Guest Lectures and the Festival of Ramadan

Monday was the start to our first “real” week of school. We spend a lot of time there: from 8 am to 3 pm every day, with some afternoons extended to 5 pm if we go on a field trip. Classes are each two hours long. We began the week with a meeting with Modibo, the program director, to go over basic (and final) pieces of orientation such as safety, where we will be going for our upcoming trips, and an advising that we begin thinking about what we want to research for our Independent Study Projects that begin in November.


The official title of this program is Health, Gender, and Community Empowerment, but this week we focused a lot on the history of Mali which is understandable because obviously it’s important to know context to really learn anything at all. However, I do believe having six hours of guest lecturers speaking about the different dynasties, kingdoms, and empires of Mali was a bit of overkill. The lectures were conducted in French by various “specialists,” yet (unfortunately) they were quite dry and included very little student participation…especially disappointing considering what could be possible since we have such a small group.

Every afternoon from 1 pm to 3 pm we have French class. There are only three people in my level of class so we are all definitely learning a lot. Our professor works at the University of Bamako. He completed a Fullbright where he got a Master’s degree at Columbia, so he knows and understands that we are used to a participatory classroom experience unlike what is popular here (lecture, memorize, and recite). The class is especially great because each day he comes in with an interesting topic that we discuss and ask him about, such as gays and lesbians in Mali (which is in fact illegal) or problems faced by orphans in Bamako. He is a great resource because he knows a lot but really doesn’t shy away from topics that other lecturers are far too uncomfortable to discuss.

As we were leaving school on Wednesday, we were told that we may have a four day weekend because of the end of Ramadan, depending on whether the moon was visible that night. I asked my father more about it, and he said it says in the Koran that the moon must be seen for the month of Ramadan to end. There is a commission in Mali whose job it is to decide whether the moon was spotted anywhere throughout the country; if it is they announce it on television, and the fasting can end. Well, this actually caused a lot of confusion. My sister came home from a birthday party at 2 in the morning (I was fast asleep) and told me that the moon hadn’t come out so I would have school the next day, but that morning I woke up and got a text message from our director saying the festival had started. When I came into the living room, my sisters were really pissed off. They explained to me that the commission announced the moon’s appearance at 2 am, but that my father refused to believe it and would not let them celebrate. Thus, while everyone else around us was partying and feasting, they were not. Aka and Nene ended up saying “screw it,” getting dressed up, and going to their aunt’s house for the party. Well… that left me with nothing to do, and I definitely didn’t want to eat the fried sheep head that they were preparing outside (unfortunately I am not joking about that) so the other students and I took a cab to a pastry shop where lots of toubabou (white people) hang out.

Hah. Bad idea. We picked the wrong day to go there. I guess on the day of Ramadan, all the children are given coins. And clearly they want to spend them on sweets from the nice pastry shop. So as we sat there drinking beers and eating crepes, literally hundreds of screaming children were overtaking the counter…so much for our relaxing escape. On the way home, our cab broke down and we had to find our way back home on foot when it was dark and extremely crazy in the streets because of the festival… just one of those days, I suppose. We were able to laugh it all off, of course; I don’t think you could study abroad in Mali without that ability!