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 a cooking fire between them.
There was one chair made from bamboo, the most expensive of their possessions, and they offered it to me to sit in it.
There were few chickens, a sign of poverty within the poverty of one of the poorest places on earth.
The family cooked a chicken for me in 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, especially those who are around me from Mexico, Central America, South America, the Middle East or any other place in the world.
Thanks for being my example, my Malian friends!
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