Garibou assillaaaaaama!

I often write about the concept of solidarity. But there is one aspect of Malian culture that’s not so “solid.” Talibizey as they are called in Gao, are garibou, or young students of the Koran who study under a Maribou. To learn humility and to gain their daily bread, they are forced to beg door to door for either a portion of cooked food, some grain or a few coins. Whatever they earn they are instructed to bring back and share with all the other garibous and of course so that the Maribou can take his share. Certain harsher Maribou will chain hands or feet of garibou who ate from their bowl before returning to the house, which makes it all the more difficult for them to beg the next day. They are often filthy, and I was particulalry appalled once when, for lack of a hand washing bowl, a group of men filled a garibou’s bowl with water, rinsed their hands, and began to eat.

Garibou literally means “foreigner” in Arabic. In Islamic teachings, Muslims are to feed, house, and clothe any “strangers” who come by. Though, it is understood that if you stay longer than three days, you are considered to no longer be a foreigner.

The problem in Mali, aside from harsh treatment of legitimate garibou, is that there are many children (almost all boys) who are sent away (or who run away) who know nothing of the Koran yet beg just like the garibou do. This is why often Aliou would demand the garibou to recite the Koran before giving anything. Non-garibou would then be comically teased until Aliou thought they had earned their dinner. For example, Aliou would ask Dave if this was the little punk who threw the rock at him today (untrue of course) and Dave would exclaim, “Yeah, yeah that’s the one, get him!” The garibou would promptly run out of the courtyard. Similarly, if Aliou would call to Zubbu to bring a nice, sharp knife, for garibou liver is what would cure his child’s sickness, the garibou would also run (screaming sometimes) from the courtyard. Because, even in Ansongo, most of the garibou were originally from Gao gourma (the villages on the right bank of the river or as it flows between Gao and Ansongo, the West bank), Aliou would quiz them on exactly where they were from or who their father’s father is. Once, a garibou thoroughly confused by the barrage of questions, ended up telling us he was from both the West and East banks of the river. Right. Once, Aliou found a garibou from his village of Boya (commune of Gabero in the gourma), and began to feed him well. He was surprisingly a legitimate talibize.

When I was at restaurant recently in Douentza, coming back from Timbuktu with CARE, ATN Plus, and Nouveaux Horizons staff, we were appalled by the behavior of the town’s garibou. These were surely not students of the Koran. When one table had finished their bbq’d meat, the server held up the pile bones on a platter to keep it from the groping hands of almost 20 garibou. Almost each one got a bone that they started to happily gnaw on. Mahamane turns to me and says what a tragedy these garibou/beggars are. Why can’t an NGO (or the government) build centers to house and feed them and teach them a skill. Another colleague commented that if the system continues, these beggars, once adults, would also send their children out to beg. I understand certain families cannot afford to take care of all of their children, or in the case of an orphaned child, take him or her in because their parents were relatives. It is the norm, but it is not easy. Therefore, though to most Malians it is culturally appalling, I find it necessary to started building orphanages/vocational training centers for these unwanted kids. In the case of the talibizey who are trying to learn the Koran, there needs to be a system of community involvement to support the Maribou in taking care of his students. Buddhism also promotes begging and a simple life in order to learn humility; nevertheless, in learning this lesson, these children shouldn’t have to act like dogs. 

At peace in my skin

One of the most important things my fiancé has helped me to understand is why people call me anasara or tubob. Greetings are incredibly important here. So important, if you don’t greet someone, they think you are mad at them, not just that you forgot to greet them or didn’t notice them passing by. Even before buying something you have to go through the greetings—from their spouse and children to the state of their cows. Additionally, ethnic identity is still very strong here—and relatedly, family names carry much more significance than they do elsewhere. Often when greeting, people address each other by their family name. If they don’t know the person’s name, they’ll address them by the name the most common to the ethnic group (Bambara = Coulibaly, Peuhl = Diallo, Songhoy = Maïga). If a person greets someone not from their ethnic group, they will call out the name of the ethnicity. Therefore, Diallo is often greeted as fula ce ! (among Bambaras) and fulan aru ! (among Songhoy). And I am greeted equivalently as tubob or anasara. It’s not meant to be a slur because I’m white, but merely a way to classify and greet me. 

