This and that...

Life is neither particularly exciting or great, nor disastrous or grandly and interestingly tragic. Life is just trundling along, which is why I have been  quiet. But of course I am a spoilt brat too- for really, I should be happy about my up-coming trip  to Mali again on Monday; about the fact that the Djenne exhibition at the British Library will be duplicated in Bamako soon;  about the new commission for another canvas floor I have had- in Cambridge this time in  a lovely little late 19^th century working man’s cottage which is being turned into a museum- The David Parr House. He was a painter and decorator that worked in a Cambridge paint factory, and his work inspired him to paint every surface of his house, which is is decorated  from top to bottom in lovely Arts and Crafts style, untouched for over a century. I am recreating a couple of floor canvases and have been working at home to prepare some samples.

      I  needed a stencil so I went to an engraving studio in Hatton Garden and had a stencil laser cut: what an exciting machine to watch and how beautiful to see the pattern emerging!

                                                                      

Then  a wonderful weekend in the north Oxfordshire countryside at the big lovely farmhouse of Imogen and Jasper- 

                                                                                                               

and finally on  to Mallorca to see dear Eva Emneus, who has now retired as ambassador to Mali- we spent five lovely days exploring that  beautiful island. So all is well... no, more than well really.

                                                                                

                                                                                

The Happy Girl

                                                                     

Jeremiah thought I ought to keep a a happy little girl handy as a counter weight to the disgruntled  tot below (given to me by Malick Sidibe in 2007) that I use to illustrate assorted  hardships or frustrations I am experiencing.

And here she is at the top, the lovely little girl Jeremiah gave me for that very purpose. She is from upper Cape Town, South Africa 1973, and the picture is taken by Juhn Kuus. Let's hope we have reason to see plenty of her in the coming months!

Today she introduces some good news: MaliMali is still operational in Djenne, and apart from our textiles  we are an agent /middlehand for some local women who make necklaces from recycled flip flops. When I arrived in Djenne in October I was able to give them an unusually large new order from Zingy B, a South African shop that has  been a good client for many years. Below is a small part of the finished products, ready to ship.

Niaber is a Bozo woman who has a little team of her friends making the necklaces in their back yards in between the household chores. They were thrilled to have some work again- the first in many months. 

I was able to give her an advance to  start the work when I was there. Since we have a long

 standing relationship with the South African client, I was not worried about payment. 

Niaber was so happy about it that she sent over a whole tubful of the delicious little whitebait style fish that she had just deep fried that evening- the lovely little fishes are called Tineni and it is one of the best things of this time of the year in Djenne..here below with Baba, my ex-waiter, who joined me for the feast.

A few days ago Dembele and Maman, the remaining Malimali staff in Djenne told me that Niaber had delivered the finished goods . I contacted the South African client and sent her the invoice which was supposed to be paid in full at this stage: a sum of about  £800 pounds which should be sent by Western Union directly to Dembele. I heard nothing. I sent more emails. More nothing. Finally I sent this:

"Good morning Leana,

I am very concerned that I have not heard from you. I hope you are well? Perhaps you are travelling somewhere out of internet reach?

Are you experiencing problems accessing the money? Please do let me know what is going on and we will try and find a solution.

Because we are dealing with people that are extremely poor in Djenne, - much poorer than you can possibly imagine- I now find myself forced to send out sufficient money to pay  Niaber and her workers unless you can pay today or at least let me know that you are sending the money Monday at the very latest.

looking forward to hearing from you today

Best wishes,

Sophie"

More of nothing followed....I believed I would have to step in and pay, I told Dembele and Maman to reassure Niaber they would be paid on Monday whatever happened. I even said a  prayer about this- because I can't really afford to pay for it all...

and then finally  last night I got this back:
"Hey Sophie Gosh!

Your mails went to my Spam Folder for some or other goodness knows why reason!

I just came upon them now by accident.

I will pay as soon as Western Union opens on Monday morning.

I will never not reply or not pay.

I have no idea why mails went to spam. I never look in the spam folder.

Regards

Leana"
                                                                         

The Honorary Consul.

Mark Saade is the Honorary Malian Consul in London. Born in Segou of Lebanese parents, he is a third generation Malian and runs an ambitious and very thorough Consulate it seems to me: certainly not much  resemblance to Graham Greene’s  whisky-soaked and wistful character here...

 I visited the Consulate yesterday: only a pleasant short walk through the lovely autumnal Notting Hill streets.                                                              

The Consulate doubles up as Mark’s architectural practice.  I was very pleased to find out that it is possible to get visas for Mali there. That is it then. No more queuing up at the dreary old Surete in Bamako, with the grumpy Madame Maiga whom my Keita always quarreled with when he used to accompany me to the visa place.

Mark is helping me to try and find sponsors for the Djenne Manuscript Library, so it can at least stay open. He will be going out to Mali at the beginning of December and will be present at the ceremony that marks the opening of the Bamako version of the exhibition which is now at the British Library.

He seems hopeful and has great contacts- here and in Bamako- so hopefully...

                                                                          

And last night our little Dante reading group finally  finished the  Inferno! It has taken us nearly a year to reach  the final line of the  final stanza  as Dante and Virgil emerge from the deep:

'to look once more upon the stars'.

We celebrated by seeing a beautiful film, the very first feature length movie ever made: the Italian 'Inferno' from 1911, with some lovely 'special effects': here the unfortunate lovers are swept around eternally by a great wind in the Circle of the Lustful. In the New Year we will begin to climb 'Purgatorio',  the sequel in Dante's epic poem.

Hyde Park

on a sunny autumn Saturday.

The light is bright and hard- the white of the birds on the blue of the water seem like exaggerated technicolour from the days of early colour films. Almost all the people that are walking here and passing me are talking other languages- Italian, French, German mostly. They are still here, but what crowds will walk these paths next year?  
 Everyone does look very happy as they are walking their dogs and children,  marvelling at the Peter Pan statue, taking selfies. A large flock of birds fly up between the trees and then change direction in perfect unison, how do they all know when to move? It must be nice to understand one’s place in the whole picture so clearly.

I read a very good article by Max Hastings  in the Times this morning about the Great War

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/sacrifice-of-the-great-war-was-far-from-futile-97nj8v7mm

but it may not be possible to reach it, behind a paywall, alas. It inspired me to try and find a poppy- not very easy to find the Poppy selling points!