Sardine o tillike jooni!

The garden is finished now!

Huzzah! After three long months of what seemed like endless tiffs with the men in my village balanced with loads of support from the women, the garden is finally finished! The garden gates were put up a couple of days ago, and the last cement ring was put into the well yesterday. Success! The only remaining problem - naturally there is one remaining - is that the garden was not built on public land but rather on land privately owned. Privately owned by one Bara Cisse. The same Bara Cisse who was in charge of building the fence and the well. Right now he is letting the women's association use his land, but at any point in time he could reclaim it. The women could take down the fence and keep it for the association, but the well would have to remain. The roots of this problem lie in my rapid flight to America when my grandfather died. Before I left for the States, the garden was to be built on public land. When I returned, they had already had completed building the fence - on Bara's land. Apparently while I was gone he convinced the women to move the garden plot. Very sly, that one. I just found out about it last week from another friend in village. Now I'm trying to convince the women's association to save money little by little so we can buy the land from Bara. It will take quite a bit of time to save that much money though - the land is worth about $500 USD. For the time being, the women are using the land as a garden though. We'll see how long Bara allows them to do so.

In other news, we have had quite the string of fetes (parties) lately! Both Sassolo and Fatoma had their yearly founding celebrations within the past two weeks. Fatoma's was so much fun - I went with Ali and her homologue, Hawa. All the women walked up and down the main street in their finest dresses. I've never seen so many weaves and fancy braiding in my life. It was like Easter Parade, Mali-style. Fantastic. In the meantime, the men were out in the bush shooting off guns and generally being manly. Then the men all of a sudden came running down the street towards the mayor's office, with the women cheering them on. All the way shooting off more guns and playing Fulfulde music on a wooden flute with drumming in the background. It was so much fun to see everyone in their fancy outfits, jumping and dancing around (the jumping was mostly done by me every time a gun was shot. The Malians thought it was hilarious that I was afraid of guns. I think it makes a lot of sense to be scared of guns. They can kill you). That night Ali and I went to get street food - yummy beans and macaroni - and saw the beginnings of what was sure to be an all-night dance party for all the village kids. Abande, abande! Welay mido yidi ma! Bring on the Yeli Fuzzo!