Now that the house has more life in it, things are going a little better. Jeff is working really hard for the last bit of time here with Seydou, so that removes most of my company each day, but at least people are around to eat with and stuff.
Also, my transformation into Biker Babe is nearing its final stages; and by that I mean simply that I've begun to learn how to drive the thing. Seydou and I went out to the Douentza air strip (I would be surprised if a plane has ever landed there) and I cruised around for a while. The basic principles are the same as driving a stick shift, it's just a matter of getting used to doing it with your hands and the 2-wheel thing. I have to admit, though, it was quite fun. It was beautiful heading over there two. The air strip is out the other side of town, and now that the rainy season is in full swing, what used to be arid desert has been transformed into lakes and green fields. It gave quite a peaceful feeling seeing the farmers at work in their fields with a backdrop of the cliffs behind it all.
On a completely unrelated note, I'm reading the Elegant Universe right now and it is very cool. I recommend it to anyone who wants to think about the far reaches of space and the inner workings of atoms. It gives me something to think about, at least.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
One of those days
On my way over here, I was contemplating what it is that makes you feel like you're in a foreign country. I was thinking about this because days can go by here when I forget that I'm even in Africa. Today, however, was not one of those days.
When you travel to another country, you often expect it to be "really different", but you're still the same, thinking your same thoughts, going about daily activities much in the same way as you always did and much in the same way that most human beings on the planet do. Sure, the environment might be different, but you get accustomed to that really quickly, even if it's just changing apartments or states. Sure, I may walk through an old market full of dried fish and men in turbans to get to the internet, but what else is new, I see that everyday here.
What makes all the difference is how close you feel to people. There will always be an element of foreign or simply "not home" when you're far from the people you love. Often, though, this can be numbed or neutralized a bit by the connections you feel with the people around you. Thus, when my friends and colleagues are here, Salif, Seydou, Jeff, Abbie, Minkailou, I can feel at home a bit. Unfortunately, Abbie's in the village, Salif is back in Bamako, and Seydou and Jeff took off to Sevare (though they'll be back tonight). That leaves Minkailou and I. We get along fine, but he has a constant stream of visitors over to the house, and I don't feel comfortable just sitting down and chatting with them, so consequently I feel rather alone, and as a result, Mali seems very far away indeed. I just hope this isn't how it will feel all the time when I come back in September.
I miss you all a lot and I can't wait to see most of you in August/September.
When you travel to another country, you often expect it to be "really different", but you're still the same, thinking your same thoughts, going about daily activities much in the same way as you always did and much in the same way that most human beings on the planet do. Sure, the environment might be different, but you get accustomed to that really quickly, even if it's just changing apartments or states. Sure, I may walk through an old market full of dried fish and men in turbans to get to the internet, but what else is new, I see that everyday here.
What makes all the difference is how close you feel to people. There will always be an element of foreign or simply "not home" when you're far from the people you love. Often, though, this can be numbed or neutralized a bit by the connections you feel with the people around you. Thus, when my friends and colleagues are here, Salif, Seydou, Jeff, Abbie, Minkailou, I can feel at home a bit. Unfortunately, Abbie's in the village, Salif is back in Bamako, and Seydou and Jeff took off to Sevare (though they'll be back tonight). That leaves Minkailou and I. We get along fine, but he has a constant stream of visitors over to the house, and I don't feel comfortable just sitting down and chatting with them, so consequently I feel rather alone, and as a result, Mali seems very far away indeed. I just hope this isn't how it will feel all the time when I come back in September.
I miss you all a lot and I can't wait to see most of you in August/September.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
To a flooded Douentza
I'm back safely in Douentza after a not-too-bad 14 hour bus ride. I luckily got two seats to myself, so I curled up with my pillow and napped as much as I could. Not to mention I ate a delicious fried egg sandwich on baguette at the Segou bus stop. The only hitch in the trip was being stopped for a long time at the Sevare gendarme stop, where they shook down people for money who didn't have their ID cards on them. This always takes a long time.
We pulled into Douentza around 7:30 this morning. There are ponds everywhere. It had apparently been raining since the night before (and it kept raining until maybe 9 AM). Needless to say, everything is very muddy here. Trying to pick your way around mud puddles to get to the internet really makes one appreciate both a) storm sewers and b) private internet.
No matter, it's good to be back. Bamako was great and all, but it's nice to be back "home" with my computers and friends and all.
We pulled into Douentza around 7:30 this morning. There are ponds everywhere. It had apparently been raining since the night before (and it kept raining until maybe 9 AM). Needless to say, everything is very muddy here. Trying to pick your way around mud puddles to get to the internet really makes one appreciate both a) storm sewers and b) private internet.
No matter, it's good to be back. Bamako was great and all, but it's nice to be back "home" with my computers and friends and all.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Civilization
My time in Bamako is nearly up; I will be catching the evening bus back to Douentza today. So let me take this moment in a little second story Bamako cyber cafe to recap my last few days.
Salif and I set out on Monday evening for Sevare. This time it was on a legitimate bus, and consequently we arrived in a comfortable and timely fashion. We stayed at Minkailou's house there (Jeff keeps a couple mattresses and mosquito nets ready for wayward travelers such as ourselves), which doesn't have electricity, but no matter. It stormed that night, so we had to sleep inside, but again, nothing new.
In the morning, we got up and went to the BNDA, my new bank, where I opened an account. All went well, save for the fact that they misspelled my middle name (Elisabeth) and got the wrong birthday (May 25th?) on my ID card. After that, we ate breakfast in a little coffee shack and called up a taxi they know to go to Songho to collect our Russian friend.
I was shocked by how convenient his living situation is. Not only are there real roads that lead there, but he lives in a tourist hostel, essentially, complete with electricity from solar panels. No wonder he never stayed long in Douentza! Songho is a big tourist destination in Dogon country, so Salif and I took the tour. The village itself is very picturesque, with carved doors and granaries with pointed thatched rooves, just like you see in guidebooks (probably because it's Songho you see in guidebooks). Then the guide took us up the bluff to the sacred circumcision ground (not to be seen by women, except when they made that rule, they didn't know there were other colors of women, so I'm exempt. Yeah, BS). Anyhow, there are some great cave paintings up there, not old, they're redone every year, but they're symbolic of a lot of things. It was all very interesting, in any case, worth the visit. But I don't envy Kirill too much--I wouldn't want to work in a tourist village with random whities tromping through all the time.
After we collected him and his baggage, we went back to Sevare, left the bags, then took a quick trip to Mopti, which is just several kilometers away. Mopti, I think, is the next biggest city in Mali after Bamako, or at least in that ballpark. We got soft drinks at a restaurant overlooking the Niger River, then decided to take a little cruise on the water in a small pirogue (think gondolier). It was very calm and neat to see all of the fishing boats and villages.
We then headed back to Sevare to catch our bus to Bamako. The bus was supposed to leave at 8, but of course it was late and we left more around 9:30. While waiting, we ate some chicken and fries at a little food stall, which I was not convinced wouldn't give me food poisoning, but here I am, still healthy. The buses to Bamako generally originate in Gao, in the far north, so it was really full already when it got to Sevare. They managed to cram us in, though, by putting every woman and child imaginable in the very back row (right behind me), so it was basically Screaming Kid City. Needless to say, I did not sleep very well.
