Growing Pains

9/23/10

A lot has happened over the past few days. A neighboring girl walked into my uncle's pharmacy and she bought some laxative medicine. She planned to drink it all because she wanted to die, because her grandmother had been abusing her. So, to counterbat, my uncle brought her home to give her a break and to have an opportnity to talk to the grandmother. The poor girl looked so depressed and as my mothers tried talking to her (in their harsh/tough love way) she would not respond to them. What I found really strange about the situation was that my mothers were telling this girl to do chores. One would think that if the girl ws stressed out about her grandmother, you wouldn't want to put more stress on the child, but maybe it was taking her mind off things at home???? That's not how I would've handled the situation. Another strange happening, was that her parents were not physically involved in the situation. I didn't understand why my uncle brought her home, when her father (who by the way, is the crazy man who asked me to cook him toh) who lives only 30km away in Bamako, and his daughter wanted to die for Christ's sake! I asked my uncle why she didn't go to her dad's house in Bamako. His answer was that because he's divorced and the girl is from another marriage, it wouldn't be right to bring her to his house. I found this answer to be strange because I learned that in this culture, if there's a divorce, the child stays with the father. Anyway, after a couple days, the grandmother had calmed down after my uncle talked to her and homegirl was feeling better and felt safe going home. I wonder what the state of mental health is for females vs. males in Mali?