An Egg for the Cinquantenaire du Mali?

In Mali, September 22nd is celebrated as its Independence Day, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of freedom from French rule. This being the cinquantenaire, the country is in full celebration mode; in the capital city of Bamako where I live, there were tons of celebrations and events to mark the occasion. Fireworks, feasting, concerts, and parades were scheduled this entire week.

On Monday, a group of us went to a free “Mega Concert” that was put on by the major cell phone company in Mali, Orange. The streets were crowded beyond capacity as the excited Africans crammed together anticipating the Malian rap groups that were to come. The music was slated to start at eight, but as we expected, the real start was about an hour and a half later. And when it did start, the spectators chanted and sang along with the popular songs as we did our best to endure the sweat inducing heat. We made it through the first act and half way through the second before we decided that we should make our way home and to bed. 6 AM comes early after a long mega concert.

It took us a good 20 minutes to make our way to the back of the crowd. We must have been quite the spectacle; seven white folks amongst the sea of dark skinned Africans. Just about everyone at the concert who noticed our early departure had a comment or two about our tubabu (word in Bambara that means white person) group.  We provided them with a great deal of amusement!

Once we were free from the crowd and had walked a few blocks from the concert, I somehow was locked in a game of high stakes negotiations with a street peddler for two masks that I didn’t really want. He initially asked 6000cfa each ($12 USD) and I was at 1000cfa each and not budging. I was firm in my offer of “oeuf pour mask.” As I emphatically made my offer, the French speaking members of my party began to laugh. I thought it was a good price, but apparently no one else did. Eventually the man gave up as we could not come to a mutual price. I later found out that my offer of “oeuf pour mask” really meant “egg for mask.” As I had no eggs, it is a good thing he rejected my offer!

Attack of the Killer 3rd and 4th Graders

I just finished the first two full weeks of school and everything is going great. I am living about a half mile from the Niger River in a guest apartment that is operated by Avant ministries. My girlfriend Sara is on the other side of the river about a mile away, and the school is another mile past her.

In the classroom, we have the usual math, reading, science, spelling, and bible; they are split by grade level, 5^th and 6^th.  The kids are fantastic. There is one from England, one from Ghana, two from Sweden, one from Germany, and one from Alabama.

Here is an example of just how good and nice these kids are. I had been teasing Sarah before we left the States that I was going to train my class to attack her classroom. Once we got here and started getting into the flow of things, I thought it would be fun to flesh out some of those threats in a silly way and the kids were more than eager to get involved in some mischief. The worst we could come up with was to sing a little song to violate their ears. Understandably, the 3^rd and 4^th graders were a little dumbfounded when our class came in singing our song, and rumor has it, they began immediately to plot their revenge.

The next few days went by without incident, but then I sensed an attack was on the horizon when I got an innocent looking text message from Miss. Silberstein asking if my class was busy. I replied a simple no and braced for the worst. My class was as peaceful as mud puddle on a cloudless day when their class came in with a chant. Then they fired. Paper ball after paper ball whizzed by my head and bounced off the surprised bodies of my students. Then, just as quickly as they appeared, they left –running actually. It took my students no time to devise all sorts of devious plans to get back at those lowly 3^rd and 4^th graders; “lets write on their board when they are at lunch!” one girl cried.

That next Friday –yesterday, we had an all school chapel on self control, after which the power went out in the school. It was too dark for us to do the reading assignment I had planned, so we had a discussion about what it means to have self control. Somehow, the discussion moved to the 3^rd and 4^th graders. My students wanted to exhibit self control through this situation and they came up with some great ideas; each of them made a paper box and decorated it, the boys each contributed a note telling them that our class wanted to be friends, and they invited Miss Silberstein’s class to a chocolate party two Fridays from then.

When we delivered the peace offerings and notes, the 3^rd and 4^th graders looked a little worried. But, I think by the end of the “attack” they were ready to join us for some chocolate!