Below is a short story I wrote about my last day of home stay. It is based on true events.

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Saturday morning I loaded my belongings in to my camping backpack and locked the door to my room. Today is the last day with my host family. In a few hours, I will be biking to the edge of town where a shiny white Land Cruiser—a stark contrast to the dirty bush taxis and motos that normally traverse the red dirt roads of Mali—will be picking me up. I walk to my host father and mother and begin the customary greetings; ‘Good morning’, ‘How are you?’, ‘How was your sleep?’, ‘How is the family?’, ‘How are the children?’ followed by numerous blessings ranging from ‘may your wife have many children’ to ‘may no evil approach you during your day’. After the greetings, I tell my host parents thank you one more time.

Three months ago I arrived in the former French colony of Mali, a landlocked country in West Africa, as a naive American with my wife and 62 other Peace Corps trainees. I have lived and traveled outside of the United States, but only in developed countries, never in a place like this. From the second the plane touched down in Bamako, Mali’s capital and largest city, I knew my perspective of the world was about to change. The airport was a vast empty space—no terminals or stores. A bus brought us from the runway to a small processing building. I presented my passport and proof of vaccination, picked up my luggage, and was ushered to the parking lot where a fleet of U.S. Government-owned Land Cruisers were waiting.

I came to Mali with two semesters of college-level French and a summer abroad in Montreal. Like most of France’s former colonies, Mali’s official language is French. Despite being a requirement in all schools, a large portion of the population lacks even basic proficiency. That’s not to say that the people of Mali are unintelligent, to the contrary, Mali is a country of perseverance and determination. The Malian culture is one of imagery, art, and tradition. People speak their respective ethnic language; Bambara, Fulfudé, Malinké, Kassonké, Donosso. Mali’s history is an oral history, often recounted through song. I assumed French would get me where I wanted to go in Mali. I was wrong.

In big cities, such as Bamako, French is all one needs. The further en brousse one goes—and most of Mali is en brousse—the more one needs to know the local language. My wife and I were assigned to a suburb of Bamako for our pre-service training and given separate host families on opposite sides of town. My wife’s host family is well-educated—their children attend a private Catholic school and spend their weekends studying geometry with a professional tutor. They speak French, and even a little English. They are the typical urban ‘Bamako family’. My family is of more humble means.

My host father is a fortune teller and traditional medicine man, providing natural remedies for everything from broken wrists to diarrhea. He is a devout Muslim. One might assume that his chosen profession would be at odds with his religious beliefs; but throughout Mali, Islam is often mixed with traditional Malian beliefs and practices. Most of the children in my compound attend public school a few days each week. They memorize French phrases, but don’t necessarily learn the language. I knew the statistics about literacy in Mali, but it took a while before I began to equate the numbers on paper to the people I met. I take for granted the education I received as a child. Living with my host family has been a wakeup call.

Western logic dictates that education is paramount to a happy and successful life. My host parents cannot read or write but, in my opinion, they are happy and successful. I’m not saying ignorance is bliss, my family knows an education makes a big difference in a person’s life—which is why their children attend school when they did not—but where family is concerned, they are better off than their westernized counterparts.

I love my host family. They accept me in their home. The children spend hours each night helping me learn Bambara—if you ever have the opportunity to live abroad, you realize how important children are to learning the language and culture. In three months I went from no Bambara to an intermediate level.

It’s only an hour until I leave.

There are a total of eight trainees in my home stay village. Yesterday afternoon, we hosted a thank you party for our families. Each host family sent one woman to cook. In America I would feel odd inviting people to a dinner and asking them to send their wife or child to prepare the meal, but it is accepted protocol in Mali.

I spent the prior day working on a speech in Bambara to give at the gathering. It went well. I began with the customary greetings – ‘Good afternoon’, ‘How are you?’, ‘How are your families?’ – followed by a brief story and a lot of thank yous and blessings. Afterward, I presented the eldest male in attendance a bag of Kola Nuts—the traditional West African sign of appreciation—and each family with a 50 kilo bag of rice.

After training, I’ll be working in a small village in the western side of Mali. I will be assisting a women’s association improve their ability to store and sell produce. The women’s association has four gardens and produces a variety of vegetables, but focus heavily on onion production. The village is an eight hour drive northwest of the Malian capital. There are no refrigerators with cold drinks, no cars, not even a weekly market. The closest high school is 100 km south. My homologue, a person from the community who has volunteered to assist me in my integration to the village, has only three years of formal education. At times, she makes my host family seem very westernized.

