Living traditions

What never ceases to surprise me about Mali is that traditions are still alive here. I don’t know if I expected things to resemble Europe or the United States, but I certainly didn’t expect so much that is specific to the continent and the region.

People have their own way of dressing (the women wear these wonderfully colored dresses), of doing their hair (all woment have braided hair and all men are almost shaved), of greeting (how did you sleep? how are your children?), and the list goes on. The food is served differently (there is bowl of grain with meat and sauce in the middle and people eat out of it with their (right!) hand). There is a different conception of time.

Then there is a mix of indigenous and Islamic traditions. The radios play here Islamic chants as well as music played on the bala, ngoni, djembe -- instruments that you don't get if you go far away from here. And there is an entire class of jelis, who are everything from oral historians to MCs and from preachers to personal counselors. They are very well educated and play instruments that only their class can play. And people look up to them more than we look up to anyone (human) in the West.

Sure, there is modernity here too. There is Internet, air conditioning and there are SUVs (not to mention cellphones). And there is rap, jeans and filesharing. But what seems to be prevailing are the interests, activities, hierarchies, that belong to this place. If you go on a cab ride, they might play some rap because they know you're American, but their normal inclination is to play some of the local music. Last time I went to an Internet Cafe, the guy sitting next to me was listening to two jelis on a boat having a (sung) conversation.

And then there is a layer of tradition you don't even see. Our balafon teacher here, Neba Solo, was explaining: "the balafon is a very very very important instrument." I though to myself: it must be because of of the fact that it can produce a variety of clear, precise sounds that stand out in performances. His explanation had nothing to do with this: "it is because it is made from objects that have all finished their life and begin to live again. For instance, the trees it is made from have died sometimes as long as 10 years ago." I find the idea that this thought might still be valuable to him or anyone playing or hearing the instrument... amazing.

Which all makes me think about what Europeans or Romanians or Americans all have to show for themselves. How much of what was specific, unique, and kind of immaterial is still living - in our houses, ipods and thoughts? We were walking around the market and the Muslim prayer began. 80% of men were already on their prayer mats, facing the mosque, and immediately began bowing when the voice was heard from the speaker. This was so unlike anything else I had experienced in the places I usually live. A colleague said: "I felt so godless that moment."

Internet Cafe

This is the second computer I have installed Firefox on in order to be able to browse normally (no hangs and the ability to have more windows open). The computers are slow Pentium IIs, like the ones we would use about 4 years ago. The keyboard requires some very decisive keystrokes to be worked. The computers all show warnings saying that their Windows is counterfeited (a product key is written with permanent marker on a closet). Some LEDs are hanging out of the computers. And there is a loud high-pitched humm that I feel is starting to pierce my head.
But it's a cool, 'chill', place. One of the staff members is playing some cool Malian music (now there’s a reggae song but before this there was a cool video of two jelis singing to each other on a boat). A fan gently cools the room. And people are enjoying themselves: I see chats, drawings in word and people looking at photos. It's a nice atmosphere despite the modest outfitting. Which, I think, is true for all of Mali.

Grace a Chine

It seems like all motorbikes here in Mali are of the same kind: Super K. I don’t even know who makes them, but they’re everywhere. I ask one of our local friends why they’re so prevalent. He answers: Grace a Chine! Apparently they’re cheap, sturdy and very very fuel-efficient. It’s wonderful that such a solution exists so that there is usually at least one in most families. Bamako is very large (because so many buildings don’t have more than one floor), and together with the little green buses, these motorbikes carry more than 80% of the souls traveling around.

Another China thought though: there’s a mountain of tiles imported from there in our hotel courtyard. The hotel will use to renovate parts of the building. It seems like a good thing that they were able to get these Chinese tiles cheaper. But I’d really love to see the day when there will be African tiles, radios, bikes etc. around too. If not all over the world, then at least here in Africa.

