French Fries: the Gift from God

On the second day of my father’s big Malian adventure, we decided to wake up early to catch a Malian Catholic mass. My Southern Baptist father, who frequents a church in Lafayette where Jesus-praising, hand-raising music takes up 75% of the service, had heard from a plane ride encounter that the music at these West African churches was not to be missed. We headed to the big cathedral in town about 45 minutes before mass to make sure we'd get a good spot.

Despite the morning's rain, and what we thought was good timing, there was an enormous crowd of people with chairs on their heads waiting to squeeze into the double doors. Unbeknownst to us, this particular Sunday’s service had been aired all over the radio and television as Bamako’s official Cinquantenaire/50th Anniversary mass.

Even with Mali’s 90% Muslim population, you gotta remember Bamako is a densely populated capital. The approximate 10% Christian population still means serious numbers, especially when all of the other services are cancelled for such a special eucharist; 10% of Bamako was all heading to the same church to receive their week’s blessings.

Dad and I, the only tubabous in sight, squeezed into the back door and found ourselves a little breathing room standing behind the second set of double doors. With all of the women with chairs on their heads standing in front of us, there wasn’t much to see. With all of the ushers yelling at all of the women with chairs on their heads, there wasn’t much to hear either. Dad stood in a zen position with his back to the wall for a few minutes, closing his eyes every now and then to try to listen for any kind of prayer or music coming out of the main room. Got to hand it to him, he really did try hard to feel like he was at church, meanwhile I just felt like we were in the back of a big red carpet show crowd trying to peek our heads in to see the hot celeb, a.k.a. the preacher. I suggested we leave.

The streets at this point were flooded, and I tried to navigate us through ankle deep freshwater without getting us too close to the open sewers again. We made it to the town’s main market, and with the money that would've otherwise been used as an offering, we got to shopping for my nephew Mac’s birthday presents. We managed to acquire one fake Polo shirt to go with one pair of jeans stamped with grammatically incorrect English phrases, and then continued on our way.

At this point, hunger pains started to strike. I saw a vendor with a plate of custard apples -- my all-time favorite exotic fruit, not available in the states -- on her head, a much more welcome head hold than a 4-legged chair in the middle of a pushing church crowd. I bought one for me, one for my dad, and a few extra for the road; he surprised me by popping right into the "street food," although I'm sure he was regretting his decision later in his hotel bathroom. We kept walking for a few more minutes, and then dad once again hit his third-world wall when we saw two consecutive 3-wheeled wheel chaired individuals begging for money in the street. We gave them our extra custard apples, but evidently we'd hit our ceiling for new sights and stimulations for one morning.

"Taxi!"

Back at the hotel for our first meal of the day, Mali once more redeemed itself by offering "frites"/French fries on the menu, even at breakfast time. After a few tastes of that Malian street fruit, Dad needed to get back to his equilibrium with his favorite American vegetable: potatoes. It was at this point that his 2-day travel caught up with him, so I allowed him to take a nap under his mosquito net. A few hours later, he was again ready to take on this developing country and with my boss Claudia's two boys in tow, we headed off to the artisan/handicraft market.

Knees to dash in taxi traffic

The boys, Abraham and Andrew, warned us about the hassling and haggling that was to come. In return for their help and advice, Dad offered to buy them a prize of their choice, thus the beginning of a lasting friendship.

Big Jim, Big Abe, Little Andrew: BFF

At the market, we were immediately hit up by some Rasta necklace sellers, whom we quickly by-passed. Next came the row of wood crafts shops. Dad, being a lover of all things brown (you'd know this if you'd ever been to our house in Lafayette) immediately took to these craftsmen. To my surprise, he welcomed their chants to enter this store and that, to look at a hippopotamus which looked exactly like the last one. He even lit up at a good bargaining session, of course with me or one of the boys translating. We made some choice purchases, and moved along to the mask section, then to the jewelry, and then...

Checking out the brown crafts, meanwhile Dad finds himself another wide-hipped honey (sorry, Mom!)

The drummer man. He started following us around banging a shoulder djembe, and offered to sell it for a ridiculously high price. He then began dropping down the price like the stock market, and brought out desperation tactics, all while banging his off beats on the drum. Jim McGehee started walking faster, and faster, started wiping his forehead from all the sweat, and then hit that wall once more...

