I am amusing myself by experimenting with a new bogolan pattern: Leopard skin! I think it is working, nearly... It is spread out to dry in my newly planted garden next to my house on the new land.
Meanwhile England is going up in smoke.
Reading with amazement, trepidation and incomprehension the headlines from the UK.
What IS going on? This is not a revolution, surely? Revolutions have some sort of ideology behind them. The downtrodden attack the fat cats. There are of course some who would argue that this is the case in Britain right now. The Malians would certainly not agree. 'What!!! These people have free schooling, free medical care, free food and lodging if they have no work?' my Malian friends ask me. 'Yes, that is right' I reply. "And with all that they go and smash up shops and steal? What is the matter with them? What sort of people are they?" is the attitude here.
I do understand a little more of it. I have lived in London and do realize that living on a Hackney estate, perhaps trying to find work, but never finding any, seeing the Hackney well-off middle class with their Gastro pubs, whole food shops and million pound houses just the other side of the road can engender feelings of complete exclusion from society.
BUT, it is a wholesome exercise to remember the Malians reaction. They are certainly not entirely wrong...