Moussa Ag Assarid

Can’t write much today – my computer’s about to die and I can’t seem to locate my charger.  Whoops.

 

School was great today! I met a lot of new people in the school who live in the student residence where the majority of the students find accommodation during the summer.  I also learned that some of the students are currently in the “home stay program”, where they live with a host family that may or may not speak English.  The feedback from most of the home stayers is positive.   Today was the last day for Justus (tall German number two), who I have gotten the pleasure to get to know more than most of the other students. 

 

After class I bought some pants and two tree planters to, well, plant trees, and on the way home decided to take a shortcut through Parc Gruell.  Parc Gruell is filled with venders that are quite unlike the ones you see on every calle in Barcelona.  Every one was from the African country of Mali, and every one was as friendly as can be.  I learned about Mali today; I learned about its styles, its languages (which is officially French, but Bambara is most widely spoken), its religions (mainly Islam, along with the ancient religion of the Spirit of the Land), and its friendly people!  We are not ones to shell out Euros to every roadside retailer that we see – it’s simply not possible – but today I’m convinced we got our money’s worth.  As we were walking out of Parc Gruell, I saw a flyer with a man’s face on in, in a high-quality photograph obviously taken at a photo shoot.  Hey, he has the same bright blue ­turban as that guy selling purses over there.  Hey – he is that guy selling purses over there!  I took a flyer and put it in his face, not sure if he spoke English or Spanish.  He nodded.  He was the guy.  There was the cover of a book with several boys on the front printed next to the picture of his face. Was he an author? Yes.  And not only was he an author – he was an actor, too!  It turns out that he speaks French, his tribal language, and enough English to tell me about his life/book.  His parents died when he was young, and he and his brother started a school for other boys in the middle of the desert.  His book had been translated into three languages, and is going to come out in English, too.  After it comes out in Arabic, Italian, Catalán, and German.  I decided I didn’t want to wait that long so I bought a book for €10 and so did my aunt.  It turns out that his interesting life didn’t stop at authoring his own book, but on top of that he was an actor! He played in a French television series called “Louis La Brocante”.  What an interesting guy, Moussa Ag Assarid.  We requested a picture and book signing, like three kids in the same Barnes and Noble as J.K. Rowling, and of course, he granted our wishes.  When he signed my book, he signed with a symbol of a bird.  “My mother, her favorite animal was the bird.  When I sign my name I remember her.”

 

We passed on through Parc Gruell and encountered a tall, silly Malian who saw us admiring his hat selection.  When he found out we were from Teaxs, we became instant friends.  It turns out that he was far more widely traveled then the three of us put together, and he loved the Southern U.S. – especially Atlanta, Georgia. He assumed we loved country music (which we do) and we discussed all the famous contributors to the music genre that have come out of our great state. Actually it was more like the Malian telling us which great country singers have come out of our great state.  He even knew that Johnny Cash’s first wife was a Texan – pretty impressive.  In fact he is one of the few locals I’ve met that asked where we are from and didn’t reply, “Oh. George Bush is from Texas.”

 

Well I just got in from playing cards with my Grandpa for the last time until he and Aunt Hilda return to the good ol’ U.S. of A., and I sat down to write this and reflect on the day.  (I guess my computer decided to hold a charge after all.)  I am in Europe, yet I learned a lot about an African country today, a country I had no intention of ever knowing the name of, let alone its national language and religion (both things that we would never have learned had we not spontaneously taken a new route home). Lesson learned: do stray off the beaten path.