I am walking through a forest on a thin dirt trail. Tired and hungry and sweaty I eagerly await arrival at our house on the river, among the trees. I keep walking and then I see the large round huts, somewhat in dissarry, and the old chain fence, and none of it beautiful, but seeing it was still pretty good to me.
I open the old screen door, walk inside, put my heavy backpack down, ease into the uncomfortable couch, and breathe, deeply and focused. "3 months! I've done 3 months!" I think to myself. For, I have finished the first 3 months of Peace Corps service in Mali, and these beginning months are often said to be the hardest. One is new, a stranger, a foreigner, one can barely speak the language. From this point on things are supposed to get easier.
Now we are at our 2nd (and final) round of training. The first round of training was focused on learning language and Malian culture; this training is "technical training," that is, it's about practical ways that us education volunteers can work to improve our communities.
There is so much I want to say about these last 3 months in village. The people and their stories, so many, all of them interesting. The thousand myriad details of the slow life in a rural village in West Africa. The essential human dramas, problems, hopes and fears, laughters, cries- all of them so vibrant and clear, to those who would look. I feel very much as a member in my humble community, and happy for this. I know: who can fix electronics, which women are midwives; who cooks the best; who wants to joke with me and conversely who wants to actually talk with me about things that matter; who has a land dispute with another neighbor; who's been to Mecca; and a thousand or more little details of life here, concealed slightly beneath the surface. Dig, dig.
I feel a connection to all of them, and all of you, and all of It. Do you feel it as well? The pulsing, entangled web of life, where nothing exists alone. If you want to know more read the following: Leaves of Grass [1855 Edition]by Walt Whitman; Siddartha by Herman Hesse; and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts. These books have given me some of my deepest contentment and peace and any wisdom about life I might somehow have obtained, and I recommend them to all of you.
During these last 3 months I have: danced; sang; cooked; farmed; written; read; had days of joy and days of pain; learned; taught; biked; ran; questioned everything that I find in me and everything I see outside of me; and grown. I feel blessed for the opportunities, the intensity, the vibrancy of this somewhat-unique experience that I have pulled from the tree of the universe. May you find similar experiences in all your days, wherever you find yourself, for they wait, no matter where you are. Smile and dance, my friends. Peace to you!
