This is my new newspaper, The Toubabou Times. Headline: An oasis of people.
The streets are dirt; the waste water runs down the middle of the dirt streets in small rivulets. The buildings are decaying adobe or rough concrete block. You can hear the bleating of sheep. The heat is over 100 degrees. Dust hangs in the yellow late afternoon sky.
We are packed into a Toyota van, on the south side of the Niger river, where the “village people” live in Bamako—the poorest of the poor—they come here from the rural areas in the dry season hoping for work, before the rains come and they go back to their villages. Each family has a one room home, or a compound of several families around a dusty plaza(too nice a word). Most of these people get by on less than $1 a day—and they have to buy water, that we’d not consider safe. This is a slum in a city many of our culture would consider a slum.
We are going to see the parents of our driver Mamadou, who dye imported cotton cloth into beautiful cloth for the peoples’ Boubous (the main daily dress of these people, a sort of toga with a head tie of a different color for women. The Malians are known for their dying abilities.
In the family compound, the “kitchen” is a wood burner outside on the dirt, to heat water, to form a daily paste of millet and rice with okra that is the main meal. The “master bedroom” is a five by eight place with a clean rug on it, and their sandals placed outside. The other bedroom for the entire family is no more than 12 by 12, with a cloth hanging in the open door as the “screen” door. It could be an abandoned adobe in my beloved New Mexico.
The real artisan is the sewer of the white cloth, sewing by hand. Behind him a goat-sheep bleats in a corner.
They are excited to see us, and so dignified. They bring out their dyed cloth and hang it on clothes lines for us to admire. I buy one brilliant piece and head tie for the equivalent of $40—in most places in Mali, you barter to lower the price to about a third asked (we did this in the market earlier today), but not here. I pay 20,000 CFA—about $40 for some cloth that I may not use, or we may make into curtains. Shelly Sitton buys one and it will be made into a boubou for her for $3 for a presentation.
They bring out soft drinks (coke and fanta) for us. They are poor, but You cannot refuse. One young woman standing beside a post holding up the tin roof is wearing a shirt with an American flag on it.
They are so friendly. The dying vats are also here. Our guide “A” shows us how they “iron” the cloth. It looks like a huge mariachi but of slid wood—you can hear thumping in the background. In a hot, but dark thatched hut, pairs of Malians spend hours rapidly beating the cloth over and over until it is flat and creased.
Before we get there however, we have the experience of a lifetime.
The children are eager to see the toubabous (the first whites these people saw were Arab doctors and that’s where the word comes from. ) Every African nation has a word for whites, as do American blacks but unlike Honky, this is a term of wonder.
Sam Knipp of the Farm Bureau chases some of them down the alley and they squeal and jump and run and laugh, and then chase him. He has not had this much fun since he can remember.
We walk down the street heading for the sound of the beating “irons.” The children surround us, wanting to talk to us, stretching out their hands to shake. I am swamped. I repeatedly say to them, shaking their hands, smiling, Bon Jour monsieur or madamoiselle, Ces Vas, Enchante, ‘n I ce (thank you in Bambara), Merci, I use the word toubabu over and over, and they laugh and smile and I can’t reach them all—they are so happy, so full of energy. There. are some who are part blind, some with head lice-who knows what diseases I’m touching—I don’t care, Girls in lacy dusty dresses, others almost nude. We –the children and I--start chanting “toubabou, toubabou” over and over, , shaking hands over and over, moving through the streets. All ages, from 2 or three up to 7-8-9. Sheep and goats wander the streets, a few young teenagers are kicking a dilapidated soccer ball around the streets.
We are so welcome here. We visit our driver’s home with his wife and children, walls built into a cliff…they are so dignified. They offer us water and we can’t refuse, but we fake drinking. These people are better off—they have a mango tree in their compound, and it is almost ripe. But these people have no papers or title to their property—urban development can move them out at any time.
I still don’t know where to start writing about this—these people are free and happy. I America, the media is driven by money and advertising—I always thought that advertising and a media were necessary for a free society. Not so. There is no advertising here to speak of. Our advertising is primarily designed to create a sense of need so we buy some stupid stuff we don’t need.
You don’t need to create need here—need is all around.
And the term “No sweat” has no meaning or place in Mali, for the people or for Toubabous. Everybody sweats, working hard and playing in the heat.
My God, my God, Allah, this is unbelievable. I didn’t bring my candy (I brought two bags of peppermints—I should have brought truckloads. I cannot express what happened to me today…I need more words. Sometimes words don’t work.
I have learned that if you make a little effort to learn people’s languages and show them respect, they return the courtesies in more ways than you can count. In the market earlier today after we had bought some gifts, I said “Vive Mali” and the vendors broke into smiles and laughed and hugged us. And gave me a free gift. They love it when I point to myself and say “Toubabou.”
The people of Mali have given me more than I could ever imagine—of spirit, or attitude, of richness.
The swimming pool may be brim full, but these people are overflowing at flood tide with lessons and gifts Americans can not even imagine. They are an refreshing oasis in a parched land. We talk about how our photos and video and audio won’t be enough—I think we need to capture the smells too.
Walking down one of those dirty streets in the slums, surrounded by children and people, I tell Jim Hynes of Sam Houston University that “I’m at home.” And he agrees.
That means we’re accepted, we’re comfortable, we have no fear, we fit in. It does not mean we feel like we’re home, because we are all ready to come home, and yes, we come back to the hotel and enjoy a shower and good food and fresh water. And we treasure our American passports…but this toubabou really doesn’t possess anything those children and wonderful people don’t have inside. They have refreshed my soul. They are medicine for this toubabou.
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