Le Temps

Time~  It is unbelievably true that time is different here.  I almost decided not to publish my last blog entry because I felt the information was too old, and then I realised that I had written it YESTERDAY (i.e., the day before I wrote this post on paper...not actually yesterday now), not 3 days, a week, or even 2 weeks ago like it felt.  So here I am, in the village of Siby for two nights, stuttering Bambara (even though in this particular village, the people speak malinké, which is closely enough related that we should be able to understand each other...theoretically) and staying in a hotel made of huts right next to a women's cooperative that produces shea butter.  The women there are some of the strongest I have ever met.  The labor is VERY manual. They spend hours on each step- picking the shea nuts, sorting out the ones that are good from those that are underdeveloped or rotten, pounding them into paste; and then (here is where we began observing) adding water and beating the resulting liquid until the shea oil comes out.  We tried to help with this step, but seven american girls couldn't close to keep up with the two women working today.  They finish by boiling the oil, sifting out any impurities, and then packaging it as pure shea butter or nicely perfumed soap, shampoo, etc.  "La Maison de Karité" is their name- definitely a worthwhile stop if you will be in Siby anytime soon.

     Another Bambara lesson (more greetings and introductions) later, we ventured into the actual village to meet some sample "host families."  What an insane experience- to know an ensemble of about 20 words of a language being spoken all around you in a world so very different from your own.  Our method of communication became a mixture of French (with the woman who served as our guide) and handshakes/high fives/hugs with the many...many...children.  Will we ever feel like part of this world?  The language will make a difference, of course, but I wonder, how many barriers will continue to separate us from th villagers no matter what?  What can one really research/study/understand in 3 months?  How do the women who we "helped" make shea butter face one of their major roles in society-to be mothers-with the knowledge that they very well may die during childbirth, leaving their friends, their work, their other children, with one less "empowered" woman among them?  One of the answers is humour, which pervades much of the conversation here.  Another, it seems, is a certain strength that runs much deeper than that put into practice beating shea oil out of paste.  After all, the men here respond to the question: "I ka kEnE?" (How is your health?) with "nba" (my mother), while women respond, "nse" (my strength).  My teacher explained that the woman is the most important part of Malian society-the backbone, if you will.  But who are we, the white women with hair like straw?  We are "tubabu," the whites, a word originally from Arabic for doctor/first responder.  Maybe, then, I will eventually feel like part of this world, not as one of its women but instead as a much truer Tubabu among them than I am right now.