A storehouse of knowledge

Ramata’s father is such an interesting guy. He’s very knowledgeable—I think he’s done a little of everything. He’s part mayor, part pharmacist, part weaver, part farmer, among other things that I’m forgetting now. His French is excellent, which makes it easy to work with him, though he doesn’t understand why I repeat things so many times as well as Ramata does. That comes with time, I guess.

A couple nights ago we were talking about what a shame it is that the Dogon are abandoning their traditions because of Islam or other influences of the modern world, that even if you adopt new customs, you shouldn’t forget the old. He is a very introspective man, and I’ve got quite a bit of respect for him.

Despite raining fairly hard a couple days ago, rain did not leak into my room, which I took as a small victory. Yesterday it was quite humid, though, as all of those muddy puddles returned to the sky. Today is hot too, but not as bad. Just really sunny.

Today, M. le Maire and I went through the section of the dictionary on medicine and diseases, which was quite interesting. As I said, he works sort of as part-time pharmacist, so he was a good one to talk to about such things. Malaria, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, polio, diabetes, many kinds of headaches, a plethora of skin diseases… just going through the list was enough to make anyone a hypochondriac.

School still hasn’t started for Ramata. She goes there every morning, just to come back an hour or two later (after chatting with friends, I imagine). No one is really sure why. Maybe the teachers are on strike? Maybe the notebooks haven’t gotten there yet? Such uncertainty for the start of school would be unheard of in the States, but no one seems particularly alarmed here. Mildly annoyed, but not alarmed.