A Day at Home Stay

A Day at Home Stay

You wake up at six-o-clock (am) to the sound of a Muslim prayer being broad casted in Arabic over the Megaphone of the Mosque literally right next door and just outside your window. This is the 3rd or 4th time the prayer has been blasted in your ear since it started going off at four-o-clock (am) but you never attempted or intended to count or keep track of the gibberish that pierced your ears and has been ruining your sleep morning after morning. You are stinky, sweaty, and sticky from lying in your non-stop perspiration that lasted all night, you know that you will not be able to function until you get a bucket path, you grab your bucket, cup, bar of soup, and walk out of your hot air-tight cement cell to find seven Muslim men kissing the ground on hands on knees, deep in the prayer and meditation, you head for the water spigot to fill up the bucket.

You walk into the "Squat", a four walled cement room with a sky roof, there is nothing present but a hole in the cement floor leading down to the remains of decaying wast produced by several families. The stench has been accumulating in "rank" for Lord knows how long. You pray hard that your clothes don't fall onto the ground as you carefully balance them on the thin medal door protecting you from intruders. You stand naked in your sandals as flies begin to cover your body, you gasp for air as you grasp the soup, then cup, and then get to work cleaning yourself while also defending yourself from the constant relentless attack of the flies, you wonder how on earth the water makes you feel so cold in such a hot country, then you remember Peter Rhoads' cold tub and you find a moment of Heaven within Hell.

Back in the cement cell, feeling half clean, you share a single loaf of white bread with your wife for breakfast, maybe you have a cup of tea or coffee, you wonder how on earth you will stay nourished until you eat again at lunch, you study Tamashek vocab or maybe you play the guitar.

At eight-o-clock (am) Natalie arrives at the compound and she begins the habitual Toureg morning greetings with your host family, Natalie, Bess and you then say your habitual Toureg morning farewells to your host family and then walk out of the compound and down the street, Natalie and Bess exchange stories about their host families from the night before and then they exchange laughter, children gather the street chanting at you "Too-Bob-Boo, Too-Bob-Boo" (meaning white person), maybe you do something outrageous to make them laugh, maybe they follow you for a while, maybe you smell something rank or step in something foul, you definitely notice the trash everywhere.

You meet up with Susmita and find the way to your well-established seat in the classroom, Elmedhi takes a seat behind you and Abdalla takes the stage in front of the chalkboard, class begins... maybe you spend a couple hours transcribing vocab into your pathetic little notebook as Abdalla writes on the chalkboard, if so, you will later correct many mistakes because either Abdalla misspelled something or you made a mistake in transcription... maybe Abdalla writes a dialogue on the chalkboard and then you practice pronouncing it several times, if so, you will then be expected by Abdalla to have it all memorized because he then covers it up and asks you to pronounce it correctly and recite it from memory, you then try to explain to Abdalla that you don't have a mighty hypothalamus...

There is a short break of coffee, tea, and a little popcorn, you watch as someone falls asleep and you wish to yourself that their was more popcorn, or at least something filling, you would like to sleep too but you know that it wouldn't last long so it wouldn't be worth it, you begin cracking jokes and laughing in order to stay awake, back to class you go...

Abdalla teaches you grammar... he explains that all verbs are categorized in Tamashek by the number of consonants they contain, for example... all three consonant verbs are declined in the same way (not including the irregular ones of course) but each normal three consonant verb changes with each person you use, the verb also changes with specific types of pronouns, the verb also changes with the gender of the subject, and sometimes with the gender of the object, and of course the verb changes with past, present, and future tense, another words... when ever the verb can change forms... it will... memorizing one verb is like memorizing sixteen words. You eventually become consumed with confusion and everything becomes hilarious to you, you begin cracking jokes, everyone is laughing, it is the only way to keep the group from crying and wanting to run away, you feel deeply connected to everyone.

Twelve-o-clock, Noon, you walk with Bess and Natalie back home (passing the kids yelling at you "Too-Bob-Boo"), you say goodbye to Natalie in Tamashek and go into the compound to collapse on your bed inside the cement cell, you realize that you are sweating profusely and that you are very hungry and weak, you feel as though your Tamashek should be better and that you'll never be able to speak it... Lunch Time!!!... The First Real Food All Day... you eat with several men, a couples brothers, and maybe Akmad, all of you from a single bowl, maybe you eat rice, maybe you eat solidified moosh, and if you're lucky, noodle... you study Tamashek and speak little phrases with the host family, maybe play guitar, maybe watch a child get beaten by a mother, Natalie arrives and back to school (Too-Bob-Boo)...

Study at School... the same thing but everything is new... you are still confused... you are embarrassed by your mistakes... you experience some happy competent moments... more laughter... O.K. you cry in front of the girls too (but not really)... maybe you sit, relax and have a cross-cultural discussion... you leave school at five or six-o-clock (pm)...

Walk home (Too-Bob-Boo)... maybe you bike to the river, maybe you pass-out on your bed, maybe you bike to the store for something extra to eat, maybe you bike to the Internet Cafe, whatever you do, eventually you end up at home playing with the kids, watching people pray while kissing the ground, you study, you play guitar, you speak with your family in Tamashek, they laugh at you, maybe a child is beaten in the compound, you retire to the cement cell with your wife... maybe you watch a movie or listen to music on your I-pod, one thing is for sure, you are sweating and will do just about the same thing tomorrow...

All night until three (am) you hear the voices of three to seven men (the shop-keeper, the all-night-Taylor, and their friends) as they talk, joke, and laugh, maybe they blast their Boom Box, Yes!!! They really are just outside your window, you can smell their tea and taste their cigarette smoke as it comes through the window. Sweat Dreams Mate... when the men outside your window retire you've got one hour before the Mosque enlightens you with a prayer.

If there is one important thing that I left out of this daily description of Home Stay, it is the amount of tea you drink throughout the day. In America you might expect to receive a nice glass of Cold Lemonade on a hot summer day, you know, something thirst quenching, but here in the African heat of Mali the Toureg serve their guests Piping Hot tea right off the coals, they severe it to you Pipping Hot and supersaturated with sugar, served in a shot glass. This happens every time you walk into a new house, or perhaps when sitting in the same place for while... the tea is a constant stream... woman don't make tea... the Toureg men are very skilled at pouring the tea into small shot-glasses from ridiculous heights. Hot tea makes one feel less hot... isn't that weirdo...

O. K. Time for me to leave the Internet Cafe...