A comparison of two cities: Bamako and Nairobi, plus some stuff on why I went to Bamako

Having just left Bamako after 4 days there, I thought I’d compare it with another African capital city, Nairobi; they each have their advantages.

Bamako is recognizably (West) African. Even modern buildings have African features in them, and that is rather nice. Nairobi tower blocks and shopping malls do not carry any sense of place.

The traffic ambles along in Bamako, part of a more laid back approach to life in general than the Nairobi hustle and bussle.

Central Nairobi is packed full of buildings and people, Bamako has more space.

Your biggest worry in Nairobi is the gun-bearing carjacker or thief; in Bamako it’s the malaria-bearing mosquito. I have a feeling the greater risk is from the mosquito.

The weather this week in Bamako was remarkably like Nairobi, temperate, but that’s an exception; it can rise to over 40C, and Nairobi, due to sitting above 5,000 ft, never does anything so uncivilised.

You can walk around Bamako at night; many parts of Nairobi it can be risky in the day.

Bamako, unlike Nairobi, has open sewers everywhere. Just make sure you don’t fall in one while walking around at night.

The Bamako International Forum on Multilingualism



As I said, I’ve just spent four days in Mali, attending an international forum on multilingualism, being one of 3 SIL representatives (pictured). The aim of the forum was to get academics, NGOs and politicians together to agree on a way forward in handling multilingualism (most Africans will speak two or three different languages every day). The main recommendation, which is based on multiple studies, is that children should do primary school in their first language, not in English and French, as is often the case. The studies even show that children do better in English or French if they start in their own language, which is a little counter-intuitive on one level [if you want English, get as much of it as soon as possible]. But it does make sense in that if a pupil doesn’t understand what’s happening in the classroom, they won’t learn much of anything. And it makes sense that cognitive skills are best learnt in the language you best understand.

The first two days were lots of presentations (many of which were a bit too general), with a final day of discussion of the documents to come out of the forum. The documents have a lot of good stuff in them, but also call on governments to implement university education in African languages; I agree, but only once primary education, and then secondary, can be done in two languages (local and European), and I’m afraid that when governments see that they will not take the rest of the document seriously. Also there was something about the survival of the planet depending on multilingualism. I don’t think such hyperbole is helpful, but didn’t say so in the discussion, as I felt myself to be somewhat on the periphery of the conference. But nor did anyone else say so. But when talking with others (even on the organizing committee) they agreed with my feelings of the documents going too far. Lesson, I guess: - speak.

How societies and governments deal with their languages is called language policy. Language policy has a great effect on how much people are likely to read their Bibles, once translated. If people think it’s OK to read their language, and know how to, the Bible is normally much better used. That’s one of the reasons why I’m interested in this area. But it’s not just that; it’s also that people whose language is respected, can properly be called citizens of their own country, if they have access to important information in their own language, and if they can get a proper education which then includes them in the life of that country.