All of that aside, we made it to Bamako in good time, after which we made our way to the SIL guesthouse to clean up. Apparently they had some workshop going on, so their rooms were quite full. They split us up where they could find room in the various apartments. I shared the apartment with a German woman named Karin, who was quite nice indeed. And joy of all joys, there was a sink there! and a shower with hot water! and a flush toilet! I could've cried with joy when I saw the sink (kind of pathetic). Yes, Bamako does offer some modern luxuries. More on this topic later.
Wednesday was my day of appointments with the Bamako linguists, so after we got settled for a little bit, I got dolled up in my 4th of July Malian clothes and headed over to the Institut National des Langues with Salif. There we met with Hamadoun Ouologuem, a Tommo speaking linguist I met my first time in Bamako. This time, though, I wasn't jetlagged and was used to Malian French, so I could actually understand him. He certainly does like to talk. He took me over to see the director, to whom I explained the situation, why I needed a letter, etc. He said fine, so long as we drafted it and brought it to him, which we did. Hamadoun told me to come back the next morning to pick it up, so Salif and I headed back out for a sweet afternoon nap.
One entirely awesome thing at the guesthouse was that I finally had time to be alone. In Douentza, there are constantly people around, even when you're sleeping, so to finally have a space for some privacy was a blessing to a solitude-loving American like myself.
We ate basically all of our meals at this restaurant called Amandine, where a lot of foreigners and dignitaries eat. I ate all of the dairy I could manage, way too much at every meal, but I had lost calories to make up for. Delicious avocado salads, pizza, cheeseburgers, cheese omelettes... everything my heart desired. I figured that I am rarely in the big city, so I should live it up, which I did. We went to the grocery store a couple times too, where I probably spent way too much, but I stocked up on things like Nutella, Pringles, a couple bottles of wine, and cans of chili. Oh yeah.
To return to the program, of course the next day we went in the morning and the letter wasn't ready. That's just how things are here. Since we had some time to kill, we visited the national museum, which has quite a nice collection of carvings and textiles and artifacts. Better than I was expecting, in any case. Across the street was the Park of Prehistory, or something, which was largely (if not entirely)very corny. Caves with statues of cromagnun man, a corny placard about evolution, but at least there was a huge dinosaur statue. That was definitely a redeeming feature.
We got the letter, as promised, after lunch, at which point Salif and I headed over to the American Embassy. I guess it used to be in the downtown, but what with security concerns, they moved out of town a bit to a huge compound with ultra security. We couldn't bring in our phones or cameras or anything. The public affairs officer was out on business, but I met with Gaoussou, a friend of Jeff's, though I'm not certain what his title is. He was very nice and understanding and got all of my papers sent off for me.
Business was completed as such. Surprisingly efficient for Mali! I got my bus ticket, we took Kirill to the airport, we ate dinner, and all was well.
It's like over the last week, I have slowly been climbing the ladder of civilization and technology. A week ago, I was in Tongo-Tongo, with nothing, then Douentza, with shoddy electricity and unpaved roads, then Sevare, with paved roads and electricity in places, then Bamako, which could be a city in the US if you leave out the shacks selling cigarettes and sugar, the women selling mangoes from bowls on their heads, the overpacked city mini buses, etc. Basically, what I mean is that nearly every luxury we enjoy in the States you can find there. It was quite a nice vacation indeed.
From here, I'm meeting a Japanese friend of mine I knew in the States for lunch. Small world! Then it's back to Douentza. I'm hoping I haven't gotten soft after my stay in Bamako, but I don't think so. It'll be nice to get away from the hustle and bustle and also not spend money for a while. Bamako gets pretty expensive (compared to Douentza and the bush).
Time to climb back down the civilization ladder. At least I'm planning on spending a couple weeks in Douentza before going back to T-town for my last trip of the summer. Less than a month left here.
Salif and I set out on Monday evening for Sevare. This time it was on a legitimate bus, and consequently we arrived in a comfortable and timely fashion. We stayed at Minkailou's house there (Jeff keeps a couple mattresses and mosquito nets ready for wayward travelers such as ourselves), which doesn't have electricity, but no matter. It stormed that night, so we had to sleep inside, but again, nothing new.
In the morning, we got up and went to the BNDA, my new bank, where I opened an account. All went well, save for the fact that they misspelled my middle name (Elisabeth) and got the wrong birthday (May 25th?) on my ID card. After that, we ate breakfast in a little coffee shack and called up a taxi they know to go to Songho to collect our Russian friend.
I was shocked by how convenient his living situation is. Not only are there real roads that lead there, but he lives in a tourist hostel, essentially, complete with electricity from solar panels. No wonder he never stayed long in Douentza! Songho is a big tourist destination in Dogon country, so Salif and I took the tour. The village itself is very picturesque, with carved doors and granaries with pointed thatched rooves, just like you see in guidebooks (probably because it's Songho you see in guidebooks). Then the guide took us up the bluff to the sacred circumcision ground (not to be seen by women, except when they made that rule, they didn't know there were other colors of women, so I'm exempt. Yeah, BS). Anyhow, there are some great cave paintings up there, not old, they're redone every year, but they're symbolic of a lot of things. It was all very interesting, in any case, worth the visit. But I don't envy Kirill too much--I wouldn't want to work in a tourist village with random whities tromping through all the time.
After we collected him and his baggage, we went back to Sevare, left the bags, then took a quick trip to Mopti, which is just several kilometers away. Mopti, I think, is the next biggest city in Mali after Bamako, or at least in that ballpark. We got soft drinks at a restaurant overlooking the Niger River, then decided to take a little cruise on the water in a small pirogue (think gondolier). It was very calm and neat to see all of the fishing boats and villages.
We then headed back to Sevare to catch our bus to Bamako. The bus was supposed to leave at 8, but of course it was late and we left more around 9:30. While waiting, we ate some chicken and fries at a little food stall, which I was not convinced wouldn't give me food poisoning, but here I am, still healthy. The buses to Bamako generally originate in Gao, in the far north, so it was really full already when it got to Sevare. They managed to cram us in, though, by putting every woman and child imaginable in the very back row (right behind me), so it was basically Screaming Kid City. Needless to say, I did not sleep very well.
All of that aside, we made it to Bamako in good time, after which we made our way to the SIL guesthouse to clean up. Apparently they had some workshop going on, so their rooms were quite full. They split us up where they could find room in the various apartments. I shared the apartment with a German woman named Karin, who was quite nice indeed. And joy of all joys, there was a sink there! and a shower with hot water! and a flush toilet! I could've cried with joy when I saw the sink (kind of pathetic). Yes, Bamako does offer some modern luxuries. More on this topic later.
