Africa Africa

Toubabou. That is what they call me in Bambara and it means “homme blanc”.

The Flights

It didn’t take long to get acquainted with my seat partner on the plane leaving from Montreal because he was also going to Bamako, but to work for a Canadian mining company in the East of Mali. He has been working there for about 18 months with a pretty nice routine: 2 months of work, 1 month off at home. It was quickly apparent, however, that we were there for different reasons and in different capacities but I did not let that affect my impressions of him.

The flight from Paris to Bamako was delayed for about an hour because there were 3 Malians being deported back to Mali and they were cuffed at the ankles and the wrists, something the other Malians in the plane did not appreciate. They certainly vocalized their opinion, which quickly grew into a shouting match on the plane where the police came onboard and intervened by taking off the 3 “prisoners”. The unfortunate thing is that, had the other Malians been quiet, these refugees would have returned home instead of spending another few nights in prison. That said, sometimes a person’s convictions outweigh any logic and there is certainly honour in that.

The Arrival

It felt like a heavy, musky wall of heat as soon as I stepped off the plane. Passing through customs was very easy and the challenge lied more in grabbing my luggage from the belt and passing through security. As soon I stepped out of the airport there was a crowd of people and I missed my “Benoît Rivard – MFC” sign. After about 2 seconds of panic, I found a phone booth where I made a few phone calls and found the MFC driver that had come to get me.

The first night was spent at Johanna and Ibrahim’s house (my supervisor and the MFC director, respectively). It’s a beautiful home in a not so beautiful setting; of course this is basing “beauty” on a completely different set of standards. The next morning I met their 2 gorgeous little daughters Batoma and Sari (I think those are their names, not 100% sure). Batoma is 4 and already speaks 3 languages: Finnish (Johanna is from Finland), Bambara and French. It becomes quite humbling when a 4 year old is translating what her 2 year old sister is saying to you because she only speaks Bambara and Finnish.

Mali Folkecenter

Yesterday was my first day at work and my first impressions were of amazement at how much the MFC is doing simultaneously. I won’t go into detail on their projects because their website already describes most of it but one project worth mentioning is how they have developed and installed a power plant that runs on jatropha oil. It feeds electricity to a village of over 4,000 people so this is no run-of-the-mill bio-diesel generator. I will eventually make a field trip with some of the staff to take pictures and write about this project so more details will follow in the next few months.

The MFC office has wireless internet so I will be able to stay “connected” to a certain degree so feel free to send me an email if you have questions that I am not answering in my posts.

Varia

It is always hot, day and night. People drive with about a 2 inch buffer zone between cars or motorcycles. The local neighbourhood kids have already come to see me about 5 times in 2 days, one of them is called Bogaah. I am sharing my living accommodations with a family of lizards. Nobody speaks French in the market, only Bambara. All the vegetables are miniature compared to what we are used to eating. Bamako feels like a maze of identical streets and main roads; reference points are your lifelines. I am having a lot of difficulty remembering people’s names at the office. I have yet to play my guitar so I will go do that now.

I have posted the pictures I’ve taken so far on my flickr page (link in the side bar) but there aren’t many of the city itself because apparently the police will confiscate your camera if they catch you taking pictures.

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