Fatime! Dumunike!

As requested two weeks ago, I'll talk about Malian food and customs. This is an appropriate place to start, given the title phrase is what my host mother is most often yelling at me--"Fatime (my malian name), eat!!" Additionally, general food and food customs is fairly central to my work as a health volunteer.

Before we all headed to our respective homestay villages, we practiced eating lunch Malian style. This entails sitting in chairs or on a mat together around a large bowl. Men eat with men, women with women, and children with children--none of these groups can share a bowl unless it's a very small family. Meals are usually a rice, couscous, or to base. On top of this huge pile of carbs, my family most often makes this orange-red sauce with some meat chunks in it. One person usually takes the cover off of the large bowl, and tries to evenly ladle the sauce-meat mixture over the entire bowl. After I finish, my host mom sometimes gives me an apple, banana, or mango. As particulrarly high note, I cannot begin to describe how amazing the mangos are--they melt in your mouth in a way I simply cannot describe.

Now the complicated part about eating: Malians eat with their hands--actually, just their right hand specifically. In Malian culture, the left hand is considered dirty and is never used. This isn't peculiar to Mali or even Africa; anyone going to a school under the Catholic church might of had his left hand tied behind his back to learn in order to learn to write with his right hand. Language reflects this too: the word gauche, literally meaning "left" in french often refers to a clumsy or dirty person. Maldroit, or literally "bad right" has the same clumsy connotation in English. In Mali, this dirty connotation is not just from language but literally true: Malians use their left hands to (there's no way to put this nicely) wipe their ass after they shit. As a result, everything--eating, receiving objects, waving goodbye-is done with the right hand. The left hand just hangs out the rest of the time, only being used for toilet paper, picking your nose (acceptable here) or anything else that you wouldn't want your clean hand to be involved with.

The first time we ate Malian style was a mess--rice all over the place, grease smeared all over our mouths. By the time I arrived with my homestay family, I can now eat fairly comfortably with only my right hand, although I still shovel much smaller amounts into my mouth than any Malian would.

As a slight segway, I'll talk a little about the work I will be doing. My title with the Peace Corps is as a "Health Educator", but this word is often used interchangeably with the label "Life Skills Educator"-- life skills being teaching people how to wash hands and brush teeth. In the First World, we balk at the idea that we need to be teaching adults something that 3 year olds do without thinking--you would never eath with dirty hands or refuse the use of soap.

Now when Malians eat, before a meal, there is a dish of water with soap in it. Starting with the oldest/most respected person around the bowl, you pass the hand washing bowl around to wash your right hand. In more remote villages, families only pass around a bowl of water to rinse your hand, since soap is thought to wash your luck away. Other Malians simply choose not to use soap, since the hardness of the water makes it difficult to rinse off, and they don't like tasting soapy food.

My family--as are all the homestay families-are fairly good about using soap and making an effort at washing hands. But even with Peace Corps' encouragement, the reality is difficult: in a country which is dusty and where 70% of people are farmers, you can regularly taste dirt, grit, and small rocks in your food. Additionally, even if my family has soaked potatoes or onions, I can still taste soap on it. In my family, the 'oldest first, youngest last' rule is always followed; my younger siblings pick over what I don't eat after the adults and older children have had their fill. In a country where malnutrition is rampant, being heavy and large is considered a sign of health and wealth. My mother is deeply confused with why I'm such a petite American.

Finally, I'll conclude with what will be the unfortunate but realistic part of my job as a health volunteer. The twelve of us volunteers in our village have language class for 5 hours a day. The four of us in my class speak better french than our instructor speaks english, so she simply decided to teach Bambara in french. Due to the intensity of learning a third language primarily in my rudimentary second language, we all spend a few minutes talking (in english!) with each other after class. For weeks one volunteer noted how sickly his younger sister looked, and some other volunteers even visted and confirmed how malnourished and lifeless she was. Within my own family, there's a questionable attitude about anyone five and under, and then the three seven year olds in my family I can say with confidence, are going to survive. It's not surprising, given that Mali has the highest infant mortality rate in the world.

So this morning it was no surprise when our fellow volunteer came to class and stated his sister had died that morning. Our instructor sent him back home to his family and said "We'll have an hour of class, and then go the family and be with them. We are Malians, this is what we do." After an hour of class, our female instructors gave us veils to cover our heads to go into the family's house. All the women sat together in a room, in silence, and as visitors, we expressed our sympathy, and then just sat in silence. The men sat in a seperate room with an Imam (Muslim religious leader) and similarly, said prayers, and simply sat together.

We were the only village that already had to go to a funeral. But, like Malians, we did it together. As we left the house, the other neighbors saw us, and like for any other Malian, wished us blessings too.