Chérif Keïta: A Professional Narrative

Abstract

Chérif Keïta:A Professional Narrative Dianna Bell "In Mande culture," Chérif Keïta explains, "it is said that your ears are older than yourself. Your eyes are often limited to the contemporary. But it is first through your ears that you will learn about events that happened centuries before your existence." This statement proves the importance of listening in the building of a personhood, mògòya, in the Mande world. Named for Cheikh Mouhammad Chérif (1874–1955), a holy man in Kankan (Guinea) whom Keïta's mother had consulted upon having trouble conceiving a child, Keïta grew up in the village of Djoliba (Koulikoro region of Mali) hearing himself called many names: "Karamògò" (teacher), "Sekouba" (big Sheikh), and "Karamògòba" (big teacher). Despite inheriting the nickname "Teacher," Keïta never envisioned that he would one day become an educator. He grew up in a compound surrounded by teachers, those who first taught him in the school of Djoliba and who, because they were often single men, chose his parents as their hosts or jatigiw in the village. Later, his father used his own money to build the first public school in his remote home village of Nana-Kenieba, thirty kilometers from Siby. When asked about learning French, Keïta laughed and said, "I don't think any Malian who learned French in school found it easy." Yet through these teachers, Keïta had extra access to help at home when he was working on mastering the French language as a young pupil. Owing to the Cold War and the closeness of Mali to the Soviet Bloc since the days of Modibo Keita, each high school in Bamako had to choose one of three languages to teach: Russian, Chinese, or German. His high school, which was also Modibo Keita's school, the Lycée de Badalabougou, chose Russian. In 1972, at the age of nineteen, Keïta left Mali for Belgium, which was designated for his training, with the goal of becoming an English-Russian translator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although his high school aptitude tests had put Keïta on the course to work as a translator, Keïta retained an interest in archeology and history. Eventually, he decided that he did not want to work for the Malian military government of the day and instead embarked for the United States in 1977 to study African literature at the master's level. Soon his interests [End Page 177] led him into a PhD program at the University of Georgia, and Keïta could see that life was leading him to be a teacher, a "karamogo," without his ever having planned for it. In retrospect, he admits that destiny had guided his professional choices. Keïta had a lot of decisions to make upon finishing his PhD in African and Caribbean literature. He felt uneasy about the critical discourse that surrounded the novels and the literature that he loved. The discourse between scholars, Keïta worried, had become too obscure and needlessly inaccessible, owing to unnecessary jargon and theoretical hair-splitting. He wondered what exactly he could contribute to the field and, more seriously, if he could have a satisfying life engaging in this type of scholarship. Ultimately, he would find his place in teaching and publishing about music, oral epics, and Mande culture in general. When asked what he does during moments of despair, Keïta reminded me of the importance of our ears and said that he listens to music, to traditional Malian music. "Music is a rich source of information about culture, and it's there also to counsel you. It tells you that times may be difficult today, but tomorrow will be better." Indeed, better times found Keïta, and in 1985 he joined the faculty of French and Francophone studies at Carleton College. The essays to follow, offered by his former students and protégés, attest to the striking impact that he has had as an educator. Professionally, Keïta remembers 1988 as a crucial year in his career. He received a letter from a man named David Conrad. Conrad asked Keïta to...