Church in Mali

Jan. 4, 2010

Dear friends and family,

Happy new year! I realized shortly after writing my last email about
funerals that it was quite a depressing and inappropriate topic for
the holiday season. I’m sorry about that. I’ll try to rectify it in my
email today. As anywhere, great joys and great sorrows co-exist here,
although my overall impression of Malians so far is that they are much
more ready to laugh than to cry. Humor, music, and dance play a huge
role in Malian society.

Here are some photos depicting the ngoni playing I witnessed as well
as other images of my life here, including a baby named Obama Jara:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2278967&id=121893&l=9d787784ba

Last Sunday I went for the first time to the church in Dombila, a town
about 5km away from Koyan and the capital of our commune. Although
most people in the community are Muslim, there is a significan
Christian population. The church is a small mud building with a tin
roof and benches made from mounds of mud covered with a thin layer of
cement. The table at the front of the church was covered with bright
African fabric depicting the face of Pope John Paul II with the words
Bamako, Mali, 1994. A small figurine of Jesus on the cross was nailed
to the back wall and on the side was a Madonna figurine. Before the
service began candles were lighted. Someone rang a bell outside the
church and about a hundred people streamed into the church, children
sitting up front on the left side, women behind them, and men filling
the right side of the church. A small stereo played Malian ballani
(xylophone) music while people sat down. There were almost no Malians
chatting, which is very unusual. When I attended the Muslim service
during the holiday of Eid everyone was chatting right up until the
praying began and even while the imam was speaking.

As I walked into the church I was quite shocked to find an elderly
European man standing outside the church greeting people in Bambara. I
was quite mystified and didn't know what language to greet him in but
fortunately he greeted me in French so I went with that. I learned
later that he is the priest of a church in a large town nearby (Kati)
and goes out to the little villages periodically, especially for
Christmas and Easter services. His skin looked awful, worn and
spotted, and his battered white t-shirt was full of holes - at first
I thought he was a Malian albino (albinism is very common here), but
later I realized he was just a European who had been living in Mali as
Malians do for a very long time. The church in Dombila has a local
priest, but on this day it was the European man who conducted the
service, all in Bambara. His age showed in his voice, which was raspy
and quiet, but amazingly enough he had a microphone and speaker system
so he could be understood. Before the service began he put on a black
robe adorned with the Malian chiwara or antelope motif (a design
traditionally used for headresses for masked dances). Unfortunately my
Bambara is not good enough to tell you what his sermon was about. We
sang hymns in Bambara with Western melodies. Some people took
communion, although many people did not.

The friend I went to the church with, Augustine Jara, did not take
communion and I later learned it was because of the fact that he has
two wives. I asked him why he, a Christian, had taken a second wife
and he said that it was because a relative of his had given her to
him. I pressed him on why he had accepted but he gave no further
explanation.

I found it oddly comforting to be witnessing a church service here -
the way I feel comfortable in a Malian classroom or a bank, structures
that I've grown up with in the States and whose customs and norms I
know.

After the service, Augustine and I went to the house of one of
Augustine's friends, a Christian woman named Safi Kone, an 18-year-old
married woman who lives in Bamako and is a fabric vendor, but whose
family is in Dombila and goes there periodically to visit. Her
outgoingness and self-confidence were markedly different from the
personalities of most women in our area, who tend to be passive and
quiet, and I assumed she was much older than 18. I think the
difference in her personality largely stems from the fact that she
lives in a big city and that her line of work is commerce. When I
arrived she was preparing lunch and I started helping her, which she
was happy to let me do. Normally when I try to help the women in my
area cook, they won't let me.

After lunch, about five of us sat inside a room and chatted. Someone
brought us a watermelon they had just harvested and we devoured it. A
man came in who seemed a little crazy, his eyes bulging and lips
curling up in a slight smirk as he spoke to me. I learned that he was
an ngoni player and asked him if I could see his instrument. He went
off and came back with a string instrument made of a guord, pieces of
scrap metal, and plastic strings. Little pieces of metal hanging off
the sides jingled as he plucked the strings. From the inside of the
instrument he brought out a piece of metal with a handle and hatch
marks that could be grated against with another small piece of metal
to create a rhythm. This small instrument got passed around among the
listeners and one man danced throughout the performance. The ngoni
player, Jean-Pierre Jara, squatted down very close to me and sang to
me. It was very intense and a little frightening but mostly wonderful.
He then moved on and sang to everyone in the group. After, we each
placed a small amount of money into an opening in his instrument.

I wish you all much happiness in the new year!

Best,
Lauren