Wednesday was my day of appointments with the Bamako linguists, so after we got settled for a little bit, I got dolled up in my 4th of July Malian clothes and headed over to the Institut National des Langues with Salif. There we met with Hamadoun Ouologuem, a Tommo speaking linguist I met my first time in Bamako. This time, though, I wasn't jetlagged and was used to Malian French, so I could actually understand him. He certainly does like to talk. He took me over to see the director, to whom I explained the situation, why I needed a letter, etc. He said fine, so long as we drafted it and brought it to him, which we did. Hamadoun told me to come back the next morning to pick it up, so Salif and I headed back out for a sweet afternoon nap.
One entirely awesome thing at the guesthouse was that I finally had time to be alone. In Douentza, there are constantly people around, even when you're sleeping, so to finally have a space for some privacy was a blessing to a solitude-loving American like myself.
We ate basically all of our meals at this restaurant called Amandine, where a lot of foreigners and dignitaries eat. I ate all of the dairy I could manage, way too much at every meal, but I had lost calories to make up for. Delicious avocado salads, pizza, cheeseburgers, cheese omelettes... everything my heart desired. I figured that I am rarely in the big city, so I should live it up, which I did. We went to the grocery store a couple times too, where I probably spent way too much, but I stocked up on things like Nutella, Pringles, a couple bottles of wine, and cans of chili. Oh yeah.
To return to the program, of course the next day we went in the morning and the letter wasn't ready. That's just how things are here. Since we had some time to kill, we visited the national museum, which has quite a nice collection of carvings and textiles and artifacts. Better than I was expecting, in any case. Across the street was the Park of Prehistory, or something, which was largely (if not entirely)very corny. Caves with statues of cromagnun man, a corny placard about evolution, but at least there was a huge dinosaur statue. That was definitely a redeeming feature.
We got the letter, as promised, after lunch, at which point Salif and I headed over to the American Embassy. I guess it used to be in the downtown, but what with security concerns, they moved out of town a bit to a huge compound with ultra security. We couldn't bring in our phones or cameras or anything. The public affairs officer was out on business, but I met with Gaoussou, a friend of Jeff's, though I'm not certain what his title is. He was very nice and understanding and got all of my papers sent off for me.
Business was completed as such. Surprisingly efficient for Mali! I got my bus ticket, we took Kirill to the airport, we ate dinner, and all was well.
It's like over the last week, I have slowly been climbing the ladder of civilization and technology. A week ago, I was in Tongo-Tongo, with nothing, then Douentza, with shoddy electricity and unpaved roads, then Sevare, with paved roads and electricity in places, then Bamako, which could be a city in the US if you leave out the shacks selling cigarettes and sugar, the women selling mangoes from bowls on their heads, the overpacked city mini buses, etc. Basically, what I mean is that nearly every luxury we enjoy in the States you can find there. It was quite a nice vacation indeed.
From here, I'm meeting a Japanese friend of mine I knew in the States for lunch. Small world! Then it's back to Douentza. I'm hoping I haven't gotten soft after my stay in Bamako, but I don't think so. It'll be nice to get away from the hustle and bustle and also not spend money for a while. Bamako gets pretty expensive (compared to Douentza and the bush).
Time to climb back down the civilization ladder. At least I'm planning on spending a couple weeks in Douentza before going back to T-town for my last trip of the summer. Less than a month left here.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Trip plans
Just to keep everyone on the same page, I will be heading to Sevare tomorrow afternoon with Salif. There, we'll spend the night at Minkailou's wife's house (basically Jeff's stopover house), then get up Tuesday morning so I can open a bank account. Then we'll hire a taxi to go to Kirill's village, see the cave paintings there, pick him up, and go back to Sevare, where we'll catch an overnight bus to Bamako. This means that we will hopefully be in Bamako Wednesday morning so I can start my business. However, if my previous blog posts have taught us anything, it's that travel is not reliable and I may spend the night next to the highway. But that was with sham bus. This will be with reliable bus companies, the likes of Gana or Africa Tour. Oh yeah.
More from the luxury of Bamako's speedy internet.
More from the luxury of Bamako's speedy internet.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The motorcycle is a trusty stead.
Al-hamdu lillah, I am home safe from the village. Once again, it’s hard to squeeze a week’s worth of especially exciting village time into a single blog entry, but I will try.
We decided that the time had come to attempt the trip to Tongo-Tongo on motorcycle, since in the end, having a motorcycle out there would give me more freedom and be more convenient. Our departure we scheduled for Saturday morning, 8 AM. However, Friday night, a huge rain storm came through, knocking out our electricity even.
In the morning, Minkailou and Seydou went off to check out the road and came back, saying it was too wet. Since they said it was just around the corner, I went with to look. I was expecting some big puddles, but to my surprise, there was a full-fledged river crossing the road. I told them that where I’m from, rivers stay put—they’re either there or they’re not.
Needless to say, our route was hindered. I was a bit discouraged, but luckily we got out the next day. We loaded up the motorcycles with all of our gear, and Seydou and I helmeted up (like the well-raised children we are), and we got underway. At the beginning, I was in high spirits. It was precisely that feeling that I came to Africa to find: cruising through the brush on motorcycle, detached insect wings fluttering up like flower petals around our tires.
However, if there’s anything this trip has taught me, it’s that there are always ups and downs, even in the span of a few hours. Pretty soon, we’d lost the road, fallen over in the mud, and had to physically get off and push the motorcycles up steep, rocky “roads”. To make matters worse, we only brought one jug of water with us for four people, a terrible lack of foresight in the African bush.
Maybe five or six hours after we set off, we finally arrived in Tongo-Tongo. It was great to be back, to be honest. It was a happy reunion with the people I had met a few weeks before (who perhaps thought I had fled forever). My Tommo-So was a bit better this time, too, so I could even converse a little bit. I got a nasty sunburn on my shoulders on the way over, even though I double applied sunscreen, and now it’s peeling, leaving a juxtaposition of two different races on the same set of shoulders.
Minkailou spent the night then left the next morning. Since I only had five work days in the village, I had to make the most of the time I had in a Tommo speaking area. Therefore, as opposed to eliciting grammatical paradigms with Ramata, something I can easily do in Douentza, I put on my Real Fieldworker Hat and set off to get cultural stuff.
What do I mean by cultural stuff, you ask? Well, each day was a bit different. On Monday, Ramata, Seydou and I took off to the fields to get pictures and videos of the actions of planting. Now that the rains of have come, grass has grown in areas I thought plants could never grow, and all able-bodied persons are working the fields. That’s the people’s job in Tongo-Tongo—subsistence farming. The whole community is largely self-sufficient. Anyhow, I tried my hand at hoeing (plus got pictures of a dozen different kinds of hoes), and also managed to bloody two of my toes on rocks in the span of about ten minutes. Good times.
The next day was dedicated to plant specimens. Seydou and I took to the fields with Bureima, Ramata’s older brother, to collect leaf specimens and get the names in Tommo-So. I filled my memory card with pictures of branches and leaf arrangements and pressed a bunch of specimens as well for Jeff to identify.
Wednesday, I elicited the words for different kinds of livestock: the difference between a bull, a castrated bull, and a bull that’s emasculated by crushing the testicles with a rock (this is the process used if the bull wasn’t castrated at a young enough age). I also got a whole lot of words for donkey tack and the word for the act of smearing feces on a cow’s udder to discourage the calf from suckling. I was definitely getting into the heart of the Tommo language there.
