I'm Jim Cave, I'm in Mali and these are my notes

I'm Jim Cave, I'm in Mali and these are my notes

Monday, November 8, 2010

Tea Time

Halloween has come and past, November 1st marked the four months time spent here in Mali. This effectively means that I’ve spent a semester here and I’m still learning new things about this place everyday. Whether discovering a new trail that leads to a family that I didn’t know about, or how to properly harvest millet I’m starting to get the hang of this place.

This week marked the beginning of millet harvest, which is the largest and last crop coming out of the field in my village. People are noticeably more busy, but people still take the time to sit down and drink tea.

It would be pretty tough for someone who hasn’t been here to understand the importance of tea in the culture of Mali. Drinking tea is the national past time here, and people take it pretty seriously. Tea brewing ability is a skill that is prized and I am not the only volunteer that has attempted to improve there tea prowess. You might be thinking, “But Jim all you do to make tea is heat up water and put in the tea bag.” However, tea is way more than that here. First, heating up water is not nearly as simple as you would thinking. You have to light some coals and get them rolling. One technique, especially popular with the kids, is to grab the grill/coal holder thing and swing it around very fast with your arm fully extended. If you can’t picture that, YouTube Pete Townsend’s famous windmill strum on the guitar, remove the guitar/pick and replace them with a bucket filled with hot coals and you’ll get the idea. Second, all of the tea is loose leave (if it comes in a tea bag and you say “this is tea” they will look at you weird and tell you it is “Lipton”, not tea). Said tea is shoved into a small tea pot then placed along with the water onto the coals. Next you wait, from what I’ve noticed you pretty much just wing the length of time. Once the tea has brewed long enough you pour it into a second tea pot and add a shot glass or so of sugar to the tea (Malians love sugar). The second tea pot goes on the coals to heat for a while. Then the true skill is displayed. To dissolve the sugar the tea make pours the tea into a shot glass, the further apart the tea pot and the shot glass are from each other the better. You repeat this action a lot and serve the tea in a shot glass. That is the first round. You repeat all of these steps three times. I’m pretty sure the entire population of Mali is addicted to tea.

I'd have pictures, but the internet cafe lady is streaming some tunes and hogging all the bandwidth.

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