Big vs. Small

Forget to get this into the last one...

As the night was winding down, and I started asking questions about the family, Bocadari started talking about how big of a family they wanted. I had said I would want two or three children at most... Bocadari very plainly said he wanted 11 or 12 kids. All of sudden Awa piped-in and said she was done. She just had Oumar a couple months ago and said she is done being pregnent. The two of them started going back and forth... If Awa were to have 6 more kids that would be the next 7 or 8 years being pregnant and caring for an infant. She has basically spent the last 7 years doing the same... Yikes.

I all of a sudden realized Bocadari wasn't being as serious as he was messing around with Awa. He then said he could just get another wife. Awa turned to me and with a huge smile told me her husband was bad.

It was good to see them banter back and forth and joke around with each other. During my first stay in Mali, they seemed to have a really good working marriage, but I never really saw them having fun together. I don't know what happened over the last 3 years, but they now have a great time with each other. They clearly respect the other but they also have fun.

By the end of my time in the Peace Corps, my sense of marriage was there was a different standard of expectations in Mali. It seemed people looked for a mariage with shared interests and an ability to work together to bring a family up. I rarely saw what most Americans would call "love." I don't know if their feelings have grown over the years, or I just never saw it, but I can see it now and it is really nice.