Quirks

Well, I’d say I’m officially “used to” living in Bamako… the traffic doesn’t terrify me anymore (save my experience at the wedding last weekend), hearing “toubabou” (white person) yelled at me by children in the street has become the norm, and my stomach has officially adapted to (most of) the food – I don’t even treat my water anymore. (This is especially great because I can now buy dablennin, a deliciously sweet drink made from the hibiscus plant, off the street for 10 cents -- I’m drinking some as I write.) Since I feel pretty adapted to life here, I’ve realized that there are things about Bamako that I originally thought were weird or crazy that I don’t even notice anymore, but that you, my oh so devoted blog reader, may find amusing. Here are some that I can think of:

1.       Soap operas. I don’t want to generalize but… they sure do love their soap operas here. My host family must watch 3-4 different ones a day; sometimes they play at the same time so they have to flip back and forth between the two. The soap operas are of a variety of nationalities: Spanish (of course), Brazilian, Indian (my favorite), even Cote d’Ivoirian. All dubbed in French, of course. Watching them with my host sisters has definitely sparked some interesting conversations on a variety of things like infidelity and bulimia… but I usually steer clear from the living room when they’re on.

2.       Barack Obama paraphernalia.SO MUCH! They love Barack… it’s actually very nice to feel proud of being an American. Barack Obama t-shirts. Barack Obama hair salons. Barack Obama painted on sotramas (the form of public transportation). Obama Biscuits – basically buttery cookies served in American flag packaging sold all over the place. My favorite is the “Barack Obama American Restaurant” in Sikoro, an extremely poor peri-urban neighborhood.

3.       Non-alcoholic beer. Being a Muslim country, there is a big market for it here. It’s funny to see “0.0% Alcohol” as a major advertising slogan.

4.       Mercedes Benz. More than half of the cars in this city are really old Mercedes that run on diesel fuel. My host dad drives one. I guess they really are good quality since they last so long!

5.       American T-Shirts. I know this isn’t unique to Mali, but I still can’t get over it when I see a Malian woman on a sotrama wearing a “Pennsylvania Jewish Little League” t-shirt.

6.       Cell phones. No matter how busy you are, if your cell phone rings, you answer it. This is something I don’t think I will ever get used to. The amount of times we were in class with a guest lecturer and they answered their cell phone I cannot count. Another memorable one was our tour guides on the grand excursion… no matter if they were in the middle of recounting the history of the Djenne mosque to us, if their cell phone rang, they’d answer. And then there is of course my sister, who answers her cell phone in her sleep.  Putting your phone on silent is something unheard of here. What I gather is that it’s actually ruder to ignore someone’s call than it is to answer your phone in the company of others.

The list surely could go on and on, but those are my favorites.