Why Baba couldn't go to school

There are times when you meet people, and immediately, you know that person will impact your life forever.

There are stories you hear, about real life people, that fucking crush your heart.

There are times when you look at someone, and you know his/her story, and all you want to do is break down and cry for that person.

There are times when I look around at the crumbled mud houses after The Rain has descended, the splitting skin on Malian hands from farming all day and night, the falling down shacks that are every building here, the kids with rotted out teeth at barely three years old, the Malians with mental disabilities who get tied to trees and beaten because no one knows "what's wrong" with them...and I think, "How the fuck do these people keep going?"

When I meet people who immediately impact my life forever. When I hear stories about real life people that crush my heart. When I look at someone and all I want to do is break down and cry for them. These instances tell me why people keep going in a seemingly hopeless place like Mali.

One such person and story is the reason why Baba didn't finish school. I've blogged about Baba, in my post about going to the literacy school with him. He is a teacher there. To 30 older women. Learning how to write the numbers 1-10, count and know the alphabet in Bambara. He is inspiring to me, every day, he inspires me. Not just for his awesome, always sunny attitude, but for his determination to help these 30 illiterate women learn to count, read and write their native language.

On Saturday, Dan Evans came to visit my site. If you're in America, you probably don't know who Dan Evans is. He is a third year volunteer, a Peace Corps Volunteer leader, a trainer and a SED volunteer (my sector). Dan is awesome. A lot of the people from my stage credit Dan with giving us the most perspective-boosting training sessions of IST. Dan came to visit my site and meet my people.

As Dan and I visited, I told him everything I knew about my services - how they might need to improve their accounting, how the restaurant has been closed for two months, how I never see people buying the bogolan they spend weeks making. But, as PCVs know all too well, when you have very basic language skills, there is A LOT we don't understand. We pick up words and simple sentences in a crowd of paragraphs and diatribes. There's a lot we don't understand when people speak. Everything...is dooni dooni.

Dan was awesome because he has strong language skills, being here for almost three years. So, he was explaining in more detail what I couldn't understand from the conversations we had with the members of my services. ***A service is a work place. It's our main job. So my service is Si Nafa, the shea, bogolan, soap sellers, and my women's sewing school. That's what I mean when I say "services."***

And I had told Dan about how Baba is a teacher for these 30 women. How Baba wheels himself across the village six days a week, a 40 minute trip there, a 40 minute trip back, during the hottest, most scorching temperatures of the day. How he arrives on time, even though 99% of his class arrives an hour and a half late. How he understands why they come late - they have to farm to live, the women's culture designates the task of cooking and cleaning for the entire family. After these tasks are finished, they can come learn to count and read and write their native language.

When Baba arrived at Si Nafa, we sat in the rice magasin (storage building) with him while The Rain subsided. And we chatted.

Baba described his work at the literacy school. How a Malian NGO hired him to teach the women. How he understands why the women come an hour and a half late to a two hour class. And he does all of this with a slightly sad smile on his face. Like he was pushing out the happiness from inside, but really, he wasn't feeling happy.

And then Dan asked if Baba went to school.

This is a legitimate question in Mali. As you know, Mali has one of the planet's worst education records and literacy rates. Seventy five percent of Malians can neither read nor write. And it hits women especially hard. They are usually taken from their high school, or lesser education, to cook, clean, care for their families. To get married and have babies at age 16. To...be a woman in Mali.

And like the pushed aside roles of women in Mali, people with handicaps are also...pushed aside here. Oftentimes, I would have conversations with my former host family, and they would tell me people in wheelchairs "can't do nothing. They can't work. They...can't do nothing."

But not at Si Nafa.

The three people who run the cooperative are all handicapped, pushing themselves through their hard Malian life in a wheelchair...and a bright attitude. They have more skills than any other group of Malians I've met. They can do anything. If it weren't for the physical reminder of their handicap, you'd never know it.

Baba continued on. He said that he got to the seventh grade. That's equivalent in years to about ninth grade in America. He said that when he was in seventh grade, his dad took him out of school because a Chinese NGO came, and they came with these hospital workers, this hospital, and they gave Baba's father hope that his son could walk again.

(I feel my heart crushing at the moment...pause.)

So, Baba left school in the seventh grade to see if this foreign group of people could cure him...to see if he could ever be able to walk on his own two feet again. He was going to go to school in Katy, a village next to Bamako.

But, they couldn't. They couldn't make him walk again.

So, Baba was out on his own after that. We got the impression his dad kind of gave up on him. That after that, he was left to take care of himself. And he never finished school after that.

And THAT'S the consequence of when we give up on people with bright futures. When we give up on people who really, really want to learn and grow. THAT'S the consequence.

But, one reason Baba inspires me sooo much, is because he kept going. He was determined not to let that ruin him. He turned it into something positive. And now, he's giving back...to 30 women, for six months at a time, who themselves, didn't have the chance to earn an education. THAT'S why Baba rides 40 minutes there, 40 minutes back, all the way across the village, six days a week...to give back to people who share something with him.

THAT'S hope.

Baba's story reinforces the importance for me, of trying to know people. And understand them. To feel compassion for them. To give back. I too, am here for the same reason Baba sits in front of that schoolroom six days a week.

For whatever reason I became this lucky, I had the opportunity to earn an education that a lot of people in my family didn't. I feel indebted to humanity to give back. That's why I'm here.

Baba is the epitome of strength. Understanding him just a little bit better really gave me a more detailed perspective into my work here. Into why it's so important to give back. Into the fact that although he's black and I'm white...although he's Malian and I'm American...he travels in a wheelchair and I, on the feet I can walk on...although his education level is seventh grade and mine a Bachelor's degree from an American university...

These differences don't matter.

We are all one people. No matter where we come from. We share the same emotions and experiences. We all experience love, loss, doubt, frustration, hopelessness, guilt, sadness, happiness. We are all searching for how to be happy and find fulfilment from life. We go through...the same things...despite how different we may seem.

And we find people to help push us through the hard times. Maybe for Baba, it was his determination to make his dad proud of him. I don't know. And right now, for me, my push is Baba's story of trying, losing...and winning.