musings from jess

a brief interjection from jess, aka djessira, aka the group member that, according to robs whos zho, has time traveled from 1982 to be maliba la.

if you havent already gleaned as much from yakuba(rob)s incredible posts, we are pretty much rolling in the cultural wealth of mali here in bamako and especially at yeredon. practically every day some new friend of the coulibaly family stops by for some gunpowder tea and a chat, and turns out to be a famous guitarist, or balaphone (xylophone Malian style and thus far superior) player, or intercommunally ranked dancer. it feels surreal, that art is so much just...everywhere.

and while im sure yeredon is a haven for artists of all kinds, even the little ive seen of mali has convinced me that art- music, dance, crafts of all kinds- is just a bigger portion of the everyday here than in america, or anyplace else ive ever been for that matter. people live and work hard as hell, and yet somehow every day without fail, even during ramadan when big festivities are pretty much shut down, a song from down the street wakes me up from a nap, or the little kids at the corner start a dance to the radio, or a flute player comes by for an impromptu concert. theres a kind of undefinable willingness here for spontaneous engagement, a readiness to dance and sing at the drop of a hat like ive never seen before- except maybe in those radically culturally removed movie musicals i and every other theater geek in the world love so much. and while i know its easy to romanticize, it continues to blow my mind how open these people and artists are.

but i digress. to sum up, mali is rad and strange and gorgeous and i might just start to maybe get used to it by the time we have to leave. and such is life.

anichee (thanks) from djessira maimounata coulibaly goldschmidt