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Here
are some bricks made of mud drying in the sun. They will be used to build
houses when they are dry. This area was a small lake filled with water
a few months ago. But now it's the cold season in Mali and the water has
almost all dried up. If you look up and to the right of the bricks, you'll
see a big mud hole. Men dig the mud out of there and put it into molds.
Then they take the molds off and let the bricks dry in the sun until they
are hard. These bricks are quite hard until the rainy season comes and
they get rained on. Sometimes houses cave in because the mud bricks become
weak during the rainy season. If you have a house built of mud bricks,
you almost always have to do some repairs to your house during the rainy
season. I know a man whose family was in the house when a wall caved in.
One person was hurt but not very seriously. They showed me a chair that
had been crushed when the house fell in.
Here's a little guy who was hit by a motorcycle when he was walking along the road. He broke his leg and so he has a cast on his leg that is made of pieces of wood strapped together. It's very dangerous to walk by the road here in Mali. Lots of people I know have been hit by cars or motorcycles. People are not very careful when they drive in Mali. There is a man from Canada who is living in Ouelessebougou right now. He was hit by a motorcycle when he was walking along the road in Bamako (the capital city.) He was knocked unconscious and was pretty banged up. But he'll be OK.
The
man who translates for me is in the middle of this picture. He is with
his parents. I spent Christmas with their family. It was very different
than the way I usually spend Christmas when I'm at home. For one thing,
it didn't ever really feel like Christmas to me. There was no snow, no
Christmas lights, no Christmas tree (except a little Charlie Brown tree
that I made), no Christmas music, and no presents. I went to church with
my translator and his family on Christmas morning for 3 hours. It was
kind of long for me because I didn't understand anything that was being
said.
After church we went to my translator's house and had a big dinner. In Mali almost everyone eats with their hand from a big bowl. My translator's brother said, "How is the white lady going to eat?" He didn't know that I understand a little bit of Bamanankan. I started laughing and said I would eat with my hand just like everyone else. He was very surprised that I had understood what he said. We all laughed about that!
The rest of the day was spent in talking with people who came by to visit. It was a good day but it didn't quite feel like Christmas to me. Most people in Mali are Muslim and so they don't celebrate Christmas. However, the kids are out of school for a few weeks.
I went to the town of Kati to visit some friends for the New Year's. Here's a picture of my friend and a bunch of the kids dancing. We had a big dinner and then everyone danced to music. We stayed up until midnight. Everyone likes to wear new clothes for New Year's and get their hair done really nice.
E-mail me: imnmali@hotmail.com