Emancipated from the Smoky Kitchen by the Power of the Sun

This scene might look like just another day in the life of a Malian housewife. But in fact, this is far from a portrait of mundane drudgery - rather, this scene captures the quiet struggle of women's empowerment and feminist revolution.



You see, something is missing from this picture - were it to capture the quotidian labors of the average Malian woman. Deborah Dao cooks her family three square meals a day - a responsibility which in this economy requires nearly constant preparation and cooking. Most women spend all day pounding millet, mixing the batter, chopping firewod and fanning the flames to cook their family's toh, but here there is no burning hearth, no fire, no smoke.

On a closer look, you can see that Deborah is cooking with a solar oven - a wonderful appliance made by local carpenters with their own wood and just a few imported materials which harnesses solar radiation to collect heat energy.



If Deborah prepares her family's lunch early in the morning and places it in her solar oven, by noon it's ready to eat. And she is free of the tedious labor of fanning the flames for hours at a time.



Now that she no longer has to spend all morning in the smoky kitchen inhaling the noxious fumes and tars of wood smoke, Deborah can occupy her time with various cottage industries. She makes shea butter, soap, liquid soap and incense to sell at market and earn money for herself and her children. On this day, she is sewing garments for her neighbors; a Westerner might think that Deborah is still relegated to traditional "women's work", but here in Mali, most women are too busy fanning the flames of the hearth to engage in much income-generating activity - most taylors are men. Deborah, on the other hand, is the only female taylor in the entire Commune of Sanadougou.

Not Letting The Light Go Out

Eliezer: Madu, you will go to church today?

Zac/Madu: No.

E: But today is Sunday, and on Sunday all Christians go to church. You should go to church today.

Z: I am not Christian. I am Jewish. We’ve been over this already.

E: I do not understand. You do not pray at the church, you do not pray at the mosque. So where do you pray?

Z: I… um… I pray at my house - alone… all the time.

E: You should not pray alone. You should pray with the Christian s every Sunday.

Z: In the holy book of the Jews - which you call the Old Testament, it says that you can pray with other people and it is also okay to pray by yourself.

E: How do your Jewish peoples pray?

Z: Some very strict Jewish people pray only in the language of the ancient Hebrews. They pray at the synagogue together, but the men sit in the front and the women sit in the back. They are called "Orthodox".

E: Do all Jewish people speak Hebrew?

Z: No, I sure don't. There are some Jewish people who pray together at the synagogue Hebrew and in English, and the women can sit with the men. They are called “Conservative” or “Reform.”

E: Is that how you pray?

Z: No. I am the only Jew in Diaramana, so there is no one who can do Jewish prayers with me.

E: Then how do you do your Jewish prayers?

Z: Well… um… at nighttime when I am all alone sometimes I burn some incense, and I light a candle. Then I read the Torah, or I sit on the ground and think very hard about whether I am doing the right things in life, about people in Mali and in America, and I try very harder to think about everything in the Universe all at once. When I pray I do not say a word, I only think. Sometimes when I pray I listen to Ravi Shankar on my iPod. Sometimes while I pray I lie on the ground and stretch my body.

E: You white people are very strange.

Z: Yes.