For the last 700 plus years, the Malians have had one consistent joke. That joke is: “you eat beans.” Those three words are used in presidential speeches, to stop arguments, and almost anytime you meet someone new.
If you don’t already know, I took a Malian name for my stay here. My first name is Kadia (one of the wives of the prophet), and while I was at home-stay, my last name was Diarra. Now, at site, I chose to take my new host family’s last name: Bagayogo (which means blacksmith). I know that volunteers around the world probably use other names during their stay, but here in Mali, a Malian last name is essential to our integration because of the joking cousins relationship.
Depending on your last name (or ethnic group in areas where your last name is not as recognized), you automatically have a joking relationship with people with specific last names. For example, when I was a Diarra, I joked with Traore’s and Coulibaly’s. That meant, that as soon as I learned their last name, I’d call them a bean eater. Or if I heard a donkey make a noise, I’d say it was the cry of a Traore. Now, as a Bagayogo, in my village, I joke with Samake’s, although that is mostly because that is really the only other last name in Faraguara. When I am in larger cities, I have few joking cousins, but still get a lot of comments about being hard-headed, or being asked to make things for people (all going back to the blacksmith origins of Bagayogo).
It can get kind of confusing, but the best fall-back is always, “you eat beans,” or “you’re a bean-eater.” This is because Malians are very embarrassed by the idea of farting. If you ask a Malian if they’ve ever farted, they’ll almost always tell you no, they’ve never farted in their life. Beans make you fart, and farting is bad, so bean-eating is bad. Except Malians eat a whole lot of beans, regardless of what their last name is.
All of this probably sounds pretty funny to you, which is good. But here, no conversation can exist without a bean joke. This means I have been called a bean-eater, and called others bean-eaters thousands of times since I’ve gotten here. It’s kind of getting old for me. But yet, this is the same joke that’s been used for the last 700 years, and the Malians always laugh at it, always. And what’s even more impressive, is that they use it to end arguments. I’ve seen more than one argument that started out venomous, and ended in peels of laughter when someone said “you eat beans.”