Outliers

The biggest laugh Aliou has gotten out of Zubbu and all of us sitting around after dinner—what is it about full moons that makes us sit out and chat longer?—he said, Le français, ils cherchent que le travail et le dodo. Nous, ici nous cherchons de ne se reveiller plus. "The French, the try to simply work and sleep. Here we try and never get up again." Sad. We talk a lot about development. He asked me if I could pocket donor money instead of putting it in the hands of an idiot, would I pocket it? I countered with, did I know the person was an idiot before I got the funds? Yes. Ok, I would try to redistribute it according to plan to prevent bouffing. I personally wouldn’t seek to profit I told him. See, I’m not desperate enough to be corrupt. I know I’ll have a way to support myself in the future. Again; we talked about solidarity and how it perpetuates poverty. If you know there is always someone to fall back on you never work so hard to pull yourself out of poverty. They all agreed that though poverty may exist in the States it is a better life over there (Tué, Aliou and Tapshirou’s father).

They talked about older women who marry younger men and how rare it is. Agreed that the point of marriage was children but Aliou insisted you need love. Though even if the love that may have once been there dissipates, you stay together for the sake of the children. Kids are the fruit of love, he says. Too bad often it doesn’t seem true here—so once again Aliou’s opinions set him apart as an outlier in Malian society.