You know it's Hot Season in Mali when...

Recently my friend, Sharon, in Bamako started a discussion thread on Facebook by posting as her status: “You know it’s hot season in Mali when…” I think you’ll find the responses enlightening:
…you don't need a towel, you air-dry in less than a minute.
…you take showers with your clothes on so you can have the illusion of cooling as your clothes dry.
…your ankles sweat.
…even the Malians say, “Boy, it’s hot.”
…you are showering your kids and they scream, "No, it's too hot. Turn on the cold water." You reply, "This IS the cold water!"
…you can bend candles into any fancy shape you want.
…you wear a wet towel as a shawl.
…you refer to a day where it doesn’t hit 115F as “cool.”
…your clothes feel like they've been freshly ironed when you put them on.
h/t Sharon Goertz

We often hear the question, “How do you stand that heat?” especially when people hear that we live in one of the three hottest cities in the world, only 50 miles from the edge of the Sahara, where the temperature-in-the-shade can top 125F/51C. We want to cry, “We DON’T stand it. We complain a lot. We leave for the whole month of May. We do crazy stuff (see above) and it still doesn’t help!”

Nevertheless, I thought you might be interested in hearing about some of our coping strategies.

WATERBEDS: When waterbeds became popular in the 70s and 80s, someone decided they were the solution to a missionary’s problems in hot climates. I remember people telling us we HAD to get one. After all, if you can get a good night’s sleep, it goes a long way toward helping one cope with the strains of the day (which is true). So we got one. How do you say ***raspberry***!?!

I have since become convinced that this waterbed promotion was a conspiracy by waterbed manufacturers to advance sales. All their soon-to-be-dissatisfied customers were moving overseas, so they had nothing to lose.

The problem is that water tries to equalize itself with the air temperature. For a large body of water, like an ocean, the difference remains significant, so you can still have a cool dip in hot weather. But a relatively small body of water, like a mattress, quickly approaches the ambient temperature. Even if the room cools off at night, the warm water is contained in a huge rubber “bottle” which releases heat slowly – a month or more after the end of hot season, but certainly not in a few hours!

We’ve heard funny stories about people trying to cool down their waterbeds. One family bought blocks of ice at the local ice house, siphoned out some of the hot water, and refilled it with the ice water. A time consuming, temporary, and ultimately futile effort at best. They had to choose either to H.ave a Life, or play with the waterbed.

We used to soak towels, and lay on top of them, with other wet towels on top of us, wearing as few clothes as possible, with fans pointing at us. This worked for about 20 minutes at a time before the towels dried out (our humidity is less than 20% most of the time, so the air just sucks up that water!), and it made the bedroom smell mildewy much of the time.

Ironically, in cool season (Dec.-Jan.), the water would become so chilly that we shivered and were in danger of hypothermia (which is why waterbeds are sold with heaters in the States – who knew we would need one here?).

Finally we bought an inch-thick foam mattress for the waterbed. On top of that, we place a sheet, then a bedspread, then another sheet. This makes the bed sleepable in all seasons but defeats the original purpose!

SHOWERS: Did you notice how many people in the responses at the beginning referred to showers? Don’t be surprised if you come to my house and I answer the door dripping wet – if it’s not sweat, then I’ve just taken a shower fully clothed. It’s even more effective if I can sit in front of a fan afterwards.

SLEEPING OUTSIDE: We might have avoided the waterbed fiasco altogether if we had investigated how the local people tolerate the heat. Quite simply, they move outside to sleep at night. It’s even better for those whose houses have a flat, concrete roof to sleep on.

We have a locally made bamboo bed frame on our back veranda, with a thick foam mattress, and a mosquito net suspended on wires above -- although in the very hottest time we don’t even need the net because it’s so dry there are no insects. When it’s really hot we also bring a fan outside and go to bed in wet clothes.

FANS, SWAMP COOLERS, AND AIR CONDITIONERS: We have lots of fans, but when it gets really hot they just blow hot air. However, they aren’t too bad if your clothes are wet.

A swamp cooler is an evaporative cooler or humidifier, common in the American southwest, that blows air through water. We have a portable one which is helpful at siesta time. Some of our friends have mega-units which cool big rooms or even the whole house, but we haven’t made such an investment yet.

We don’t have a/c either, but Jim dreams of eventually getting a split for the bedroom. We do have it in our car though, which is nice when it works.

SWIMMING: There’s a great swimming spot on the river about 10 miles out of town and we enjoy going out there, especially when our kids are home. Not far from there is a rocky area with swimming holes and waterfalls which stay quite cool even in hot season, and we love to explore there as well. During Spring Break we sat on a flat rock under a waterfall which was a fabulous experience.

For years we dreamed of having a pool in Kayes, and finally a big hotel installed one. That has been a great relief as well, although it potentially has the same problem as the waterbed. It’s a relatively small body of water which absorbs heat. Last year the pool got to 98F/36C in hot season! This year, however, they drained it to make repairs before it got hot, so it was refilled relatively recently and has not achieved ambient air temperature yet.

