Luckily, the world did not end.

The last couple of days have been slightly disorganized, but not necessarily in a bad way. Since I only have a week left, I decided I wasn’t going to do a lot of new elicitation, but rather go back through some data, fix places, prepare for my talk, etc. Ramata, it seems, has moved in, which is fine by me. Not only is it good to have her company, but also if I have a quick question, I can pop my head out into the courtyard and ask her.

We had quite a few people here, really. Abbie had her two friends from Bunu here—the little old village chief and a young woman named Fatimata. Neither of them speak any French, so we couldn’t really communicate, but it was fun anyway. Ramata and Fatimata really hit it off and would giggle with each other all day. One day I popped my head out the door and saw them painting their toenails in the courtyard. Quite cute.

A couple nights ago, I was sitting in the main house giving Seydou an English lesson when a bat came in and started flying around (not really that unusual). I’m not particularly afraid of bats, but the obvious solution was to hide under my shawl. Jeff yelled from the courtyard to turn off the light, which usually drives the bat back outside, so Seydou got up and did that while I stayed in the safety of my cloth enclosure. Once we thought the bat left, Seydou turned the light back on. Apparently, there was the bat, just sitting down next to me on the mattress. With the light, it got startled and flew away. Whenever I think about it, it just makes me laugh, the image of me in a ball under a hankerchief and the bat sitting next to me. Good times.

Last night, I was in the house with Jeff and Seydou when we heard all of this noise outside—yelling, drums, etc. Jeff thought it was a marriage, but when we went outside, it turns out that a lunar eclipse had started. According to tradition here, the world will end if the moon doesn’t come back by 6 AM or something, so you have to chant and make noise until the moon comes back. It was quite a neat lunar eclipse—not complete, but nearly. People are really convinced of it being some sort of sorcery. Jeff tried to explain that it’s the earth coming between the moon and the sun and casting its shadow on the moon, but they were skeptical. I guess it doesn’t sound any more plausible than their explanation. We’re just so indoctrinated with science that it’s hard to imagine a world outlook that isn’t based on it.

It’s rained a couple times in the last couple days—finally the rainy season is getting underway, maybe, for Douentza. We can hope for the farmers’ sake, at least. Anyhow, part of the ceiling in the AC room fell off with the rain last night. I guess this is a usual occurrence in the rainy season, so for every rain, you have to go around to every room and make sure there aren’t leaks or pieces of the ceiling missing. Ah, never had I appreciated a solidly built house before now. Apparently in Timbuktu, when a heavy rain comes, it’s actually safer to go outside, because if the mud bricks start weakening, the heavy ceiling beams can fall and kill you. This really seems to defeat the purpose of “shelter” to me. At any rate, our house here is “semi-dure” meaning it’s made partially of cement and partially of mud brick/wood.

Anyhow, Abbie’s guests left this morning and Abbie’s going to go to Koira this afternoon, the village she lived in when she was in Peace Corps. Perhaps that means it’s an opera night for the rest of us.