Le sac

We were just coming out of a store where the girls had bought some dresses when I came across this guy that had an amazing bag. I asked him where I could buy something like that; he answered that it’s his business and he will sell me his. At first I backed off: it was his bag and I was going to go and choose from among others. But he insisted so much and pleaded that he needed the money, that I began to consider it. He empties what he had inside, telling me: “I give this to you because, you know, my friend, we are all the children of the world […]”. This sounded like some kind of phrase that I, a Westerner, was supposed to like, and I thought it to be just some kind of. He hands me the bag and we begin talking about the price. I decide to pay the unreasonably high price ($20=3+ times the Malian price), saying to myself that the guy needs the money (even this price came after a slight reduction because, well, there is no purchase here without bargaining). I told him repeatedly that I think I shouldn’t be taking his bag away, but he insists that it’s alright. I bring the bag home and decide to wash it, for it had really treaded the Bamako market and had gotten a little smelly as well..

Now, in retrospect, I realize a few extra things and think of some of buying this bag differently. First, the reggae line “We are all the children of the world” actually carried some meaning. It could have meant that he was as happy if I was wearing the bag he had made as if he would wear it. Or it could have meant that my buying that from him is a way for him to continue to be a child of the world (because he really needed the money, something which he actually told me). Either way, it was an idea that had mattered to him in the transaction, while for me it was had been quite irrelevant. I guess it’s really hard to make sense of what the “we’re all the children of the world” has to do with exchanging goods when one is used to buying everything from the supermarket.

Second, washing the bag was such a cheap reflex. I mean, if I really cared about the guy or loved the bag as it was, I wouldn’t have washed it. Being sympathetic doesn’t mean just giving money to the poor. It means being willing to live like them and push your expectations (sanitary or other) beyond your standard tolerance level. So what if it was smelly and dirty? Was I gonna get sick from that?

And finally, the whole episode just speaks about the position you are in as a richer foreigner when you come to such a country. We have so many people coming at us to sell stuff just because we have the money that they so desperately need. People come to the hotel from further away just to sell us things (last time this Touareg guy came we weren’t even here). And this nice guy was willing to sell his own bag. I feel so bad for accepting it, and then for washing off of it everything that had made it a real Malian bag.

Oasis

It felt kind of natural to move into the hotel: it didn't seem like something too modest or too sophisticated. My room was alright. But now after having gone out into the city I feel I could fill up entire pages just describing the disparity between our hotel (our world) and the city outside (the real world here).

I have to start by saying that one can't underestimate the importance of temperature comfort. Walking around the heat and sun for hours wears you out like you’re having some sort of sickness. I saw people just sitting in the sun, holding out whatever they had to sell. I thought to myself: “My god, don’t they get sunburn? Aren’t they hot?”. I initially thought that the black skin and the years of living here would make people quite immune to this, but that’s not really true. Their skin protects gives them a little extra UV protection but that’s all. Aside from this, the Malians sweat, get sunburn and tire in the sun like everyone else, and being able to cool off a little bit is an enormous luxury.

Then, there’s the power issue. The power can go out 5-6 times a day, and often it stays off for more than 20 mins. They recently installed a generator in our hotel, but I can only think that this is just another luxury that a regular Malian couldn’t afford. As is the backup battery that this computer uses to protect us from losing our emails when the power flashes out for a second or two.

The running water is also wonderful. There are plenty of areas in the city where people still go to wells to get water. Women then carry the containers on their heads, or sometimes men load them on carts and use donkeys to get them to their house. That’s so much time that people need to spend just to be able to get water.

Then there are the meals, which are so rich that one could go on a siesta after each. I don’t know how much a Malian eats, but I feel like for the time I’m spending here in the hotel, I’m gaining rather than losing weight. The only thing I’m disappointed about is that our meals are quite European (notably the continental breakfast). And because meat is so precious here, whenever people want to welcome you and give you good food, they give you so much of it.

But I actually shouldn’t worry that much: in a few days we’ll be heading to Sikasso and then the village Nebadugu, where there will be no air conditioning, no running water and (in the village) no electricity.

Still, I just feel that I’m kind of cheating by chilling out in the hotel when others are having a much harder time. When I see how tough even basic life is here I sometimes wonder why I would ever complain about papers or other kind of ‘work’ that I have to do. It seems that the life I’m used to is rather like what most Malians would consider holiday. Being able to live worry-free on a college campus, to travel with a summer school all seems like luxury.

