Enjoyed some more “firsts” this week. Actually, now that I think about it, moving from South Florida to a landlocked, developing West African country pretty much means everything we do here will be a “first” for awhile–the first time we saw a pile of smiling sheep heads, the first time we rode with an armed soldier in a taxi, the first time we had explosive diarrhea. Ah, misty water colored memories. Here are a few more firsts…

My First Cut

I had my first haircut in Africa this week. I was worried about this particular grooming regimen because the only “salons” I had noticed were tollbooth-sized wood and tin shacks along the road with hand-painted signs that made them sound much fancier than reality, like “Le Salon des Cheveux Mal Coupée et Traitements Mauvaise Couleur” which translates to something like The Salon of Miscut Hair and Bad Color Jobs.

Inside these places I could only see dirt floors and a single wooden chair with a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, much like in an interrogation room. And definitely no AC. Or air, really.

So I let my hair get a little longer than usual, which I noticed in the morning when I labored to make my bangs stay flat rather than turn into Shirley Temple curls. It was obvious that I couldn’t put a haircut off any longer. Fortunately our teaching colleague Paul also needed a cut and offered to guide us to the stylist he used, a young fellow from Lebanon with his own salon. Now of course I’m picturing the tin shack without oxygen as we pull into a little courtyard and see a very Americany-looking salon façade, very smartly designed and featuring a sign illustrated with non-African heads with lots of flowing hair and pouty little lips. Inside it was like we were transported to a salon in Anytown, USA. There were ornamental wrought-iron chairs with fancy cushions, a big glass coffee table piled with fashion magazines, hair products galore, and a few Malian salon gals in trendy outfits and coifs gossiping (okay they were speaking in French so I couldn’t tell if it was really gossip, but the tone was definitely gossipy). There was also a flat screen TV showing Men in Black 2 subtitled in Arabic, so it wasn’t exactly like home but close enough.

The 20-something owner spoke a little English (“You want short, no?”) before he went to work on my hair like it was his last day on earth. It was almost all scissor work and he moved in Edward Scissorhands fast motion and, gladly, in a very precise fashion. My hair texture is as fine as fine can be, but somehow he was able to add more texture than I’ve ever had (though one of my students commented the next day, “It looks a little fuzzy.”).

He cut it short, really short, but I dug it. Next came the scalp massage that Paul said was the reason he keeps coming back to this place. I’ve never had a scalp massage and am not sure I knew there was such a thing, but now I’m hooked like a crack addict. That young Malian shampoo girl worked my head for 20 minutes like it was a glob of bread dough, at one point even taking a call on her cell phone while still using both hands on my scalp (Jamey told me another gal held the phone for her, so it was nothing alien or sinister after all). I’m sure that this vigorous massage caused my brain to develop more than usual and probably made my hair grow stronger. And all of this for just $11.

My First Midnight Music

On Saturday we went with a group of our colleagues for dinner at the French Cultural Center in Bamako, a pleasant little outdoor courtyard space with a metal detecting security checkpoint at the door. For the first time in 52 days we were in a space entirely filled with non-Africans. That was just weird and totally made us feel non-special so we ate fast to get the hell out of there to someplace where we would again stand out from the crowd. Actually we ate quickly because there was a concert next door we were attending by a Malian musician named Habib Koite. He and his band have toured the world many times, and he even played on Bonnie Raitt’s latest album. He is one of Mali’s most loved and most famous performers so we were psyched as ever to be attending our first Malian concert (see video below).

As we discovered when we started researching Mali a year ago, this country is known for its amazing musicians and really cool instruments like the kora, a 21 to 24 stringed banjo-harpish instrument that has a gourd body held at crotch level while you hold the neck out and away from your body (I know what you’re thinking and yes it does kinda look like that).

Also the bala, which is like a xylophone except made from many little gourds, and the n’taman (also called the talking drum) that is held up by your shoulder and played with one curved mallet and your hand and changes tone somehow. Finally we would see all of this in one fell swoop. Just one teensy problem though. This concert was slated to start at the exact time we are usually crawling into bed. And Malian musicians are known to start late and play for a loooong time. If there

was Red Bull in Mali I would have had a few (six packs) to prepare.

The auditorium in the French Cultural Center is a beautiful place (you know how those French people are about architecture). It was very intimate–we were no more than a few yards from the stage. Habib Koite made his entrance, head full of tiny dreadlocks and a smile that lit up the place. Then he talked and joked for a while. Kind of a long while. In French. When he would say something and the crowd would chuckle, we of course chuckled right along. “Ha ha ha,” I’d say to Jamey. “That Habib is quite the jokester” as I looked around to see if anyone could tell we were faking it. The crowd was an even mix of ex-pats and Malians, including some VIPs, such as the Minister of Tourism (who I’m guessing doesn’t have a whole lot to keep him busy in these post-coup days) and the French ambassador.

