Le petit prince

Packing up and leaving a place you have stayed for several weeks is often difficult.   Themes and characters from Le Petit Prince by St. Exupery come to mind- the pilot; the little prince, the rose, the fox.   One spends quality time with others; cree des liens, creates friendships, and thus assumes some responsibilty for protecting and maintaining them.

I gave Adama a final hug- a strong embrace, and then looked back to see him standing at the entrance barrier and wave a final good-by.   He has to review for his final exams and doesn't need any distractions.  He will make a dedicated doctor with a promising future and I am satisfied that my visit has expanded his horizons.   It would be so simple to tour, photograph a place, and then leave; however, spending time with people you encounter, eating together, meeting family members, sharing experiences- all of this complicates matters and makes a departure more difficult and even emotional.  My connection with Adama Diarra requires a separate chapter, so I will reserve that until later, but there are mini-stories as well.

Mathias, the 38 year old father I met sitting in front of a tailor shop on the edge of a very poor neighborhood, not working because he has malaria, planning to return to his job at a milk processing plant the following day, finally taking some medecine from a pharmacy after using traditional remedies (cheaper) that don't work.
I walk across the dirt street to the entrance of the building where he, his wife who is 7 months pregnant and their 3 year old daughter live in a 2 room apartment.  They cook in front of the door and use communal toilet facilities.  Mathias and I walk through neighborhood streets, step over and around raw sewage, pass the locked faucet where they must pay for buckets of water used for drinking and cooking.  Bathing water comes from an open well and often causes their skin to itch.    Studying to become a teacher, Mathias discontinued his studies because he would  have been sent to a distant rural village to have a job, with wages on which he could not survive.   He accepted his current job in order to marry and begin a family.  His salary of 120 dollars per month barely pay for his lodging and food and he walks 30 minutes each way to his job in order to save the 20 cent mini-bus fare.   We entered the neighborhood school where I met some of the teachers and observed classes of 80-100 students.  The students stood when I entered, some of them showing me the cardboard "slates" on which they were practicing letters of the alphabet.  
This is the real Mali!    I invited Mathias to meet me in the hotel courtyard for a few more hours of conversation before I left.

Bakary Camara, the waiter in a small Lebanese restaurant near the Hotel Tamana.  After discovering he was from Guinea, I wanted to learn more.  With his boss observing his every move, there was no possibilty for conversation in the restaurant, so I invited him to the hotel courtyard during his free time.  He has a degree in accounting, left Guinea due to political unrest and accepted this job while looking for something more permanent.  The restaurant owner is very controling so he has to be careful of his every move- long hours, one day off per week, and wages that only leave him about 10 dollars per month for food; this in a restaurant where the average meal costs 7-10 dollars!   Great insight into the motives and practices of foreign owers in developing African countries.   How are the people of Mali supposed to raise themselves out of poverty?

I walk home on a narrow raised pathway through small, raised plots of soil where lettuce is being grown, mostly for upscale hotels.  The worker who is in constant motion catches my eye- the man irrigating each plot by throwing his watering can into an open well, pulling it to the surface and spreading the contents on the next 2-3 plots.  A hummingbird, a bee, a butterfly?   Probably in his 40's, missing his front teeth, this man has the physique of an athlete who spends every morning at the gym.

On to Morocco.