Thursday, we elicited agriculture words, as well as many words for pour, splash, drip, etc. Friday, I filmed the different pouring actions, possibly to present at the conference in Leiden. We also got words for religion and millet beer. Also accomplished this week: insect specimens.
Being in the village is always a trip. It’s very tranquil and interesting, but you get bored really quickly. Afternoon was always nap time, not because I was tired, but because I needed a break from sitting under the hanger listening to conversations in a language I only sort of understand. Luckily, the weather was much more pleasant than the first time around, so I could even sleep inside at night.
We ate much better this time than last. This time, as opposed to Ramata cooking, we commissioned the director’s wife to cook for us, and she did a pretty good job. We brought in some cans of peas and mixed vegetables to be cooked with chicken (which we had almost every night). On the subject of chicken, Tongo-Tongo was much quieter this time around, because apparently some disease came through and killed their chickens. Here are my fingers crossed to it not being Avian Flu. To keep spirits up, I bought a couple of cans of fruit salad at the Mory market. Never have syrup-soaked pears and cherries tasted so good. Here I’m always eating strange fruits I don’t know the names of in English. Were it not for Wikipedia, I would be forever in the dark. But here we go, names in Tommo: we have the kambe (best made into a juice), the bie, the mingyu (tastes like pumpkin and is apparently a laxative), the saa (wild grape), julO (some strange seed pod with a powdery yellow flesh), ElE (wild pea).
Last night, it looked like we were going to have rain, a sure curse for the road back. There was lightning in the distance on both sides of us and clouds approaching, but in the end, it went right around the village. Seydou and I took off on motorcycle around 7:30 this morning, this time taking the same road we took by car before. It’s longer in terms of kilometers, but the road is much better, and it ends up joining the highway (meaning the road is paved, otherwise the traffic level is more or less the same, i.e. nil).
When we first set out, we got completely lost in the bush. This is not hard to do, because as I said before, the road is just a well-worn path—if you take one well-worn by, say, cows, you will soon find yourself surrounded by thorny trees with no road in sight. The plus side to this bush sidetrack is that I saw a lot of bird species—ibis things, big eagles, egrets, brilliant blue kingfishers. It was very serene indeed.
Around 11:30, Seydou and I rolled into Douentza with no other injury than very sore butts (it turns out that four hours on a motorcycle is not the most comfortable experience). As always, it’s good to be back to refrigerated beverages and water I can drink without boiling. It was a good stay in the village, albeit short (perhaps this is why it was so good?). Now it’s on to sorting out all of the pictures and videos I took and getting ready for my imminent trip to the opposite extreme of Mali civilization: Bamako.
We decided that the time had come to attempt the trip to Tongo-Tongo on motorcycle, since in the end, having a motorcycle out there would give me more freedom and be more convenient. Our departure we scheduled for Saturday morning, 8 AM. However, Friday night, a huge rain storm came through, knocking out our electricity even.
In the morning, Minkailou and Seydou went off to check out the road and came back, saying it was too wet. Since they said it was just around the corner, I went with to look. I was expecting some big puddles, but to my surprise, there was a full-fledged river crossing the road. I told them that where I’m from, rivers stay put—they’re either there or they’re not.
Needless to say, our route was hindered. I was a bit discouraged, but luckily we got out the next day. We loaded up the motorcycles with all of our gear, and Seydou and I helmeted up (like the well-raised children we are), and we got underway. At the beginning, I was in high spirits. It was precisely that feeling that I came to Africa to find: cruising through the brush on motorcycle, detached insect wings fluttering up like flower petals around our tires.
However, if there’s anything this trip has taught me, it’s that there are always ups and downs, even in the span of a few hours. Pretty soon, we’d lost the road, fallen over in the mud, and had to physically get off and push the motorcycles up steep, rocky “roads”. To make matters worse, we only brought one jug of water with us for four people, a terrible lack of foresight in the African bush.
Maybe five or six hours after we set off, we finally arrived in Tongo-Tongo. It was great to be back, to be honest. It was a happy reunion with the people I had met a few weeks before (who perhaps thought I had fled forever). My Tommo-So was a bit better this time, too, so I could even converse a little bit. I got a nasty sunburn on my shoulders on the way over, even though I double applied sunscreen, and now it’s peeling, leaving a juxtaposition of two different races on the same set of shoulders.
Minkailou spent the night then left the next morning. Since I only had five work days in the village, I had to make the most of the time I had in a Tommo speaking area. Therefore, as opposed to eliciting grammatical paradigms with Ramata, something I can easily do in Douentza, I put on my Real Fieldworker Hat and set off to get cultural stuff.
What do I mean by cultural stuff, you ask? Well, each day was a bit different. On Monday, Ramata, Seydou and I took off to the fields to get pictures and videos of the actions of planting. Now that the rains of have come, grass has grown in areas I thought plants could never grow, and all able-bodied persons are working the fields. That’s the people’s job in Tongo-Tongo—subsistence farming. The whole community is largely self-sufficient. Anyhow, I tried my hand at hoeing (plus got pictures of a dozen different kinds of hoes), and also managed to bloody two of my toes on rocks in the span of about ten minutes. Good times.
The next day was dedicated to plant specimens. Seydou and I took to the fields with Bureima, Ramata’s older brother, to collect leaf specimens and get the names in Tommo-So. I filled my memory card with pictures of branches and leaf arrangements and pressed a bunch of specimens as well for Jeff to identify.
Wednesday, I elicited the words for different kinds of livestock: the difference between a bull, a castrated bull, and a bull that’s emasculated by crushing the testicles with a rock (this is the process used if the bull wasn’t castrated at a young enough age). I also got a whole lot of words for donkey tack and the word for the act of smearing feces on a cow’s udder to discourage the calf from suckling. I was definitely getting into the heart of the Tommo language there.
Thursday, we elicited agriculture words, as well as many words for pour, splash, drip, etc. Friday, I filmed the different pouring actions, possibly to present at the conference in Leiden. We also got words for religion and millet beer. Also accomplished this week: insect specimens.
Being in the village is always a trip. It’s very tranquil and interesting, but you get bored really quickly. Afternoon was always nap time, not because I was tired, but because I needed a break from sitting under the hanger listening to conversations in a language I only sort of understand. Luckily, the weather was much more pleasant than the first time around, so I could even sleep inside at night.
We ate much better this time than last. This time, as opposed to Ramata cooking, we commissioned the director’s wife to cook for us, and she did a pretty good job. We brought in some cans of peas and mixed vegetables to be cooked with chicken (which we had almost every night). On the subject of chicken, Tongo-Tongo was much quieter this time around, because apparently some disease came through and killed their chickens. Here are my fingers crossed to it not being Avian Flu. To keep spirits up, I bought a couple of cans of fruit salad at the Mory market. Never have syrup-soaked pears and cherries tasted so good. Here I’m always eating strange fruits I don’t know the names of in English. Were it not for Wikipedia, I would be forever in the dark. But here we go, names in Tommo: we have the kambe (best made into a juice), the bie, the mingyu (tastes like pumpkin and is apparently a laxative), the saa (wild grape), julO (some strange seed pod with a powdery yellow flesh), ElE (wild pea).
