The four of us, Alima, Bahumu, Omouru and I, left the village behind and walked a couple of hundred yards to the deserted clay pits.  It is not the normal day of the week for hacking the clay out of the earth so none of the other women were there.  This afternoon, this excursion was one of the high points of my entire stay in Mali.  Sunny, blue sky, giant trees, and birds, lots of birds. and just the four of us– some of my favorite people in the village- hardworking Alima the first wife in a strict and prominent family in the village, and her 4 year old daughter — my beloved Bahumu and sweet 4 year old cousin Oumoru.

Once we got to the clay pits Alima began the hard work of hacking the clay out of the earth with the axe she had carried with us from the village.  I sat for abit on the ground at the edge of the hole that had been made by the labor of the women extracting this clay from the ground.  Then I went walking off.  The ground looked hard but I was sinking as I walked, sinking ever deeper into the soft clay underfoot.  I promptly got my feet and sandals covered in clay.    The 2 children rescued me and tried to show me where to walk to wash off my feet and sandals.  They could walk there but since I am much heavier than the two four year olds, I sank when I tried to approach the water.  They motioned to me to take off my sandals. Bahumu and Omoru washed them for me and when the sandals were cleaner than they had been to begin with, they began to sweetly and gently wash my clay-covered feet.

All this time Alima was working, hacking the clay out of the earth.  Hard, back breaking, sweaty work.  And she looked on and smiled as the children took care of me.  It was especially sweet when Oumoru was washing my feet.  I do best with the 4 year olds except they do more work than I do.

I had an experience of absolute presentness there at the clay pits with the 3 of them.  The kids imitating Alima’s work.  Bahumu using a stick to pound as with a mortar.  At one point Omouru and Alima had a rhythm going.  Alima hacking at the earth and Omouru thwacking the earth with a stick in time.

Omouru, a boy, showing that he could rocks throw further than his cousin, Bahumu, a girl. And in fact it was true that he could throw the rocks further than she could.  But she tried about half a dozen times anyway.

And there were birds, beautiful birds singing.  And just the four of us. Perhaps it was that sense of absolute presentness that I came all this way for.  And perhaps I need to be this slowed down to find it.  Happiness.

Something really shifted in me when Umoru was beating the earth with a stick in rhythm to Alima’s hacking the clay out of the earth. Open, open– I heard/thought to myself.  Breaking some block, open like shafts of grain to get the kernels out.
Open, open
don’t resist
open, open
Don’t resist
open, open