Religion

I can hear the call to prayer at this very moment.  It has become so routine that I hardly noticed the blaring arabic chanting coming from the loudspeaker of the nearest mosque.  It is so normal for Malians to go to Mosque and do their daily prayers and celebrate muslim holidays and use the word 'Allah' that I forget it is actually Islam I am witnessing, and not just a weird cultural quirk that is unique to Mali.

Mali is 90% Muslim, though animism is influential enough to constitute most of the remaining 10% and skew a lot of peoples Islamic believes.  It is sort of strange to see groups of black people practicing Islam since the stereotype in my head of a muslim is a white arabic looking person.  Looking into it, I was surprised to see how far into 'Black' Africa Islam extends.  My first guess would have been that the Sahara desert would have been a barrier to prevent the spread of Islam from entering black Africa.  However, the maps below show that it is not the dryness of a desert the can block the spread of religion, but instead, the diseases of the tropics (exemplified by comparing the reach of Islam with the range of the disease spreading tsetse fly).  Islam was unable to penetrate the tropical areas of Africa, allowing for Christianity to take root in many regions of subsaharan African during the colonial era.  Mali, though considered subsaharan Africa, is certainly not tropical, and therefore, was heavily influenced by the spread of Islam.

Coming to Mali I had mixed feelings about becoming a part of a community that would probably be Muslim.  It figured it would be fascinating to observe, but maybe a little stressful to explain that I would not want to partake in Muslim stuff.  I was wrong.  Islam has been insignificant enough in my life in Mali that I have waited seven months to even write a blog post about it.

It is very noticeable, the Islam all around me, but like I mentioned at the beginning, the muslim stuff becomes so routine that I forget that it is Islam I am seeing.  When I greet neighbors in the mornings and evenings we give blessings to each other.  To me it is just a part of the greeting and not really connected to religion in any way.  My friend is suffering from a nasty snake bite and so I offer blessings of recovery whenever I greet her.  For me, using a blessing that translates to 'may God make the pain go' is the only way I know how to say 'I hope you get better,' and so again its hard to realize that the phrase has any connection to religion.  I see men in my village go to Mosque and pray, or pray outside there homes, several times per day (sometimes I see women pray too, but not often, and they are not allowed in the mosque in my village and during the mass prayers on holidays they pray in a separate area than the men).  But to me it is just a form of meditation I am observing.  When Muslim holidays come around and we slaughter sheep and eat good for a few days, I have trouble realizing it is a Muslim tradition I am partaking in and not simply a Malian thing.

The stereotype is that Islam is a religion of extremism, but in rural Mali I have found people to be very open minded towards people's personal spiritual beliefs.  It may be that in the western world we over exaggerate a muslims attitude towards religion, or maybe Malian culture is less intense about its religion than other Islamic nations, but either way, my villagers have no problem with me not being muslim, or christian for that matter.  I explain that I don't go to mosque.  And sometimes I explain that I'm not really even christian.  I say that I'm not anything.  It creates some laughs and maybe a little interest, but overall, no one really cares what I say when it comes to religion.

Lately I've even become braver about being honest with my religious attitudes.  I even tease my friends about going to the mosque.  Yesterday I was trying to determine if I should ride my bike into town today and figured that wind would be the determining factor.  So, when I saw my Homologue on his way to the mosque I told him to ask Allah if it would be windy the next day.  He told me I should ask, and so I explained that Allah probably doesn't understand English.  Such a comment said in America would be strange, maybe even offensive for some people, but when asked in Mali, by a white person speaking an obscure Dogon language, the result is a lot of laughter.  I like asking where Allah is and when they say 'the sky' I look up and tell that I can't see him; again laughter.  When asked about religion and praying I can usually admit that I am not into religion and that I don't know how to talk to Allah and that I never pray.  Sometimes I chicken out though and say that I do my prayers at home instead of in the mosque, because I get scared that people will respect me less or something if they find out that I am not religious, but they really aren't fears I should be at all worried about.  Mali is pretty opened minded towards white people and our strange behaviors.

