Distances

I had an idea of what one of the poorest countries in the world should look like based on commercials about starving African children and National Geographic specials about tribes out in the boonies doing incomprehensible rituals usually involving stretching necks, walking on poles, killing animals with spears, walking on fire, or performing some other unfathomable craziness. 

Sometimes, I see or hear about exactly what I thought I’d see and hear about—there are places that make crazy masks, in which people dance around huge bonfires.  There are some (to our ears) crazy clicky sounds.  There are children that show signs of malnourishment with incredible outies atop bloated little bellies and stringy limbs. People get sick and don’t have money to get taken care of.  A child in my village died a few weeks ago from malaria.  Kids are really dirty a lot of the time and wear some of the most incredibly tattered clothes I’ve ever seen (pants with the bum blown out, pieces of fabric, pants worn as shorts, holes in everything, with breakfast, lunch, and dinner from yesterday still on it—impressive really).  There isn’t running water in my village.  There isn’t electricity in my village.  These things make me go woah! I am way in the developing world right now, and that it is a gazillion miles away from the developed world.  The difference between that ING and ED can seem pretty profound, far more than a three-letter difference would lead one to believe. 

So I think, oh, this is a developing country! So many people (women specifically) can’t read or write.  Just last week, I spotted my host sister, who is 22, carefully tracing the letter H over and over again in a paper manual, with her tongue between her teeth in a look of deep concentration.  Needless to stay, I lavished applause and pride on her for learning how to write.  My 12-year-old sister also somehow always seems to evade attending school.  When questioned why, she either tells me that she has to help cook, it's a holiday, or just laughs and looks at me, and I assume I must have missed something and drop it.  Hmmm.  Ok, yes, developing.

But, then that same 12 year sister is spouting all the numbers in French, a few of my brothers speak worthy spatterings of English, and by god everybody knows who Barack Obama is (not only know his name, but sport shirts with his face and ‘Obama girl’ inscribed on them; eat cookies called “Obama Bisiki”; and ask if I live near the white house). 

I also saw that same sister who was meticulously practicing her Hs with the light from her cell phone shining out in my compound at 8 o’clock at night as she and my host mom’s huddled over it watching some, from what I could deduce, Malian soap opera on the internet.  She’s not the only one with a phone--everyone’s got one it seems.  

Further evidence of my proximity to civilization is, for one thing, the proximity of a cold soda, which is just a bike ride away.  Many women wear make-up and get henna tattoos.  Most families seem to have flashlights.  Kids do eat three meals a day, at least in my village.  Everyone in my village lives in a house of some kind.  There are many, many ways to make not having running water no big thing (I personally am now a bigger fan of bucket baths than conventional showers).  People have some really spectacular clothes that they wear for holidays and pretty cool clothes that they wear day to day.  Even kids get sweet braids and new threads for holidays and dress reasonably well if they go to school and such.  They all have shoes.  There are many professionals and business people in Mali.  Bamako is a bustling capital, no doubt about that, where everyone zips around on scooters and motorcycles and where markets, restaurants, and music abound. 

So maybe I’m closer to the modern world than I thought.

I feel the distance between the two worlds as a very Toubab (white) lady in a very West African place sometimes though.  I feel high maintenance frequently, which is just downright frustrating as one who has before prided myself on my flexibility and necessity for little.  Now all the sudden I need shots so I don’t die, my family has to be super duper careful about everything they cook for me, I have to have a special water filter where I get my special drinking water; I have to bleach all my vegetables, I have fancy sandles with buckles and colors, I have a watch and earrings, I have a bicycle that I whiz around town on (and that, more importantly, actually fits me—I saw a five year old riding a bike the other day that was clearly made for someone at least 6 feet tall—it was a little comical, he had to ride really fast not to tip over), I have to have a special room with a special lock, a mosquito net to rest my fragile body under at night with a mattress and pillow, I have a frickin’ loofah to scrub my self with--I mean come on.   

I know, I know, from America, you’re thinking Uh, duh, of course you have to have those things so you can have your basic needs met.  I know I know I know.  But man do I feel overly privileged and rather pampered.  I feel a common twinge of frustration amongst my fellow Peace Corps Trainees is the constant feeling of being demoted to childhood again, where we have no participation in making our own food, washing our clothes, and getting our basic needs met.  Only this time we feel bad that our mom’s do everything for us but sure as hell don’t want to do it ourselves! Making all food from scratch, washing clothes without a machine, and hauling water long distances on your head, for example, is no easy feat.  Malian win the toughness award, hands down.  Truly, all they can do is laugh when I try!

I think the family I’ve been staying with has gotten used to my delicate nature and many needs.   This week I’ll be heading to my new village, which is between Sikasso and Bougauni, in the southeastern part of Mali.  We’ll see what this new village things of my delicate nature!  I am the first volunteer they’ve ever had and I may legitimately be the first white person and definitely American that some of them have ever seen!   

Well aren’t they in for a surprise.  

 I guess I am too.   

Wish me luck! 

And a bon voyage!