An American Thanksgiving in Segou

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all! Our Thanksgiving was a complete success. My friend Steffen (a soldier in the German Army who's living in Segou for the next few years training soldiers) offered up his super sweet house for us Americans to take over for the holiday. He has an oven, a microwave, a fridge, a flatscreen tv, dvd player -- his house is hooked up. His girlfriend Danielle is American, so we decided to have a German and American Thanksgiving bash. Yuri, Steffen, Danielle and I were the main cooks. We begun at noon on Wednesday buying food at the market and then we were off to Steffen's house to begin cooking. We were preparing a surprisingly authentic Thanksgiving feast, given the limited resources we had in Mali. It also was the most raw Thanksgiving meal I've ever been a part of -- EVERYTHING was cooked from scratch. We bought two live turkeys (I stood by while Steffen's housekeeper sawed their heads off -- very bloody). We bought fresh ingredients for Green Bean Casserole (we had to create the french fried onions and cream of mushroom from scratch too). We bought a giant JE (the closest thing to a pumpkin you'll find in Mali) and made pumpkin bread and two pumpkin pies. We made a sweet potato dish and a squash casserole. We dried out loafs of bread and created stuffing from scratch. We made spaghetti, meat sauce and garlic bread. We made a banana cream pie, which was AMAZING. We made gravy from the turkey juice. And I even tried the mashed potatoes (which I still don't like!).

(Yuri and Emily cooking on our tiny stove)

(The feast)

(My pies)

The whole dinner was fantastic. Yuri, Danielle and I cooked from Wednesday afternoon until 2 AM, then woke up early and cooked until 7 pm on Thanksgiving. Steffen lives by two other German volunteers -- Arnim and Mamadou. They also let us use their kitchens and ovens for cooking. So we were running from house to house with the turkeys and casseroles and such in the African sun. Other Malians must've thought we were crazy. We were going nonstop for a day and a half. Then we feasted. About 20 peace corps volunteers and German volunteers showed up, and we had blast. We all ate until we couldn't stand up straight, then we watched Spaceballs. We had so much food left over that 10 of us came back Friday afternoon for turkey sandwiches and leftovers! My biggest claims to fame were the two pumpkin pies, the banana cream pie, the green bean casserole and the two turkeys (Yuri and I mostly did the turkeys). We all helped each other out, but we also had our own dishes that we took charge with. I'd never made a pie before (or a pie crust, for that matter), and I didn't even have recipe for the merangue that went on top of the banana pie, but they all turned out delicious. I can't wait to go over to Steffen's and bake some more!

(Dinner time)

(Kyle finishing his first round of food)

So although we were halfway around the world, America was representing in Mali! We had a great time. And I'll be thinking about that dinner for the next year!

