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           A Home Away From Home for Displaced Northerners in Bamako

   by Anne Look

   After fleeing militant occupation in northern Mali, a renowned
   restaurant owner has brought his special blend of grilled lamb to
   Bamako. The homesick displaced northerners who flock to the restaurant
   daily say the food is medicine for the body, and the spirit.
   Bella Tandina works front and center at his small, smoky rotisserie in
   Bamako.
   He cleaves and carves the roasted lamb straight off the bone.  He
   tosses on some spices, a glob of mustard and a handful of chopped
   onions before wrapping the order in brown packing paper.
   He says that is the butcher's song.  It is in the local Songhai
   language, but its message is secret.  He says they sing it when they
   want to move the meat immediately.  He says whoever hears it will come
   running, even if he is not hungry.
   The regulars smile.  They are used to Tandina's dry, straight-faced
   sense of humor.
   Before handing over the order, Tandina holds out a morsel of meat that
   his customer, Abdourahamane Babi, dutifully nips out of the butcher's
   hand.
   Babi says he gives you a taste, otherwise you would devour the whole
   order before you get home and your family would be mad at you.
   Like Tandina, Babi is from the northern town of Gao, where he says
   grilled meat is a key part of their culture.
   Babi says there is nothing more beautiful in life than when the weather
   is good and you are sharing a meal of grilled meat and tea with your
   family and friends.  And for the best meat, he says, you have to come
   here.
   Tandina runs what locals call a "dibiterie" in French.  The grilled
   meat shacks are ubiquitous throughout the Sahel, but this one is
   unique.
   He calls his restaurant the Pharmacy of Health and himself, a doctor of
   meat.
   He says he created the rotisserie in 1984 and he is a doctor of his
   trade and an expert in meat preparation.  His food, he says, is an
   elixir and he knows the proper dose.  Everyone asks him for his secret,
   but he says he just replies that the secret is to eat well and you will
   understand.
   Tandina shows a well-worn photo of a northern delicacy he has prepared
   for presidents and dignitaries.
   You take a camel, he says, and you put a cow in its stomach. Then, he
   says you put a sheep inside the cow.  Inside the sheep, he says you put
   couscous and chicken.  And inside the chicken, he says you put an egg.
   The daily fare at the Pharmacy of Health is just lamb.
   Albadjahamane Tandina comes to the Pharmacy almost every day.
   He says they are 1,200 kilometers from home and this has become a
   meeting place.  He says seeing each other, sitting around to talk and
   laugh, boosts their morale.  They are trying to adapt to life in
   Bamako, he says, but they are homesick.
   Most everyone calls Tandina by his self-proclaimed nickname, "One
   Close," or "Dr. One Close."
   Tandina says he was looking for a way to explain in English that he is
   at the pinnacle of his profession.  It is closed, he says, there can be
   no one after him.  He is the best.
   Last year he won the first-ever "festival of dibi," a regional
   meat-roasting competition held in Bamako in December 2011.  So much has
   changed since then.  2012 has been a year of upheaval in Mali.
   The south remains locked in a political power struggle triggered by the
   March 22 military coup.  Al-Qaida linked Islamist militants control the
   northern half of the country.
   Tandina moved his business to Bamako in May, shortly after armed groups
   seized Gao.  Customers joke that they did not flee the occupation; they
   simply followed Tandina and his rotisserie truck.
   But in the more serious moments that are admittedly rare at the
   Pharmacy of Health, they shake their heads in wonder.  How did this
   happen?
   Modou Tangana says when he left Timbuktu in April with his family, he
   never dreamed the crisis would last this long.  Certain things, he
   says, are in the hands of God and cannot be controlled.  All they can
   do, he says, is wait.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/mali-restaurant-north/1505343.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/mali-restaurant-north/1505343.html