Independent Study Project

ISP time is more than half over now. I’ve done 12 interviews with polygamous women in the Bamako area about what it’s like living with one or more co-wives. Some of the questions, for example, were about how they divide up the housework and time with their husbands, how they feel about sharing their husbands with another woman (or two or three), and what their relationships with their husbands are like. It was fascinating. After that, each woman took a marital satisfaction survey. Only four of the women could speak French or read, so I had another Malian woman help me translate and record the others’ responses. Here’s a quick summary about the women I interviewed and what I learned:

Averages
Age: 45
# of co-wives: 1.58
Age at marriage: 17.4
Age difference between husband and wife: 10.33
# of living children: 4.25
Marital satisfaction percentile: 56.61

Interesting Info
Almost all of the women divided up tasks in a rotation based on cooking. Each wife was responsible for cooking for two days, and on those days she was also responsible for cleaning the house, making the husband’s bed, and spending the night with the husband. After her two days, the next wife would take two days, etc.

Most of the wives were fairly cooperative and helped each other out in various ways. They also considered the children of the other women as their own children.

Besides that, the goal of my project was basically to figure out what factors influence marital satisfaction for women in polygamous marriages. Based on the interviews, it seems like the three most important factors are the woman’s expectations about marriage, the behavior of the husband (specifically if he is abusive and/or if he shows preferential treatment to one wife over another), and the nature of the co-wive’s relationship.

So, that’s that, and hopefully I haven’t bored anyone to death. It really was pretty cool getting to talk to all the different women and hear what they had to say. One even told me that when co-wives don’t get along, “it’s like two hippopotamuses in one river.” Pretty remarkable. Now, it’s just writing and presenting that are left. Only a little over two weeks to go!

The Grand Excursion

I’m finally back in Bamako after the “Grand Excursion” which included Ségou, Djenné, le Pays Dogon, and Mopti. I apologize in advance for the length of this blog entry, but we saw so many cool things that it’s hard to keep it short.

Ségou

On Wednesday, we drove about four hours to Ségou. There, we visited a huge dam that was built by the French in the 1930s. Thousands of Malians died during its construction. Although fishing near the dam is illegal, all the men in the picture below are doing exactly that. The surrounding community relies on the fish, so the law is rarely enforced and fishermen are all over the place.

Unfortunately, I missed the rest of the trip in Ségou because, on the second day, I couldn’t be more than five feet from the bathroom, and I developed some sort of weird rash on the back of my leg. On the up side, if there was one hotel that I would have wanted to be stuck in for several hours, it was the hotel in Ségou. There was AC in the rooms, toilet paper in the bathroom, and CNN in English between the hours of 12 noon and 8 A.M. Pretty posh. Anyway, a round of antibiotics seemed to resolve the bathroom issue, and the rash seems to be on its way out, as well.

Djenné

On Friday, the group moved on to Djenné. Djenné is situated on the Niger Delta, so the city looks a lot like an island after the rainy season, and we took a ferry to get there. First, we visited a tomb, which is shown in the picture here. The sign says, “Tomb of the young girl Tapama Dienepo, sacrificed to protect the city from evil spirits.” True story. Apparently, if you go inside the tomb, make an offering, and walk outside of it in a circle counterclockwise (or clockwise if you’re famous), Tapama will grant your wishes. I tried it, so I’ll keep you posted.

Then, we visited Djenné’s main attraction, the largest man made sand structure in the world, a huge mosque. According to a Malian, before Tapama was sacrificed, the mosque kept collapsing during construction, but after her sacrifice, the construction was successful. During the rainy season, though, parts of the mosque still wash away, so the town has to make repairs every year.

On day 4, we visited an archaeological site from 250 B.C. where we saw what remained of Old Djenné, which was bases of mud houses and burial urns. I don't know if you can see it, but there is a human bone sticking up in the middle of the urn in the picture below. Crazy.


Le Pays Dogon (Sangha)

On Sunday, we got in the car for the seven-hour drive to Pays Dogon, which was by far my favorite region. As we got closer to Sangha, the village where we were staying, I started to feel like I was driving through the real-life version of the Lion King, and we actually drove through a small waterfall at one point. It was really cool.

The next day we went out hiking at 6 A.M. to avoid the afternoon heat. First, we happened upon some old men, and our guide explained that they were diviners. They ask a question and then leave peanuts, which foxes find overnight. In the morning, they return to interpret the footprints of the foxes to find an answer. We continued our hike and we saw cliff dwellings which were just stuck in these little cracks in the side of a plateau. No one lives in them now, but people still climb up to them (I have no idea how) and make animal sacrifices. According to our guide, the only people that ever fall are those who "climb with bad intentions." I'm skeptical. We kept going and we hiked through a village where the Dogon people actually live. Two other students, Jen and Ruth, and I lost track of the group, so we had a sort of interesting experience running through village yelling for "tubabus." The Dogons don't speak any Bambara or French so it was a little tough, but we eventually found a group of French people who had seen another group of whiteys and we were reunited. Regardless, the hike was absolutely beautiful and the houses where the Dogons live are really cool.


That evening, we got to watch a traditional Dogon mask dance. This was by far my favorite part of the trip, and probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in person. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but they’re still pretty sweet.

Mopti

The last stop of the trip was Mopti. It’s the commercial hub of central Mali, but besides that, the only thing there really is to write about is the man who explained (in English) that he wanted to give us "a demonstration of the air conditioned trousers" he was selling. Sadly, we did not buy them. Shocking.

Probably the most notable part of that part of the trip was setting the alarm for four in the morning on the day of the elections and huddling around a TV listening to McCain’s and Obama’s speeches in French. The next afternoon, Malians in the market kept stopping us to tell us that they thought Obama was great and several offered us goods for the “Obama price.” It was pretty funny.

The next day, we made the long drive back to Bamako. It was great to see the different parts of Mali, especially because many of the places we visited were so different from Bamako. After a week and a half of vacay, though, it’s time to get down to business and start work on my ISP. I only have three and half weeks, so it’s goodbye traveling and hello polygamy! (Sidenote: I am currently watching Miss Congeniality in French. Génial!)