It was 50km away from the city, Bamako. It was 50km away from the motorcycles, the cars, the pollution, the heat and the smoke. It was 50km away from manmade destruction of nature. To this day I am still mesmerized as to how a place so close to the city can be so different. In such a dry region, this place was the complete oppose. It was green one of the greenest places I had been to in Mali. There nature had remained slightly untouched by anything. We were in Siby, Mali, otherwise known as the city of mangoes.

You could hear the water rushing down and around. You could see rocks that had been slightly splashed on and others were completely dry. I felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole except that at the end of the hole as a pool of water where the waterfall ended. All around were rocks that created a staircase that were surrounded by different types of trees, thin trees, thick trees.

We spent the whole day there, in this scene carved out of a landscape magazine. We took many pictures. My favorite one is my mother looking into the distance. Maybe its my favorite because it has my mother in it. Nature, as we talked about, is often referred to as mother nature. In one of the pictures, my mother is amidst mother nature, a mother with another mother. She represents for me everything nature represents for us. She is a constant support, love, unconditional love, one that continues to give when there is nothing to give.

Siby is nearly the opposite of Bamako. Bamako is the perfect example of a city that has gone wrong. There was urban planning as the city rapidly expanded and continues to do so. Yet, Siby represents the ability to preserve nature and leave it untouched by humans and their need to destroy. It made me realize what there is and what is worth keeping. I hope in some way Siby isn’t alone in the world and that together we can try to spread what I experienced in Siby.