Amadu’s back in town

I finally made it back to Mali!

I had an amazing few weeks back in the great US of A. My dad picked me up at the airport with multiple coats, gloves, and hats. Strangely though, the things that I thought would be hardest to adjust to really weren’t at all what I thought they would be.

First off, ok yeah it’s cold. For like the two seconds you go from your house to your car, and your car to work. In all those places the heat is running and I ended up sweating. The real downside of the cold is actually that you get to spend very little time outside which is a little bit depressing. The weather itself didn’t really bother me.

My stomach definitely didn’t like what I was giving it either, but you’d be surprised you much more manageable that stuff can be with a nice toilet, sink, and some sort of fruity soap. When I first got to Mali, we all had stomach problems while trying to improve our aim to get it into our tiny holes in the ground. (sorry if that was more than you wanted to know)

There was other stuff, like just fatigue from all the travel, probably some jet lag. And trying not to let all that affect my mood or energy level.

There were some things back home that really bothered me a lot though.

The differences jump out at you when you live in a place where everyone is friendly, and everyone talks to everyone.
As opposed to a place where everyone is on their i-phones, droids, blackberry, or whatever, instead of just giving the person next to them
the time of day. I really think we’ve become a place that places way too much value on stuff.

To use an example from a movie, my sister and I watched a terrible movie called “Leap Year.” It had one good moment though that made me think. The question is, if your home was one fire and you had one minute to grab anything, what would you grab? In the movie the main guy/fiancé grabs labtops, cell phones, basically all the electronics he can find. This is supposed to show the main actress that clearly this guy is not for her.

A little corny, but a valid point. When did all this “stuff” become so important?

Technology is generally a very good thing (obviously), it just shouldn’t be the only thing, or even the most important thing.

To use another example from TV, I caught up on a lot of shows while I was home. But anyway, I am a geography nerd, so you would think I’d be all over GPS’s. In an episode of “The Office,” Michael Scott is driving and his GPS tells him to make a right turn, he believes it, and against his own better judgement, drives his car into lake.

I realize that this is only a sitcom and (hopefully) would never actually happen, but I bring it up because I noticed a couple real life cases somewhat like it (not as crazy of course). My dad and I are the more directionally saavy members of the family. Both of us though, had moments where instead of going where we knew to go, we instead depended on the GPS, and messed it up. On the other hand, my sister, who is generally directionally challenged, turned off the GPS, and went the way she knew without a problem.

To be fair, I love the GPS, but I’m just using it as an example. We’ve become way too dependant on this “stuff.” I should have trusted myself. It was a route I knew, and I didn’t really need the GPS. Again, to be fair, a lot of this technology is really unneeded.

And the thing is, all this stuff doesnt make us any happier. It has the opposite affect. It isolates us. In reading other volunteer blogs, I am, by no means the only one to remark how much happier Malians are than we americans are. And yet they have no stuff!

Malians seem to have this innate ability to be happy in the moment. Somehow we’ve forgotten how to enjoy the now. I find myself reverting back to my old thoughts of, “I need to hurry,” or “what should I be doing?” I catch myself and remember to enjoy the conversation, the walk this Malian is taking me on to god knows where.

Not only do Malians have no stuff. But any food, bed, anything they can offer you, they will offer you. These aren’t empty offers either.

More importantly, though, Malians talk to each other. They talk to me. They actually care what you have to say, even if it’s not anything particularly interesting. Just on my bus ride back here, it was a nice distraction from the 15 hour bus ride. I had a lot of good conversations with a lot of interesting people. Malians are just friendlier than Americans are. Hands down.

The things that I really miss about home aren’t stuff. I miss my friends and family and doing stuff with them. Special occaisions, playing in sports leagues, going out, or just hanging out. That’s what I miss about home.

This trip home, one on one conversations I got to have on long car rides kind of stand out. Attempting (and failing) with my dad to make a welcome home sign for my sister (who was flying home from Texas the same day I came in). Dancing all over the place at the wedding. Wearing my Malian outfit out in Richmond, and then getting a buddy to do the same. Playing board games in a cabin with a huge group of friends. All of my family movie and game nights. Watching the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden (even though they sucked). Going to see the Lion King, crying and feeling like I somehow understood it better now. Those are the main highlights of my trip.

Seeing people, talking, doing things, that’s what we have to remember to value. Not this stuff.

That’s my rant. It was painful to me to see that, and it was definitely an adjustment I really didn’t enjoy. I do still love America, I just feel like somewhere along the way our values got out of order. I’ll still be incredibly happy when I get to go back to the states.

Just please, just do me a favor, get off your machines, for just a second, and say hello to the person next to you.