Tuesday, 6/24

Tuesday, June 24 Today was a strange mixture of both immense frustration and tremendous release. This seems to be a trend, though I hope I am mistaken and the moments of frustration leave me.


I picked up my boubou last night, just in time for all of our meetings with important healthcare/sanitation officials today. The boubou was indeed gorgeously fabricated and I can honestly say that I think it is the nicest and most intimate piece of clothing I own. The pants are WAY long, so I have to wear them above my belly button to keep them off the ground, but it’s worth the red marks around my waist to complete the ensemble. I mean, almost got mistaken for a Malian today… yeah, right toubabou! The only downside to wearing a boubou in l’hivernage (rainy season) is that it’s only too easy to get mud on my pants. Oh well, another challenge for fashion, I suppose.


Today was one of the first days I was genuinely not feeling well and after a morning of four back-to-back meetings, I was ready to pass out. So I came home and literally did, for like five hours in the middle of the day. It was great.


I also finally got in touch with a feeling I’ve been having of late, specifically my feelings around race relations in Bamako. As a toubabou, it’s understood that I am going to feel like a bit of an outsider, especially in the middle of a relatively poor neighborhood like Sikoroni. However, the more time I spend here, the more I really become cognizant of how I am seen as a white person. Everywhere I go, I constantly feel like the outsider walking the halls of high school – every person seems to be staring straight at me, even as I meet their stares. Groups of children gather together to chant “Toubabou!” in unison, or else small children shout it from their parents’ sides. Adults don’t seem to be so vocal about my skin color, but they look at me the same way as their children do, as if to say, “Why are you here, white boy?”


As someone who comes from a place where people of color are often mistreated, I pride myself on being racially sensitive. Therefore, it is strange to be in a place where despite this desire for equality, I am in fact the victim of racism. It’s something I’ve only experienced in terms of my sexuality, never my race, and I have to be honest, it’s strange and sometimes it hurts. Usually children who shout at me are just looking for attention and when I respond with sassy Bambara quips like, “A toubabou? Where? Show me so I can shout at him!” or “No children, my name is not ‘toubabou’, it’s Adama Diarra,” they usually find humor in the situation.


However, today, I received just one too many toubabou comments and got one to many glares to feel comfortable playing the game anymore. It wasn’t fun anymore and I just felt very alone and hurt. I know these things can’t be taken personally since I’m just a foreigner and these children don’t know me personally, but it’s hard to feel like I should even need that thick skin when the only reason I came here was to help them address their problems and improve their quality of living. I never want to be the self-glorifying toubabou who feels like he walks on water because he works for an NGO in conditions of poverty, but I feel like I’m not the average white person (especially since there are NONE in Sikoroni, usually) and if they knew that, they would give me some credit. I suppose all I can do is continue to try to prove that to every shouting child, but it’s tough to accept that there will always be more shouting children and I just have to keep on keeping on and ignore the catcalls. It’s just hard to feel like the work is rewarding when I feel ostracized by the very people I came to help.


Needless to say, after a day of feeling sick and two weeks’ worth of toubabou comments, I needed a break. Katie and I just took off for the night and went to see a free movie at the French Cultural Center. The audience was almost exclusively white, which at first irked me, as if I had stumbled upon one of those rare cultural hubs for white people who don’t want to associate with the locals and want to isolate. And then I realized that in that moment, that’s kind of exactly what I wanted. It’s strange to admit something like that, given how much we often judge other toubaboux who come through as tourists and never see the way Malians actually live, but then again, that air-conditioned movie theatre was pretty damned nice.


After the movie, we got dinner at the center’s local restaurant – I had a huge hamburger (think hubcap) with a cold grapefruit Djino (think Orangina) and Katie had some delicious looking tabouli. I recognized one of the people in the audience as one of the people I had contacted on CouchSurfing and we all had dinner together. She works with an organization that integrates sports play into school curricula and her friend works on conflict resolution up north in Touareg rebel territory. We all had great discussion about what we’re doing here, the luxury items we enjoy but can rarely afford (cheese… mmm), and just generally had a good time eating with silverware. It was a great way to get away from some of the more irritating encounters of the day.


On a lighter note, our taxi stopped right by the stand where Katie got her egg sandwich today and we were delighted to find a nest of rats in the gutter three feet away as well as all over the premises where the vendors sell from during the day. I could not stop laughing as we realized how completely lucky we are not to have gotten dysentery from eating street food yet. I wanted to laugh at her, but then I realized I had eaten there last week. Dammit. The upside is that I haven’t gotten amoebiasis from the little baggies of hibiscus flower and tamarind juice I love so much. Oh well, that’s why we brought de-worming medicines. That having been said, let’s hope for no worms, OK?


It’s been a long day – time to sleep.


X BEN X (just for today)