I am The Woman Who Rides With Pants

First of all, I'm extraordinarily happy out here in my little village. I feel healthier, stronger, and more stable than I have in a long time. Syracuse can be hard on the soul and the immune system. So can giardia, but I'm finding that ample sunshine and cheerful people are balm for that. I miss my family, my friends, my familiar places, eating cheese whenever I want, sure. But it's not an overwhelming ache or something that interferes with my day-to-day. I think about my family, and I'm so glad to know that they're in America with clean water to drink every day and always enough healthy food, easy access to good education, and they never have to bargain to get their groceries. So I'm happy for them. I'm also happy for me, because even though every day there's something that pushes me, nothing is presse in Mali, so I can respond, work hard, and get past something (even if it's just teaching myself to ask Sam for help when I need it), or I can leave it for another day. There's so much room for Baobabs here. I was going to take a photo of one, but I haven't found the perfect one when I have a convenient scale. Someday soon, you'll see. The point is that there's no rushing here. No stress. Not for me just yet anyway.

Of course, in my whole month (minus a few hours) of being a Volunteer, I have yet to do anything but move into my house, essentially. I've greeted a few people, and biked around the area a little, but most of my time has been spent adjusting myself to my house and vice versa. Also, I got a cat, but that's a recent development. I'm calling her Babi, which was my nickname in Soundougouba. And I made a friend. That's pretty much the best thing to happen so far, Rache. She makes me laugh. We have some common ground. I love hanging out at her house; I love the way her mom already feels like some one's mom I've known forever, earthy and able to laugh at herself; I like that her brother doesn't hit on me, but treats me like another sister. She's always helpful, but not in a way that demeans what I can do for myself. She just wants to give me room to land on my feet, I think. I imagine that having spent time in the cities going to school and living alone gives her a perspective that many Malians haven't had a chance to see. We joke about how when you live alone, asking how the people in your house are is a silly question, so instead she asks me about my dishes, my cat, and my lizards. She doesn't mind when I ask stupid questions, and she understands that I don't know everything about Ameriki, or anything else for that matter, but she respects what I do know. If she's making assumptions about me, they're fair ones. She has a lot of faith, and although she shows it to me and offers to share it with me, she doesn't force anything. OK, enough praise for now. I promise you'll hear more good things about her and her family later.

Moving on to things I've been thinking about. I know, you want to hear more about the lizards that live in my house, the squashed hedgehogs all over the paved road (they come out when the moon is laughing, which it has been for the last several nights), and the blue-green birds with the long long tails that live in my neighbor's tree. However, they haven't been on my mind. The flora and fauna of Mali are, but they aren't on my mind. What is on my mind is how much this is like so much of what I love about fantasy novels. I like the complex societal rules that govern who defers to who on what matters, the unfamiliar ways of doing daily tasks, a great deal of dependence on others, with examples of how independence can both liberate and cripple me. And it's all real. If you bend your mind a little to the idea that cell phones and motos are magical, then I am actually living a fantasy novel. I am Alanna, teaching children about technology (magic) and gender equality, and being an example for the whole village, slowly getting accepted by the elders, battling my own inner problems quietly (if I should come upon a cursed sword, that is), and in the end everyone comes out better for it and I travel around and do other good deeds in another book. ...Or something like that.

And just like Alanna struggled with the religion of the people she lives with, because it has familiar elements, but isn't what she's accustomed to, I've been thinking a lot about religion. My village is Christian, but when I thought about it at all, I just assumed that it meant that we didn't fast for Ramadan and we could eat pork. But it isn't something they just say and ignore, these people FEEL their religion. I once read something about religion being resurgent among the poorest people in the world (and Malians certainly qualify there) because fatalism sounds much nicer when you're probably going to die soon anyway, but then you can hang out with Jesus. And the young people, the educated people, the people who get out of my village to study and then to work in the cities... those people are so grateful for their opportunities, their health, the chance to support their families in the village and make a future for their children. It's overwhelming, really, the gratitude and the fatalism all swirled together. And being that our church is Evangelical, we spend a full hour singing every Sunday morning before we even begin to pray or give donations or anything else. We sing joyous songs and everyone claps and dances. I don't understand all of the words, but I get a lot of them, and they're words of thanksgiving and faith. I really like it.

This is the side of Christianity I've always been attracted to, and so far (although this could be due to my only understanding the last word of each sentence due to the acoustics and my lack of language skills) no one has dwelled on fires of any kind, or sin, or damnation. Not that I know the Bambara for damnation, but I don't think anyone's mentioned it to me, because they would probably have made it clear. People who worry about that kind of thing don't tend to be ambivalent. Instead, it's the 'I shall fear no evil' side of things. I think about when Edie told me once that she knew she believed in God because she wasn't afraid to walk alone at night; he was there with her. I went to Rache's in the dark the other day and they asked me if I was afraid, and I wasn't. Not because I was thinking about God, but because I moved across the Atlantic alone, so what was half the village to cross? And yet, it applies, because I don't feel alone here. I don't know if it's God... but maybe. Maybe I'll find Yesu here. Or maybe I'll still be as faithless as before. But it's on my mind.

And there you have it. My first month as a volunteer: New Friend, Kitten, Alanna, and Jesus. And being happy.

I love you all, and I hope that you are well. Please greet your family for me!