Mali

Peanut butter in vegetable soup wouldn’t usually be my first choice. In fact, I hesitated, but Sheryll’s family is vegan and vegan recipes are hard to find. So last Saturday, we made two pots of the Tigua Dege Na (vegetarian stew in peanut sauce), one as the recipe is written and the other with carrots replacing the onions for Allan and Isabel. They weren’t just good; they were amazing! I also appreciated learning how to select acorn squash from the helpful produce worker at Stater Bros (all green but not soft) and how to peel it (Sheryll’s family eats a lot of squash and they were able to give me tips). I’m surprised to be recommending this stew from Mali, but I am: https://togetherwomenrise.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Mali-recipes-Dec-2011.pdf

Soup with peanut butter is not the only pleasant surprise from Mali. The manuscripts of Mali and the medieval trade of Timbuktu show an intellectual distinction that has somehow been hidden from many of us. I enjoyed learning about it for the first time in the “Empires of Gold” episode of Africa's Great Civilizations from PBS. The whole episode is interesting, and the sections on Timbuktu, the Empire of Mali, the trans Saharan trade, and Mansa Musa start at the 28 minute mark: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ujhce (it took me a minute to figure out to click on the picture to get the sound). Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s reaction to the books of Timbuktu is one of the best parts of this consistently excellent series to me.

To learn more about Mansa Musa and the literature and art of Mali, the Khan academy has two relevant sections:

· A lecture on Mansa Musa: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-4-regional/42-systems-restructure-betaa/v/mansa-musa-and-islam-in-africa-crash-course-world-history-16

· A whole module on the literature and art of Mali starting here: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-africa/west-africa/mali1/v/manuscripts-digital-preservation

I also enjoyed two much more recent books about Mali from the Los Angeles County Library, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer and A Gift From Childhood: Memories of an African Boyhood by Baba Wagué Diakité.

Another surprise for me was how many musicians I found from Mali. This might be explained by the documentary They Will Have to Kill Us First which I watched on DVD from the Los Angeles County Library. It makes sense that banned music will break out somewhere even if it has to be outside the country. Here are some samples:

· A family of bala players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_nXGhpodYk

· A concert of drums and bala: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfyU1p60aO0

· Ali Farka Touré: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mnAUe4c08o

· Oxmo Puccino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HmNXWuK3ck

· Salif Keita: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLLjQcyK4eU

· Vieux Farka Touré (the son of the other Touré): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41nL2v4SG9w

· Bassekou Kouyaté with the band Ngoni ba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVbxwLhCNSE

· Rokia Traoré: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpY060dYQgM

· Oumou Sangaré: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anlyCmh1GCY

For more about music in Mali, watch Mali Blues on Kanopy. Kanopy also has Yeelen, which tells an ancient story from Mali.

For tourism in Mali, I watched Along the River on Amazon Prime in which an Italian man kayaks the Niger river through Mali, starting at the Guinea border and ending at Niger. I also checked out The Crazy Tourist for the fifteen best places to visit in Mali: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-mali/#more-19426

It would be lovely if it were safe enough to visit Mali. I not only look forward to that time when we can travel broadly again, but I also wish for a time when we can survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Mali and throughout the world.

Photo Credit: United Nations https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/16992504601/