"Doing Sport"

I love exercising in public in Mali.  Actually, they call it "doing sport," which I find hilarious.  I love it because everybody is always outside, so you walk by a TON of people, and they're all very encouraging.  For some reason, they think it is fantastic when the white girl comes out in a moo-moo to do sport.  Like, old men will stand up off their chairs and give you two thumbs up and walk for a little while with you, yelling, "Bien marche!  Bien marche!"...which I roughly translate as "Good walking!  Good walking!"  I mean, they're literally cheering you on as you do sport...what's not to love?

Yesterday, as I was doing sport an old man started cheering for me and I couldn't think of how to say "thank you" in any other language but Sunny.  So I said it and he repeated it and immediately launched into the whole string of Sunny greetings with me.  He was both shocked and ecstatic that the white girl doing sport in a moo-moo spoke Sunny.

Then I passed by our friend, I'll call him Kobe.  He speaks English really, really well.  Actually, we spent an entire evening one time where he asked me what all of these different words and phrases that came "from the street" meant.  Oddly enough, I knew most of the answers.  He asked if I was "from the street" in America.  I told him yes.  We also spent a long time talking about the NBA...this is why I call him Kobe, after his favorite player.  I tried to convince him about Dirk, but he was unimpressed since Dirk is both white and not originally from America.  (He's kind of infatuated with American culture)

Anyway, I passed him while doing sport yesterday, so I had to stop and chat.  He asked if I was doing sport to get slim.  I told him yes.  I told him I was also going to stop eating as much rice.  He said, "Yeah, girl, you gotta stop eating rice and just eat hamburgers!"  I told him hamburgers were part of the problem also.  Then he told me I needed to play basketball with him if I wanted to get slim.  Actually...they all thought I was kind of silly for wanting to get slim.  One of his friends that I didn't know said, "Everything looks alright just the way it is, from what I can tell!"  How sweet :)

Then Kobe noticed my iPod and said, "Oh, you listen to music while you do sport.  What are you listening to?"  I told him Usher...which made him and all his friends REALLY excited.  He asked what song so I let him hear.  They all got really excited and Kobe yells, "We gonna tear it up in da club to that song!"  Okay, Kobe.