Day 1
2:00pm Wake up
Lunch: Fried fish, cheb cheb (fried gourds), and salad
3:00pm Go to a wedding reception
If they see white people at a party Malians will insist that you dance in front of everybody because dance is a universal language in Mali. So we did, and most people laughed at the way we moved our butts, but it’s all in good fun and afterward we shook hands and they told us how honored they were we came.
5:00pm - We stumble upon a Balon’ni
A Balon’ni is a street party for kids usually thrown when someone, usually in their teens, passes a level in school, or has a birthday. They start in the afternoon and can go on for 8-12 hours, or all through the night! Just like the wedding, they make us get up and dance, to everyone’s enjoyment.
Dinner: Steak, pasta with sauce, salad
9:00pm Back to the Balon’ni
More dancing
12:00am Bedtime
Day 2
8:30am Bamana Class with Seykou Camara
10:30am Dance class with Sali and Mba
First 3 steps of both Sungurubanin and Dununba
12:00am Djembe class with Ladji
We learned the rhythms to Malaka, a short peice with an accompaniment and solos
Lunch: Tegedena, rice, fried fish, and plantains
Tegedena is a delicious peanut butter stew that you pour over rice
4:00pm Head to Asi’s Balon’ni
Asi’s (Michelle and Seydou’s older daughter) birthday is July 4th so since they’ve been coming to Mali in August, Seydou has been throwing her Balon’nis to celebrate. The first half is mostly for little kids, and older kids (up to 20 yrs old) come later on at night, but everyone stays until it ends.
7:00pm Hip hop and Contemporary with Madou and Alisan
Alisan is Sali’s brother, and together they are choreographing pieces for hundreds of performers for the biennale coming up.
Dinner Suprises, fruit salad, and french fries
Surprises are meatballs with scrambled eggs inside
9:00pm Head back to Asi’s Balon’ni where the party has really got going.
Since it’s her Balon’ni they make her dance, and they bring all of us up to dance as well, shouting Tubabu (white people) to get us up there. Usually we dance separately but Sophie, our resident white Malian, gets them to dance all together.
12:00am Balon'ni ends, back to the Yeredon.
Day 3
8:30am Bamara class with Seykou
10:00am Special guests! Oumou and Dadia come to sing and dance for us. Madou, Sali, Mba and even Djibi get up and dance! Seydou gives us a little show of what he can do.
1:00pm Djembe with Ladji, keep practicing Malaka
Lunch: Chicken, couscous, and petit pois (peas)
4:00pm Guitar with Papice
Jess and I try to learn the background to “Fotemogoba,” a song about how despite bad things people may say about you, you have the power to overcome. It proves difficult...
7:00pm Hip hop and Contemporary with Madou and Alisan.
Dinner: Vegetable soup, sweet potato fries, couscous
10:00pm a few rounds of Mafia. I was god the first round and picked Assi and Megan as mafia, who did my bidding splendidly. The next round Samba chose me and Danica and we weaseled our way to victory.
Day 4
9am Bamana class with Seykou
10:30 dance with Mba and Sali
2:00pm a few of us take a trip into town to an internet cafe and a local boutique to discover just how famous the Derbies are... (post to come soon)
5:00pm Guitar with Papice. We realize that these lessons are perhaps a little out of our range of ability, but we struggle nonetheless.
7:00pm hiphop and contemporary
9:00pm Tonight we headed to Diplomat, a local tubabu dance club to have some drinks and a nice meal. The pizza wasn't that good and may have given us a little food poisoning, but it was Sophia's Birthday, so we decided to splurge. Bon Anniversaire!
Day 5
9:00am Bamana with Sekou
Thursday is usually the day off for ceremonies, but since it's Ramadan, we figured we'd have class. However, we didn't clear that with our teachers so we ended up dancing by ourselves... oh well!
Lunch: Tigadegena and fish. Myumyum!
7:00pm Viewing of Yeelen with the Star, Issiaka Kane (see appropriate blog post)
Day 6
Lessons and dance in the morning, per usual
Lunch: Spaghetti and sauce, vegetable stew.
1:00pm Leave for Djininjela (see appropriate post)
Day 7
12:00pm return from Djininjela with a nice cold shower.
4:00pm We treat ourselves to Broadway Cafe, a Tubabu resuarant near downtown which specializes in American and European cuisine.
Dinner: Fish, chebjen, and black eyed peas.
9:00pm Jessica brought "This is It," the Michael Jackson documentary to show the Malian artists, since MJ is second to Allah here. It ended up being the just the Americans who watched however, since we had had too many Black Eyed Peas and our digestive systems were respoding accordingly. Those Coulibalys do like their beans...
Day 8
12:00pm Off to the market for goods! This is the one place where Malian hospitality is less as much, and there are a lot of venders trying to make some money. Not a bad thing, but it gets tiring after you say no thanks a hundred times and they offer you more stuff. We got to see some great leather work, as well as work with other hides, like crocodile and serpent, monkey heads, jewerly, instruments, the whole lot! After that we went to a Fajigila, a different market where a bunch of us bought fabric to be taylored into clothes, which is incredibly inexpensive here. I carried around my camelback for sustenance which the Malians loved and didn't really understand, but it kept me going!
10:00pm Since it was our last night with the visitors from Choate, we went to Relax to celebrate and have some drinks! It was a lovely evening filled with reminiscing and story telling. Very Malian. Minus the drinks.
Day 9
10:00am dance
Lunch: Tigadegena and rice. Starting to get bored of the peanut sauce...
4:00pm We got the hook up to go the Mande hotel and use the pool. I have never enjoyed chlorinated water so much! Also I couldn't help enjoy watching Djibi learn to swim. Adorable!
Dinner: Surprises, fries, and salad!
9:00pm After dance we watched the Incredibles, with french subtitles so the Malians could watch. Who doesn't love pixar?!
Day 10
Morning lessons
12:00pm Djembe with Lagi. We're getting pretty good and learning some complicated rhythms. If the internet is willing I'll try to load some videos of our accomplishments.
Lunch: Pease, couscous, goat, vegetables!
3:00pm Ngoni with Seykou!
Our wildly talented translator and general academic here also happens to play Ngoni, a string instrument that was originally used for hunter ceremonies. I learned a song called Manyun, a very sweet song to listen to, buta song about how men will try to buy the affection of women and that once they get what they want, they will leave you. That's pretty much true... Here's a picture of some visiting Ngoni players, which can have a variable number of strings.
Dinner: Chicken and taters!
Day 11
Morning classes.
Lunch: Rice, veggie soup, black eyed peas (farting ensues)
Afternoon relaxing at Relax, a local Tubab resaurant
Dinner: Pate, chicken rotisserie. Pate, below, is ground beef in a deep fried doughy pocket. Goes great with ketchup, which seems to evaporate at the Coulibaly house.
Day 12
Morning classes
Lunch: Fish, chebjen, potatoes
3:00pm Visit to the National Malian Museum. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, but they had a beautiful exhibit of the tapestries, and an exhibit on US history told through copies of famous paintings! Very interesting indeed...
Dinner: Pasta w/ meat sauce, salad, fruit salad
Day 13
1:30am Matt arrives! Despite being exhausted a few of us sit up on the roof reminiscing until we hear the call for morning prayer!
4:00am bedtime
Morning classes
Lunch: Rice, Pinto beans, salad, fruit salad
2:00pm History lesson from Sadou Maiga (most of which is included in my brief Malian history), who expressed the importance of climate in the formation of agriculture, fishing, and raising livestock as a basis for the Malian economy, as well as the importance of the Niger River.
