Lonely Road

Ashley's perspective:

Yesterday (May 28th) may have been the hardest day in Mali thus far, possibly the hardest day of my life. We said good-bye to Kalibombo.

It wasn't the good-bye that you say to your parents when you are going off to college, or the good-bye you say to friends when you are moving to a different city, cause you know all along it isn't really good-bye but see you soon. But yesterday was truly a good-bye. We don't know when or if we will ever see the people of Kalibombo again. People we have grown to love as family, the culture we have lived as our own, a community that excepted strangers as one of them, an experience you can never put into words. It was a heart-wrenching day.

As we walked around village to give our Dogon blessings (this is very cultural, you never leave without giving multiple blessings, such as, let God have us meet again, let God have us remember each other, may God bless you and me both, may God bless your travels...), we were greeted with many left-handed hand shakes. Which may not mean a lot to westerners but here you would NEVER shake with your left hand but in ONE case... If you want the person who you are shaking hands with to return. You see in Mali the left-hand is considered "unclean", so you never use it for anything. But if you shake hands with someone with your left-hand, then it means they NEED to return one day in order to correct the wrong of the left-hand shake. And when they return you then greet them with your right-hand so that the wrong of the left hand shake has been erased. It was truly a blessing to shake with our left hand yesterday.

As we biked out of village, it was a lonely road to Bandiagara. A road that always seemed to be so full of life suddenly seemed so dead. We biked in not saying much to each other, Joe a few bike lengths ahead of me, both trying to contain our tears and reflect on our departure.

When biking into town we would sometimes use that time to pray together. A few days back Joe had prayed that God always keep us connected with Mali, in some capacity or another. At the time I was thinking, no, I can't do Mali anymore, the heat, the food, the transport....but God knows better than I, and as we departed village yesterday, I knew God wasn't asking me live in Mali for a lifetime, or work in Mali again, but to always be in prayer for the people of Kalibombo, to pray for the rains, a plentiful harvest, health, and for opportunity to come their way.

The hardest part about our departure, was not being able to show our complete gratitude and thankfulness to our friends and family in village, you just couldn't put it into words. We were humbled by their generosity, acceptance and love that they so graciously showed us EVERYDAY of our two years.We were truly blessed to be apart of such an amazing culture and community, we will never forget our friends in Kalibombo.

Joe's perspective:

Leaving our village and Malian friends in Bandiagara was an experience that brought a heavy feeling of humility. How do you express your gratitude to a people that have so little (at least from an American perspective) and yet have given us so much. Generosity has a very different definition in American culture and Malian culture.

My friend Moriba is a great example of Malian generosity. I showed up almost two years ago at the Traditional Medicine Center (where I worked at during my service). Moriba invited me to eat lunch with his family the first day I arrived. I ate lunch with his family for the next two years. No questions asked and nothing asked for in return. If that situation had been reversed and Moriba showed up at my work place in the United States, would I have showed him the same generosity?

When we left village my friend Oumar and his family gave us a traditional sword (that will be intersting explaining to the TSA officers at the New York airport), two statues, two bogolan (mud cloth) blankets, and four traditional bowls. I am not sure how much they paid or where they got all these gifts but to put it in perspective all the gifts would roughly cost around $40 usd, which would take 20 days of hard labor to pay for. Would I have been willing to spend a months salary on them if the situation was reversed?

As we said our good-byes I wondered if I would ever see these friends again. I wondered if I would ever have a chance to show them the generosity that I was shown.

Pictures of our last days:

Joe and Seydou (our neighbor), saying good-bye.

Had to get some last minute loving with all the babies!

Popcorn party at our house, with our host sisters, only appropriate for the Wollersheims to say good-bye with popcorn.

The village had a dance for us to say good-bye, we fixed 25 kilos of rice (approx. 60 pounds) with onion sauce to help us all celebrate a bit more.

Where's Waldo? or better yet Where's the Toubab (name for white person)? After the dance we marched around village singing and dancing to then end up at our house to eat rice, pass out loads of candy, and have a good-bye meeting with the village elders.

The Elders enjoying the dance from a distance.

The day we said good-bye to village we biked into town and had a last meal with Joe's co-workers. We made Chegge, a traditional dish that is ground up sweet root paired with onions and fish. This is a picture of Joe and the guys eating traditionally with their hands out of a communal bowl.

Mangoes for dessert! We will be sad to leave mango-land.

Joe and co-workers at the Traditional Medicine Center. They absolutely loved Ambobou (Joe).

Joe and his counterpart at the Traditional Medicine Center, Moriba, and his son Musa. This is the family that took Joe in for lunch everyday.