I know religion probably plays a very important role in the way my villagers understand the world around them.  There are four mosques, they pray several times a day, they mention Allah always...  but for some reason I no longer really connect these actions with religion.  Its just part of the stuff that makes up Mali.  Religion, something I thought we affect my lifestyle in Mali greatly, I hardly notice.

Seasonal Migration

Different seasons have the power to dictate where one lives.  In the 21st century, choosing where to live is mostly based on economic factors.  In developing countries, like Mali, the result is a movement away from the country and to growing regional capitals.

When I first arrived in village in August the rainy season was well under way and there was plenty of work to be done in the fields.  Nearly all the villagers were home working on their families plots of land.  Though no money is earned for the village in rainy season, the families work 10 hours per day 6 days a week from June until October.  The food produced in the harvest will be stored in granaries, and is suppose to last a family all year up until the next harvest.  If crops fail, a village can experience malnutrition and starvation.  For this reason few villagers leave in search of work during rainy season.  They stay to do what they can to ensure their family has a successful harvest.  Unfortunately, no matter how many family members are working the fields during the rainy season, it will be the amount of rain that falls that determines whether the kids will go hungry before the next harvest.

By November the work in the fields is over and village work focuses on repairing and building houses and granaries.  The work is less intensive than field work, and so many of my villagers move away to earn some money for their families.  Some go to nearby Mopti to work in the rice fields, others go to Bamako (the capital), and some even leave the country entirely.

The rice harvest occurs after those of other Malian crops such as millet and sorghum.  Along the Niger River, extensive fields of rice require extra work in November.  Women and men, parents and children left my village to live near Mopti, on the Niger, and work the rice fields.  After a month, they returned with lots of rice.  Generally they would have stayed longer and had more work, but a lack of rain this year resulted in insufficient flooding of the Niger River to fully irrigate the rice fields.  A lot of the harvest failed, and my village will have less rice this year.

When searching for work it is the city that offers the most opportunity, and in Mali no city compares to Bamako in work potential.  Bamako is the fastest growing city in Africa and has a population of nearly 2 million.  Sikasso is the second largest city in Mali and its population is only 130,000.  The younger women in my village have mostly all left in search of work in Bamako.  The will be able to find work as house maids.  Hopefully they will be treated fairly by their employers.  Lots of men are also currently in Bamako since they are more valuable to the family earning a little money in the city than by helping out with work in village.  Some are barely teenagers, and have never been to a city.  Their adventure to Bamako in an effort to make extra money for their families must be terrifying.  

Even Bamako sometimes isn't the best option.  Places like Senegal and Ivory Coast are much more economically developed than Mali, and their cities present even greater opportunities.  A few weeks after arriving in my village, a friend left to go to Abidjan (Ivory Coast's commercial center) for work.  Others went with him and they met with friends who were already living there.  Most of the men in my village have been to Abidjan for work for at least a year or two.  It is the nearest somewhat developed urban center, and its opportunities for work are even more appealing than Bamako's.  However, I do not think that my village's movements in and out of Ivory Coast are entirely legal or safe.  One can imagine just how extreme poverty in Mali is, when its people are risking their lives to find work in a country that has been recently struggling with peace and stability.  

So many people have left that my village feels abandoned right now.  It feels like everyone my age is missing.  Those who left for the rice harvest have returned, but unmarried women and young men are in Bamako and my village continues to feel empty.  The village is much more calm without the youth around and it is easier to hang out and get to know people.  When the missing villagers return with the rain, it will seem strange to meet them again.  

My Peace Corps experience can be compared to a villager living in the city experience.  Those who have left the village for work leave loved ones behind and learn how to speak a new language.  The women in my village who can speak Bambara must have spent time in Bamako, while the men who can speak French probably picked it up while working in Abidjan.  Although Bamako is still in Mali, it has a very different culture than small villages, and adjusting to ways of the city must be very frustrating for someone from my village.  They make the adjustments though, and come to understand themselves better.  They realize that the world is so much more than they first imagined and that their is an incredible amount of human diversity.  It is these people who are most patient with me and the most sympathetic with any kinds of struggles I may have living in the culture of rural Mali.  They kind of know what I am going through.