Dinner and a conversation

It's pretty typical for us to chat around the rice bowl now; especially cause Zubbu eats with us and she is talkative.

By the light of the cooking fire we enjoyed a tastey eggplant-onion sauce. I was amused when Aliou shined the torch on my area of the bowl and found I had eaten around the meat morsels. Laughing he says, "Ah yes, this one doesn't eat meat now..." I tried to explain it wasn't the killing of animals, I was just...disgusted by it. I'm glad we have come to a point where I can comfortably express my tastes.

We usually chat in Fronrai--a mix of French and Songhoy for Zubbu who somehow understands French fluently but refuses to speak it--and tonight the subject was the arms trade and gun control in Mali. The siutation in Mali is that there are still arms passing through; still guns left over from the rebellion (the Peace Flame in T2 didn't quite melt them all down); and, guns of retired army men floating about since the dictatorship years. It worries Aliou, because as he started to say, "It's different in civilized countries where..." But I cut him off asking, "You don't think Mali is civilized?" "Eh? Mali? Civilized? Noooo...barely anyone can even read!" He believes with education guns would be used more properly. Um, where are more people killed by guns than anywhere else in the world yet has some of the best universities and educational opportunites? You know where.

He said guns make people more arrogant and more daring, but also feels when a man (or woman) is sufficiently enraged, the can find a way to murder. Aliou was evidently stabbed once after getting in a fight with a co-worker and barely escaped death. He said a Muslim monk came to visit him to pray over him at the hospital. With tears in his eyes he described how the monk blessed him and told him to keep his cool in the future. The monk has by now passed away, but clearly Aliou still thinks highly of him. And after observing Aliou playing 3rd-party diplomat amongst his neighbors and co-workers often, I'm certain he is still following the monk's advice.