Baptisms and Sorcerers

Today I went with my sister Penda to the baptism of her sister's first child. Here in Mali Muslims don't announce the name of the newborn until the baptism, which happens seven days after the birth. According to my sister, this prevents sorcerers and people with bad intentions from being able to harm the child. Only the father and mother know the name, but they keep it a secret. Everyone dresses up for the baptism. There's a men's party in the morning, which is followed by a women's party in the afternoon. Everyone brings gifts or money. Penda dressed me in a pagne made of bazen, which I think is a very fancy special type of cotton, but I didn't really recognize all the French words she was using to describe it when I asked. Anyways, she let me wear this really beautiful white pagne with a matching top, both embroidered with gold and turquoise with matching beads. First we went to her cousin's house to get ready together, then drove across the river to her sister's house near the center of Bamako.

The street in front of her sister's house was filled with chairs and rugs, where women were sitting and chatting, listening to men playing drums. We went inside to greet relatives. The inside of the compound was full of people, probably about fifty women. After sitting briefly in the living room, we went back outside to watch the mother receive her gifts. Several female griots, storytellers who recount oral traditions in songs and recitations, starting singing and shouting out calls and responses to each other in Bambara. I asked my sister what they were saying and she told me they were counting the presents. They were singing about who had given how many of what and how much money. As the griots sang, more and more people came forward to give money to the griots, who then give it to the new mother. Apparently singing praise-songs of the gifts is a standard part of the baptism ceremony. The drummers would sometimes accompany the women as they sang. Then the maids brought out plates and plates of food for all the guests to eat. We ate communally, Malian style, with five or six people sharing a giant plate of food and eating with the right hand after washing it with the teapot and basin provided. But even if we were sharing it seemed to me like quite a lot of food to prepare. After the meal more drummers joined in, louder now, and the old women began to dance on the mats that had been laid down in the street. My sister and I left though. She explained that she wouldn't dance like that until she was an old woman.

I had two really good conversations with my sisters Penda and Fatu today. Sometimes I get frustrating because, even though I understand enough French to know what's going on around me, I feel like the language barrier prevents me and my sisters from having more serious, in-depth conversations about things. Today though, I talked for a long time with Penda about my plans for my Independent Study Project at the end of the semester. (For people who don't know, SIT Study Abroad programs end with an Independent Study Project, during which we choose to research a topic of interest to us for a month and then present our findings to the other students. SIT gives us a stipend to travel and pay for accomadations if our research takes us far away from our homestay families. I'm probably going to be living in Sanankoroba for my ISP month, but I'm not really sure yet). Anyways, it took a while and I had to use the dictionary a few times, but I finally explained to Penda what it is exactly that I'm interested in studying beyond "maternal health." We talked about birth in Mali and the U.S. and Penda told me that here having a painful birth is a good thing. She explained that the more it hurts the more you will love the child afterwards and that a painful birth is a good way to become close to your child. Then Fatou told me I need to eat more so I can be fat when I go back to the United States, and I explained to her that, in the U.S. it can be insulting to tell someone they're fat. She thought this was pretty funny since in Mali, as our professors had warned us, telling someone they're fat is a great compliment, meaning that both that you're healthy and rich enough to eat in excess. However, my other sister Kadi, who's fairly overweight, is on a diet, so it seems like actually being fat might not be desirable. Fatou and I talked about body image in the U.S. and the pressure some people feel to be skinny. I was really happy to be able to finally have more serious kinds of conversations with my sisters. Sometimes it seems like they think that because I can only say fairly simple things in French, I don't have any other thoughts. They're always really nice to me, but sometimes they explain things like I'm particularly stupid, not just unfamiliar with the language. So it was nice to finally feel like we were communicating on a more interesting level.

When I was asking Fatou about the baptism, I took the opportunity to ask more about sorcery in Mali, wanting to know what she really thought. I asked if there was a real problem with sorcerers here and she said that there was. Then I asked her what we could do to protect ourselves, and she told me that the plaque that we have above the door to the living room with arabic verses from the Koran inscribed on it will protect us from anyone who wants to come into the house to do evil. I learned more about sorcery when my older sister Kadi pointed to my foot and told me that it was bad. At first I was confused. She pointed to my toes, which were curled up under my foot, touching the floor and she told me that this is what sorcerers do. She told me that if I did it in the house someone might get sick or even die. Unfortunately, in the hours after I learned this I realized that I have a habit of curling and uncurling my toes when I'm reading or working, as many members of my family have continued to point out to me. Even my five year old sister Sallie knows not to curl up her toes on the floor, as she shows me by smacking my foot every time I unconsciously do it. The whole family, including the adults, takes it pretty seriously so I'm trying hard to pay attention and not do it, but sometimes I'm just distracted and I forget.

Tomorrow I'm going to Koulikoro for the weekend, which is a pretty rural area, so I won't have internet until Saturday afternoon. Then Saturday evening my sister's taking me out to see the clubs in downtown Bamako. I'll try to write about how it goes if I get a chance.