Weird.

written Sept. 30, 2010
So today was a very weird day, a good day, but very weird. I consider all days that I make my way around the village and talk to people besides my homologue good days, and today I did just that. The first strange thing to happen to me was when I was at my host family's house for lunch. One of my host mom's friends was over and after lunch we were basically just hanging out. I'm only ever able to talk a little bit with them because my Bambara isn't that good, and neither is theirs since they speak Senufo.So anyway, I don't know how we go on the subject, but my host mom's friend, a young woman with a couple of kids (she's also the wife of the Secondary school's english teacher) told me that if she washed herself many many times it be possible to become my skin tone. I laughed out loud at this because I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. I had no idea how to respond to that in Bambara so I just said 'c'est pas possible!' (It's not possible). She just started to laugh too, and I said that her skin tone is good, and she pointed to my black shirt and said that my shirt and her skin were the same color. I told her over and over through laughs that it wasn't true, that both of our skin tones were good. A little later she asked me if when I go back to America would it be possible to take her baby girl with me hidden in my backpack, and once we get to America I could wash her a lot with American soap and then she will become the same skin tone as me. Again I burst out in laughter and said it wasn't possible. I tried to explain to them that their skin tone was good, and that there are lots of Americans with the same skin tone, my dad included. They didn't believe that at all, so tomorrow I'm bringing my photo album with me to prove that my dad has dark skin like them.
Today I also, without realizing, showed an inappropriate picture of my mom to my homologue's family and my Bambara teacher. This inappropriate picture was a picture of me with my mom and brother taken after church on mother's day. What it depicted was, gasp!, my mom in a skirt that didn't go past her knees! I have no idea what they said in response to seeing that because they were chattering at such an insane speed and also in Senufo, but I could clearly detect the shock in their voices. Once I knew what they were going on about I tried to explain to them that that was perfectly okay in America, and that women there often wear much shorter skirts than the one my mom had on. They went on to explain to me that a married woman would never wear that because her husband wouldn't allow it. Anyway, sorry mom, but a few people in my village now think you're a floozy :/.
The other weird thing to happen today was that these two teenage boys came to my house and told my homologue that they wanted to chat with me. I had my bucket and shower stuff in my hands when I walked past them and my homologue told me they wanted to chat. Hoping that it was going to be a quick question, I set my shower stuff down and sat in a chair in front of them. The first thing the boy asked me was if I was a Madame or a Madamoiselle. i always laugh at this question, I'm not sure why, but I answered Madameoiselle. Then he was like 'okay Madameoiselle we just came here to say good evening' (this was all in French btw), then he proceeded to ask me if I knew what AIDS was. I said of course and he went on to explain that he didn't believe it was a real thing, instead he felt it was a project brought to Africa by white people. I sat there in shock because I didn't know how to respond to that. The boy and my homologue took this to mean that I didn't understand what he was saying, so he asked me straight if I thought AIDS existed. I told them that I did understand and that of course it exists. He then asked me where it exists, and I said it exists in every continent, even the United States. He then asked me if I knew where AIDS began. I told him that I didn't and he said well if you don't know where it came from then how do you know it exists? Unfortunately my French is not nearly good enough to be able to discuss this topic adequately, but I did my best. I went on to ask him if he thought Yellow Fever was real, and he said yes, and then I asked him where Yellow Fever started, and of course he said he didn't know, and to that I said 'see it's the same thing. I don't know where AIDS came from and you don't know where Yellow Fever came from but they are both real.' I also told him that I knew of people with AIDS. I'm not sure I was able to convince him that AIDS is in fact real and not just a farce created by white people, but I hope I was able to make somewhat of a dent. I found the whole situation to be awkward because I don't feel as if I am all that knowledgeable on the topic of AIDS, and I never like talking about things I don't know all that much about. However I did ask them if they knew how AIDS was transmitted, and he said that it came from someone with AIDS getting cut and then the blood of that person getting on you. I tried to explain to him in my poor French that it can be transmitted through blood but not from something like coughing on someone. I also tried to say that it is transmitted sexually, but I completely forgot the word for sex in French, so I said it came from the thing a man and a woman do together in their bedroom. That was beyond awkward, and I only dug further into the awkwardness by trying to tell them about condoms, but again not knowing the word in French for that. For condoms I tried to use hand signals and said it was the thing in a box that a man uses. Thankfully the sun was going down, so I decided to use that as an excuse to leave that awkward situation and go take my bucket bath. I think they were all just as uncomfortable as I was so I think they were just as glad for me to leave as I was.