Babusi, Amadou’s wealthy Serrehule friend, comes over with his DVD player. It’s one of those ones with its own screen and a remote, even though the screen is so small you’d never be sitting farther than arm's length from it. We watch a soap-opera-type film in a language I assumed was Serrehule (but later learn is that language they speak in Mali that’s sort of like Mandinka but not at all really). Babusi is the only one watching who can actually understand what is being said, so he translates, sometimes.
It is one of those American moments Julia said once happened with her host family: No one switches off the film for dinner, everyone’s eyes remain fixed on the screen and food enters the mouth automatically.
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