Random Things about Mali

I haven't written in a while, so I thought I'd write some random things about my life here in Mali that have been collecting in my memory bank for the past four months. Hope this paints an even better picture of Mali for all of you! I'll write more next week about Thanksgiving (yes, us Americans are celebrating it over here -- we're even getting a Turkey!! Yahoo!). And to all of you -- HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Eat extra pumpkin pie for me! * Outstide of my friend Yuri's apartment, there are about 10 albino rabbits. Yes, rabbits -- the big kind (like Easter bunnies, except they have glowing red eyes...kinda creepy!). I didn't know rabbits lived in W. Africa, but I guess they do. When I asked a neighbor girl about them, all I could get out of her was that I could buy one if I wanted. * I found out that my homologue (Madame Coumare) and the family that lives below me have been wanting me to impose more. In Mali, it's considered rude if you don't go into people's houses uninvited (especially coworkers' houses) and demand to be fed and what not. They love showing their hospitality here. And the American definition of imposing and wearing out your welcome is their definition of showing that you like them. So now I've been going over to Madame Coumare's house for lunch and to just hang out, watch tv (cheesy Spanish soap operas dubbed in French), etc. * In Segou, you can buy a treat called "nonos." It's a little plastic baggie full of frozen yogurty-type substance. It's delicious. And since one scoop of ice cream at the Djoliba hotel costs 750cfa (approx. $1.50) and one baggie of nonos costs 100cfa (approx. $.20), the nonos is about the best treat I can afford. You bite off a corner of the baggie and eat it straight. Sometimes I bike home and, before it melts too much in the Africa sun, I put it in a bowl and cut up bananas or guavas onto it. A KA DI, kosobe kosobe!!! (Bambara for "it's delicious!") * Everyone you meet in Mali asks your name, and then your last name. If you're last name is one of their "joking cousins," then you have to get into it with them for at least five minutes. I can't really explain the joking cousins concept -- just that there are certain families who joke with eachother. It's kind of a cross between sports team rivalries and "yo mama" jokes in the U.S. It's all in good fun, though, but people get pretty into it. For example, my name is Djeneba Samake. If I meet anyone with the last name Coulibaly -- regardless if it's a 90-year-old woman or a 12-year-old boy, I have to say that Coulibalys are horrible, no good, etc. And they say the same about Samakes. They often will say that Samakes are their slaves, or that they eat beans (implying that they fart a lot -- very taboo over here!), or that they're donkeys. It gets very tiring when EVERY single person goes through this with you on a daily basis. But they never get tired of the same jokes. And after we rag on eachother for a while, we shake hands and laugh about it. Well, that's about it on the random things. Oh, last night I was watching the sunset over the Niger from my friend's roof, and a bird pooed on my head. Fun stuff. That's Africa -- you never know what'll happen next!! Haha!

HALLOWEEN

This past week I left my site for the first time since I was installed at the beginning of October. I haven't really had cabin fever, though, since my site is the second largest city in the country! But it was nice to have a change of scenery. Some of the other volunteers came into Segou last weekend, and on Monday we piled into a HOT, un-airconditioned, stuffy (did I mention hot??) bus and rode for four hours up to San, a different city in the region of Segou. Peace Corps has a "stage house" in San (only one of the two left in the country) where volunteers can stay while passing through. But they also sometimes go there to meet up with each other for a mini-vacation. They have a small tv and a dvd player there, so I got to watch some MOVIES!! Awwwshjyeah! I'd been going through withdrawls. Ooh -- and the day I left I went to the post office to see if I had any mail...and I got Maria's package! THANKS MARIA! So I got to take the dvds she sent me up to San -- I watched the Best of Will Ferrell (1 AND 2) and Old School. It was GLORIOUS! Ok, back to the reason for our trip up there -- Halloween. We had a get together at the stage house for Halloween. The theme for our costumes was "movie characters," but that kinda turned into "entertainment characters." I collaborated with Yuri and Miguel (who live closest to me) for our costumes. Yuri was Mario, Miguel was Luigi and I was Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros., and I must say they turned out pretty sweet. Actually, I was extremely impressed with everyone's costumes. Peace Corps has some pretty creative and resourceful people in it! For the materials available, people really went all out and produced some of the best costumes I've ever seen.

Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach

I bought the material for my costume and took it to a tailor (along with a fuzzy picture of the princess that I'd printed at the internet cafe). Within two days, he'd created my dress. It was awesome. I made my crown by cutting up a bucket and taping a yellow plastic bag to it, and I wore a candy necklace that was also in the care package I'd just recieved (thanks again, Maria!). Miguel and Yuri had their overalls made by a different tailor, along with our gloves. Malian tailors apparently do not know how to make gloves -- they were a disaster! I couldn't fit my fingers into half of mine, and the thumbs were literally only an inch long! Yuri's gloves only had four fingers! Oh well -- we tried...

As I said, a lot of people sported great costumes. We had a Marge Simpson and Lisa Simpson, along with a Troy McClure (you might remember him from such self-help videos as "Get Confident, Stupid!"). We also had almost the whole family from The Royal Tannembaums. I could go on...

Marge, Troy McClure and Lisa

The Royal Tannembaums

Michael Jackson and David Bowie

Halloween was a blast -- I got to be American (well, as American as possible in a sub-Saharan, third-world francophone country) for a few days. We even made ice cream and pizza pockets and watched Dumb and Dumber. It doesn't get more American than that!