Oneness

Today I am thinking about my father. He is back in the ICU after 49 days at home. Basically, he is in the ICU every month. I think of him always and wish I was close so I could hold his hand. The life I have chosen for myself is far away and I know my dad wouldn't want me to give up and come home, even for one year. I spent two months at home this year and nearly four months last year. It's not enough, and it will never be enough, but it is what I can do. I make the most of my time at home and spend all day, every day, at his side. 

What I want to write about today is the response of the people in the places where I live to the illness of my father. Because family relationships are so important in the places I live,  the first thing people do when they meet me in Mauritania is to ask my family name. This is a way of finding out if I am connected to them, if I am one of "them" in some way. In a small country like Mauritania, there is a good chance that most people of the same ethnic group are some how related. As a foreigner, they think I may have married into their "family." When I tell them my last name, it is clear that I am an outsider. Usually, they will "give" me a name, thereby making me one of them. 

Sometimes just for fun I say the name of the family I visit. So I will say, "My name is Delia Ba." Then the person will ask where I am from. I will say, for example, "Feralla." Then, if the person has any family or even knows anyone named Ba in Feralla they will ask me, "do you know XX?" If I do know the person, we have become "family" through the association. If not, the search for someone in common will continue. By the end of the conversation we will have found a connection. This is a way of building a relationship and establishing "oneness." I may be wrong about this because I have actually never asked anyone or talked about it but it is just what I think. As you can imagine, after we establish "oneness" people will ask about how my family is doing (remember my relations are now their relations and vice versa). 

In fact, asking about family is so entrenched in the cultures of every country I have lived in (Kenya, Benin, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Senegal & Algeria) - and probably most of the "developing" world - that everyone I meet asks about the status of my family every time I see them. People are genuinely interested to hear about my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. When I tell people about my father's illness, they are so concerned. They call me later to see if he is better. Once I tell someone about my father's illness, that person will remember and ask me about it every single time I see him/her. It is as if the entire country cares about my father. The level of compassion I witness on a daily level is striking. 

We choose how we define family. We are all connected. If we had a greater sense of "oneness," the world would be a much better place for everyone in our extended "family."