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"