Birthday Cake and the Rainy Season

Dominike! -Niang’s description of Sunday’s in Mali was exactly how Sunday’s should be spent universally- going to friends houses, sitting around the courtyard to causer (chat), drinking tea, and sharing the Sunday meals. Spent another weekend of visits across the river. Before the CHAG meeting on Saturday, I visited Adama and his family, and then spent another Sunday at Fanta’s. On the cab ride over, the cab driver asked me if I was married. I’m getting used to the unabashed, personal questions constantly posed to me by complete strangers, but it’s still really hard to keep a straight face when I’m telling a random Malian cab driver about my husband.
Celebrated Fanta’s second daughter’s birthday. It seems like forward questions were the theme of the day, because as soon as daughter #2 saw me, she asked me where her present was, joking (but not really) that if I had forgotten, she would never speak to me again. It’s always hard when you don’t remember the name of one of your cousins, especially since last week I already used the let’s-practice-Bambara-and-ask-each-other-really-obvious-questions-like-our-names trick. It’s even worse when you have to sing happy birthday to your nameless cousin, but I tried to avoid that by just singing Bon anniversiare à toi without a name… I had picked up a gateaux aux raisins for the birthday along the way. Mama (daughter #1, short for Fatouma) and I tried to hide the cake in the fridge, but daughter #2 is well acquainted with every object in the fridge so it wasn’t long before she found the cake, and had swung it over her shoulder asking me where I found it.
I loved the start of the hivronage (rainy season) because it means that each morning you’re granted a few hours of cool weather before you realize that it’s just a morning thing and begin sweating profusely again. This morning I was comfortable for the first time since I’ve been in Mali but Fifi and Batouma were both shivering under their large fleeces. But even the rainy season has its downfalls, and recently discovered this weekend were the elusive holes in the ceiling right above my net. Not sure how I didn’t notice them until this weekend, but Niang promised to find someone to patch them up tonight. Listening to the rains at night is amazing- I never thought that the dust cloud that seems to perpetually float above the streets of Bamako would be capable of the torrential downpours that last for hours each night. The rains are spastic and unpredictable. Last night, after the usual prelude to rain- the five minutes of intense dry wind that seem to always be there to give warning to those brave enough to sleep outside under nets- it poured for about thirty seconds. The comforting sound of slamming against the tin roof over head was suddenly interrupted by a bizarre silence. It was as if some mistake had been made- the rainpour had been started prematurely and the weather conductor, realizing this, quickly silenced the anxious percussion, who finally couldn’t bear the excitement anymore, and burst, suddenly into a torrent that was even more forceful than before.