<--Alou Coulibaly, demonstrating my homework for my second lesson.After seeing the Festival in the Desert, my priority for coming to Mali and for staying in Bamako for a month (where I have a number of contacts and there are loads of musicians) was to find a calabash teacher.
In this context, “calabash” means one half of a dried, hollowed out, hard gourd shell which you place on a blanket on the floor; you then play the rounded top by hitting the shell with your fists, slapping it with your fingertips and sometimes using small sticks in between your fingers. You can hear the calabash in loads of Malian music; it has a variety of amazing sounds for just being a shell, including a deep, bass “thunk” with the fists and, with the fingertips, nails or sticks, an unmistakable thwacking or clickety-clackety quality. I've always been a fan of the sound of it and it seems like a practical and uncomplicated instrument to learn since I'm only here for another month.
Anyhow, I've been fortunate enough to have some English-speaking contacts here in Bamako who helped me track down a great calabash player and teacher, Alou Coulibaly.
I was a bit nervous and intimidated at the thought of my first lesson both because of my crappy French (wondering how it would go with such little vocabulary) and because I'd never touched a calabash before that day.
I have been renting a room from Boubar, the guy who set up my trip to the northern areas of Mali and who has become a friend. He has an amazing house which he shares with his Spanish girlfriend, Maria, and they're both great people. Because Alou lives on the outskirts of Bamako, he said he would come to “my place” for the lesson. I was planning on having our supposed three-hour lesson on the terrace of the house so as not to disturb Boubar and Maria but when Alou arrived, Boubar asked him where he would prefer to instruct and so we ended up in the living room with Boubar, Maria and two other of their friends watching and listening. That meant that I had to quickly overcome any timidness, just bite the bullet and dive in.
It was probably the most enjoyable lesson I've ever had. For starters, I was just thrilled to finally be playing a calabash. It went pretty well overall; Alou seemed pretty pleased with my first attempt. He took me through various different techniques and rhythms, playing with just the fingers, with sticks, with the fingernails, etc.. We were at it for a little over two hours when my hands became too sore to go on; I'm now sporting a nice variety of bruises and after Alou showed (and had me feel) all his finger calluses, it appears that what climbing does to my feet, maybe calabash playing will do to my hands (ewwww! Okay, hopefully not).
Also, I'd been wondering where and how I would buy my own calabash; I'd thought maybe Alou could take me to a calabash market in Bamako. But one of the two calabashes he'd brought for our lesson really struck my fancy, so I asked him if I could just buy it off of him right then and there; viola- now I have acquired a beautiful-sounding instrument!
I'm aiming to have a lesson every other day as long as Alou is in town (he plays a lot of gigs) and until he leaves for London in February. Despite Bamako being too big, noisy and polluted for my liking, there are a lot of opportunities here- and there's tons of music to choose from every night. I'm getting to know my way around, figuring out the cheap transport options, becoming familiar with a cute little market near the house and starting to feel more at home here- or at least part of the neighborhood. I've toyed with the idea of moving to a smaller city or town but there's a lot of music going on in Bamako at the moment so it wouldn't be for another week or more...
We'll see....
