Ramadan and Independence Day

Hi all,

Happy fall! It’s the same season here, still wet and humid and hot. But I hear we have a change coming soon with a mini hot season and then a cooler season. You know I am looking forward to the cooler part. There’s no fooling anyone, I could never live in Arizona or New Mexico.
This last week marked the end of Ramadan as well as Malian Independence Day. Ramadan, which is a month of fasting and religious reflection in the Islamic religion, ended with a lot of feasting and celebration. During the month, there is to be no music or dancing, so the celebration of the end of fasting usually includes a big party. In my village, we had a lot of greeting through the day. People would go to see their neighbors and friends, bringing them blessings and sitting to chat for a while.

All of the women in my host family and their extended family cooked a large meal together during the day. There was lots of laughing and chatting and good smells. The women also painted their feet and hands with something similar to henna. The Bambaran word for it escapes me, but it is a very pretty art and is worn at almost any celebratory event. A lot of women also paint their eyebrows, the significance of which I don’t know. Some of them are very good at it, but the younger girls always seem to over do it. It is hard to take them seriously sometimes. Most families get new outfits for the end of Ramadan and they wore them proudly. They were very fancy, with special embroidery on brightly colored baazan, which is a special waxy fabric that holds the significance of a suit or evening gown in the states.

After eating dinner as one big huge family (think over 25 people around a bunch of different communal bowls) many of the older generations sat together to drink tea and socialize. The younger children, who had spent the day going from place to place reciting blessings and receiving small gifts in the form of small coins, were playing together in the different concessions and out in the streets, while the older kids and young adults really got down to business. They were singing and dancing, listening to loud music, both Malian, African, French and American late into the night. The next morning people were very quiet, as you can imagine.

Different villages seem to celebrate in much the same way, with some small variations. The circle of San has a much larger Christian population than most other parts of Mali at somewhere around 25%. Other volunteers who live in villages where there aren’t any Muslims or where the Muslim population is low traveled to friends’ villages to take part in celebrations.

Independence day in my village was sort of anti climactic in comparison. I did not notice any difference in the usual goings on. The only indication that anything was different was when my homologue, Alima and I went to visit the mayor’s office and he wasn’t there a fact that very much surprised her. It made me wonder, since I am in a small village, if the residents even knew that it was independence day. In talking to volunteers from other villages, it sounded like many of them celebrated the 22nd with town gatherings and more dancing or the delivery of speeches.

Hugs, kisses, and loves