Complications

The approach of Tabaski , or Eid El Kebir, is always an animal lover's nightmare in Mali with rams  being transported from the country side to the capital in their thousands, tied to the roof racks of buses and cars and shoved into their  baggage compartments  to be sold and slaughtered by the Pater Familias of Bamako (and elsewhere) on the morning of Tabaski in memory Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. It is perhaps the biggest feast of the Muslim year. I always find it a scary story, and I wonder why it is so important for Muslims? The utter, unquestioning submission to God? Why on earth would God want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? And why did Abraham not question it? A terrible story, which of course had a happy ending when God provided a sheep instead of Isaac, but nevertheless...
 And Tabaski is providing more complications than my theological questionings: it is slowing the project down. The new recruits are working away at the Imam Ben Essayouti Library already but in a provisional  way before their proper tuition takes place. This will not happen now until after this blessed feast, when the whole crew of six will travel down to Bamako to be taught digitization by the staff at SAVAMA, the hallowed  manuscript centre of Mali, led by the Eminence Grise of the Malian manuscript world, the 'Bad-Ass Librarian', Abdel Kader Haidara.
I went to see Abdel Kader this morning with some trepidation. It had not been the plan to involve SAVAMA in this project. If it had not been for the attack in Timbuktu we would have been on our way already, a totally separate entity, independent of SAVAMA. Now I asked their assistance in the training and after some discussion, Abdel Kader agreed to help us to get going by providing digitization tuition:  a generous  offer that I was glad to accept under these circumstances. So the staff is going down to Bamako but only AFTER the blessed Tabaski...
Meanwhile I am still at Eva's, but will soon leave for Djenné to tie up some loose threads at the library there and also to try and see what can be done at my clothing  and textile studio MaliMali which is still up and running...