Fulbright U.S. Student
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Learning Tommo-So in Mali

While learning another language can usually be a by-product of conducting research in another country, for me it's been the very heart and soul of my work.  For the last seven months, I have been writing a dictionary and compiling grammar for Tommo-So, an undocumented Dogon language from central Mali.  Writing a dictionary brings you face-to-face with words and expressions you would never dream of using in everyday conversation, primarily because such words don't exist in English.  You would never be speaking with someone mid-sentence and suddenly realize that you don't know the word for "to smear excrement on a cow's udder to stop a calf from suckling" (bɔdɔ para).

Language is a window into a culture, and through this dictionary, I have been able to peer into myriad aspects of Tommo life: from pounding millet, to burial rituals, to good ways to insult somebody’s mother.

The more I learn the language, the more I am able to give my village a glimpse of my life.  One night, as my host mother, Tepama, and I were sitting under a sky bursting with stars, we started to discuss winter in “my village."  Being from Minnesota, I told her that where I’m from the water “sleeps” for three months, meaning it is frozen.

“Don’t you have the sun there?” she asked me.

I told her we did.

“Does it not have any strength?”

Unsure of how to answer, I agreed that it must not have strength.  She seemed satisfied.

Laura McPherson, 2008-2009, Mali (second from right)

When the narration was finished, I plugged in my headphones to make sure that the recording was good.  My host father, the youngest of the men there, (he's in his late fifties), took the ear buds and placed them in the old man’s ears.  As I restarted the recording, I could see his clouded eyes flash and the hint of a smile crease in his already wrinkled face as his own voice played like magic in his ears.  The recording stopped and the earphones were removed.  Still smiling, he said, “Today I have seen things my grandparents haven’t seen.”

And I, coming from one of the most technologically advanced societies on Earth, could say the same thing.

To comment on Laura McPherson's article on State Alumni, please click here.

Reinventing Change, One Cell Phone at a Time

What struck me as remarkable was that this sign managed to reference Cali's history while also acting as a conscientious warning to pedestrians.  The fact that it exists on both levels is largely due to the collision between the formal and the informal economies in Cali.

Cell phone robbery zone sign, Cali, Colombia (photo courtesy of John Pena)

So as not to paint an overly exotic picture of the city, it must be noted that the reason for such a large informal economy is that, over the years, violence in the countryside displaced large populations into the city.  As the population climbed, the formal economy could only support so many workers, and soon an informal one developed.  That the warning sign in question is a by-product of this complex history is best illustrated by considering the subject of the sign - the ever present cell phone.

Cell phones were at first a part of the formal economy.  As companies democratized the technology, cell phones became more accessible and individuals began purchasing them and selling minutes on street corners, thus developing the informal economy.  Soon criminals began to see that stealing cell phones was a lucrative business.  It is for this reason that if you go to a corner to buy cell phone minutes, the phone is often chained to a tree or a wall to prevent theft.  It is from this context that the sign in question emerged.

John Pena, 2008-2009, Colombia ETA (center), with students from his creative writing seminar

This sign, in a way, embodies the complexity of change.  It reminds us that change doesn't have to be the grand and all-encompassing concept we have come to know; rather, it can be quiet, local and tangible.  In the case of this particular sign, it can be initiated with a brush, paint and a few minutes of one's life.

To comment on John Pena's article on State Alumni, please click here.