A three-footed walk

I arose early in the morning to find Mariam, to walk with her to find some of our wells deep in the village. When I arrived at her house I was led by some children out into the field where an old woman motioned me to come near. She told me Mariam had already left deep in the fields to go collect wood for the cooking fire. It was a bit of a walk, but she would take me there.
As we walked, I noticed she labored a bit. “Look at my foot,” she says. It has a boot on it and does not flex. An artificial foot in the brush of Mali! “I used to have a sock too, but it is gone. I want to find another sock to wear.”
Some minutes later, she told me her story.
“When I was in sixth grade, I got very hurt.” She spared the details, but said, “Some children are very mean, very mean. There was blood everywhere. A white man came in a car. A Christian. They took me to the hospital and they said they must do an operation. The man then ordered this fake foot from France. It cost $200. $200! And he paid for it all. I didn’t pay one cent. They did the operation, but it was hard to recover. I could not return to school. But now, look at me! I can work. I can go collect wood. I can cook. I can walk. I can do everything, just a little slower.”
Though I cringe that the white man was the hero in the story, I let the big picture fade for a moment. Here I’m working on sustainable development, on helping people find solutions to their own problems, and it would not be in my place as a Peace Corps Volunteer to buy anyone an artificial foot. But look what happened here. She was saved from being crippled and ostracized from the community. She can walk. It is a beautiful thing. And I reflect on this, thinking that in all of my efforts to get Dombila standing on two feet, I must not fall into the sociological sin of “blaming the victim.” There are no easy answers. And the long term answers are not going to be an immediate fix to urgent suffering. So sometimes we need someone to give us an artificial foot. Africa, my friends, does not have two working feet. We’ve given them one, and it is not a perfect solution. It will not last forever. And Africa is dependent on it even though it makes walking unnatural and labored. But Africa has one healthy working foot that without it, it would fall. For now, we can give them that artificial foot. It is not a natural part of its body, but now at least, now, we can walk forward.
“The only thing I can’t do,” she says, “is read. I loved school so much, but I had to stop. They used to do adult reading and writing classes in town, but those project people left. What I think is so important now, is for women to be able to read and write. If someone comes back to help us with that, I would be very happy.”
They’re looking for help out here my friends, the problem is, where to look. Next time the Christian may not pull up in a car. But for now, there is a white girl walking with a limping black woman. We are both slightly confused as to where we are going, but we are walking. Together.