On my first day in my new village in Mali, West Africa, a family invited me into their courtyard. It was a humble place, with two huts made from mud bricks and covered with thatched roofs.
There was one chair made from bamboo in the middle of them, and they offered it to me to sit in.
There were just a few chickens, a sign of poverty within the poverty of one of the poorest places on earth, but they cooked a chicken for me to go with the rice and peanut sauce we shared for supper.
As I sat in that bamboo chair among my Malian friends, and as I placed my hand in the common bowl with them and shared the best food they had to offer, I committed myself to treating all people with the same dignity, respect and love with which they treated me.
I think about this every morning as I welcome my students into my humble classroom and my humble heart, especially my students who are from Mexico, Central America and South America.
I give them my best.
Thank you, Malian friends, for showing me the way.
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