It’s almost time. I make a phone call to check that the scheduled pick up time is still accurate. Generally speaking, everything runs on West African International Time (WAIT). To my surprise, the driver is on schedule. I had hoped for a few extra minutes. I walk up to my host dad and say my final goodbye. It isn’t as emotional as I thought it would be. I walk my bike to the front of the compound, shaking everyone’s hands as I go by. I’m about to jump on my bike when Mariam comes running.

Mariam is my 12 year old host sister. As the only daughter in our compound, her day is filled with chores. She wakes up before dawn to sweep the compound and pull water from the well. She attends school, a rarity among girls. During her lunch break, she joins her mother at the local market to sell vegetables. After class, Mariam returns to the market, cleans up the family stall and brings the unsold produce back to the compound. She comes home to more chores. The life of a young woman in this country is hard. At times, I feel like her only break from the day is when she is helping me with my language homework.

Mariam has the saddest look on her face. ‘I ma kan ka taa,’ she says, ‘You can’t go’.  What can I do? What should I say? My ride is waiting and I have no other option. I hold back tears and tell her I have to go. I hop on my bicycle. As I ride off, I turn and say, ‘I ni cé. I ni cé kosebe’—‘Thank you. Thank you so much’.

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Daniel Brent Arnold is a Small-Enterprise Development Peace Corps volunteer serving in Mali with his wife Ashley. Arnold received his Bachelor’s of Business Administration in 2008 from Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. After finishing his service, Arnold plans to move back to the states for graduate school.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article in no way represent or reflect the views of the United States Government or the Peace Corps. Do to privacy concerns, the names of those involved have been changed.

Swear-in was a blast! To celebrate Peace Corps’ 40th year in Mali and 50th year since inception, the president of Mali hosted us at his presidential palace. The palace is located on top of a large hill overlooking Bamako. The who’s-who in Mali were in attendance. The Peace Corps Mali country director, U.S. Ambassador to Mali, and the Malian president gave speeches.

The next morning we boarded buses to our regional capital. After a few days of shopping in our regional capital, setting up our bank accounts, and introducing ourselves to the local authorities, we headed off to site.

It is a three hour drive from our regional capital to our site. We hitched a ride with the mayor of a neighboring village. We loaded his 1980s Ford truck with our luggage, bed, chairs, and everything else we own. The truck almost made it to our site, but broke down a few kilometers away. We could see our village from the road and ended up finding a few locals to help us push it the rest of the way.

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Right now I’m back in Bamako on medical leave. I’m fine now and should be heading back to site in a couple days. For the time being, I’m being hosted at the Bamako stage house–a stark contrast from the rest of Mali. We have fast Internet, high-definition TV, and fast food delivery. I feel bad leaving my site so quickly after arriving, and am looking forward to returning.

Throughout my Peace Corps Mali training, I have heard a lot about the ‘miracle tree’–a tree that can be used for nearly everything essential to life. You can eat the leaves, seed pods, flowers, roots, and in some species even the bark. One hundred grams of its leaves contain more protein and amino acids than most meats, seven times more Vitamin C than an orange, nearly four times more calcium than cow’s milk, three times more potassium than a banana, and triple the Vitamin A of a carrot. The oil produced from the tree is claimed to be some of the best lamp oil and cooking oil in the world–it doesn’t produce smoke when burned and won’t go rancid. The roots, high in protein and vitamins, tastes like horseradish. This is just a few of the non-medical uses of the Moringa tree.

In addition to food and light, the tree produces a variety of medicines. The leaves act as a natural head-on, ‘apply directly to the forehead’. When wrapped around a shallow cut, they cause the blood to clot–acting as a natural bandage. Additionally, the anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties of the leaf protect the wound from infection. Tea made from the leaves is used to treat diarrhea and gastro-intestinal problems. The pods, if eaten raw, are a natural de-wormer and can be used to treat joint pain and liver problems. The seeds, when crushed, can be used to treat arthritis, rheumatism, gout, cramps and boils. Did I mention that the seed can also be used as a natural water filter?

Writings on the Moringa tree date back thousands of years but the many benefits of Moringa have just recently been rediscovered. Part of Peace Corps Mali’s food security directives is to inform Malians about the many benefits of the miracle tree.

This morning, I went around collecting Moringa seed to plant at my future site. It is best to plant from cuttings, as they grow quicker, but seeds will travel better. Ashley and I want to build a live fence around our compound, as well as hold Moringa planting seminars. Moringa trees, when planted in close proximity, take only three months to go from sapling to animal-proof fence. The plants will provide our future garden with high-protein leaf compost and us with a nutritional, year-round, food source.