Malian Cultural Issues

Dos and Don’ts of Malian Culture. Let me share simple insights.

1. It is not necessary to talk during a meal.
2. Don’t wait to be invited to go visit someone, you are always welcome.
3. Eye contact can be seen as aggressive, so you do not look your elders in the eyes.
4. Do not speak while in the bathroom, and if someone is coming you have to make a noise to let them know the bathroom is occupied.
5. Females should not smoke in public, if they do they could be mistaken for a prostitute
6. In the morning do not greet someone until after you and they have washed their face.
7. It is acceptable for people of the same sex to hold hands, and 8. It is not appropriate for women to whistle.
9. Also women should never wash or hang their underwear in public, women do that inside or at night.
10. Women also wear this like belly chain bead thing called Baya beads, and to them theyre basically like a thong. Theyre supposed to be really sexy, and you wear them under your clothes and you're not supposed to let guys see them. They're supposed to be for your husband.
11. Volunteers call the icky finger. This happens when shaking hands; a guy uses his middle finger to rub the palm of girls hand, and this is a sexual advance. If this happens to a lady they're supposed to immediately pull back the hand and give the dude a death.
12. Never eat, greet, pay money, handle, receive something handed to you, hand something to others,or gesture with the left hand. The "dirty hand". With no Toilet paper they wipe with the left hand and rinse with a plastic tea shaped water kettle, but they do not generally clean the hand with soap. Basically, because of this you never do anything with your left hand. In Mali it is seen as disrespectful to hand people things with your left hand, to shake hands with your left hand, basically anything with your left hand. Just so you all know, I WILL have toilet paper on me at all times

13. Three course tea time is very important. Tea is a really big thing here, and a tea session will take hours. There are usually 3 cycles, the first cycle is really bitter but still good, and then the next two cycles get less bitter and more sweet. They also add mint. I really liked it. The whole purpose of a tea session is to hang out and talk, that's why it takes hours.

Personal Safety: pneumonic AVMDED to remember it we say, All Volunteers Must Do it Every Day), and this stands for Awareness,
Vigilance,
Mitigation,
Diffusion,
Escape and
Defense.