The mystery of Karim

 Karim, my griot/gardener’s assistant/groom/chamber’maid’ (yes, since the Mali crisis started most of the staff have had to fulfil multiple functions) is a very unusual person. No one understands him, but that is part of his strange charm. He came from Yangasso one day out of the blue some years ago now asking me to give him a job. ( see June 10, 2011 and June 19, 2013) Noone knows where he eats or where he sleeps- although I have my suspicions that he sleeps in the laundry room... He is infuriatingly  incompetent in many ways: he can’t see cobwebs for instance, and therefore never removes them. He has made it quite clear that he thinks I am making a frightful fuss over nothing concerning the rubbish disposal- he is the one supposed to burn things and put things in their designated places.

Sometimes I ask him to sing when we have guests. He is a griot after all, and that is the main reason why I took him on.   I thought it would be nice for hotel guests to be serenaded now and then.  When he sings he will get something more than usual of course- I will pay him something extra even if the guests don’t.  But he can’t be commanded- at least in this respect. ‘Will you sing for us tonight Karim?’ I ask hopefully. ‘Non’, is the reply more often than not. There is no point of asking him why. He won’t reply.

But he is not insolent or impolite at all. He is just very much in charge of himself. He is very ‘cool’ : that is how I think I would have described him when I was a teenager.  Sometimes he does accept to sing, and then he brings his red painted Kamale Goni and sings my praises all night long.