Cotton Picking

This last Monday, Jen and I went out to another volunteer’s village to go to a cotton picking party. The village was about a 40 minute bike ride outside of Bla, a town between San and Segou. To get to the village, Jen and I took a boshe out to Bla. Boshes are like big vans, always green, and usually decorated with some kind of religious or musically inspired graffiti style art. They pick up just about anyone off the side of the road and will drop them off anywhere. Of course this makes for a long ride of stopping and going, but we made it in decent time.

Unfortunately, as we got to Bla the sun was getting low. We met up with about 7 other volunteers to make the ride out to the village, and after about 20 minutes of biking out in the brusse, realized we were going the wrong direction. Luckily we found a donkey cart to lead us out of the wrong direction back towards the main “road,” and then a man on a bike to get us going on the right road, and finally a guy on a moto, sent out from the village to meet us and take us back in. In the meantime we “biked” through ankle deep sand, eventually having to push our bikes through. The ride which would later take us about 30 minutes on the way out turned into about 90 minutes of trekking through the brusse in the darkest dark. Luckily as tubabs, we practically glow in the dark and stand out a lot, especially as there were 9 of us parading through.

Needless to say when we finally got to the village, we were very ready for dinner, which was amazing beans and then fantastic pasta, and showers. There were about 17 of us all out to the village to help pick cotton, so I enjoyed hanging out with everyone, getting to meet some new people.

The next day we went to greet the pastor of the village (this was one of the few Christian villages in Mali, which are pretty abundant in the Segou region) as well as the dugutigis, since the village had two. Its not common, but I guess there was some discrepancy in the village political system a few years back and now they have two. The rest of the morning and the early afternoon we spent hanging out, playing cards, relaxing. At 4 we went out to the field to pick cotton. The walk out to the field took us a long time and when we actually got to the field, it was probably 4:30. It was so fun to pick the cotton with the Malians, who were laughing at us the whole time. Even with so many of us out there to pick, we were all pretty sure that we were less helpful than if the Malians had done it themselves. But we provided entertainment and got the experience of it.

That night, there was a pig roast (another plus to being in a Christian village) and some absolutely fabulous mashed potatoes, gravy and garlic green beans. Late in the night,, around 11:45, the villagers came to celebrate with us, bringing music, drums and dancing. A good time was had by all that weren’t trying to sleep through it! The next morning, we trucked out of town back to Bla, a ride that really was much better, and easier in the light of day. As soon as I can get some photos up, I’ll let you all know. They are pretty good!