Max Seunik is an intern with CapacityPlus in Bamako, Mali from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Max on his international experience, his work within the organization, and the humor that inevitably accompanies cultural adaptation!
“Where are we going?” I asked my host-father Moussa as we clambered into the back of his beat-up jeep, closely followed by his daughter Assitan and wife Myriam who wore a flowing gown of rich lime-green fabric delicately embroidered with golden trimmings.
“To see a spectacle,” he replied– the word being one of those faux-amis in French; words that at first-glance appear to be their English equivalent, but in fact have an entirely different meaning. In this case, ‘spectacle’ means a show or performance.
We drove from Kalaban-Cora across the Pont-des-Martyrs and through Bamako, the city sweltering under a reddish haze and choked with the smells of fuel exhaust, garbage and sewage. Myriam and Assitan chatted amiably in the backseat in bambara, and I sat with my arm out the window gazing at the people and places as we drove by, reflecting on my first week here in Mali.
“So.. uhh, where are we?” I inquired of Moussa, as we ascended the ridges that surround Bamako and the road went from paved, to packed gravel, to nothing more than a suggestion. The scene became increasingly rural.
“On our way to a village outside Bamako, they are having a celebration to celebrate the town’s founding – Myriam does vaccinations there.” Myriam, a nurse, nodded from the back-seat – “You’ll meet my colleagues!” she added with a laugh.
After a while of jostling around in the jeep, we passed through a grove of mango trees and found ourselves in the middle of a small outcropping of structures – houses clustered around a main thoroughfare with a mosque, small clinic and mango stand close at hand. One thing I learned from the Peace Corps Volunteers I lunched with was that Mali seems to have a season for everything. Rainy season, dry season, mosquito season, gardening season, scorpion season – luckily, I seem to have happened upon mango-season and have since bore delicious witness to the season’s fruits (ha-ha).
Exiting the car we made our way through the crowd of people assembled muttering customary Malian greetings and found seats ringing a large circle of packed earth. In the center of the circle, a group of three men stood pounding out a rhythmic beat on large drums engulfed by swarms of the town’s children – laughing, jumping and spinning in circles around the drummers.
The circle of earth was bordered by many onlookers, the entire village assembled as mic-checks were made, outfits were donned and instruments tested. Within the hour, the mayor of the village had arrived and everyone settled down to watch. During this time, Moussa had been conferring with one of the villagers who urged him to make sure I stayed for the entire performance, which would conclude well into the early hours of the next morning. The villager looked at me, gesticulating wildly with his hands and talking in rapid streams of bambara. Moussa translated, “he’s telling you that there will be many spiritual things – unexplainable things – at midnight three mystical serpents shall appear.” I tried to probe further, asking him where the serpents would appear, how long they would stay, etc. But Moussa just raised his hands and resigned himself, “I am a city person, I know not of these things”
Then the music started.
Over the next hour, the beats from an assortment of drums large and small, the klak-klak-klak of curious wooden bowls ringed with beads andthe shrill wavering notes of the wassoulou singers filled the air. All manners of dancers took the floor – scores of men with a variety of props (everything from a Santa hat to a fake Burberry scarf) pounded their feet against the earth, soon joined by women and then whomever wanted to dance. My personal favourite was an old woman dressed in bright neon colors, who got right in the middle of the festivities and went wild.
After the dancers had tired themselves out, the music changed – taking on a more “tribal” tone. Soon, a dancer appeared, clad entirely in mud cloth with a bulging stomach sporting a fearsome painted mask with golden horns affixed with the idol of a naked pregnant woman. The dancer wildly circled the ring of spectators flailing their limbs and emitting bizarre whoops and screams. The beat of the drums increased in speed and volume, whipping the dancer into a crazed frenzy – until they collapsed on their knees near a spectator, one hand clamped on their bulging stomach. The dancer shook and heaved and pulled a long, red cloth from their loins and presented it to the spectator, an old man. Moussa leaned over to me, “now, they must dance.” Sure enough, the man took the red cloth and paraded into the middle of the circle and danced as energetically and in time as if he had been in training himself. He returned the cloth to the masked dancer and sat back down, to applause from the audience.
The only thing I could think was: Please don’t choose me.
However, I was spared and the dancer took the red cloth and retreated from whence he had come.
Next came a bizarre bird-like creature lead on by a man with a pipe. The same pattern as with the fertility-dancer – the beats would start out calm and gradually increase in speed and intensity until the dancers were going absolutely insane.
The bird soon retreated and the crowd quieted. Then, from both sides of the ring, two masked dancers came streaming in, red ribbons flying from their hands. They circled the crowd, with hands up to their eyes as if they were searching. Searching… searching… but for what? Simultaneously, they both turned towards where I was sitting and descended upon me.
One of the dancers squatted at my feet, while the other begin to pull red cloth from beneath the shirt of the first one, extricating the cloth and handing it to me. Hesitantly, I took the cloth.
I looked to Moussa, he gave me a raised eyebrow “You must dance. It is the way.” he said. Desperately, I looked to his wife Myriam on the other side of me, she was already bent over in laughter.
So, red cloth in hand, I rose from my seat, slowly proceeded to the center of the ring and I danced. Stamping my feet in tune to the music and raising the cloth high above my head, and swishing it around as I had seen done, I expected laughter from the 1000-strong crowd; me, a big white guy, so obviously foreign to this environment was attempting to imitate their tradition.
But instead the crowd began to clap.
In unison, they clapped to the beat of the drums, increasing the fervor and speed until I could scarce keep up. Joined by the two dancers, we spun around the circle for what felt like an eternity stomping and kicking and moving until the claps had turned into applause.
Sweating, I returned to my place.
As soon I had taken my seat, a the villager who had previously told me about mystical serpents leaned over and whispered to me in halting English, “you… you have achieved maximum fertility.”
I expected to experience many new things during my trip to Mali – but I will admit that an increase in fertility was not one of them!