VACATION: This is the ultimate solution to Beating the Heat: leave town. We save up all our vacation time and head west to the coast of Senegal for the month of May. Interior Senegal is just as hot as Mali, but the coast is quite pleasant (besides the obvious benefit of being close to our children). And in just 15 days from now, that’s what we’ll be doing.

But until then, I’m here today, gone to Mali…

PS As I was finishing this, yet another friend here, Tim, posted his Top Ten Reasons to Love Hot Season in Mali:

10. Working late at the office takes on a whole new significance - Free AC.
9. The Malians finally agree with you when you say it is hot.
8. If you have problems deciding what shirt to wear, no problem. You'll be wearing at least 3 today.
7. A chance to practice your Fahrenheit-Celsius conversion with big numbers like 41 or 46C (106F or 114F).
6. For those of us who have no hot water heaters, we can finally take a hot shower!
5. It's a great time of the year to do swamp cooler maintenance.
4. Everyday household tasks become an extreme sport.
3. Clothes have that wonderful "fresh out of the dryer" feel when you take them out of the closet.
2. The oven is automatically "pre-heated", and hey - most food is already pre-cooked.
1. A daily occasion to regale your facebook friends with complaints about how hot it is (just as they are expressing joy that it is finally getting up to 70F!)
h/t Tim Tillinghast

There's no place like home... but where is it???

           My son asked me recently if after 25 years in Mali, I’m more comfortable here than in the U.S. He was surprised to hear that America is still my comfort zone, for he feels the opposite.

I’ve been thinking about what factors contribute to both our feelings.

For me, the amount of time spent in Mali comprises half my life, but the formative half was spent elsewhere. By the time I moved to Africa, my personality, habits, and worldview were firmly established. Furthermore, it’s not as if I moved to Mali and stayed here. My missionary career has been punctuated by frequent visits back home which has maintained my attachment there and probably compromised my bond with my adopted homeland.

Also, I have lived as an American in West Africa. Although I have contact with Malians every day, I don’t live like they do. If you came into my house, it would be very familiar to you, with running water, flush toilet and the usual kitchen appliances. We have TV and our kids have a Game Cube. We only got regular electricity 11 years ago, but before that we had solar panels and batteries. Should I feel guilty for that? I don’t because in my case it has been the key to my longevity here. I don’t know long I could have stood “roughing it” in a Malian lifestyle. One friend compared this to running a marathon vs. a sprint. The sprinter puts in his all for a short distance and then quits, because he is finished. The long-distance runner must conserve his resources in order to arrive at the Finish Line. Short term workers may “go native” and immerse themselves totally in the culture. It’s harder for career missionaries to do so if they want to last. (I want to note here that I know career missionaries who are much more immersed in the local culture than I am, and I have the utmost admiration for them. I am simply stating my personal limitations.)

For these reasons, I am still much more American than Malian and look forward to retiring in the USA.

Benjamin, on the other hand, says he is much more comfortable in Mali. There are good reasons for this as well: his formative years have been spent here. The USA is a place to visit.  Even though he has lived there a year or more at a time, we have rarely returned to the same home and he never attended the same school a second time until he went to Dakar Academy. No wonder three of my four children have declared their intention to live and work overseas as adults. This is typical of Third Culture Kids.

However, I have to add, with all due respect to Benjamin, that the Mali he relates to is no more the Mali of the Malian people than mine is. He is a true Third Culture Kid, with elements of both American and Malian cultures in his make-up. He is probably more comfortable than I am in a village and he tolerates the heat better, but he grew up in an American home and enjoys all the trappings of our culture as well.

        Having said all that, I haven’t even gone into the whole thing of how MKs can never answer the question, “Where do you come from?” Should they give their passport country or the place they grew up; Mom’s hometown, or Dad’s? Because they have spent so many years at boarding school, my kids aren’t always sure whether to say Mali or Senegal.

Wednesday without Words... a day late

Living in the Third World does not necessarily mean doing without.

Wednesday without Words

The rare coat hanger tree.

Quote of the Week

"Until I went to the dorm, I didn't know that pancakes and waffles were breakfast food."

Benjamin Bowers, MK from Mali who grew up eating them for supper.

FAITH 'n' BEGORRAH...!

We had a faith healer in town last week. A very interesting phenomenon which has raised a lot of questions for me, both culturally and theologically.

He was here for three nights and on the second evening the stadium was Standing Room Only. It was such a mob that they basically had to cancel the meeting due to crowd control issues. Now, there are no more than 250 Protestant Christians in Kayes (pop. >100,000); perhaps a few more Catholics, but this was definitely a Protestant event. Everyone else is either animistic Muslim or Islamic animist (however you prefer to express it). So how did a meeting of a minority religion draw so many, especially since getting people to attend a Bible study or visit a church is like pulling teeth?

