I am writing this post from somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Right now, all I can see out the window is a mattress of cotton-like clouds, but a few minutes ago, I think I saw a very frigid looking, ice crusted ocean. To be honest, I haven’t been making much use of my window seat because it’s too bright outside and up until this point, I’ve really only been concerned with sleeping (and eating, of course). I cannot believe that within a few hours I will be back in Indiana and ready to eat dinner at Chief’s with my family and friends! A quick aside to just say that travel capabilities these days are pretty crazy! For example, former president, Bill Clinton, recently visited my hometown, and the local newspaper reported that he had started his day in New York but was flying in from Chicago for the engagement. I’m not sure where he was headed afterwards, but I have a feeling he wasn’t spending his Friday night in Greencastle… so that means he made it to a fourth city across the country somewhere- all in one day! The fact that this is possible… or that I can go from Mali to France to Greencastle in a matter of hours is pretty insane. While the physical change in location is quick and easy, it’s the mental change of place that is a little harder….
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| Dogon masks and art at Musee du Quai Branly |
When I arrived in France a couple weeks ago, I was sad to have left Mali, but ready to be in a place where I didn’t have to show the tailor how to measure the curtains I wanted, only to have to have them re-made because he didn’t follow the measurements we’d hashed out together (for example). But the grass always seems to be greener on the other side, right? The same expression exists in France- it’s always greener in the neighbor’s lawn! So, as I arrived in Paris, excited to see my friend, Elise, and enjoy small luxuries like sushi, reliable public transportation, and real shopping, I was also already missing Mali a bit. I missed the fact that there, when you enter a room or even a bus, everyone greets you. I missed practicing my Bambara and laughing with people in the market and was really dismayed by a frigid salesgirl at H&M. And believe it or not, I even missed rice and sauce… but maybe that was just early nostalgia or something. I think the biggest issue was that I didn’t feel at home in Paris the way I feel now in Mali (duh!), so when I found little tastes of West Africa tucked into the folds of the city, I considered them bright points in the day.
For example, I spent a couple of afternoons looking at African Art in a museum setting. The Musée Dapper has a great collection of Bambara and Dogon masks that I got to see in an exhibit celebrating Masquerades and Carnivals. I found more Dogon works at the Musée du Quai Branly (as well as some interesting stuff from other parts of the continent, and a cool exhibit on Maori art and culture). But, these wooden works just weren’t enough, so I set off to look for African cuisine in the 18th arrondissement. After walking around for quite a while, poking my head into a few wax print fabric shops (people- they had pagne selling for 80 euro!??!) and not really feeling especially excited about the excursion, I went into a supermarket in search of some water and peanuts to snack on. There I met one Mr. Keita, a terice from the Korofina neighborhood of Bamako! While looking sharp in a suit and preventing theft in the store, Mr. Keita seemed to be speaking Bambara, so as I passed through the check-out line with my snacks, I strained my ears for confirmation or what I hoped I was hearing. “Haketo,” I ventured, “I be bamanankan fo?” (Excuse me—do you speak Bambara?). “Eih!” Was all the confirmation I needed to know that I had gotten it right! We had a really pleasant chat and I left with a smile on my face and a restaurant destination in mind.
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| Peanut sauce- yum! |
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| Serving up some Tiga Dege |
Like most African restaurants, the place I found just around the corner using Mr. Keita’s directions didn’t have a single thing listed on the menu in the window, and the only option at the moment was thiebou djenne, the Senegalese version of fried rice that Malians call Zamé. I took a pass and shared some peanuts with one of the cooks outside. Then I stuck to the side streets and managed to find a little market section of the neighborhood. I was really craving tiga dege (peanut sauce), so I decided I’d look for the ingredients and cook it myself. I knew I was on the right track when I started to see women on the sidewalks selling veggies… Without the haggling excitement, interesting smells, or mud puddles of a Malian market, I found all of the ingredients I needed, and managed to purchase them from a Malian store owner. Even in France, the African market seemed dominated by Chinese goods. Chinese shopowners are well established (more so than in Mali, even), and most of the boutiques selling Maggi, yams, aubergines, dried okra, and the like were Chinese owned. I think Chinese influence in Africa (and elsewhere) is a topic for another time… but here it’s enough to say that I was happy to find a Malian salesguy to sell me my cabbage and interested to note the Chinese presence in Africa away even from Africa…
I took my ingredients home to Elise’s and made a big pot full of tiga dege. In an effort to spice things up a bit, I got a little eager with the foronton pepper, and made the sauce much spicier than Malian taste would allow… aside from that little kick, I felt quite proud of my cooking and sharing skills. My sauce was better than the Ivorien mafé version I tasted later in my stay… but more on that later.
