A few short profiles

Here are some descriptions of my favorite people in Dombila- more to come in the coming weeks:

1) Cesalo- the youngest of my posse of boys. I love this picture because it looks like one of those “Save the African children” kind of things- like he’s this steadfast kid holding his seriously survival skills in the hardest of conditions. Alright, well he does have some hardships. But really- this kid’s a goof. Your run of the mill, 8 year old goof. If he was smiling in this picture, you’d see that he’s got these two crooked front teath that are way too big for him. He skips around pretending he is a zylophone player, making up little songs that always sound like “Dink-a-dink-ee-dink-a--dink-ee”, and he refuses to get up for school. The whole family will be eating the morning porriage outside and you’ll hear my host dad: “Ba?” (Cesalo’s nickname.) He grunts and moans from inside. “You going to school today?” More grunts and moans. “Get your lazy self up!”

2)Prookie Prookie
Say it outloud. It’s funnier. My coworker, Sali, is my age. A hip, single, stunning girl, always sporting some flashing earings or a new quaff of fake hair (very popular among Malian women). She caught on to the fact that I plucked my eyebrows, she asks me constantly to do them for her, which is a fun event. “Aminata! Prookie Prookie”- the phrase she uses for plucking which always comes in a high squeaky voice with her motioning to her eyebrows and squinting her eyes. It’s fun hanging out with Sali because its like being one of the girls again. When all the women are gone in from prenatal counsels, she’ll sneak on the scale to weigh herself. Barely 110 lbs, she squeals for joy when she gains weight. If she’s a little light, she’ll pout and make up some excuse, “Well it’s because I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten lunch yet.” Then I’ll step on the scale and she’ll congratulate me for being so fat. She has a little crush on Hunter, one of the other volunteers that came to visit my site all of 3 hours one September afternoon. One morning she exclaimed “Aminata! I figured out why Shakaboubakar doesn’t like me. I’m too skinny! Well that’s ok. If he marries me, he’ll take me to America, and I’ll get really fat.”

3) My host mother, Gneba, is in many ways a little too much like my mother from the United States. She is the woman of the house- and when she’s sifting her millet to make dinner- she is queen of the kitchen- and the rest of the family knows better than to get in the way of her work of art. (The major difference here is Gina’s chicken parm is much more of a work of art than Gneba’s “to”.)
And then I got sick. For about of week I was out with a fever, cough, all those wonderful cold things. My host mom forbids me to bathe without heating my water, from riding my bike without a dust mask, and especially- running. One day, I still had a cough but my body was feeling better, but Gneba had forbidden- FORBIDDEN me from going out for a run. It had been a week since I had done any sort of physical activity, so I was getting antsy. I was about to go out and jog in the fields, when she entered our consession- I hid behind my door. With a bunch of giggling, tattling children around all the time- this never works.
“Aminata- why are you hiding from me?”
I sheepishy showed myself and approached her with my head down.
“Take OFF your running shoes. Take OFF your running clothes and go sit down and drink some tea.”
“It’s really alright, I’m only running a little.”
“You are not smart, Aminata!”
I went out for 10 minutes, my lungs burning and my head pounding. I came back, threw off my running shoes, sat my but down and drank some tea with my host dad. The queen of the kichten was stiring the pot on the fire and looks over to me. “I told you so.”