The Traditonal Things~ Bamana kow

I'm trying my best to stay productive at site, planning things in advance. I took a long walk to a village to greet the dugutigi (village chief) and his family. Unfortunately when I got there the only people there was a child and a muso koroba (old woman) that was extremely difficult to understand. Possibly she was speaking Malinke, because it definitely was not Bambara. A man came soon after I arrived and told me everyone was gone in the fields picking cotton. I told him I just came to say hello, and then left to make it back in time for lunch. The walk was very pleasant, I passed fields of cotton, millet, and a bunch of shea and mango trees.

 Every Monday I make a different Malian dish with the ingredients I buy from the market. Most recently I made Na ji with white rice. All the recipes are very similar to one another, I think I'll have to cook with different families to expand my knowledge of Malian cuisine. But I now know how to wash rice to get out all the stones and sand.

 Above pictures I took of the cooking process on two different Mondays. One dish called Zame and the other Na ji. I'm working on keeping track of the recipes, but there is always something added to a dish that has some weird name that I can't figure out what it is, for instance Sumaya or samaya mugu. mugu I understand means powder, but sumaya/samaya means malaria or cold and neither of those make sense or give me any hint to what kind of powder it is. I'll ask my tutor next time I have a lesson.

Last language lesson my tutor warned me of the dangers of sorcery in Mali. "You see that chicken there, a man can make himself look just like it, he can" Farati Baala/You must pay attention to yourself. Also there is a traditional practice called 'lo' in which strong young men in the Boron ethnic group cover there bodies with a costume and wear a mask so they cannot be seen. In their district the men carry sticks and dance, unfortunately I will likely never see this ceremony, because these men also carry sticks to beat people with if they can. My tutor said they will chase you so you must run very fast, if you are hit it is very bad and your luck will never change. He also warned me of other traditional things such as sorcery and how some people are very skilled. "Some wives will change themselves into birds, dogs, and animals... they do this during the night..... it is very dangerous, they will kill you if they can". I'll do my best to not offend anyone and keep well away from the area of 'lo' when this ceremony takes place. I know where the tree and house of lo are in my village so I just have to avoid that area when it takes place two times out of the year.
Also the seliba (big feast) is coming soon. Not just one but two the Mali feast and Thanksgiving! I plan on traveling to Sikasso to celebrate with other Peace Corps volunteers. Well I'm heading to the post office soon, try to make another update before going back to site tomorrow.