To Bamako

The trip went smoothly, save for the 4-hour delay on the last flight due to a strike in the Bamako airport. I remember sitting at the gate and gradually starting to realize that I'm going to Africa: as soon as the Asian and Caucasian people left the seats to board the other flights, I began to be pretty much alone in a sea of black people. People were wearing clothes I had only seen in photos, and they were speaking Bambara, which I could not recognize anything of. On the plane people behaved very differently. Sitting down took a lot. Leaving the plane took only an instant. There silence in the cabin that usually lasts throughout the flight turned to a kind of rumour. There was also a drunk musician conversing with people. And, of course, people clapped when the plane landed. I realized the trip to Africa was not going to be predictable in any way.

Break

The schedule for yesterday was themed around the idea of clashes among the many cultures ("races") present here in Singapore. First, we visited the Heritage Centre of the Internal Security Department of Singapore. They took us around this museum/compound, initially built for the education of civil servants and ISD agents. They many rooms and areas showcased a history of the Singapore intelligence, with descriptions of the main events in terrorism, counter-espionage, and the background of communism and defense of the country. On display were declassified documents about operations carried out against infiltrated agents and factions, and taken together they all offered a good picture of Singaporean history.
Then we went to something called The Harmony Centre. We took off our shoes (as if entering a mosque) and then attended a presentation about Islam that I think made everyone fall in love with the religion. After some Malay food (Chicken rice, fishballs and spring rolls, among other foods), we went to a panel about the multicultural society here. There were also presentations by the panelists on terrorism (more specifically, an Islamic group that wants to build an Islamic state in Southeast Asia), government policies and cultural relations in Singapore.
Yet despite all these activities, which were all really engaging, it was a very messy day for me. There was still a lot to happen that day, but I asked our hosts to take me home. I had gone to sleep at 4:30 am the previous night (as I had don since I arrived here), woken up at 8 am, and for a number a reasons the panel discussion had really pushed my body to the limits. They had 4 huge air conditioning panels in the ceiling of the room, all blowing right down on us (think 20 degrees Celsius of humid air showering on you for hours). My feet had frozen from the first minutes of being in that room, and the summer clothes I was wearing put me on a course to becoming an iceblock.
Apparently the A/C could not be adjusted, but I got a jacket from the staff. I also moved to the corner of the room to be out of the wind. I was still freezing, so I took a walk through the rest of the building, which was much warmer and comfortable. For a minute I thought of lying down on one of the benches there and taking a nap, but since the place was a religious center and looked more like a museum than a community center, I bravely went back for some more cold. I made a few remarks during the discussion, but I'm quite sure I looked very sick, so I pulled out to a corner again to get some heat. When the discussion was over, I was one of the first to leave the room and as the others were also coming out I could hear every other person saying "Oooo... warm!" or "Heat!". Outside there had been a downpour, and all our shoes had gotten soaked. My exhaustion and the other unfortunate experiences were building up to the point where I almost felt like crying. On the bus I fell asleep instantly, and then Chris took me back to the university.
The other delegates had taken everything much better, and I'm not sure I can really blame our hosts here for much. As one of them said: "Because it is so hot and moist outside, we like to have the rooms cold". This is much unlike the The Harvard classrooms, which are overheated, again to contrast with the cold outside.
So in the end, I guess it was going to bed much later than the end of our programme that had brought my body and psyche to their limits. I took a break from everything and slept almost 12 hours, so hopefully today will be much better.

