tu es mon esclave!

in mali people rep their last name like american rappers rep their city. when you introduce yourself they always want first and last name and if you share the same last name its like a mini celebration. if you dont share the last name they might joke with you saying theirs is better than yours. the most common way to diss someones name is to tell them that family 'eats beans' or that your people are their people's slaves. both these jokes are considered hilarious. awk as a white american? you'd think so. i think so. malians don't seem to think so... i am not telling anyone to be my slave. nuh uh


on the topic of names, mine is nene doumbia -- i found out that 'nene' means cold and 'doumbia' blacksmith. nene is the name of the oldest of my siblings. in my family a lot of people have the same name, as a tradition to honor relatives, and then are given nicknames that they go by on a daily basis. there are two mele's in my fam, three ba's, at least three or four ibrahim farabans, four or more moussa fasiqi's... as you can imagine it makes it hard for me to figure out who is who haha. last night i had my host father map out a family tree which helped a little. except by now they think i know peoples names when really i do not so i am kind of stuck...

this coming week all students are travelling to sanankoroba, a rural village. i will have to practice my bambara bc very few adults there speak french. we are returning to bamako on saturday the 8th which is international womens day and there is a big event for it in bamako which my cousin invited me to. details on that next week.