Last February I attended a futbol match (soccer game) that was headed up by my village secondary school English teacher. One Friday the girls play, the next Friday is the boys turn and they switch throughout the school year. I thought it was great that they got to do this organized sport, but when saw them playing in bare feet, no nets, no cones or chalk to mark the boundaries, and no uniforms or markers for designating teams I felt bad. I had an idea. I wrote to my wonderful family members that are either teachers or have children in grade school and quickly (for Malian time) got a response from my great cousin Steve. Well, he ended up sending 24 pinnes (above and beyond my request) for the students to use for the phys-ed class.
Last Friday I was finally able to give them their gift. The kids couldn’t be more excited! It was great to see, and really I thought it was no big deal at all. When I was growing up and going through the school system- both public and catholic schools-I took for granted having all the sports equipment available to me. We even did rock climbing as an activity one time!
So, here are the pictures of the kids with their new pinnes on. It’s great to be able to give and to directly see the results of your work. Thanks so much to the Westfall family for getting these jerseys out. This small gesture made a town of 3000 people know you and send you many blessings for your generosity!
On another note, I am told that I got over the worst, most difficult 110+ degrees of hot season. Now it will just be in the low 105’s. My mom’s almost done with the chemo and hopefully Brian will be coming out here. It's been 6 months since the passing of my grandma-I think I'm still in a bit of denial about it. My friend from Phoenix will be coming out in 2 weeks for my first visitor! I’m super excited and have a really fun time planned. My languages of Bambara, French, and Arabic are coming along. It’s great to be able to communicate and feel comfortable communicating in different languages. You really get so much more out of relationships when you expand your horizons.
One more short story. Here in Mali, just chatting and spending time with people is super important. I like doing this, but as an American it’s still a bit of a task to just show up at peoples houses to just ‘shoot the *ship’ with them. Well, yaala yaala (bambara for taking a stroll) is great and it really makes me say to myself “wow, I’m really living in AFRICA!” Some of my conversations included questions like:
How many cows will your dad get for you when you will get married?
Barack Obama only has 1 wife????
I’m going to go to America and farm and make a lot of money.
Today you are a women! (N.B. This was the day I actually wore the traditional Malian long skirt-as opposed to the Capri pants I always wear)
*There are so many more instances of great cultural exchanges, I will write out a more detailed story some other time. Ciao!
