Joking Cousins

I'm surprised I have not blogged about the 'Joking Cousin' situation in Mali before, because it is such a huge part of the Malian Culture. In Mali, your name means everything. Take me for example, as soon as I got into this country, everyone was trying to change my name; 'Ashton Elmore' was not going to cut it. While in Mali, it is important to change your name to a local name, for the people to take you seriously, especially if you're planning on working with them. As soon as I arrived at HomeStay, my family gave me the same name as my mother. Her name is Ramata (pronounced Aramata) Samake. Over the next two months, that name was the only name that I was known as in Mali. I liked the name okay, except for the fact that EVERYONE in the village knew my name, thus everywhere I went I heard 'Ramata' 'Ramata' 'Ramata'...which can be extremely annoying (For all of you people wanting to become famous, move to Mali, its just like Cheers, everybody DOES know your name...)
My first name is rather insignificant though, the last names here are what is really important. On a regular bases my conversations would go like this:
'i togo?' (whats your name?)
'Ramata'
'i Jamu?' (whats your last name?)
'Samake'
....Now, the conversation would either end quickly when they said 'oooh Samake..A KINE!!' (which mean GOOD!!)
or...they would say "EH!! SAMAKE?? A MINE!!" (which means bad) ..and then they would say "i sho dun" which means....You Eat Beans!!
Now, in the beginning this was pretty funny, because it helps you work on your Bambara as you go back and forth insulting each other, but depending on where you are regionally, it can become somewhat  of a problem.
Not a problem is a 'dangerous' since, but for example, my old village had quite a few Samakes, so I didn't spend a lot of time 'joking,' however my new village has like zero Samakes, which makes for an exausting day with very little progress in the Water Sanitation field.
To solve this problem, I have decided to change my name to Ramata Sogoba, which I think is a good decision, because I will spend less time arguing about whether I eat beans, and more time talking about wells, and pumps, and water treatment lol*
Sogoba means BIG MEAT...hahahaha...so today my joke was 'you eat dog!'....if that person knew Tinley, he would know that that joke is in no way funny to me...lol*
Joking cousins seems like a strange concept to some people, but it is actually very beneficial to the people of Mali. Joking cousins has been a successful way of avoiding conflict throughout Mali, thus making this country a safe place to live, as well as visit :):):)*