By Heart

"Anyone who wishes to be considered humane has ample cause to consider what it means to be sick and poor in the era of globalization and scientific advancement."
- Paul Farmer

I started out my week being late to work. I texted and let them know why. I had to wait for our maid to get there so I could give her money for the days worked to date and get her key. Can you say awkward? We decided that for what she was doing and what we were paying her, given the fact that we are volunteers and Andrew now seems to be on board with household stuff, household help was an expense we no longer need to endure. I had to go back and forth with her over the figures, how much she was supposed to receive per month, for how many days, how many days she had already worked and what sum that worked out to be. We also gave her a little more to pay for her round trip transportation that day. At first she seemed apprehensive, then upset, and then she accepted it. I think she realized we were trying to be as fair as possible. It just really seemed like she wasn't watching out for us money-wise. When someone says they are a volunteer you don't go to the market and buy the most expensive stuff.

So when Andrew and I left the cybercafe the other day a mass of youth had gathered in the main intersection and was celebrating Mali's soccer win against Sierra Leone. Andrew and I walked a little closer for a better look. It appeared though that celebrating was nothing more than surrounding and slapping cars that passed, even jumping on their trunks, until they honked their horns. That wasn't a celebration that either of us wished to partake in. In fact, it seemed to be one step away from an all-out "joyous" riot and so we turned the other way and went home. Note: A few years ago when Mali lost an important game, mass rioters tore down many of the monuments in the city's circles, that people use for landmarks when giving directions.

Demba came by Projet Jeune and said he had a book I should read. He passed it to me and let me thumb through it and when he left 30 minutes later he had to coax me to give up the book saying he should be finished with it on Friday and would lend it to me then. I told him I had just read an excellent book on recent political, human rights and development issues in Africa and the role of the West in creating Africa's current issues from the point of view of the former director of the NY Times Africa bureau who spent much of his time on the ground here.

Both books are listed below:
1. A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa by Howard W. French (former director of the NY Times Africa Bureau)

2. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights & The New War on the Poor by Paul Farmer (Professor of Medical Anthropology, Harvard Medical School)

Yesterday evening I went out to Safi, the roadside vendor cum Bambera teacher. We sat in the shade of the phone card vendor stand, in plastic lawn chairs, me with a notebook and a pen and her spewing forth different Bambera terms and explaining them in French. While I wrote I noticed a circle had grown around us. Amadou, the phone card vendor, his friend who beat me in checkers the other day, Safi's husband and two of their children- including a girl about 8 who laughed heartily at my first attempts at Bambera, and various others who stopped by to either buy a phone card or buy goods from Safi. When she was headed home, I was headed to the cybercafe and so she had her husband drop me off there.

It is something to be in a foreign country and know no one well, but to have people call out greetings to you as you walk home. I finally know what my grandfather spoke of when he talked about walking home on dark country roads. Of course the road here is not long and it is permeated with periodic headlights and store lights, but in between are some dark swaths and my feet know them by heart. Thiouigh I cannot see the obstacles until I am right on them I know instinctively that there is a pothole here and a dip here and a step up here. And step by step my feet lead me home from the cyber cafe.