Tropical paradise

As I was walking out the airplane, I started feeling an increasingly powerful wave of heat around me. Along with this came a feeling of moisture that is only to be found in saunas and greenhouses. I thought it was something brief, related to that tunnel. Whenever I had looked at maps, I had clearly seen the equator just a few degrees below Singapore, but it never really crossed my mind that the implications of this would be so serious. Now I actually realized what all the weather forecasts and maps meant: the place has a climate no different than a jungle.
This made me very aprehensive at the beginning, and I kept asking people why it is so hot and moist at midnight on a day in March. "It's like this all a time" just couldn't be a true explanation. But our hosts were wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandals, so it had to be (not to mention that this made me feel ridiculous, since I was wearing heavy jeans and a sweater that kept me warm in the chilly airplane). It turns out that the weather was going to be extremely hot.
As we are driven to the hotel, questions pour and "Wow!"s and "Look!"s are to be heard ceaselessly. The vegetation is stunning: there are palm trees everywhere, flowers are blooming in many rich colors, and the grass seems even more vigorous than the carefully maintained lawn that I had seen in Cambridge (either of them). I ask whether for them the heat is more bearable and they say that it's just as annoying and extreme for their bodies just as it is for ours.
The next day, I discover the burning sun, a feature that makes a trip from one building from the other as incovenient as the blistering cold does for Cambridge. We are given hats and water (what a blessing!) and transported with air conditioned buses.
But after I walk around for a while, I start forgetting about the heat and focusing more on what's around me. Except for the buildings, almost everything is green. The vibrant city was turning out to be a beach-like resort as well. The gentle windchill, the hush of moving palmtrees, the sound of crickets, the brightly painted buildings made it all look more like one of the exotic resorts that people go to in the summer. The reality is, I had thought of this trip as being a vacation, since there's no more school, but I had never imagined it could be a holiday in the way that was turning out to be.
The heat was becoming more of a colateral issue; as long as there was shade, things were not only bearable, but actually wonderful. Our hosts are constantly surprised at our enthusiasm: they don't understand what we find so great about living in a place with the climate of a "paradise island". Surely, when they came to Harvard there wasn't that much to impress them (except for the snow that quickly turned into rain and then hail). But for me at least, walking around flip flops and wearing shorts at any time of the year is really more like moving away for good from where I live to some place where I'm always on vacation.

Setting sail

We’re entering the last hour of the last flight we’re taking on our way to Singapore. The 30-something hours initially seemed … interesting and “not a big deal”, but at some point it all got extremely exhausting and annoying. It has made me reconsider the relative length of my trip to Romania, which is a nice couple of flights, one fairly short(2 hours), and the other just a good sleep (8h). The day-and-something on the Asian-bound flights has been a little too much.

When I signed up for the Harvard College in Asia Project (HCAP), I knew nothing about any of the cities and the countries that the program visits. I wrote my country preferences 5 minutes before the application deadline by doing a preliminary research on… Wikipedia. Until pretty much now, I have looked at Singapore as an “OK” destination, thinking at the same tine that I might have enjoyed better something more exotic, or traditional. But now I know a little more about the place, and I don’t think I’ll be anything less than very exciting.

It seems like it’s going to be a wonderful time in what is undoubtedly a very multicultural environment. Although Singapore is geographically just an extension of Malaysia, more than half of the people are Chinese (the Chinatown is well-known and quite authentic. Also, there’s a lot to see in Singapore in terms of identity (3 major ethnic groups) and religion (they have not just Christian and Buddhist, but also Islamic). Not to mention that the city is really spectacular.

I decided to join HCAP because I wanted to learn more about Asia, a place that seemed so remote and different but also tempting and intriguing. Traveling in Europe had been a lot of fun, but I realized that there is so much more to discover in other, more distant places. I paid the airfare boldly, assuming but lacking certainity that it would be ‘a step’ towards this vague and broad goal of "understanding Asia". Yet now I know it’ll go a much longer way than I expected – Singapore is a wonderful and rich place, and I am starting to be very anxious about arriving.

As for the extra week that I'm going to spend in Thailand instead of returning to school on time, that's going to be quite an adventure. I'll be on my own, and I haven't quite been alone on such an undertaking. I’ve heard they’ve recently blown up some buses there, but I’m not particularly worried about that. Instead, what I’m thinking of right now is how I’m going to finish the two bloody papers that will be due that week, where exactly I will travel in that country, and if I will succeed to not lose my documents, money and posessions, or miss my flights.
“We are preparing to land – please switch of all electronic equipment and secure your seats in an upright position.“

Here we go!

Kickoff!

I'm creating this blog to post my thoughts and experiences while traveling. For one thing, I know I'll be going to Singapore and Thailand at the end of March, but I'm sure that's not the last travel experience I'll want to write about.
I will begin writing in early March.