As the days lengthen and the heat beats down ruthlessly on the fields of Koyan, with their time freed up by the lack of farming activity, more adults are becoming literate, more kids are learning English, and I finally feel almost fluent in Bambara and able to pull eight buckets of water from the well without resting. It’s a good feeling and sometimes I almost forget about the 110° heat – but not quite.
Having spent a year and 10 months in Mali, I’ve grown to love the joyfulness of the children, sitting under the stars at night with no TV – just chatting, laughing, and dancing, the heartfelt string of greetings that starts every encounter, business or personal, waking up with the sunrise and the roosters, learning to truly appreciate water, the excitement of the first big rain after six months of drought, and the way I’ve been incorporated into the community as if I had been born here after only two years.
At the same time, I’m ready to leave. I was raised to be an efficient, on-time, motivated, detail-oriented, cleanliness-loving, individualistic person and these traits don’t always serve me well in Koyan. I hope to take some aspects of Malian culture with me when I return to the States: the greater friendliness and openness, the value of family and children, the value of group consensus in decision-making, and the appreciation of and refusal to waste material goods and food, but I look forward to leaving many aspects behind: meetings that start an hour late, the attribution of all outcomes, both good and bad, to God’s will, a man’s ability to beat his wives, a mother’s ability to beat her children, a teacher’s ability to beat his or her students, polygamy, the seat of village power residing in a group of old men, resistance to improved health and sanitation practices, and, last but not least, my daily bowl of to, which does in fact taste more less like a foot.
Brotherly love
With so much family in one household, you've always got plenty of playmates.
