I'm here in Kati now, only 5 days after returning to Dombila. Instead of having time to settle in, I was called by Caroline and Hunter to help with their latest project: Take your daughters to work day. 5 days actually. So far, it's going pretty well, and there are 4 fifth grade girls here from Dombila. Along with girls from four other villages, they're doing job shadows with professional women, visiting the technical high school in Kati, doing team-building, goal-setting and a little bit of sexual education (somehow I've become the Peace Corps go-to person for that). Besides all the disasters that happen doing a project in Mali, I think its going pretty good and it is well worth it for these girls to think about a future other than becoming housewife in the rural villages.
I'm not sure how I feel about being back. Adjustment was easier than I imagined, having plenty of friends to welcome me upon my return. But I'm thinking more, I'm confused. I walk down the streets of Kati and hear people yelling at me just as before, “Tubabu! Tubabu!” Normally, this would really bug me and I would think, “Why are they singling me out? Can't they just leave me alone? I'm only a person!” But this time I'm thinking, “Yeah, you're right. It is super weird for me to be here. I'm this little white girl pretending to be Malian. That is rather laughable. I speak your language and wear your clothes and pretend that I know what's best for you. But do I? What the heck am I doing here in this foreign land?”
I know this vision of being able to really feel satisfied and confident that I'm doing something worthwhile is never going to be a concrete realization. I still question why I'm here, and what effect it has on people. And at this point, I know I'll never know for sure. But what I do have is faith. And enough life experience to know that most times you don't realize the significance of what your doing until it's all said and done. And as long as I'm fueled by this faith, and by these little hints of progress, I'll keep on truckin'. For another 9 months. And then... ?
My star community health worker showed me the records he kept of the malnourished children when I was away. I saw one baby who was on the verge of death at my departure gradually gaining strength. My eyes bulged out of my head when the school director showed my how he organized the students to do the weekly sanitation chores. Though the hand washing stations are still broken, they are acting as large barrels of water to clean the latrines daily, and soap is sitting next to kettles of water being used by the students to wash their hands. What happened here? We're going on a shopping spree tomorrow and returning with two trucks of sand and 145 bags of cement to start working on the wells.
At least for now, it's good. It's good to be back.
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1 comment:
Em,
It was so good to see you at New Years. I know there was a lot of hard work waiting for you when you got back but its all good news for me because now I have something to read.
I was thinking about what you wrote about being a pretend "malian". As you said you felt you were pretending to be malian and trying to know whats best for these people.
I think what I took from our conversation at the camp was a different idea. What you have done is much more important than trying to know whats best for "other" people.
Its not that you know what is best for them but rather that you have put yourself in a place where they may ask things of you. Because you have put yourself in that position people in the village have asked for many important things from you.
They might not have asked you for wells or baby weighing directly but they did want their families to be healthier. They have asked you to help them make their families healthier and you have responded by helping them learn about nutrition and sexual education.
This might be a wordy and idealistic way of analyzing your relationship with the people there but I prefer to view it this way. From our conversations I know that you do not want to impose your ideas on the village. I think in many ways they have subtly asked great things from you and you have answered.
Progress is certainly slow and many of these things are hard to see from the day to day but I dont think you have to feel like a pretend Malian at all. Keep up the good work.
-Tucker
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