Last night, it looked like we were going to have rain, a sure curse for the road back. There was lightning in the distance on both sides of us and clouds approaching, but in the end, it went right around the village. Seydou and I took off on motorcycle around 7:30 this morning, this time taking the same road we took by car before. It’s longer in terms of kilometers, but the road is much better, and it ends up joining the highway (meaning the road is paved, otherwise the traffic level is more or less the same, i.e. nil).
When we first set out, we got completely lost in the bush. This is not hard to do, because as I said before, the road is just a well-worn path—if you take one well-worn by, say, cows, you will soon find yourself surrounded by thorny trees with no road in sight. The plus side to this bush sidetrack is that I saw a lot of bird species—ibis things, big eagles, egrets, brilliant blue kingfishers. It was very serene indeed.
Around 11:30, Seydou and I rolled into Douentza with no other injury than very sore butts (it turns out that four hours on a motorcycle is not the most comfortable experience). As always, it’s good to be back to refrigerated beverages and water I can drink without boiling. It was a good stay in the village, albeit short (perhaps this is why it was so good?). Now it’s on to sorting out all of the pictures and videos I took and getting ready for my imminent trip to the opposite extreme of Mali civilization: Bamako.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Back to the bush...
Well, my nearly three weeks in Douentza are up. Tomorrow, I’m heading back out to the village to spend another week before my impending trip to Bamako. Barring the lack of communication, I’m looking forward to going back out—it’s nice and calm out there and gives you a chance to think (on the flip side, all of that calm gets really boring really fast). Also, I haven’t seen some very nice people I met there for a while, so it will be good to catch up with my improved Tommo-So skills. Finally, what with the rainy season, planting will have started so I will have lots of cultural information to film/photograph/elicit the words for.
If I thought we had a full house last week, I was wrong. Last night, we had nine people sleeping here: Jeff, me, Abbie, Salif, Seydou, Minkailou, two boys from Bunu that Abbie’s working with, and the village chief from Walo who was passing through. People were doubled up on mattresses left and right. Then this morning, Salif decided that 5:30 AM was the perfect time to wash dishes noisily by the foot of my tent. Needless to say, that ended my sleep and made me quite irritable indeed. I reprimanded him for it later and he said he wouldn’t do it anymore.
During the morning break today, I made omelettes for everyone and splattered my hands with hot oil. Of course, now everyone is saying “No, no, from now on the Princess can’t cook, we can’t have the Princess burn her hands.” I told them that I like cooking very much and the issue is that we don’t have the proper utensils—if we just had a spoon with a long handle instead of a normal fork, I could keep my hands away from the oil. We’ll see if this culinary wrong is righted.
Anyhow, I will be away from internet for the next 8 or 9 days, when we take travel into account. I will be back with more village updates after that, so stay tuned.
If I thought we had a full house last week, I was wrong. Last night, we had nine people sleeping here: Jeff, me, Abbie, Salif, Seydou, Minkailou, two boys from Bunu that Abbie’s working with, and the village chief from Walo who was passing through. People were doubled up on mattresses left and right. Then this morning, Salif decided that 5:30 AM was the perfect time to wash dishes noisily by the foot of my tent. Needless to say, that ended my sleep and made me quite irritable indeed. I reprimanded him for it later and he said he wouldn’t do it anymore.
During the morning break today, I made omelettes for everyone and splattered my hands with hot oil. Of course, now everyone is saying “No, no, from now on the Princess can’t cook, we can’t have the Princess burn her hands.” I told them that I like cooking very much and the issue is that we don’t have the proper utensils—if we just had a spoon with a long handle instead of a normal fork, I could keep my hands away from the oil. We’ll see if this culinary wrong is righted.
Anyhow, I will be away from internet for the next 8 or 9 days, when we take travel into account. I will be back with more village updates after that, so stay tuned.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Killer Ants
Things have been pretty quiet around here with just Jeff, Salif, and me. It’s nice in some ways (i.e. plenty of choice chicken parts to eat at dinner) but it was nice to have all the company. Salif and I have hung out some—he’s an interesting guy. He’s a law student at the University of Bamako and is quite bright, but more negative than the others (which is good when you need to complain).
We had a huge dust and rain storm here on Monday. It was sweltering beforehand. Salif and I had walked all the way across town to the other internet place, where the computers are new and the internet half the cost, but it’s just so out of the way that it’s hardly worth it. Anyway, as soon as we got back, the wind kicked up, and in a matter of 10 minutes, the sky was red, and I mean red, with dust and then it poured. To make matters more interesting, the storm knocked out the electricity for a while. The electricity here is a fragile creature indeed.
It was nice and cool to sleep that night after the rain. Unfortunately, I had a run-in with another even more common biting insect: the black ant. They look just like the ants we have back in the States, except that they will occasionally bite you for no apparent reason, and let me tell you, it hurts. It’s a very sharp, stinging pain, which can apparently make your foot swell sometimes, but mine just hurt sans swelling. After eliciting the names of insects with Ramata on Monday, I have concluded that Mali has entirely too many gross bugs. I tried to check this out on the internet before I came, but Wikipedia lied to me. About the pangolins too.
I have finally figured out the basic verb tone/vocalism paradigms, which is a step in the right direction. Now I’m focusing on finding a little semantic study for Jeff and my talk in Leiden in August. So far I’ve been looking at the myriad verbs for ‘pour’. More on that later.
I will be spending only a week out in Tongo-Tongo starting on Saturday, since I have to make a trip down to Bamako to work out some last formalities for the Fulbright. It’s sort of inconvenient to have to go down there, but it will be a good opportunity to make some contacts at the embassy and pick up some imported foods. Hopefully I won’t have to take Sham Bus back and spend another night by the side of the highway. But if I do, at least I’m a seasoned warrior now.
Other observations: canned corn can be a gift from God. The fire finches in our tree often sound like R2D2-esque robots. Douentza smells awful after a big rain.
We had a huge dust and rain storm here on Monday. It was sweltering beforehand. Salif and I had walked all the way across town to the other internet place, where the computers are new and the internet half the cost, but it’s just so out of the way that it’s hardly worth it. Anyway, as soon as we got back, the wind kicked up, and in a matter of 10 minutes, the sky was red, and I mean red, with dust and then it poured. To make matters more interesting, the storm knocked out the electricity for a while. The electricity here is a fragile creature indeed.
It was nice and cool to sleep that night after the rain. Unfortunately, I had a run-in with another even more common biting insect: the black ant. They look just like the ants we have back in the States, except that they will occasionally bite you for no apparent reason, and let me tell you, it hurts. It’s a very sharp, stinging pain, which can apparently make your foot swell sometimes, but mine just hurt sans swelling. After eliciting the names of insects with Ramata on Monday, I have concluded that Mali has entirely too many gross bugs. I tried to check this out on the internet before I came, but Wikipedia lied to me. About the pangolins too.
