Sentiment ahead

Oh, wow, I love Bamako. On Saturday night I went to Paris-Bamako 2007 which is a music festival at the Institut des Jeunes Aveugles, where Amadou and Miriam got their start. They were there, as were a ton of other musicians – Toumani Diabaté, Cheick Tidiani Sec, and Tiken Jah Fakoly being the most famous. (Tata Pound was supposed to play but if they did, it was after I left.)

It was GREAT. When I got there someone was already playing, there were ‘tall people’ puppets, food stands, little neighbourhood kids who’d snuck in running around, etc. etc. I made friends with some of the little kids and we talked about the puppets, what my phone number was, why I don’t speak any Bambara, which member of the group kept farting, etc. One of their older sisters bought a sandwich for her brother and gave me one too – it was really nice, although the sandwich wasn’t. I miss Gabonese bean sandwiches! I had high hopes for the food but I had one sandwich with cold, scary gristle brochettes and no condiments; the one I was given – well, I don’t know what was in it – possibly some kind of cheap meat substitute. I gave the other kids most of it but had to choke some of it down. I was hoping for lots and lots of beignets but I think the organizers might have wanted to avoid having boiling oil on the grounds. There were ACRES of boiled eggs, oh the horror. I bought a couple of mangoes and then snuck to the back to try to eat one without witnesses– I tried to claw off the skin, was very messy and not very efficient. Then I gave the kids the other one and they ate it just like an apple. I am dubious (surely the skin will be sour and/or undigestable?) but will have to give it a shot.

Anyway, it was so cool. I spent six hours there just wandering around, listening to the music, chilling with my little friends. Since the entry price was 500 CFA (about a dollar) a LOT of people were there – lots of teenagers running around shrieking, a handful of grubby Westerners. It was very, very different from seeing Amadou and Miriam at Espace Blonba a few weeks ago, where the tickets were closer to $30, the audience was sparse, and we were all in red plush chairs. I’m happy to see them wherever, but the festival was infinitely more to my taste.

In the taxi home (it was in Faladié, across the river from chez moi) I was looking at the now-familiar sights, feeling so happy in this city. We drove along well-lit avenues with marble roundabouts; we drove through the main marché, quiet as a ghost town with all the vendors’ crates stacked to the side; we drove past nightclubs and little shops where men were clustered around TVs. We drove over the Pont des Martyrs and the Niger silently, blindly bore northwards under our wheels. It’s dirty and crowded and smelly and there are lots of beggars and hostile taxi drivers and I will never understand 95% of what’s going on – but there is so much beauty and humanity that I can feel joy bubbling up just thinking about it.