Week #38 An Encounter with the Master Fulani Griot Mr. Boubacar Hamadoun Farana

If you spend any time in a Fulani village you will quickly be exposed to a form of music called "Hoddu." Fulani Griots, called Maabudjos, make their living by traveling from town to town across the African bush with their small banjo-like instruments recounting village histories, showering praises on local chiefs, and reciting the tales of 18th century Fulani warlords. When it comes to Fulani Maabudjos the name Boubacar Hamadoun Farana's is at the top of the charts. A direct decendant of Fulani warlord Hambodedjo Hammadi's griot, Boubacar is celebrated for his knowledge of Fulani history, which he weaves together in poetry-slam style in the Fulfulde language. In some Fulani regions of W. Africa it is fair to say that he has stood alone at the top of the Fulani music charts for over two decades. I was first exposed to the griot music of Boubacar Hamadoun Farana in Southern Niger in the early 1990's. In the small village of Gueladio his cassettes were essentially the only "music" people listened to. During that time I purchased half a dozen of his tapes and did my best to make sense of his quick proveb-laden stories.

Jumping ahead almost 20 years... For the past several months I have been working with Bamako's Fulfulde radio station, FM Tabital Pulaaku, to help them repair one of their signal amplifiers, and they recently invited me into their studio to DJ one of their morning time slots. Talking with the station manager I learned that Boubacar Hamadoun was back in Bamako between tours and would be coming by the station.

After spending a good hour chatting we then drove him back to his home to meet his family, and made plans to meet again for a hoddu lesson. For a small fee he agreed to come to our home with his hoddu and make a custom cassette. Watch the top 100 for his next big hit!

Boubacar Hamadoun with his famous "hoddu" in the studio of FM Tabital (106.5 on your FM dial!) with Ali Sare and station managers Samasekou and Makka Ba.

FM Amplifier Repair at a crude electronics shop on the outskirts of Bamako. FM Tabital should be broadcasting at full power (500W) again in a few short weeks!

Live at the FM Tabital studio making morning announcements with Ali Sare.

"Pullo Bamako fini ton! Jam walli e maada!"

(Fulani's of Bamako wake up! Good Morning to you!")

Here Boubacar plays a short song for Gus in our living room. He recently returned from France where he produced his first CD. Although he has made hundreds of cassettes over the past 35+ years (Boubacar is now 53), they are copied locally so he gets no royalties for his work.

Here is a short video clip of Boubacar playing my hoddu to give you a sense of the music.

Email us if you would like information on how to order a copy of his new CD!
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Part 2: Another fun day rock climbing in Siby. Last week we brought a few of our Fulani blanket-weaver friends with us to rock climb. They are still raving about it (and recovering!)

Mamadou Sare and Maabel Drame make their way up the first pitch of a fun route named "Karamba Toure"

A very happy Ali Sare finishing "Karamba Toure"

A beautiful view of "L'arche de Kamadjan" looking west from the top of the first pitch of Karamba Toure

The prize of Siby! The two pitch "Chemin de Kamadjan" on the south side of the arch.

Starting up the second pitch

At the belay anchor just below the summit

Sunset under the Arch

Week #36 "Flat Stanley" visits Bamako and takes a tour of the Badalabougou market

This week we were paid a visit by the famous world traveler, Mr. Flat Stanley.
Because our kids have not yet been exposed to Mr. Stanley we needed an introduction:

http://www.flatstanley.com/

Once we got to know him a bit we decided it would be best to give him a tour of the nearby Badalabougou market.

Mr. Flat Stanley prepares for his journey to the market with a stop at a beautiful garden. So as to be sure not to insult anyone, his first stop after that was the "goro" table. Goro, also known as Cola nut, is chewed by many in W. Africa as a mild stimulant, and it is frequently given as a small gift to friends and acquaintances, and has a formal role in baptisms and festivals. Mr. Flat purchased several hundred CFA of goro to give to new friends during his journey.

Shortly into the trip we introduced Mr. Stanley to our neighbor Fatima, also joined by a Flat's friends Jenna and Jenna. After this we introduced Mamadou to Mr. Stanley and let him try his hand at blanket weaving.

Weaving can bring out the appetite, and Mr. Stanley quickly made his way to the "massa" rice pancake lady, and then onward to purchase rice and sauce.

He then topped off his lunch with a couple rounds of tea and did some shopping for watches.

It turned out that Mr. Stanley had never eaten a mango before, and he was quite curious about them. He then made his way to the bulk grain section of the market and practiced his bargaining skills for a few kilos of millet.

He was also very intrigued by the colorful array of pagnes cloth on display.

For a while we were afraid we had lost Mr. Stanley, but after a frantic search we found him looking over a selection of plastic cups. Realizing his tour would not be complete without a peruse through some of Mali's renown artwork, we made sure to show him a beautiful Terracotta statue from the Djenne region.

Bon voyage Mr. Stanley!

Week #35 A tour of the construction site

After eight months of preparation we have finally broken ground on the new campus!
Here is an architectural representation of the new school.

Site preparations include clearing and grubbing the land and then bringing in several thousand cubic meters of gravel (here red laterite).

In Mali you don't bring in a job trailer on a tractor trailer truck.... instead you build a "temporary" concrete block building.... making all the blocks by hand on-site first!


This engineering drawings shows the layout of the walls in the main school building.

Due to the poor soils we must excavate over 800 8-foot deep holes for the column footings. All of these holes will be dug by hand in extremely hard soils.

There are no concrete batch plants in Mali so all concrete is mixed on site. Crushed stone is not created by mechanical crushers, but rather by fleets of workers crushing BY HAND!

The aggregate and loading it into the dump trucks by hand! Needless to say, standing atop one of the 50 odd dump truck loads of stone that we have stock piled at the site is very humbling!

We recently completed the drilled well for the school's onsite water supply. Here workers prepare the base of a temporary water tower that will supply water for the massive quantities of concrete that will be mixed at the site.