Cattle Herders, Mali, North Africa
MALI
I enjoyed Mohammed's company, and we would talk late into the evenings. He was well educated and spoke excellent English. It was not often that I had the opportunity to communicate so easily with an African. Many times my lack of French had kept me isolated from the people. I had wanted to ask so many things and to just chat. With Mohammed, I bombarded him with all the questions I had saved up over the last couple of weeks in Mali.
It was after my second chance meeting with Mohammed that I reflected over all the people I had met on my travels. It was as though these people had been waiting for me. They had advised me, like a teacher guiding a pupil in the right direction. It was once I realised this, I could also see where I had advised others, letting them benefit from my own experiences.
Late one evening Mohammed and I sat in the small outside courtyard; a gnarled creeper covered the nearby mud brick wall, while the faint moonlight cast soft shadows through the spindly branches of a shrubby tree.
"I choose who I smoke with", Mohammed said, drawing deeply on the joint.
We had been sitting and quietly chatting for several hours - our conversation flowing.
"You know why the white man rules the world?" Mohammed asked, his mind investigating this area of thought. "It is because only the white man knows how to love", he replied, answering his own question.
"No, no way. You've got it all wrong", I replied.
"In Africa, a woman has sex to win favours, gifts, to be cared for, while a man has sex for his own pleasure. They still circumcise the women. Some old woman with a kitchen knife cuts out the clitoris of the young girls just before they flower. It is barbaric. A woman who has been cut will never feel the pleasure of orgasm. For her it is painful, but she will endure the pain so she can receive favours. Here is Mali it is not unusual for one woman to have five men in one night.
"This is the modern world. There is so much information. Don't they realize circumcision is so unnecessary, it is interfering with nature?" I said. I was both horrified and saddened as I thought of what these women must endure for the entirety of their lives - the pleasures that they would never feel. "But surely there are Malian women who have not been circumcised?" I asked.
"Not many. The religious leaders are very strong, and know all the young girls that are to be circumcised", he replied.
"It is only through education that it will change", I said.
"No, even the educated women have this done to their daughters, and they have been cut themselves. You would think they would know better. They know the pain that it will cause their daughters to feel", he told me, and then reached into the bowl to roll another joint.
"This way they also catch AIDS more easily", he added.
"Yes, I suppose in some back village, condoms would be a real luxury", I said.
"The poor African does not worry about using condom. He knows he will eventually die of something. He only thinks of today, tomorrow is too far away", he replied.
