Visiting Mali

After a long flight, I finally arrived in Mali. Since my job with the IRC did not begin until September, I decided to visit Mali (where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer) for ten days before flying to Liberia. Mali is the only place in the world other than Arlington that feels like home to me, so it was good to go back. Very little has changed in the past year and a half, and if it weren’t for running into children who were noticeably taller than when I last saw them, I could have believed that I never left. My “tokara” (someone who is named after you; see photo) had just learned to stand when I left Mali to come back to the U.S.; now she’s running around, getting into trouble, and pestering her mother like any two year old. Since she was too young when I left to remember me, she was pretty shy around me at first (aka she would run away and hide every time she saw me). But after constantly buying her peanuts and other treats, she finally decided I wasn’t so scary and we became friends. I have to say, it was also pretty funny hearing everyone call her “Ariel” or “Wagner.” Since people in my village call me Aminata (my Malian name), I am not used to hearing my American name (which they pronounce “Awah Wanner”) and often got mixed up as to whether people were talking to me or my tokara.

Though the trip was wonderful overall, it was definitely emotional as well. Within about ten minutes of getting to the village where I used to live, I was called to the home of a friend who was sick. I found Malado lying weakly on the floor of her mud hut, her body reduced to a skeleton. Her family didn’t know what was wrong with her but handed me a note from the hospital. The note simply stated that Malado was HIV positive; seeing her, it was clear that she was in the final stages of full blown AIDS. With treatment (provided for free in Mali), Malado might have been able to return to health; but by the time I arrived, she was too sick and weak to make the half-day journey by bachée (a rickety minivan with the seats replaced by planks to fit as many people as possible) to the hospital. For the next four days, all I could do was visit her and bring her food in the hopes that with better nutrition, she might regain enough strength to be able to make the trip. Saying good bye to her the day that I left to catch my flight in Bamako, I had to fight to hold back my tears. I wanted to cry not just for myself for losing a friend but for Malado’s two young daughters who had been a daily staple at my house for the two years I spent in Senossa and for the unfairness of Malado’s entire life and all the factors that contributed to her fate (poverty, a bad marriage, lack of education, poor access to health care).

This said, I do not want to give the impression that Mali is a relentlessly depressing place. Though the country is mired in poverty, the spirit and generosity of Malians are amazing. This is why I enjoyed living there so much and was so happy to go back.