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| Enjoying polser sausages with Cecilia |
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| Dressed as Jewel and Velvet for "Bad Taste" party |
Following my cooking experiment, I hopped a plane to Denmark to see my friend, Cecilia! We met last spring in Bamako and now she’s sporting her chic wax print dresses back in Denmark where she is working on her master’s degree at the Copenhagen Business School. It was so wonderful to see her and to get to learn about her city and her life away from Mali. So often, I feel like people get to know one half of my life when I’m in Bamako (and vice versa), but without seeing them in “the real world” I feel like I miss out on other important and exciting things, so it was really cool to meet Cecilia’s friends and sister and to see her school, etc. Though Denmark was cold, the bike rides, hot polser (sausages), and company made the trip more than worth it! Though I didn’t see much African influence in Denmark (too cold for even a non- Nordic person, if you ask me!), I did get to have a great discussion about Africa, birth control, immigration, and more with Cecilia’s roommate, who is an old friend from school in Benin, where Cecilia lived during grade school. Maybe the camaraderie and sense of community that I love so much in Mali manages to rub off on us expats who live there for a while and even survives a return to our home countries…
After sending Cecilia’s sister off to Bamako (with appropriately long skirts) and enjoying a taste of life in Copenhagen, I got back on a plane and returned to Paris. I found my mom and my aunt in the airport, and we set out to take Paris by storm… after spending most of that Sunday catching up on sleep… In typical fashion, by the time we managed to get ourselves out of bed and ready to face the day, it was no longer day! We found ourselves hungry and bored on a Sunday evening, which doesn’t leave you with a lot of options in Paris (where most everything is closed all day on Sunday). We wandered several blocks south of our apartment and every possible food option in sight was closed. Even one restaurant with a neon light flashing out front only served to trick us and get our hopes up. Just as we were about to jump ship, turn around, and look for another street with possible dining options, we ran across a lively restaurant packed with diners. And what do you know… it was West African!
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| With Elise getting excited to see Vieux! |
After a look at the menu in the window (I know… risky), we decided it was our best option and found a free spot at the end of the only somewhat empty table. We shared with a French guy and his beer, and managed to find out that there was yassa poulet, mafe poulet, capitaine, chicken wings, or lamb available for the evening. I suggested the yassa (a sweeter onion/veggie filled sauce usually with a bit of lemon juice and mustard) or mafe (peanut sauce, with a different name) because I love both sauces and think they’re pretty universally appealing (no snotty okra sauce or fakouhy). I ordered capitaine and aloko (fish and fried plantains) for myself, and we settled in to talk and enjoy the “ambiance.” During the hour and a half we waited for our food (it was an African place after all- Ivorien to be exact), we made friends with some neighbors (photographers from Congo) and witnessed a failed little barroom brawl… and we got tired and grumpy and HUNGRY. I’m sad to report that this was the one real fail of my African encounters in Europe… we finally got our food hours later, and it was bad. Not just –ehh- it was BAD. I could have made better mafe, yassa, and capitaine. A sad foray into African food for my mom and aunt, I must say. But they were good sports about the whole thing and we eventually ate something. And hey- the aloko was great!
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| Jamming! |
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| Sparkling smile |
I think our next encounter with West Africa redeemed the sad food experience… On Monday night, we set out for a little local music venue to see none other than Vieux Farka Touré, Malian guitarist extraordinaire! Son of deceased musician and Grammy winner, Ali Farka Touré, Vieux has really hit the big time recently and has recently collaborated with Dave Matthews on his new album. Always one of my favorite artists to see in concert, Vieux did not disappoint his Monday night crowd! The concert was amazing and even Mom and Aunt Pam were rocking towards the end. We got the pleasure of hearing a couple of guest artists who jammed with Vieux for a song or two and really got a treat seeing him so up close and personal pretty far away from Mali!
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| African recycled art at Centre Georges Pompidou |
During the rest of the week, we entered full tourism mode, and I was enjoying the Parisian side of Paris with my family. However, that didn’t keep me from noticing little things that reminded me of Mali. While visiting shops along the Champs Elysees on a Saturday afternoon, a wedding procession passed us- horns blaring, lights flashing, and camera man hanging out the window to capture it all. What could be more reminiscent of a “Dimanche à Bamako?” Perhaps the happy couple posing for photos in front of the obelesque monument at the Place de la Concorde? J Even the grocery by our apartment and the metro running closest to our house brought us into contact with Africans living in Paris. I had a wonderful conversation with 2 former Bamakois on the Line 7 about malaria, research, and my Bambara skills (or lack thereof). There’s just something nice about exchanging blessings and having a friendly conversation on public transport that made me feel more at home and more comfortable in Paris.
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| I came home with a suitcase that looked suspiciously like these |
As we approach New York City and my return to US soil for the first time in almost 14 months, I am filled with excitement and anxiety about my return home. I can’t wait to see my dad and brother(s) at the airport, I have been mentally planning my dinner at Chief’s for the past several days, and I don’t care how long I’ve been up, I plan to drink some real American beer tonight with some of my best friends that I haven’t seen in ages! But, I know that it will be harder for me to find those little slivers of Mali and Africa in Greencastle that I enjoy so much. I know I won’t have Cecilia or another friend from Mali to reminisce with. And I feel like this other very important half of my life might be hard to integrate with my “other life” in Mali. I am lucky that I will have many great friends to welcome me home and keep me busy over the next month or two and that I am coming home to a small community where there is a sense of neighborliness and friendliness (mostly). Plus, I only have to hold out for so long for another real taste of Mali, with my return to Bamako tentatively planned for January. However, I apologize in advance for the amount of talking, reminiscing, and comparing I will almost certainly do when it comes to Mali. I look forward to catching up with everyone I’ve missed, but I know I’ll also be trying to meld my Mali experiences with my Indiana life and I’ll always be on the lookout for any of those characteristics or traits that make me feel more at “home,” even in my own hometown.
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