"Taxi!"

At this point, I'd learned that there was only one way to get my dad back into his groove in Mali: French fries. We had to get back to the hotel, and fast.

When we arrived, the two boys proudly placed their two new elephant statues on the dinner table and ordered themselves two Cokes. We McGehees put a rush order on the fries, and in the meantime sipped a few local Castel beers. The food could not arrive fast enough, but even though he had not been to church that morning, Dad still made sure to take a hungry minute to say his pre-meal Southern Baptist prayer. He made sure to pay tribute to that higher power for bringing his new best friends, Abraham and Andrew, into his life.

I had one of my own prayers that evening: thank you JESUS for French fries!

End: Act Mali, Scene II.

The Blackness

PREFACE:

My dad has recently become the proud grandfather to his second grandchild, Bach Franklin McGehee (congrats Bo and Jess!). He was feeling pretty lucky last week: two healthy, beautiful grandchildren living so close to him. He felt so lucky, in fact, that he planned a quick trip to Vegas.

Dad’s on top of the world right now, living the American dream. To bring him back down to Earth, though, I’ve got to rag on him a little. I'd stopped blogging to focus on my Public Health Analysis for school, but I've decided to bring it back to remind my Dad that he recently broke away from his American dream and lived through 10 days of his African nightmare (OK, not really a nightmare...maybe more like one of those creepy lucid nap-dreams we all have):

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“There’s so much...blackness here.” These words were James A. McGehee, Jr.’s first reflections upon entering Bamako, Mali. He was looking out of the window during the car ride to the hotel when he let this one slip. It was the perfect reaction from Mr. Mashed Potatoes and Gravy himself, fresh off of the airplane, taking in West Africa. I wasn’t exactly sure if he was commenting on the lack of street lights around the city, making it complete darkness at this hour of 10PM, or if he was commenting on the general tint of the population. Either way, I just left the statement in the blackness, and couldn’t wait to see how Big Jim would fare in his first role as a minority.

Once we’d gotten settled into the hotel, after whipping out that unforgettable new quote, I asked my dad if, after two days of traveling, he could handle going out to hear some music. At that point he pulled out one of his old quotes, an ancient Jimism: “This ain’t no dress rehearsal.”

Ever since he’d hit the ripe age of 50, my dad’s been using this quote like white wine to get my mom out to the hundreds of activities he has impossible amounts of energy to do: movies, concerts, UL football games, and those last minute exhausting trips to Las Vegas (OK, my mom doesn’t need THAT much convincing to go to Vegas). He uses it to convince friends and acquaintances to take those intimidating investment risks in business or race horses. He uses it as his reasoning for designing something like an underground movie theater in his Louisiana backyard. Now he was rightfully using it to let his daughter know he could handle a little more Mali before going to sleep that night.

I took him to Savannah, an expatriot favorite where we could listen to some local music and I could ease father into his new surroundings, by being surrounded by at least a few more white folk. While I tried to minimize his ethnic minority, I forgot about his debilitating anglophone/English-speaking minority. But even after 2 days on a cramped airplane, Big Jim was taking it all in stride, saying “merci” any chance he could (even though it did sound like more of a George W. Bush “mercy”). Plus, I was able to perk him up when I explained that “frites,” the French word for French fries, were available on the menu.

Unfortunately, due to the rain -- the all-encompassing excuse for everything that goes wrong in Mali -- there was no live music. In an effort to keep the night a positive experience, after dinner Dad suggested we take a short walk around the area so as not to waste our 20 minute taxi ride over to this side of town. A few paces later, though, he was regretting his decision; we had run into one too many open sewers. There was no escaping their omnipresence. I, myself, tried to use the rain excuse, “you only notice them after the rain!” but he had to get away from the black, gruesome canals closing in on him.

“Taxi!”

Dad was right, life certainly wasn’t a dress rehearsal. At that moment, though, I'd wished there could have been some kind of rehearsing to prepare my dad for the sights -- and smells -- he was to encounter here in Africa.

In Jim McGehee’s big performance of life, end Act: Mali, Scene I.

What's under that mosquito net, and hanging off of that miniature hotel bed? Could it be?

It's true, ladies and gentleman: herein captured is Jim McGehee sleeping under a mosquito net.