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Namasa Thursday
Entry 25 of 25 | show all | print this entry |
During one of our health sessions during training, the regional doctor of West Africa Peace Corps programs came to talk to us about taking our malaria provolaxsus, STDs and confirm that yes any woman you see in a bar past 10pm is a prostitute so don't be stupid. He also took the liberty of giving us his two cents about the PC experience a rightful feat since he served with his wife during the 60s or some other hay day. "After the two years, you will find that there are the hard core volunteers who completed lots of projects, excel in the local language and might even stay on for another year. Then there are the mediocre volunteers but for the most part, many of you will be those volunteers who just have two years of a cultural exchange, you learn the local language, play a hand in starting a women's garden if anything, drink a lot of tea, etc.... yeah nothing but two years of a cultural exchange so don't feel like its going to more than that--congrats and good luck." So hearing this, I could not help but feel a little disappointed and defensive- two years of my life for a cultural exchange, what the hell? I came here to do something didn't I?
So that brings me to Namasa Thursdays-my cultural exchange as Dr. Savage may call it-which I hope will grow to access into the tight exclusive Malian women's world. My goal is to learn about these women's lives through nothing better than banana bread. Yes banana bread.
Mayamun , my guardian's wife-Dogon queen, mother of two and one of my best friends here meets with a group of women friends every Thursday. Each woman is married, most likely in her mid-20s and has an average of 4 kids each. If every other day of the week is a series of cooking, sweeping dust from dust, chasing their kids down for a bath or pounding millet than Thursday is their day of rest at least for a couple of hours. They meet at Mama's house, the concession right across from mine to catch up, scold each other's children and make fun of their husbands. Their meeting is not just women's talk but as always with Malian women, there is a survival component. Each woman brings 500CFA equal to 1$US to go into a pool of money that is given to one woman at the end of the month. She can buy better food for the family, pay school fees and maybe her a new outfit made.
I only just started to join their gathering- sitting, watching and trying to get a word in or comment about what someone said. Mostly I'm pretty much an observers watching them laughing and slapping knees, wielding child over shoulder, off the breast, yelling at her kids, fixing her head wrap and tapping her henna dyed toes.
The goal is to learn about these women's lives inadvertently at first I guess-through banana bread lesion and coconut cassava cookie making-maybe I'll learn something new, maybe I just might find a reason to be here...
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