Music

The music in Mali is pretty homogeneous, and for those who know me, I like a little bit of everything. I'm finding that all of the music has the same sound. The same instruments are used, the chords that are used are all pretty similar and the singing can be pretty awful. There's just not a lot of variety. There are no slow songs, no sad songs, maybe this ties back to "showing too many emotions is a bad thing". However, there are so many different ethnic groups in Mali, that I question the lack of diversity. There are the Bambaras, Fulanis, Dogons, Malinkes, Tamashecks, Toureqs and I can't think of any more at the moment, but there are a lot. Maybe, once I'm allowed to travel, I'll find some different sounds.

The other day, I brought my speakers outside and shared some of the music I listen to. I have a pretty eclectic collection from various decades, with every sound, every genre and every mood in many different languages, but not Bambara. My family was quick to say that they didn't like some of the songs, but I caught them nodding their heads and trying to hum along with some of the tunes. Although they liked some of the music, they asked me if I had any Malian songs. I said no, and they wondered why, because they have American songs. I told them that they are no Malian songs played on the radio in America, and their faces looked kind of hurt.

Then, my sister randomly told me that she learned about America in her geography class. I didn't even know where Mali was until 4 months ago, and it only rung a bell when I found out that it used to be named, Sudan. But, even after realizing that, I did not have bounds of information on the country. Malians don't know that the rest of the world doesn't know them. As stupid as this sounds, sometimes, I look up as an airplane crosses the sky and I wonder if they know that they're over Mali.