Final Days in Mali

As our journey comes to close in these last days of summer, I find myself reflecting on everything we've learned and seen in these past two months, and while I feel ready to come home, I find it difficult to believe I'm going to be leaving this place in less than a week.

In two days, I leave Kayes.

In five days, I leave Mali.

In seven days, I will be home.

And then, back to family, work and school. A third and final year of nursing, the beginning of a job search for after graduation, and most of all, the all-important task of trying to transplant the African values I've come to admire into my everyday life. Little things such as saying hello to one's neighbors; keeping an open-house policy; not being afraid of being unafraid, and so on.

As much as we think, in our Western minds, that we can help Africa and the various difficulties facing its countries, the reality is that if we could look for a moment beyond our delusions of grandure, we would see that not only can we learn extraordinary things about community living and human decency, but we would realize that we are not the ones who hold the future of this continent.

Only Africans will make their future brighter. No one else can, and no one else will do it in a sustainable and truly African manner.

I will try to write more before I reach Paris, but from here on end, I mostly look forward to being able to regale you with adventures and anecdotes in person.