Big City Lights

It's a shock to the system. Wedged in a sputtering green bush taxi between voluptious women, gangly kids, subdued chickens and a film of sweat and grime, I crank my neck sideways to avoid the unfortunate . The crowds of people part just enough for the motorcycles, taxis, foot carts and the endless stream of green boxes to inch forward, then they close in again like an amoeba, a great pulsing, crackling mass of motion and life. Platters of pineapple and plastic shoes bob up and down over a sea of goats with fat bellies who are unaware of their impending glory as the main dish for the Muslim Tabaski feasts. The scene floods my senses, a hurricane-force storm after a long draught from civilization.

Last week I was riding my bike into Farakala to attend a training session for an upcoming health campaign to vaccinate children, when my phone rang. Startling, since coverage is spotty, and who calls me anyway? It was the Peace Corps headquarters - they wanted to know if I wanted to come in to Bamako to go to a function with the US Ambassador and Martin Scorsese. Um, well, I hesitated, I am pretty busy with the sorghum harvest, but I suppose I could carve the time out of my schedule to make it.

Huh?

On Wednesday I go to a screening of The Departed at the huge movie theater in Bamako, Martin Scorsese introduces it and talks about why he is in Mali - to work on world film preservation with his friend Souleymane Cisse, the great Malian film director.

Thursday evening (after a day wandering around market, stunning the Malians with the fact that a white person speaks Bambara!) I head to the Ambassador's house with the Peace Corps Admin Officer, adjusting my skirt and wondering if I will be hopelessly underdressed. Oh well, nothing to do about it now. The party is a swank cocktail social on the Ambassador's patio with an open bar and decadent hors d'oeuvres floating around on silver platters. My first conversation is with the US director of the President's Malaria Initiative, a $1.2 billion, five-year drive to fight malaria in developing countries. Next I meet the French ambassador, and then a few French filmmakers who are working with Souleymane Cisse and Martin Scorsese. Then Martin enters the scene and after a brief toast, the milling continues and I make my way to him, introduce myself, and we talk briefly about film school. I chat with Souleymane Cisse, he gives me his phone number.

Soon I become aware of musical accompaniment: Salif Keita, Habib Koite, Oumou Sangare, the heavy weights of Malian music are ten feet away singing and laughing, an informal tribute to Martin and Souleymane. Where am I? A few days ago I was in my mud hut chasing mice out of my extra mattress.

Life can be surreal and full of surprises. I don't know where this adventure is going, I don't know how my filmmaking aspirations will find their place in this sejour in the tropics, but everything seems to be connecting, concentric spirals of synchronicity and coincidence that appear to be going somewhere, sometimes I lead and I sometimes I follow. I think today I will go to the Peace Corps office and take my movie camera out of storage. It's time.