Recently in village was the month of Ramadan, when Muslim adults don't eat food or drink water from dawn till dusk, and then have a big feast every night. I joined them in fasting for a few days, but there's no way I could make it a whole month. Plus, they work long days in the fields, doing hard labor while they are fasting. At the end of Ramadan is Seli (or Aid El-Fitr in Arabic), it is kind of like the Malian Christmas. Malian put on their nice clothes, eat nice food and dance, and they all want me to take their picture.
Also, my village has been visited by elephants! Which is exciting and unexpected since theyre extremely rare in Mali. Nevertheless, its a huge problem for my village's farmers, as elephants can destroy tons of crops. Just another threat to Kissa's already precarious food security.
This is Adama and Usthman, striking Karate poses. Theyre both really helpful, they water my garden for me when I'm out of town. Theyre kind of my best friends.
This is Musa, my host-fathers son.
This is a group of women, they were all dressed up for Seli, the holiday at the end of Ramadan, and wanted me to take their picture. They're my neighbors.
Some men, sitting around and playing checkers. Again, they are dressed up for Seli. Those one in green on the right is my homologue, who is assigned to work with me in the village.
So elephants (or maybe actually just one) came up from the south. Apparently they come up during the rainy season. They are a bit of a nuisance, breaking into gardens (above) and trampling and eating crops (below). As far as I know, I am the only volunteer in Mali to have elephants at their site, which I guess is fair compensation for having a site way out in the bush. I haven't seen the elephants yet, just their damage. It is illegal to kill are harass the elephants, since they are endangered. The government is supposed to re-compensate farmers for damaged crops, although this does not always happen
I noticed that a few of the girls in the picture have the same blue, orange, and green colors. Are those colors of significance in your village? That is awesome that u attempted to fast with them! I bet they were impressed with that! That is such a powerful symbol of faith that they fast for that long of time, especially after working such long, hard days!! I loved that you said those two boys were like ur best friends!! How cute!!! They look like they would have ur back! Also, that is unfortunate about the elephants, but sort of exciting! Did the people take that visit as sort of a sign of good fortune, since it's so rare, or was the uniqueness of the visit overshadowed by the sadness of the crop destruction?
ReplyDeleteNo, they just happened to find matching T-shirts and liked them! And, no, they weren't too excited about the elephants, mostly just upset about the crop destruction.
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