Habib started playing an acoustic guitar around 9:30 when I am normally entering into REM sleep and dreaming that I am flying over Paris or walking naked through a church. Thank goodness his playing was amazing–it took my breath away for a second and made me forget all about slumber. He sang with this deep, rich, throaty tone that almost didn’t sound real, and it gave us the chills. Then his band members came on stage one-by-one and started to play their instruments. Good so far—lots of action and interest and gorgeous world music (sort of a mix of African, jazz, and pop) to keep us alert. And it got better! On the second song a young lady popped out onto stage in traditional bazin dress and did African dancing to the music. I guess it’s redundant to say “African” dancing since she is African and she was dancing. Really any dancing she does would be considered African dancing now that I think about it. But nevertheless, it was a visual and auditory treat and the last thing I was thinking about was dozing.

But the music and the bantering with the audience in French went on for quite some time. Jamey’s head began to lower towards his lap during hour two (11:30 PM) and I found myself needing to bounce to the music in a very exaggerated way to keep the blood flowing and my tiredness from taking over. I was sure the people around me thought I was having some sort of attack.

There was a non-African woman in front of us recording the concert on an iPad, and annoying as that was, the bright light from that device did keep my senses alert. But as it got later even that couldn’t keep my very heavy lids from dropping and dropping. Finally near midnight Caroline, our school’s director and our ride, gave the “let’s go” signal and we snuck out the back. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that music and enjoyed this authentic Malian experience immensely. It was just really, really late with no end in sight. I’m thinking that concert could still be going on even now, 2 days later.

My First Assistant

For the first time ever, I received a fulltime classroom assistant last week since my student population has “ballooned” to 16. I’m the talk of the school for coping with this ungodly crowded classroom–which of course seems like a cakewalk compared to the 24 to 35 kids that were crammed in my classroom in Florida over the past 15 years. My new assistant is a young man originally from Ghana and with a great sense of humor. He is very Christian (he worked that into the conversation fairly quickly, plus he was reading Bible verses on the computer) which makes him a bit of an anomaly here in this very Muslim country. But que sera sera, I say. I was just happy for the extra help, regardless of which holy book he followed.

Now Jamey and I have not made any big announcements about being a couple, but anyone with a functioning brain could probably figure this out without much trouble–even a very religious person whose faith teaches them that we are sinning freaks of nature who will burn in hell. So I was wondering how long it would be before this became a topic of discussion with my assistant. Well, we made it to recess on Day 1 before the old “So can I ask you a question?” happened.

An Elton John song was playing on my iTunes, which I thought was appropriate. “Sure, anything,” I replied as I mouthed the words to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. “Are you married?” he asked.

That’s a tricky question to answer actually. After being a couple for 26 years we did travel to Iowa this summer, one of the states that allows same gender marriage, and tie the knot. So yes, we are married. However the federal government doesn’t recognize this, probably because preventing gay marriage is much more of an urgent and important issue than ending the war in Afghanistan or getting the economy back on track. Which means we still have to file income tax as a single people, losing all the benefits a married couple get. So I answered, “Yes and no” and decided that if he was going to be in my classroom all day he might as well know the whole story. I summarized (which just happens to be the reading skill I’m working on with the students) in the most neutral way possible. Throughout my explanation he continued looking at his computer screen, probably searching frantically for a biblical passage about stoning to death men who are married in Midwestern states.

A few minutes passed, a Lady Gaga song came on iTunes—sort of sealing the deal—and he said, “Now who did you say you were married to?” That was my favorite sentence of the day. But believe it or not we got along swimmingly for the rest of the day. I’m sure we are his first personal contact with an actual gay couple, so maybe we can rid him of the stereotypes he has about gay people. Note to self: Give Gaga, Sir Elton John, and show tunes a rest for a while.

My First Alcohol at a School

After that experience I needed a drink, and I didn’t have to go far! Our faculty was invited to the school library Friday afternoon to meet the new board members, and a whole table of food and alcohol was waiting for us. It’s odd drinking a beer in the very spot where I checked out some resource books on earthquakes just hours earlier. But I enjoyed it very much. And the brownies too because nothing goes together like beer and chocolate. The new board at our school is great, primarily parents along with a representative from the U.S. Embassy. As I imbibed I was chatting up a board member whose daughter is in my class. He and his wife–who is second in command at the American Embassy–are an Indian-American/Asian-American couple with two really smart daughters (stereotypically an obvious statement I suppose).

I asked him if his daughter liked my class. He said he knew things were going to be just fine when she came home the first day and said, ‘My teacher put a pen under his nose like a moustache and spoke in a French accent!” Hope they shared that one with the ambassador….