No matter how many times I try to understand family structures in Mali, there are times when I'm completely surprised and dumbfounded, Left wondering how the family trees are so confusing. Its structure is somewhat similar to our American structure but a few tangents linked to Mali being predominantly Muslim in religion changes the whole dynamic of what you think a family tree might be. Case in point, in Mali, men are allowed to marry up to four wives depending on financial and social status. The more money a man makes the more wives he marries. Though they can marry up to four wives, its more common for a man to have two wives than four as he has to be well off to support the wives and the children they bear. In chatting with families and asking the number of children they have, from my calculations a woman will give birth to an average of 7 children during her marriage. I've met some women who have given birth to 10 to 12 kids, for one woman. I always comment to their husbands that "they are much stronger than men are" which is true in more than one way. So a man has two wives and lets say each wife has 10 kids, so 20 kids in total. Now those kids when they get old enough to have kids will have children that might be close to the ages of some of the kids that are born between the parents, usually the kids from the second wife. So lets create a scenario that I encountered: *names are altered....slightly :)*

John marries Sue and has 8 kids with her. They all range in ages and some are boys and some are girls. They have been married for 35 years and had all of their kids at the beginning of their marriage. My friend, Ringo, is the third eldest and he is now 27 years old. His parents John and Sue love him very much. Ringo married his wife, Mary and between them they have 3 kids, ages 6,4, and 2. The 6 year old boys name is Rich. John. having acquired some wealth. decided to marry a second wife, not that he didn't like Sue anymore, but now he financially could so he did. Sue didn't object because Allah grants that a man can have more than one wife so its a common thing. After 25 years of it being just John and Sue, John married Peggy and now it is John, Sue, and Peggy in one house. John and Peggy have been married for 10 years and have 5 kids together. One of their sons is 6 years old, named Augustus. Now Rich, Ringo and Marys son and Augustus, John and Peggy's son are good friends and play together every day. You would think they were brothers because they are both boys at the age of 6 and you wouldn't think there was anything other than that. Maybe cousins but its a little more complicated than that. In actuality, Augustus is the uncle of Rich and quite possibly is a few months younger that Rich. How can this be? Well it starts with the second marriage of John and the children he has with Peggy since he had 8 kids with Sue, his first wife. My friend Ringo being one of them technically any kids that John and Peggy will be Ringo's brothers and sisters, no matter how young or old they are. So Augustus is Ringo's bothers making Ringo's son Rich, Augustus nephew. You would never know unless you delved into the family history.

This same instance happened with two of my friends, both named Yaya. I've known them for almost a year now and just yesterday I realized they were related, the younger Yaya being the uncle of the older Yaya. This is a bit complicated, but no where near as difficult as when a man will call his siblings kids his own kids. I'm completely lost when this happens because his family just multiplied by three.

Recently I've been in the field helping plow the soil. Rainy season is here and that means the growing season has started. My village grows cotton, millet, corn, peanuts, rice, and beans during this season with most being consumed by households as their stable food source. The cotton they sell as a cash crop is a big income generator when done right. In the field they till the soil by a plow pulled by cows. This sled weighs at least 100 pounds and gets a little squirmy when you leave it to chance. It will dance around and plow anything in its path. Its relatively simple, you hold the plow to till a strait line until the whole field is done. But holding a strait line is difficult as at times that plow has a mind of its own sometimes. You walk back and fourth hitting every square inch. Its hard work but rewarding to know you plowed the field by hand. After we plant the seeds, but because the rains haven't come yet we are waiting and praying for them to come. Lets hope soon as their food source for the year relies on it so lets pray for rain.

My host uncle and I grafted some trees yesterday. Grafting is the transfer of one trees genes to another by cutting and mending the branches. The purpose is to pass the good genes on to a tree that has already started to grow speeding up the germination time. Its a cool skill to have and my host uncle is very familiar with it. He is not a botanist or arborist by any means but he knows how to graft and that is all that matters. He can graft mangoes and these pear-apples, ensuring that the best fruit will be produced year after year.
Rainy season is here but it is coming slowly. The village is a little tense because they haven't been able to put the seeds in the ground to start growing their food. Hopefully the rains will come soon and the growing season will start. Until then, say a little prayer for the rains.