Some Malians must ride their bike 30K from their village, take a crowded van along a dusty and pot-filled dirt just to reach the main road at which they will sit for hours waiting for a bus to come by. Others, without a moto or bike or even a donkey cart, walk miles to the main road from their village. When I want to catch a ride out of my village, I simply walk to the road, take a seat near friends, and drink tea until a bus comes zooming through. The doors of the bus will open, the prendtigi will shout at me, asking where I want to go, and I, hurrying to get my bag and take one last sip of tea, will shout out my reply, running to jump on the bus. And just like that, I'm off.
The road is not wide, but it is powerful. The width of an American one lane street, this Malian freeway is the size of the dead end road that runs into my parents' home in Oregon. But unlike North Grand Street, which hosts traffic such as old VW Buses and small Prius', the gidron running through my village sees semi-trucks filled with charcoal and millet, countless Land Rovers with aid workers basking in air conditioning, buses piled high with mattresses and bikes, donkey carts and Peulh women carrying calabash bowls of milk on their heads, motos zooming in and out of it all. It is thanks to the road that my village is growing and prospering. It is thanks to the road that I am even there.
Before the road, there were only two donkey carts in the whole village. They were cumbersome affairs, unable to travel through thick sand, and they traveled neither far nor frequently. In those days, Banta tells me, no one had heard of Bamako much less traveled there. The farthest they traveled was to Baramandougou, for their market once a week, on Sundays, a distance of 20K. Travel was often by river, and Baramandougou, on the banks of the Bani river, was the hub of the area. Boats travelled up and down the river, to Djenne and Mopti, trading millet and fish. Mali's major hubs fell along river routes: Bamako, Segou, Mopti, even Tombouctou.
The road came shortly after Independence, in 1961 or 1962, at the same time that kids started going to school. The leaders of Baramandougou recognized how influential the new road would be and pushed for it to be built through their village. But their appeals went unheard and my village made its name on the map instead, another stop on the road from Bamako.
A paved road means progress. It means income and trade and markets and wealth and resources. It means easy access for government officials and NGOs and donor agencies. It means a school and clinic right their in your own village. It means that your children will not have to walk three miles to school. It means that your wife will not give birth in a donkey cart on the long trip to get to the clinic. It means the clinic will not have run out of vaccinations for your children by the time they make it out to your village. It means not only knowledge of Bamako, not only trips to Bamako, but years spent working or studying in Bamako. A paved road means that when ATT, Mali's President, travels north, he will throw money out the window of his car and it will be your family and neighbors who will pick the money up. A paved road means fresh fruits and vegetables; fresh fish and meat. It not only means fresh food, it means there will be money to buy that food.
My village is now a destination: people stop to buy lunch and dinner; every Saturday buses and donkey carts come from miles around to buy and sell at market. Business is thriving and bricks are being made for new buildings and houses.
As urban areas in Mali become richer and rural areas become poorer, Malians are flocking to urban centers. While my village is by no means urban, it too is growing. The mayor's office hopes that the village will one day become a circle capital, a sub-regional center and hub for commerce.
Baramandougou, the village by the river, has shrunk. It still hosts a market on Sundays, but almost no one goes. Many of its villagers have moved to my village. The road has passed over Baramandougou, surpassing the power of the river with its force, moving as fast as the trucks that zoom along the pavement to supply money and resources to the villages blessed to have access to it. For those villages on winding dirt roads, miles from pavement, the road and the progress that comes with it continues to evades them.
The new mayor of our commune, Moussa Daou, took office in June, and almost every village in the commune has demanded a paved road connecting their village to ours during Moussa's term. These villages, too, have taken note of the power of the road.
In the evenings, once the heat of the day has dimmed, I leave my bike at Aissa's and head out for a run on the road, up a hill towards the village of Bora. Fields stretch out beside me, and now that the rain is beginning, I pass farmers hurrying to finish their work before the sun sets. Buses breeze by me on their way to Bamako and vans head back into my village from market. The road is narrow, and when I see a truck coming towards me, I jump off the road and run on the edge of fields, crickets jumping out of my way. I turn around and run back towards my village and what I see is this: a village stretching out across sand and dirt, separated by a winding mass of concrete. I see a road that is skinny and worn, crowded and overflowing. I see a road that is the best single mean of escaping poverty for my community. This is the real thing: a road to progress.
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