A few times throughout this blog I have mentioned the maids in my house, but I think I need to finally devote some time talking about them. Rokia and Bintou are two girls the young age of fourteen. After a few days of living in this house, a few things about them struck me: the enormous size of their muscles, the amount of work they do (never sitting down for a break), and the tiny quantity of time they spend sleeping each night. The girls sweep the courtyard, mop the floors several times a day (not with a mop, mind you, but bent over a wet rag on the ground), cook the meals, and wash the laundry and dishes, among other things. They stay up later than everyone in the house, and are already awake when I arise at 6:20 every morning. They do everything for me – they wash my clothes, cook my food, tuck in my mosquito net at night, and even follow me around with a plastic chair if I go to sit outside in the kitchen or on the front courtyard. I cannot stand it; I feel guilty and useless and shameful. I am six years older than these girls, yet they wait on my hand and foot. It is not right.
After a week or so of living in the house, I asked Aka about them. She says that they live in the small outbuilding next to our outdoor kitchen. They are from villages outside of Bamako and have come to work so they can save money for their weddings. At the age of fourteen? Yes. Our French teacher told us more about this awful convention. He said that all of the maids that come to work in Bamako are from farms in the countryside. They have to save up money to by pagnes (cloth material) and other expenses for their weddings. The minimum wage for maids is $12.00 a month, with room and board provided. This wage is sickeningly low; even if Rokia and Bintou save every penny for the next couple of years, they will by no means be able to support themselves. On top of that, they are fourteen years old…shouldn’t they be in school, learning to read and write? This is a part of this culture that I’m having a really hard time accepting. Ousmane told us that a growing problem is that maids become pregnant in Bamako, yet must abandon their children when they return to their village in order to find a potential husband. He said that these orphans are very rarely adopted by Malians since family lineage is so important here.
I’m definitely struggling a lot with some of the aspects of life here. While I of course want to remain respectful and nonjudgmental about some things, there are others that I cannot ignore and simply do not like. The inequality between males and females is striking and upsetting. Polygamy is still accepted here, and when women marry they must go into the relationship knowing that her husband can and may take on another wife later in the marriage. Divorce is looked down upon, and if a couple does break up, the woman must move back in with her parents. In fact, it is seen as poor form if a woman lives on her own. Finally, and what I truly find most disturbing, is that female circumcision (excision) is still widely practiced in this country. Some believe that a woman will not be able to control her desires and therefore must be circumcised. I came here knowing that it was still going on, but I had no idea that the majority of females in this country have had some form of genital cutting.
These facts of Malian society have been a problem for me to grapple. I came here wanting to love everything, but there are blatant facts that I can’t ignore and that my heart of hearts believes is wrong. Unfortunately this post was somewhat depressing and I apologize for that, but I think it’s important that I not censor these issues since there is already very little discussion about them going on here.
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