Hello blog readers (are there any of you out there?)
I was sitting in village about three months ago, when I got a text message from my fellow PCV Christopher Krey. He is one of the first second year volunteers I met here, and ironically enough we have a mutual friend in Ann Arbor. This is besides the point, but he was in the same homestay family in Missalabougou as me the year before, so we've become brother and sister. Anyhow, he sent a text message that our little brother Adama, who was born during his time in Missalabougou got sick and despite taking him to the doctor he didn't make it. As you might recall during a post at the beginning of this blog, this is the same small village that was hit hard with three deaths during a week when I was there. This came as a big shock to me, and naturally my emotions were all over the place, from disbelief to grief, anger, injustice and sympathy. My host family was amazing, one man with only one wife, and this is not thier first child lost. A few years before I came, one of their siblings was swept away during a flash flood on a walk home from the fields. On one of my last days in village, my host brother Ladji took me to her grave, where I stood in silence looking at the now dry river where this young child lost her life. News like this always comes when I seem to have gotten comfortable with my new way of life, and forgotten about the grief and injustice in this world. But the harsh reality is that when my two years are done here I go back to the luxuries of American doctors, running water, and malaria free mosquitos, but Mali will still be here and children will still die every day. So, please, today and every day, call, write, email or hug your children, do anything to let them know they mean the world to you. Don't let that opportunity slip by.
Awa and Adama
For some pictures of baby Adama as Chris knew him, and for his view on the death please check out his blog at http://www.faceyboy.blogspot.com/. It's the Saturday, February 16th entry.