It's all about POWER. This preacher, Pastor Michel, has a successful healing ministry. That means he has power from Somewhere, and frankly, people don't care if it's from God or the Devil or something else, if they can get close to it or get a piece of it. This may seem strange to the western mindset, especially if you are not familiar with the Flaw of the Excluded Middle (a term coined from but not to be confused with the Law of the Excluded Middle in logic). The Flaw of the Excluded Middle posits that the Western world view has a blind spot that makes it difficult for many Western missionaries to understand, let alone answer, problems related to spirits, ancestors and astrology. The Western two-tiered view of the universe typically leaves out an entire dimension seen quite readily by people of non-Western cultures. We acknowledge the material universe, and those who are some kind of believer usually accept the existence of a high supernatural plane including God, angels, the Devil, and perhaps demons. For many non-Western cultures, however, there is a middle, unseen plane which exists in this world which may include spirits and ancestors, as mentioned above, as well as genies and powers which can (perhaps) be appeased by charms, spells and fetishes.
(For more information on The Flaw of the Excluded Middle see http://www.strategicnetwork.org/index.php?loc=kb&view=v&id=3263&fto=970& .)

Here in Mali the Excluded Middle is a vital part of life. We see it in the charms people wear and attach to their babies, or hang in their gardens. One of my friends has cowrie shells braided into her hair. You would probably think they were pretty ornaments, but I know they are jiginiu, "little hopes," designed to ward off evil spirits. She also uses cowrie shells to tell fortunes, which people take very seriously.

A few years ago the police in Senegal busted up a gang of burglars who had perpetrated a chain of house invasions against expatriates (including us) and rich Africans. The leader of the gang had over 50 fetishes attached to his body (some said to be effective at warding off bullets!) and the police were careful to cut off and burn every last one lest they help him to escape.

Some years ago a plane crashed in Timbuktu. Of 50 passengers and crew there was one survivor. She was taken to the capital to be hospitalized, where they had to put her in a private room (instead of a ward, which is all most people can afford) with a guard at the door. Why? Because if she was the only survivor, there must be something different about her, she must have access to some power or medicine, and if one could only touch her... So to avoid her being mobbed, she was sequestered. Another time people here in Kayes were hurrying to see a man who never went to the bathroom. Yes, I know that sounds funny, but supposedly he never needed to urinate or defecate, and since that meant he was privy to some supernatural power, people wanted to touch him or sit in the circle of his influence. (I told my informant that I was sure he was sneaking off to the latrine late at night, but she just laughed at me).

Certain people have powers as well, depending on their caste in society. The wives of blacksmiths are said to be able to do certain kinds of spells. Griots, the "town criers" for want of a better word, are also powerful. Even though pure Islam discourages such meddling with the occult, there are marabouts, who are basically Muslim shamans. (By the way, I recently learned the former president of Mali, Moussa Traoré, overthrown in the coup d'état of 1990, is not only out of prison and pardoned, but is pursuing a second career as a Big Time Marabout in Bamako!)

Pastor Michel is also in danger of being mobbed wherever he goes. Therefore, the Malian chief of state, President Amadou Toumani Touré (popularly known as ATT, just as we have called certain American presidents colloquially by their initials, such as FDR & LBJ) called the local authorities to arrange a place for him to stay and a security contingent of national guardsmen to surround and protect him. (Can you imagine Pres. Obama personally calling out the Guard for a Benny Hinn crusade?!?)

So even though Pastor Michel may indeed have power from God to heal, people do not come to him because they believe in his God or have any intention of converting to his Christian faith. They want to get close to POWER. And so they came in droves, most bringing their sick loved ones, but many attending just to be there and to see a miracle. I was told that mentally ill people were brought in from all the surrounding villages. Whenever he prayed for them, white birds rose up from the crowd, into the sky. Were their demons being released this way? Don't ask me (I told you I haven't figured out the theology yet)!

I don't yet know the statistics on how many people were healed and of what illnesses. I am told that a few people prayed to receive Christ. I hope it's true and I will be asking in a few months if any of them come to church.

Lest I sound too hard-hearted or cynical, I want to say that I have a great sympathy for the Malian people in this area. Most Malians are sick all the time. They have a poor diet and live in a dirty environment and can't afford medical care, so they often wait until their health becomes a crisis before dealing with illness. We had a conference in Kayes once, with pastors and their families coming from outlying villages. Every one of them sought medical care while they were here in the city; they were all dealing with chronic complaints to some degree. This was quite an eye-opener to me. So I can empathize with people's desperation to find a solution of some kind, even if it's one I do not understand or agree with.

As to the theological questions raised by this ministry, this has become very long and that will be the subject of a future post.

Interestingly, on the weekend after Michel's crusade, I visited a friend in the very neighborhood where the meetings were held. Yet I was greeted at the door of her compound by some middle school-aged boys who said to me, "Christians aren't welcome here. Christians are bad." So after the excitement passes, life returns to normal, and I'm here today, gone to Mali...

Quote of the Week

CICERO: No man can be brave who thinks pain is the highest evil,
     nor temperate who considers pleasure the highest good.

What do you think?