During the lunch break of the training I was in Monday and Tuesday, one of the trainers asked me if I get bother by people refering to me as anasara (just before my colleague had told the server the anasara doesn’t eat that much, so don’t fill her plate). I said it used to bother me but no longer does because I’ve come to realize that everybody uses certain terms to identify and refer to people here. I think it only becomes a problem when people use the terms to generalize about certain ethnicities and do so out of the context of joking cousins (for example, the artisan who made our wedding rings is a Peuhl of the blacksmith class of forgerons who joke with Peuhls, so he joked about the significance of my fiancé’s small fingers and the fact that all Diallo’s are traitors). Sadly, two groups excluded from the joking cousins/ethnicities (Diarra’s joke with Traoré’s, all Dogon joke will Songhoy, etc) are the Touaregs and the Bella. These are the only two groups I’ve heard being seriously slurred against here in the North. And they are the ones you hear about most on RFI. 

West African French, quoi

The more time I spend around French people (or other Europeans who speak French) the more I realize I speak very West African French. And evidently the mélange with local languages is even more noticeable in Côte d'Ivoire. 

On est ensemble, the subject of my last entry, is a quintessential West African French phrase having largely to do with the fact that it represents the Neighborhood Watch aspect to the culture here. It’s not really used in France in this sense, probably because the system of solidarity isn’t as strong in the West (I know, I know, France is in fact north northeast of Mali).

Présentement  is widely used to say "currently" but French people find it awkward. Maybe this too is a result of me using the equivalent to "presently". Usually, when searching for a word I don’t know, I say the english word with French pronunciation (especially if the word is more than 3 syllables long) and it works. In this case, it doesn’t.

On est où là ? Literally meaning "One is where ?", has become a greeting or a way to warm up a crowd. It doesn’t really mean anything. But it became popular in the West African hour of guests and music on RFI at 21H10 because the Sénégalese host uses it profusely. 

Peinturer  in West African French means "to paint". However, they took the actual verb peindre and made it into an easy to congugate regular –er verb. So instead of being lazy and saying Le nouveau maire a coupé tous les arbres dans la cour de la mairie et peinturé le batiment conformément à son hôtel (true story), you should say Le maire a peint la mairie desagréablement.

Often, to designate an event or action that has not happened yet but is expected to happen, West Africans say, Je n’ai pas fini à préparer d’abord. I thought this was perfectly acceptable French. It is not. I have now learned that the construction comes from Bambara (or the more widely spoken sister language of Dioula), in which for an action that has not yet occured you simply tack on folo to the end of the sentence. Folo translates best to d’abord. But, a proper French housewife would use encore to say she has not yet finished cooking : Je n’ai pas encore fini à préparer. 

Quoi is added at the end of phrases so often it's become a habit, quoi. Similar to "like" in English. While watching Bienvenue Chez les Chtis, I found that it is also used in this north northwestern French dialect. To the point where a southerner gets quite confused and the two actors get into a loop much like a "Who's on First?" bit. Quoi literally means "what" and therefore, with the intonation of the Chtis, it is as if you are always asking a question rather than confirming a statement. Here, there is no confusion over intonation, so it becomes an extraneous word at the end of phrases, as in, Je vais terminer ici, quoi. 

On est ensemble

On est Ensemble is a West-African French phrase which literally means « We’re together » but more figuratively speaks to the system of solidarity that is deeply imbedded in the culture.

For example, when I forgot to grab money out of my safe for the week, I found myself broke, 4km away from home, and with a blazing sun outside. Lunch costs 500F ($1,20). But I didn’t even have a 5F piece on me. So when I went to our usual restaurant, I asked the lady if I could pay tomorrow. She gave me a heaping plate of rice and red-fish sauce and said, On est ensemble. You don’t let your neighbor go hungry here. It’s one of the aspects I like most about Malian culture—even if it may cause a certain level of indolence.