Can you say awkward?

Oct 6, 2009

So two days ago I went to the waalde rewbe (women's association) meeting in Sassolo, conveniently held in the amiiri's concession, which is also my concession. I had told Kumbari that I wanted to go to the meetings, but I guess she interpreted that as I wanted to hold/run a meeting...because when it started Kumbari just looked at me and said "Kala!" (Speak!). And I was just sitting there like crap, what am I supposed to say? So I explained in Fulfulde to the twenty women there who I was, what I was there for, what PC is, and that I would be spending these first 3 months talking to them individually to learn about them and our community, and how they want to develop. It was rough. Kumbari translated what I was saying into real Fulfulde. Then after 30 seconds of an awkward silence, an old woman yelled out "We love you, Aissata!" in Fulfulde. It was hilarious. (Side note: my Malian name is Aissata Dembele.) She then said how excited they were to have me here and that they love me already and that they can't wait to get started on projects. It was such a nice thing to say - they are so motivated! - especially after it was obvious that I was not prepared at all for this meeting. Definitely got tears in my eyes. They're so ready and motivated to start projects - I'm afraid I won't live up to their expectations. But hey, I'll give it my best shot, that's for sure.

It's funny, the conversations you have here. Hamadou (Ousmann's younger and super nice brother, age 16) was hanging out at my house (sigh) when out of nowhere he asked "Est-ce qu'il y a les noirs dan Amerik?" I was sitting there like, what does that even mean? Then it dawned on me - he was asking if there are black people in America. So I explained that yes, there are a lot of black people in America. Barack Obama, for example. (He has a shirt with Obama on it, Obama is super popular here, they call him the world's first president.) But then Hamadou asked how the black people got there. And I just sat there...huh, how do I explain slavery, in French, to an African? Surely that's part of their public consciousness, right? I didn't want to get into (and my French/Fulfulde skills wouldn't allow me to) explain that people with my color skin oppressed and enslaved people with his color skin for centuries, so I just said that black people are born in America (which has been true for centuries too). It's funny - Malians are so honest about race, in ways that Americans are not. I don't know what's better - getting told all the time that I'm white - being chased by children yelling "foreigner! white girl!"- or Americans pretending not to notice that race exists, when it obviously divides our society.