Unreasonable

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw

A group of men I know were relaxing in front of the cyber cafe. They said hello, asked how I was, bade me to sit down and chat with them a while, offered me some peanuts and finally a kola(sp?) nut. I bit into it and was immediately overwhelmed by its bitter taste. And they were all smiling conspiratorially at me. How is it? Do you like it? I couldn't talk. I didn't want to be rude and spit it out so I focused my attention on chewing and swallowing. It's good for your heart, they said. People eat it at ceremonies, another offered. Yet another said, It wards off nausea. You'll get used to the taste and crave it, one said. I don't think so, I said. I finished it, but I didn't like it. They laughed.

Rodney lost his keys in Gao and before he saw fit to tell us, he had simply been leaving all the doors to the place unlocked. We usually only lock two, one if someone is home, as locking the second one will prevent the person who is home from leaving. Andrew said that one afternoon he came down the hallway to see a man trying the door and calling for Rodney. He went to the door and said Rodney is not here and the man, Hassan - our downstairs neighbor said oh ok. Trying the door without knocking? Are you kidding me? And he had come all the way up through the garage to the last door...

And then I was woken up at 6 in the morning to a man calling for Philippe at our front door. Of course my bedroom is closest to the front door. Once I walked out of my bedroom he could see me as the front door has no curtains. And I was wearing shorts, exposing my thighs (gasp!) as I do in my own house. Excuse me madame he said. I'm looking for Philippe. I'm suprised I was able to respond in French after being startled out of my sleep, There's no Phillippe here, I said. Yes he lives here, he insisted. And then I heard Rodney come to stand behind me. Maybe he lives downstairs or next door but there is no Philippe here. He said okay and turned to go down the stairs. Rodney turned and said to me, Oh now I see why you guys want the doors locked. You think? He finally admitted he had lost his set of keys thousands of kilometers away and made a new set that day.

Rodney said in Gao he met a man whose 2 year old daughter had to undergo a serious surgical procedure. Her parents hadn't wanted her to undergo excision but the grandparents did and so they took her to have it done without the permission of the parents. Unfortunately such a thing is legal here, and even more unfortunately the procedure went horribly wrong, as if the original outcome wasn't bad enough, and the child is in danger of losing her life over it. Tchou Tchou asked me if excision is practiced in the States and I said never, unless a family comes from a country where it is practiced and now lives in the U.S., and even then it's not legal. She said every girl in Mali is excised and indeed the "official" stats I saw said up to 80% in Bamako and 90% outside of Bamako. Constance said even Christians observe the practice here as well.

There is a girl that I see most everyday on my way home from work or out again on errands. We exchange hellos in Bambera and she speaks only the slightest bit of French so that is the extent of our conversation. She is young and it would be nice to be able to talk to her more. She stands in front of a walled compound in the soft dirt between the wall and the road, holding the hands of younger children, looking at the comings and goings of the street through her kohl-rimmed eyes.

The last time I passed she was sitting in the shade of a tree with others and she offered me a seat. I sat and we all chatted a bit greetings in Bambera and then conversation in French peppered with Bambera. I noticed that the girl was quiet. One of the women with her, 29 and married with 4 kids, said the girl doesn't really speak French. She is 15 and is in Bamako staying with relatives on vacation. During the year she lives in Gao. The official language of the country is French and so while unofficial affairs can be carried on just fine in Bambera, all things official are done in French. Presumably the girl attends school. She appears bright, but if she isn't learning the official language or hasn't learned enough of it to get by at age 15 isn't she really just being prepared for being a member of the permanent underclass? I wonder how many of the other women that I thought were just shy are simply unable to communicate with me in the official language of their country...