I have finally figured out the basic verb tone/vocalism paradigms, which is a step in the right direction. Now I’m focusing on finding a little semantic study for Jeff and my talk in Leiden in August. So far I’ve been looking at the myriad verbs for ‘pour’. More on that later.
I will be spending only a week out in Tongo-Tongo starting on Saturday, since I have to make a trip down to Bamako to work out some last formalities for the Fulbright. It’s sort of inconvenient to have to go down there, but it will be a good opportunity to make some contacts at the embassy and pick up some imported foods. Hopefully I won’t have to take Sham Bus back and spend another night by the side of the highway. But if I do, at least I’m a seasoned warrior now.
Other observations: canned corn can be a gift from God. The fire finches in our tree often sound like R2D2-esque robots. Douentza smells awful after a big rain.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Ex-pat patriotism and one big elephant
Wow, the last couple of days have been remarkable, in both good and bad ways. Let’s rewind to Thursday night. In the middle of the night, once again, I awoke in my Bug Hut to a terrible wind. I seemed to be the only one awake at the time, and wasn’t sure what to do, considering I didn’t have the keys to the house. Luckily, the barrage of dusty wind woke up the others and we hustled the tents back into the house before anyone was blown away or electrocuted.
We woke up in the morning with a muddy courtyard, a clear indication of rain later in the night. It was the morning of the 4th, which meant that the moment of sheep execution had arrived. I didn’t particularly want to watch the ram get slaughtered in our own courtyard, but I felt pressure to.
They had hired a man to do the slaughtering and preparing. In accordance with Islamic law, the ram was restrained and laid down on its side facing east towards Mecca. Then before my eyes, the man slit its throat and all of its blood drained into a hole they had dug. It was pretty gross. I will spare the details, but the carcass was skinned and hung from our tree, where all of the de-organing happened. I unfortunately have some pictures, which I won’t share with you.
Around 10 in the morning, I was called outside, because the first of our meat delicacies were cooked and ready. Round one happened to be various organs, maybe the liver and heart, but I’m still not sure. Minkailou forced me to try it, even though I wanted to run away screaming. Truth be told, it didn’t taste half bad, but I couldn’t get the image of our poor ram’s internal organs out of my head, so that tainted the flavor a bit.
A little while later, Abbie and I headed out to the internet. I didn’t really need to go, but I went anyway to try and get my PC to work with their cable (successful mission). However, Abbie’s computer was being slow, compounded by the slow speed of the internet, and we didn’t end up getting out of there until lunch time. At that point, both Abbie and I were stressed out—it was extremely humid from all of the rain, the internet was slow, and we felt a million miles from home.
When I got back to the house, the guests for the party later had already started to show up. There was some man in the courtyard who tried to talk to me in Tommo-So. I didn’t understand what he was saying, and he had the If-I-Say-It-A-Thousand-Times-She’ll-Understand syndrome, and I just was not in the mood for it. Eventually I left and went into the house until I was called for lunch. I talked to Kirill over the salad for a while, and then when it came time for the main course, I went out into the courtyard, since I’ve started eating with my hand communally. However, Seydou gave me a bowl that day and told me to go sit on the bed, since there weren’t enough chairs. That made me mad—we already have seven people living here, plus the guests, and I can’t even eat with our own people? So I took my bowl of rice and went into the house to eat alone.
Of course, being shunned from the meal did nothing to help my feeling of homesickness. Then to make matters worse, as I always do, I take the hot pepper in the sauce and chop it up in my food, but the rice was already really spicy and the pepper was particularly hot, so lunch was physically painful to eat. And then my mango slices, which Seydou brought to me in my solitary confinement (totally oblivious as to why I was upset), tasted like rotten buttered popcorn Jelly Belly beans. No good at all. Abbie came in to check on me and we bitched for a while about everything that was bothering us, which relieved some of the stress.
Then it was time to get ready to party. We changed into our new clothes and joined the crowd in the courtyard. People seemed to really like seeing us dressed up a la Africaine, which was fun. American flag bandanas and a huge American flag had materialized out of nowhere. Matching them was Jeff’s foot-long Uncle Sam hat that he had pulled out.
As if the courtyard party weren’t surreal enough, Jeff has a tradition of having a parade through the market. Us Toobobs and several Malians set off in a line, the Malians beating water jugs as drums and chanting “Amerique”. I still am not sure whether it was the highest state of humiliation or hilarious. Probably both.
With the parade over, we returned for hundreds of pictures of every combination of people at the house. By then, a huge crowd of children had gathered, and some people, including Kirill, had started drumming on the water jugs. A couple kids came out and danced, which was cute (or possibly innocently obscene, in the case of one little girl). Ramata came and hung out for a while, too. The bucket o’ grilled ram was brought and we feasted on meat in the hanger. As cute as the ram was, I have to admit, the meat was very good.
That pretty much takes care of the 4th of July. Yesterday, we woke up at the crack of dawn (even earlier than usual, so pre-crack of dawn) so we could get ready to leave to see the elephants. We had hired the Land Cruiser again, the same guy who took me to Tongo-Tongo, since he is a very good driver. Somehow we managed to fit all eight of us in there, including the driver: 3 in the front, 3 in the back, and Abbie and I in the trunk. I personally think we got the best seats; we had a mattress back there and pillows and got to watch everything unfold behind us as we drove out into the bush.
And drive into the bush we did. We basically went off-roading, bumping over holes and ledges and splashing through rain-filled ponds. When we came across a village, we would stop and inquire as to whether the elephants had been seen lately. In that manner, we got steered here and there, but no elephants were to be found. I took a couple of naps in the back—there was the spare tire under the mattress, so Abbie was on top of that and I was in a Laura-sized nook between it and the window, perfect for napping. We drove around aimlessly until we stopped for a picnic lunch at 2 or 3. Everyone else ate leftover ram-meat, but I opted out, considering it had just been sitting in an unrefrigerated bucket since slaughter. Rather, I had bought some Laughing Cow cheese and attempted to remind my stomach what lactose is.
We hit the road again after lunch. All throughout the day, we passed a lot of villages of the nomadic Fulani people. They are lighter-skinned than the Dogon are typically nomadic herders rather than sedentary farmers. Eventually, it seems, one of the villages steered us toward the town of Boni, and there we picked up a guide who knew where we were going.
We drove a ways out of Boni and ran into a couple of hunters, who told us that there were four elephants in the vicinity. We picked one of them up too (bringing our total of people in the 4x4 to 10, two on the roof) and went out to find these alleged elephants. Not long after, we heard cries of “Niwa! Niwa!” (elephant in Fulfulde) from the roof. We stopped the car and sure enough, there was a huge elephant half-concealed in the trees in the distance. Following the lead of the hunter, we slowly and quietly approached the elephant, so as not to startle it. It was just in a thicket, eating some leaves, busy being huge and amazing. It knew we were there, and had an eye on us, but we didn’t seem to bother it too much. In the end, I got about 20 yards away, maybe less. It was completely magical. All of the sweat, bumps, time, and motion sickness of the hours before were made worth it by being there in the thicket with a real live wild elephant.
We stayed around it for maybe twenty minutes, then left it in peace and drove home.
