Out of the Sticks

            Well, I have returned from my week in Sanankoroba, a village right outside of Bamako. “Village” is a weird term for the place, since it’s on a road that leads to Bamako and has a population of 12,000, but it definitely felt light years away: it is exponentially quieter (except for the sound of roosters crowing at 2 in the morning), cleaner, and the pace of life is much slower.

We got to live with our homestay families in pairs, which was fortunate because most of the family members didn’t speak French.  My partner Maddie and I were with the Coulibaly family, which consists of Sounkalo, our grandfather, Awa, our grandmother, and a bunch of cousins (who were completely adorable). The family is quite untraditional since most of the grandchildren are being raised by their grandparents while their own parents live and work in Bamako. The kids stay in Sanankoroba because schooling is less expensive than in the city. It was a little difficult to figure out what exactly our family members do for a living, but our 20-year-old cousin Abdulaye (our only French-speaking relative) told us that our grandfather’s main job is to run the village mosque. It was also clear that the family farms millet and raises animals (chickens, sheep, and a cow), but I’m not sure whether that’s for subsistence or commerce.

I absolutely loved village life. Each family has its own compound, composed of a collection of mud huts, an outdoor area for cooking, and a negen (outhouse). I still don’t really understand who lives in separate huts – I believe that in traditional families the children stay with their mother while their father has his own– but in our case, Maddie and I had our own hut that belonged to a family member that was out of town. We slept on the ground on mattresses that we brought. At night when it cooled down, we kept the door open (which was a bit scary because of all of the animals outside) which made sleeping much easier and cooler than in Bamako, even though we had no fan. It was so wonderful being somewhere that had a gorgeous view of the stars.

Our family was great. Since there were no parents in the compound and the grandparents are pretty old, neighbors come by and bring them dinner every night. Our cousin Abdulaye prepared our meals for us – the first (and probably only) time I’ve seen a man come even close to cooking in this country. We ate a lot of fried eggs which were very oily but at least we knew they were fresh since we ate our meals next to the chicken coop! It was also really adorable to see the children’s relationship with their grandparents. Every morning, our grandmother would put Fatoumata, our 2-year-old cousin (who was actually quite sick – it was really sad to see), into a bucket and give her a bath. She would spend the rest of the day following her grandmother around or tied to her grandmother’s back. If Awa walked away for even a minute, Fatoumata would start crying.

Aside from spending time with our family, we did some really fun things as a group. On Tuesday we visited the SOS Village that is located in Sanankoroba. SOS Villages were created by an Austrian philanthropist and are now located in 131 countries around the world with the goal of housing and schooling orphans. I was extremely impressed with the set-up – each orphan is placed in a family with nine others and two caretakers: an aunt and a mother. They go to school from nursery through high school and are also provided some vocational training. Currently 150 orphans live there; a lot of them started out in the orphanage we visited in Bamako. We got to visit one of the houses and talk to one of the “mothers.” The facilities were very impressive, especially in the school, which has 800 students, both orphans and other children that live in Sanankoroba.

We visited the regional CSCOM, a public health center, which was a little upsetting simply because it doesn’t even have its own laboratory. The doctor was clearly frustrated by having to make diagnoses for malaria without a blood test.

On our last evening, we had a dancing lesson by local women. Overall it was pretty humiliating since we gathered quite a crowd and the women insisted on taking us up one-by-one, but fortunately we all had a sense of humor about it. It’s definitely something I’ll remember fondly...though I really wanted it to be over while it was happening.

I was (and still am) sad to leave Sanankoroba. It was really, really great get out of the city and to experience village life. Considering 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas, it was necessary to experience Malian village life, which was completely different from life in Bamako. I do wish I could have stayed longer!