--but I would've lost my gumption.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
"Watch the kids, will you?"
"How many brothers and sisters do you have?"
It's a fairly straightforward question, in my opinion. In fact, I can answer it right here: I have one older sister. She's married, and she doesn't have kids.
Then I'll ask my neighbor. And her answer? She thinks for a minute. "Well, I don't know, lots."
I press her, "you mean you can't give me a number, a rough estimate?"
"No, there's lots of them, I honestly don't know!"
I'm finding that this is, indeed, the case. I'll bike to another village, and I'll start a conversation, telling who my neighbors are. And the person will usually respond with their relationship--"she's my younger sister, my older brother's wife, etc." In one of the smaller villages, everyone is in some way related to everyone else. So in fact, it is impossible to actually know how many people are in your family.
But further, "Family" and what constitutes family is a rather involved issue in Mali. In America, you have your parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, maybe you know your Aunts, Uncles and some cousins. But even in large American families, it's fairly easy to explain these relationships.
In Mali, the rules are different. For example, in my language tutor's house, two of his brother's kids live there to go to school. Another girl appears there every now and again during vacations because her own family's village is much further off the main road, so she just stays in my larger village. And finally, a five year old boy was given to my tutor to raise: if another family can take better care of a child, then it is perfectly acceptable to just make arrangements for that family to take your child and raise it as your own. The biological father pops in every second or third market day.
So who's your father? Your biological one, or the one that takes care of you? Who's your family? Your host family you live with nine months of the year, or the family you farm with every rainy season? In Mali, they just say "all of the above."
Second, there's a fluidity to Malian life that makes family difficult to define. For about a week, I ate lunch with one of my friends and her family. There was a young boy who I simply assumed was her grandson, since he was always at her house and she always fed him lunch. Then I finally asked her about this boy, and she looked shocked: "What? you didn't know? He lives in that house over there!!" In Mali, it's perfectly acceptable for kids to just wander around with each other, to go anywhere. It's understood that everyone will watch them and feed them as if someone elses kids are no different from your own. It's not considered being a bad parent if you have no idea where your kid is or what she's doing, because someone will be watching him as you would.
This second reality means "work" and how that work is structured is quite different for women in Mali. It is assumed that a woman has, or wants to have, kids--this is not something that is an 'if' but rather a 'when.' So when I have a discussion that American women have hangups about making a career and a family work, that a job would take away time, energy, and affection otherwise given to a child, they simply don't understand. My language tutor stated (and I am not making this up), "how can only one woman, one parent, care for a child? It takes a village to raise a child!" Other people would just press me, saying that a woman should just take her kid to work and everyone would help watch him. In Mali, that's fine: women teachers strap their kids to their backs everywhere. The matrone regularly has her kids coming in and bugging her about things. Even as the strange white woman on public transit, I'll take some woman's kid on my lap in a second while the mother straightens her bags or leaves to buy water. Now imagine that happening in any office space or public space in America. The Malian and American conception of "work" and "home", of "public" and "private" couldn't be further from each other.
Now that hot season has arrived, I tend to lie outside on a mat with my neighbor and her kids til about midnight. By then, it has cooled off enough for everyone to go inside. My neighbor gets water from the well and then quickly says, "I'm washing." She plops down her 3 month old kid on my lap next to her two three-year-old twins. "Watch the kids, will you?"
In Mali, it's not too much to ask. After all, I'm more or less her family.
It's a fairly straightforward question, in my opinion. In fact, I can answer it right here: I have one older sister. She's married, and she doesn't have kids.
Then I'll ask my neighbor. And her answer? She thinks for a minute. "Well, I don't know, lots."
I press her, "you mean you can't give me a number, a rough estimate?"
"No, there's lots of them, I honestly don't know!"
I'm finding that this is, indeed, the case. I'll bike to another village, and I'll start a conversation, telling who my neighbors are. And the person will usually respond with their relationship--"she's my younger sister, my older brother's wife, etc." In one of the smaller villages, everyone is in some way related to everyone else. So in fact, it is impossible to actually know how many people are in your family.
But further, "Family" and what constitutes family is a rather involved issue in Mali. In America, you have your parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, maybe you know your Aunts, Uncles and some cousins. But even in large American families, it's fairly easy to explain these relationships.
In Mali, the rules are different. For example, in my language tutor's house, two of his brother's kids live there to go to school. Another girl appears there every now and again during vacations because her own family's village is much further off the main road, so she just stays in my larger village. And finally, a five year old boy was given to my tutor to raise: if another family can take better care of a child, then it is perfectly acceptable to just make arrangements for that family to take your child and raise it as your own. The biological father pops in every second or third market day.
So who's your father? Your biological one, or the one that takes care of you? Who's your family? Your host family you live with nine months of the year, or the family you farm with every rainy season? In Mali, they just say "all of the above."
Second, there's a fluidity to Malian life that makes family difficult to define. For about a week, I ate lunch with one of my friends and her family. There was a young boy who I simply assumed was her grandson, since he was always at her house and she always fed him lunch. Then I finally asked her about this boy, and she looked shocked: "What? you didn't know? He lives in that house over there!!" In Mali, it's perfectly acceptable for kids to just wander around with each other, to go anywhere. It's understood that everyone will watch them and feed them as if someone elses kids are no different from your own. It's not considered being a bad parent if you have no idea where your kid is or what she's doing, because someone will be watching him as you would.
This second reality means "work" and how that work is structured is quite different for women in Mali. It is assumed that a woman has, or wants to have, kids--this is not something that is an 'if' but rather a 'when.' So when I have a discussion that American women have hangups about making a career and a family work, that a job would take away time, energy, and affection otherwise given to a child, they simply don't understand. My language tutor stated (and I am not making this up), "how can only one woman, one parent, care for a child? It takes a village to raise a child!" Other people would just press me, saying that a woman should just take her kid to work and everyone would help watch him. In Mali, that's fine: women teachers strap their kids to their backs everywhere. The matrone regularly has her kids coming in and bugging her about things. Even as the strange white woman on public transit, I'll take some woman's kid on my lap in a second while the mother straightens her bags or leaves to buy water. Now imagine that happening in any office space or public space in America. The Malian and American conception of "work" and "home", of "public" and "private" couldn't be further from each other.
Now that hot season has arrived, I tend to lie outside on a mat with my neighbor and her kids til about midnight. By then, it has cooled off enough for everyone to go inside. My neighbor gets water from the well and then quickly says, "I'm washing." She plops down her 3 month old kid on my lap next to her two three-year-old twins. "Watch the kids, will you?"
In Mali, it's not too much to ask. After all, I'm more or less her family.
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