I just finished reading The Cruelest Journey by Kira Salak. It is about the author, Kira’s kayak trip on the Niger river in Mali from Segou to Timbuktu. I had started it at home, so it was hard to get into and I had put it off until I got back to Mali. While in country, I have devoured books about other volunteers and other people’s experiences in Mali or other African countries. As I read this book, I really identified with Kira on a few points, especially on a few things that I have had a hard time putting into words.

For example, she talks about one of her encounters with a Malian friend, and how when she was quiet and reflective, he thought something was wrong. “But I get tired of trying to explain to some people that I value privacy and solitude as much as they value socializing. If I don’t have time to myself each day, I get stir-crazy. I’ll just run off, needing to escape from a place. But in countries like Mali, with strong tribal traditions, that must sound virtually incomprehensible, as family, religion, and social order provide a crucial structure that sustains people and prevents discontent. Back home, being alone might be considered a kind of independence, but here it is pathology.” This was such a hard concept to get across to my host family in home stay during my first few months of training.

Another thing that really struck me in her book was Kira’s observations on the heat. Strangely, the night offers no respite from the hot temperature, and only the occasional whiff of a breeze gives faint relief. At any rate, it is better to remain outside at all costs. The stifling heat lasts well into the night. She writes this while in Timbuktu, but I can tell you that North or South, it is the same. Hot, hot, hot.

Kira talks about her traveling habits and this journey specifically, and how a lot of times she is quick to look onto the next thing, especially when things are hard. “There are times when I am traveling when I forget that things pass, and then the so-called benefits of an experience elude me, and I can think only of the difficulties. I find it hard to appreciate anything with the sweat running off my face and burning my eyes, the sun’s heat scorching my skin, my body aching from holding the paddle. What room for ‘experience’ when there is only a wish to get to the next place faster, so that the end might be nearer?” I have found myself looking forward to events and ultimately the end of my service, especially when I am having bad days or when time seems to drag on. I have to make myself focus on the moment that I am living in, knowing that these moments are a part of the greater whole, but no less a part than the big moments.

When telling people about Mali, I am sometimes at a loss because most months of the year, Mali is dry, brown, dusty. When I first arrived, I was constantly taken aback at the sights surrounding me, the people, the hills around our home stay village, the sunset skies after the rowdy rainstorms. Of course, when you spend as much time somewhere as we spend here, those things can be lost. “I was on the hill. You see? Over there.” he points to the east, to a distant, high hill, its top outlined in the moonlight. “Kira, it was so beautiful. I climbed the hill and I was taking pictures from the top. Ah, it was incredible! The sun was setting… it was perfect.” There are still moments, perhaps riding my bike from village to San, or when I am out for a morning run as the sun is coming up, that I am in awe of the fact that I am in Africa, I am living in Africa.