Random Kindness

After taking a day trip to Orodara, about an hour west of Bobo, to check out the area where I’ll be living for the next study, I was pretty tired after the return bus ride. I had chosen a window seat, grateful for the chance to watch the scenery on the way back to Bobo, and happy to have some fresh air, since the window was open. Actually, the window was missing, which I realized about halfway through the trip when a rain cloud burst above us! A few people shifted in their seats so that I could sit across the aisle with them, and we laughed as I wiped the water from my shoulder and hair. Not 5 minutes later, the roof above me started dripping water! Again, my neighbors maneuvered so that I could sit where the leak wouldn’t land on me.

I got into a taxi in Bobo and was a little weary when the driver said he had one stop to make, then would take me home, but I was happier to sit and know that I was en route home rather than continuing to walk the semi-deserted (Sunday afternoon) streets looking for a cab home. I watched the driver pull something from the floor of the car and realized it was the key, which he inserted into the ignition to turn off the car when we arrived at the market where he was making his stop. Later, when he started the car again, he put the key in the ignition to turn the engine, then as we started moving forward, he took the key out and placed it on the floor.

While we stopped, he took a glass of tea with his brothers, who loaded huge sacks of grains into the back of the station wagon, and piled big round pots on the roof. I walked across the street to the market to buy some vegetables and decided to get some eggplant. I asked the rotund woman sitting on an inverted pail how much for 4 and I thought she replied, “500 CFA” so I handed her a 500 CFA piece and walked away. I was about a block away, across the street, and buying onions from another woman when a young girl about 8 years old ran up to me, breathless, and handed me 200 CFA. I looked at her, the coins in my hand, and then at then woman selling onions, who said, “You didn’t take your change over there.” I shook my head in disbelief – this young girl was sent by her mother, who sold me the eggplant, to give me the change since I had misunderstood the price. I was incredulous – this kind of honesty is so rare, it seems. The woman selling the onions smiled and said, “C’est normal” as if it were indeed like this everywhere.