NES...CAFÉ

Quelle journée! What a day! It began with an early morning walk led by Ernest, a native Côte d'Ivoirian who is friends with our Senegalese co-worker Aicha. We had planned to meet at the national museum at 8AM to beat the heat. However, in the short walk for me and Bremen to meet them, I had already worked up a serious sweat bib.

We walked through my first encounter of a market, where it was a struggle to find an unopened bottle of water vs. an opened bottle that had been refilled for resale. Just past the market, Ernest led us onto a trail straight up one of the mountains in town. I was feeling super lame en route as I was chugging my recently purchased bottle of water in my badass Nike's, as mothers carrying loads atop their heads with children strapped to their backs easily made the trek in flip-flops!

I didn't take pictures on the climb but you can imagine the combination of these two:

Load on head:

+ baby on back:

At the top, families had laid claim to small plots of land that were lined in small black plastic bags. The children working in the fields would point their fingers and chant/sing in their native language, Bamabara: "TUBABOU! TUBABOU!", "White people, white people!"

Post-walk, Ernest took us for a drive through Kati, the neighboring military town. We all made a few purchases at the vegetable market there, with my plethora of onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. costing around 1,000CFA, or less than $2. On the way back, we stopped for lunch and a Castel beer at one of the local restaurants. They only offered one thing, chicken, and when I asked for some rice and Mali's infamous peanut sauce, they told me they did not offer rice. When Ernest explained to them that I was vegetarian, the hostess -- in a tight, knee-length skirt and button-down shirt and vest -- hopped on a motorcycle, against my pleas, and drove to the market on the corner to pick up some rice for me! Talk about service.

Later that night, Bremen and I ventured to "The Pirate's Club," as per Claudia's suggestion, for the Cameroon vs. Denmark game. Middle-Eastern men with Eastern European women hanging off of their arms did not make for good watching company, but we decided to stay for the free peanuts.

The next stop was "La Fête de la Musique," the festival of music, on one of the main drags. There were 2 stages set up, but the real party seemed to be in an enclave neighborhood where 2 guys on microphones connected to small amps were hyping up a crowd of what seemed like hundreds of children. When we walked up to them and started dancing, they surrounded us. We had about 7 Malian children's hands holding on to every part of each of our hands.

They followed us to the main stage where we thought authentic Malian music would be playing, and then more children ran up holding stacks of Nescafé cups. Instead of West African drums and chorus we saw make-shift rappers and scantily clad girls (surprising for such a modest culture) in Nescafé t-shirts pumping up the even bigger crowd of children and adults alike to cheer for the instant coffee brand. I realized that the kids were collecting the cups based on how many free samples they had gotten, and then it hit me why they were all so excited to yell back "CAFÉ" when the emcee yelled "NES"...they were jacked up on the stuff!

"Quand je dis 'NES,' vous dites 'CAFÉ!'" "NES...CAFÉ! NES...CAFÉ!"

"CAFFEINE"..."RUSH" is more like it!

Some good did come of the Nescafé debacle, which was learning the Mini Cassé dance. I encourage all of you to try it at home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG6eyHYX6dE