People are moving back out today--Abbie and Minkailou left for Bunu in the morning and Seydou will be spending a few days at his village in Anda before coming back to accompany me to Tongo-Tongo. Kirill heads back tomorrow and we won't see him until the conference in Leiden, since he's going home to Russia for a month. Back to a little more of a quiet house...
We woke up in the morning with a muddy courtyard, a clear indication of rain later in the night. It was the morning of the 4th, which meant that the moment of sheep execution had arrived. I didn’t particularly want to watch the ram get slaughtered in our own courtyard, but I felt pressure to.
They had hired a man to do the slaughtering and preparing. In accordance with Islamic law, the ram was restrained and laid down on its side facing east towards Mecca. Then before my eyes, the man slit its throat and all of its blood drained into a hole they had dug. It was pretty gross. I will spare the details, but the carcass was skinned and hung from our tree, where all of the de-organing happened. I unfortunately have some pictures, which I won’t share with you.
Around 10 in the morning, I was called outside, because the first of our meat delicacies were cooked and ready. Round one happened to be various organs, maybe the liver and heart, but I’m still not sure. Minkailou forced me to try it, even though I wanted to run away screaming. Truth be told, it didn’t taste half bad, but I couldn’t get the image of our poor ram’s internal organs out of my head, so that tainted the flavor a bit.
A little while later, Abbie and I headed out to the internet. I didn’t really need to go, but I went anyway to try and get my PC to work with their cable (successful mission). However, Abbie’s computer was being slow, compounded by the slow speed of the internet, and we didn’t end up getting out of there until lunch time. At that point, both Abbie and I were stressed out—it was extremely humid from all of the rain, the internet was slow, and we felt a million miles from home.
When I got back to the house, the guests for the party later had already started to show up. There was some man in the courtyard who tried to talk to me in Tommo-So. I didn’t understand what he was saying, and he had the If-I-Say-It-A-Thousand-Times-She’ll-Understand syndrome, and I just was not in the mood for it. Eventually I left and went into the house until I was called for lunch. I talked to Kirill over the salad for a while, and then when it came time for the main course, I went out into the courtyard, since I’ve started eating with my hand communally. However, Seydou gave me a bowl that day and told me to go sit on the bed, since there weren’t enough chairs. That made me mad—we already have seven people living here, plus the guests, and I can’t even eat with our own people? So I took my bowl of rice and went into the house to eat alone.
Of course, being shunned from the meal did nothing to help my feeling of homesickness. Then to make matters worse, as I always do, I take the hot pepper in the sauce and chop it up in my food, but the rice was already really spicy and the pepper was particularly hot, so lunch was physically painful to eat. And then my mango slices, which Seydou brought to me in my solitary confinement (totally oblivious as to why I was upset), tasted like rotten buttered popcorn Jelly Belly beans. No good at all. Abbie came in to check on me and we bitched for a while about everything that was bothering us, which relieved some of the stress.
Then it was time to get ready to party. We changed into our new clothes and joined the crowd in the courtyard. People seemed to really like seeing us dressed up a la Africaine, which was fun. American flag bandanas and a huge American flag had materialized out of nowhere. Matching them was Jeff’s foot-long Uncle Sam hat that he had pulled out.
As if the courtyard party weren’t surreal enough, Jeff has a tradition of having a parade through the market. Us Toobobs and several Malians set off in a line, the Malians beating water jugs as drums and chanting “Amerique”. I still am not sure whether it was the highest state of humiliation or hilarious. Probably both.
With the parade over, we returned for hundreds of pictures of every combination of people at the house. By then, a huge crowd of children had gathered, and some people, including Kirill, had started drumming on the water jugs. A couple kids came out and danced, which was cute (or possibly innocently obscene, in the case of one little girl). Ramata came and hung out for a while, too. The bucket o’ grilled ram was brought and we feasted on meat in the hanger. As cute as the ram was, I have to admit, the meat was very good.
That pretty much takes care of the 4th of July. Yesterday, we woke up at the crack of dawn (even earlier than usual, so pre-crack of dawn) so we could get ready to leave to see the elephants. We had hired the Land Cruiser again, the same guy who took me to Tongo-Tongo, since he is a very good driver. Somehow we managed to fit all eight of us in there, including the driver: 3 in the front, 3 in the back, and Abbie and I in the trunk. I personally think we got the best seats; we had a mattress back there and pillows and got to watch everything unfold behind us as we drove out into the bush.
And drive into the bush we did. We basically went off-roading, bumping over holes and ledges and splashing through rain-filled ponds. When we came across a village, we would stop and inquire as to whether the elephants had been seen lately. In that manner, we got steered here and there, but no elephants were to be found. I took a couple of naps in the back—there was the spare tire under the mattress, so Abbie was on top of that and I was in a Laura-sized nook between it and the window, perfect for napping. We drove around aimlessly until we stopped for a picnic lunch at 2 or 3. Everyone else ate leftover ram-meat, but I opted out, considering it had just been sitting in an unrefrigerated bucket since slaughter. Rather, I had bought some Laughing Cow cheese and attempted to remind my stomach what lactose is.
We hit the road again after lunch. All throughout the day, we passed a lot of villages of the nomadic Fulani people. They are lighter-skinned than the Dogon are typically nomadic herders rather than sedentary farmers. Eventually, it seems, one of the villages steered us toward the town of Boni, and there we picked up a guide who knew where we were going.
We drove a ways out of Boni and ran into a couple of hunters, who told us that there were four elephants in the vicinity. We picked one of them up too (bringing our total of people in the 4x4 to 10, two on the roof) and went out to find these alleged elephants. Not long after, we heard cries of “Niwa! Niwa!” (elephant in Fulfulde) from the roof. We stopped the car and sure enough, there was a huge elephant half-concealed in the trees in the distance. Following the lead of the hunter, we slowly and quietly approached the elephant, so as not to startle it. It was just in a thicket, eating some leaves, busy being huge and amazing. It knew we were there, and had an eye on us, but we didn’t seem to bother it too much. In the end, I got about 20 yards away, maybe less. It was completely magical. All of the sweat, bumps, time, and motion sickness of the hours before were made worth it by being there in the thicket with a real live wild elephant.
We stayed around it for maybe twenty minutes, then left it in peace and drove home.
People are moving back out today--Abbie and Minkailou left for Bunu in the morning and Seydou will be spending a few days at his village in Anda before coming back to accompany me to Tongo-Tongo. Kirill heads back tomorrow and we won't see him until the conference in Leiden, since he's going home to Russia for a month. Back to a little more of a quiet house...
Thursday, July 3, 2008
About Tommo-So
It’s time for a little bit about Tommo-So, for those interested. As I said before, it’s an SOV language, meaning the basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb. The phonemic inventory is pretty basic: stops /p, b, t, d, k, g/, nasals /m, n, ny, ng/ (for lack of IPA), only fricative is /s/, then we have /r, l, j, w/, and one sound that I’ve finally settled on classifying as a voiced palatal stop, but it’s slightly fricated. Somewhere between /dy/ and /gy/ and English orthography j. It’s a seven vowel system with an ATR distinction for the mid-vowels. Length and nasalization appear to be phonemic.
