AHHH The Holidays!!

So I need to start this blog by amending my previous post. Right after I posted that tourist are terrible and I hate them I went to dinner and actually sat with a couple who were touring West Africa. We started talking about their trip and where they wrer going and the next morning they were heading out to go down to Burkina. Since my village is on the road to Burkina I managed to snag a free ride in a nice SUV with air conditioning. So Some tourists can be ok.



The Holidays.

Since this is a very Muslim country Tobasci is celebrated instead of Christmas, but there are some interesting similarities. For example, on the first morning of "le fete" everyone puts on their nice clothes, the lady folk are busy preparing the big days feast, the kids are running around playing and getting yelled at because their good clothes are getting dirty, nobody wants to go to the mosque but they have to, Dad kills a goat... just like the States right? One very big difference is that there is very little gift giving. It is a very un-materialistic (is that a word, I can't tell anymore) society since nobody has money to buy gifts, but somehow they still have a great holiday. It reminded me of the Grinch:

It came without ribbons, it came without tags
It came without packages, boxes, or bags

He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore
Then the PCV though of something he hadn't before

Maybe Christmas/Tobasci, he thought, doesn't come from a store
Maybe Christmas/Tobasci means a little bit more


We killed a goat on Thursday so from breakfast Thursday morning to the time I left Saturday afternoon all I ate was goat meat. Goat meat for breakfast followed by a healthy portion of goat stomach/intestines/other organs for lunch, a good mixture of meat and organs for an afternoon snack and then goat meat dinner. In a country with no refrideration meat gets a little chewey after a day or two.

Before Tobasci hundreds of people went to Bamako with their goats because they can sell them there a get a lot of money. I couldn't believe how many goats I saw crammed into semi trailers. On the morning of Tobasci there must have been a mass goat genocide in Mali and probably across most of West Africa.
It cause bad problems though too. There was a wreck around Segou because a driver fell asleep and hit another car. 20 some people died and all the goats the thing was carrying. There has been a few of those.

Anyway

Christmas was good. I did a 2 1/2 day hike through Dogon Country. We would start out at the bottom and hike up to the top of the Falaise and walk across then hike back down stopping in villages along the way. It really is a beautiful country. A lot of the villages are tucked away in little pockets in thze cliff. You have to do some climbing to get to them, so here's 9 PCV's huffin and puffin, sweating like crazy, takin their time because you put a hand or a foot in a wrong place and you'll fall and die and then right beside us are Malian women walking up these things with 20 gallons of water on their head and babies on their backs, not using their hands for anything. Made even the most fit of us feel a little meek. It was good though.

Thats about it for now. If anyone is still reading this and has questions feel free to post them on the comments or e-mail me. I would this thing to be interactive. But my hour is up so I guess until next time.

Aw Bisimilla