough and you have to pick around it.  Not so good.  Also one night we got only Pate which was a little odd.  But I figure this woman is cooking us lunch and dinner, on top of feeding her family of 30+ people, and she's fasting all day!  Yep, Ramadan's a killer.  But she does it and it's always delicious.  Here's Pate in a bowl!

For a more balanced meal, try the fish with a side of rice and tigadegena.  The fish is full of bones and the Tigadegena full of... whatever she puts in it that day...  The fish certainly takes some getting used to but it's great when it gets there hot, and the tigadegena is a great side dish.  Full of protein!

Sometimes we get more Coulibaly-esque dishes, like this one (below) with a healthy serving of Black Eyed Peas.  The red gooey stuff I'm pretty sure is like Malian ratatouille, filled with whatever Nafi could pull together.  It's quite good though with a medley of vegetables and, is that pasta? I think it is.  Oh and lamb has come to the part! How delightful.  

Despite being called peas they ravage your bowl movements like beans and hilarity is sure to ensue.  After the health concerns behind eating as well as daily talks about sanitation, you come to get very comfortable discussing the human body's reactions to certain foods.  And drink.  And the smells.  Too much?  You have no idea.

If we're lucky we get chicken, which is always delectable and salty, with a side salad, and mac and cheese.  Though it's not really mac and cheese, it's more like pasta with a mystery butter sauce.  Again, delicious.  The Ratty could learn a thing or two from Nafi Coulibaly. 

 

If you've had a hard day, though, you can always stop off at Relax and grab some great Tubab food, shown here:

Mmm.  Yep, we're eating good her in Mali, and the thing I miss most is, of course, cold milk.  Ah well.  Bittersweet sorrow. 

An Ka Taa Siby!

Today we went to Siby!  Siby is an old Malinke village with a killer hike and a few beautiful waterfalls.  Here's the most iconic picture from Siby.

Most iconic picture

And now here's me on top of that!

Me on top of that.

 

 

 

It was about an hour hike to the top, and you could see all of beautiful vegetated Mali.  Or most of it.  Well some of it.  I bet it would have been a quite different, perhaps slightly more depressing situation had we gone in the dry season, but now it was nice and flush.

After that we went to a beautiful water fall where some of us bathed, and others, terrified by horror stories of people swimming in Africa and then going blind from parasites 10 years later, did not.  Anyway, here's the waterfall

The Waterfall

That's right.  We were under that. Even though I didn't go in it was spectacular and you could feel the cool breeze with water spritzing you all over.  Mmmm.

The Tempest Cometh/Mande on Crack

Today we went to see Sali choreograph over 250 dancers for the biennale celebration coming up in September.  When we got to Stade Modibo Keita, the national stadium, the sky was beautiful but a few of us noticed a forboding cloud on the horizon... Here's a picture of them in one of the formations:

 

We weren't supposed to take pictures so this is the best I could do incognito.  The dancers continued per usual without a hitch, until a few of the dancers started to feel some drops of rain, and then all of a sudden, the sky opened up, the winds went nuts, and everyone must have known what was coming because 2 minutes before it really took off, they took off!

 For about 30 minutes the winds were so intense even though we were 20 feet behind the awning of the stadium we still got soaked in our little tubabu huddle.  

Fear not though.  We soon were in the safety of Relax, our favorite tubabu restaurant, eating delicious food.  

Kan bu fo!

Coming soon...

Food!

But first check out more Day to Days, Les Maliennes, and the new page "Dictionnaire" to keep track of all the crazy things I'm saying!  Let me know what you'd like me to add.

-Rob