I’m still battling with the tonology, but some things have become clear. Adjectives, which follow a noun, erase the lexical tone of the noun, leaving it low toned. Numerals, however, do not. There are two ways to make compound nouns—either in a possessor construction, where the first noun, the possessor, erases the lexical tone of the second noun, the possessed, or a compound noun construction where the first noun loses its tone and the second retains it. For example, “bush duiker” is made up of the word for bush /òlú/ and the word for sheep /pédú/, but together it becomes /òlù pédú/. On the other hand, a kind of grasshopper whose scientific name is Acorypha glaucopsis is made up of the word for rain /àná/ and the word for grasshopper /kàká/, together yielding /àná kàkà/.
The verb tonology is even wackier. Verbs have lexical tone (all H or LH) but in most environments, the tone distinctions are neutralized or overridden by the tonal pattern associated with a particular suffix or tense. I still have to wade through that more to really figure it out.
Verb inflection and derivation is achieved mostly through suffixes, seemingly in the order Aspect-Tense-Negation-Agreement. The suffixes will also change the vocalism of the verb stem, though, so if the verb for “buy” is /EgE/ (E being open e), the past tense /be/ will change the second /E/ into a long /aa/. Again, these are just preliminary observations. I don’t pretend for an instant to have it figured out.
It’s an interesting language, though. A lot of intransitive verbs are achieved by a redundant-sounding system of verbal noun + verb, so you don’t just run, you “run a run” or you “sing a song” (more normal) or “think a thought”, like that.
So there are a few tidbits about Tommo-So. If anything else particularly fascinating comes up, I will be sure to share it.
I’m still battling with the tonology, but some things have become clear. Adjectives, which follow a noun, erase the lexical tone of the noun, leaving it low toned. Numerals, however, do not. There are two ways to make compound nouns—either in a possessor construction, where the first noun, the possessor, erases the lexical tone of the second noun, the possessed, or a compound noun construction where the first noun loses its tone and the second retains it. For example, “bush duiker” is made up of the word for bush /òlú/ and the word for sheep /pédú/, but together it becomes /òlù pédú/. On the other hand, a kind of grasshopper whose scientific name is Acorypha glaucopsis is made up of the word for rain /àná/ and the word for grasshopper /kàká/, together yielding /àná kàkà/.
The verb tonology is even wackier. Verbs have lexical tone (all H or LH) but in most environments, the tone distinctions are neutralized or overridden by the tonal pattern associated with a particular suffix or tense. I still have to wade through that more to really figure it out.
Verb inflection and derivation is achieved mostly through suffixes, seemingly in the order Aspect-Tense-Negation-Agreement. The suffixes will also change the vocalism of the verb stem, though, so if the verb for “buy” is /EgE/ (E being open e), the past tense /be/ will change the second /E/ into a long /aa/. Again, these are just preliminary observations. I don’t pretend for an instant to have it figured out.
It’s an interesting language, though. A lot of intransitive verbs are achieved by a redundant-sounding system of verbal noun + verb, so you don’t just run, you “run a run” or you “sing a song” (more normal) or “think a thought”, like that.
So there are a few tidbits about Tommo-So. If anything else particularly fascinating comes up, I will be sure to share it.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
A scorpion, a ram, and a whole lot of rain
Preparations are underway for the 4th of July. Seydou was sent up to a market yesterday and came back with our Friday meal, a big old ram who will live in our courtyard until slaughter. He's awfully cute--white with a black face and big twisted horns sticking out over floppy ears. I have done myself the favor of not naming him. It is very odd getting to know your meat before it shows up on your plate.
Last night was one of those unfortunate nights where I assumed it wouldn't rain and was wrong. Around 4 in the morning, I awakened to cold little splashes on my face. All of us not under shelter (Abbie, Seydou and I) scrambled to get tents and mattresses into places out of the rain. Abbie and I had Bug Hut 2 Village set up in the main room of the house, while Seydou migrated to the hanger, where Jeff is permanently installed. It was the first big rain we've gotten here. The courtyard was all mud this morning, and the streets still a murky swamp on the way over here.
The Palace needs some fumigating, I'm afraid. Another scorpion this morning, this time by the light switch. I might as well rename the blog Scorpion Watch with the luck I'm having. Luckily I have a long ritual before I go into any room to avoid getting stung: investigate the door; unlock the door: investigate the door frame; pass through the door frame; investigate the door curtain; pull it aside; investigate the wall by the light switch; turn on the lights; check out the rest of the room; proceed. Of course, upon seeing the scorpion by the light switch, I screamed like a little girl and had Seydou crush it. It took some crushing, though--shoe agains the wall just knocked it down, sending me screaming and scrambling away until the thing was sufficiently smashed and lifeless.
Also, electricity here seems to be on a rotating schedule of cuts, presumably due to the energy shortage. Our neighborhood is without power from about 6PM-10:30PM every three days or so. It seems like it would be better to cut electricity in the middle of the night, if they want to save power, rather than at sundown when all of the nasty invertebrates emerge. But what do I know?
I will be taking the next week to stop collecting new data and instead put everything I have so far into the computer. It is a long and slightly tedious task, but also good. With 130 pages of data, I should probably look at it before moving on to anything new. The current plan is to spend the next week doing that, and then go back out to the village late next week. I will post a linguistically oriented update in the next couple of days with any points of interest I come across.
Last night was one of those unfortunate nights where I assumed it wouldn't rain and was wrong. Around 4 in the morning, I awakened to cold little splashes on my face. All of us not under shelter (Abbie, Seydou and I) scrambled to get tents and mattresses into places out of the rain. Abbie and I had Bug Hut 2 Village set up in the main room of the house, while Seydou migrated to the hanger, where Jeff is permanently installed. It was the first big rain we've gotten here. The courtyard was all mud this morning, and the streets still a murky swamp on the way over here.
The Palace needs some fumigating, I'm afraid. Another scorpion this morning, this time by the light switch. I might as well rename the blog Scorpion Watch with the luck I'm having. Luckily I have a long ritual before I go into any room to avoid getting stung: investigate the door; unlock the door: investigate the door frame; pass through the door frame; investigate the door curtain; pull it aside; investigate the wall by the light switch; turn on the lights; check out the rest of the room; proceed. Of course, upon seeing the scorpion by the light switch, I screamed like a little girl and had Seydou crush it. It took some crushing, though--shoe agains the wall just knocked it down, sending me screaming and scrambling away until the thing was sufficiently smashed and lifeless.
Also, electricity here seems to be on a rotating schedule of cuts, presumably due to the energy shortage. Our neighborhood is without power from about 6PM-10:30PM every three days or so. It seems like it would be better to cut electricity in the middle of the night, if they want to save power, rather than at sundown when all of the nasty invertebrates emerge. But what do I know?
I will be taking the next week to stop collecting new data and instead put everything I have so far into the computer. It is a long and slightly tedious task, but also good. With 130 pages of data, I should probably look at it before moving on to anything new. The current plan is to spend the next week doing that, and then go back out to the village late next week. I will post a linguistically oriented update in the next couple of days with any points of interest I come across.
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