The Ciwaara, or dancing bush, fetish came out a couple of weeks ago, which I always love watching. One of my friends came from Sikasso to see the fetish, and I think that having two toubabs caused quite a stir. The tallest fetish chased after us a number of times, and even though I know it won't hurt me, being chased by a 7-foot tall bush-like creature is slightly frightening nonetheless!
On the night of April 27th, I had a birthday party for my mom with several teacher and CSCOM friends. Back in January, I happened to mention to this silly guy who works at the CSCOM, named Nyiere, that my mother's birthday was the 28th. He got really excited and said that when the time rolled around, we'd have a party for her. I thought that he would forget, but about a month beforehand he brought it up again, and continued to talk about it every day after that. Of course he wanted food, and not just any food, but meat, and of course since he is a male, he can't help cook it; so at about 7 pm, his girlfriend and one of her friends came over and we made spaghetti in meat and tomato sauce. The meat took forever to cook, and we didn't finish completely until 10pm. We took the food over to some other teachers' house and ate and listened to music (Akon and Michael Jackson). I was a bit annoyed with the whole food situation, but it turned out to be fun. Nyiere and this teacher who we call Cisse sang a very interesting version of Happy Birthday, which I was able to capture on my camera. We also took about 30 other random pictures, on of which is below.
I had a conversation about arranged marriages with Maminatta the other day. She herself did not want to marry her husband. She wanted to marry a Bamako guy, but once her family decided that she would marry her current husband, there was nothing she could do about it. Her old sister, Awa, has a 13 year old daughter. Awa's family had planned to marry her off to a concession across town, but the head of that concession, who is probably around 70 years old, does not want her to marry one of his sons. He himself wants to marry her! Of course I was very disturbed by that, and asked if Awa, the mother, agrees with that. Maminatta said that whether Awa agrees or not won't make a difference, because Awa's husband has agreed to the arrangement. He is the head of the family; therefore it is his decision.
We were busy with baby weighings toward the end of April. In one village, Zagneguebougou, I weighed a 2 year old girl who was only 5 kilos, or about 10 pounds. I told the mom that she needed to take her to the CSCOM, but I figured she wouldn't. Lo and behold though, a few days later, the woman and daughter, along with the father, stopped by my house on their way to the CSCOM. They were able to get some extra advice from the doctor, along with some multivitamins and other substances to help her grow a bit. I was really happy that the woman listened to me and that they took the time to come to Kourouma. I told the father several specific calorie-dense foods to give her occasionally, and he genuinely seemed like he was going to heed my advice.
That's what I've been up to in Kourouma (that and devouring the entire Twilight series - yeah, I know I'm not 12 years old. The books are addicting). This past week was our COS (Close of Service) conference in Bamako. It was good to see the folks who I came to Mali with (52 out of about 81 are still here), although I also had to go ahead and say goodbye to some folks as well. My COS date is August 27th. It's hard to believe that I only have three months left in Mali. Time flies!
