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Thursday, October 14, 2010

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.



1 comment:

  1. this is so awesome. wish i could have been there! miss u terribly my amazing sister

    ReplyDelete

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These blogs are written on personal accounts and opinions of my near and far away adventures, so far. They do not in any way reflect the thoughts and opinions of the organizations with which I work.

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