You think you work hard

Having a bad day? Feel like you are just over-worked and underpaid? No one appreciates all that you do? Well, welcome, but this will make you appreciate the job you have and the work you actually do.

Pounding and sifting millet is one of the many menial tasks woman in remote villages of Mali complete on a very regular basis. This is not easy work at all. In fact, it's quite a work-out and back breaking when you must do it on a regular basis. Watching these women do this was actually quite a sight. They have such a rhythm and much like a runner, they have a pace that sets them in their flow. It was a spectacle to behold.

The ladies were very amused by us and our efforts at this task and I am glad we could make them laugh. They did indeed laugh because as you know, white women got no pounding soul like white men can't jump. But all joking aside, consider your self blessed to be where you are...problems and all.

These women work like you have never worked before. They pound millet, shuck peanuts, cook for small armies with little to no resources, wash dishes and clothes with minimal water, bend over all day in the fields without any modern equipment in scorching sun and take care of all the children and men. This is only a small synopsis of what they do on a daily basis. And in this place, like so many others in the world, they get no appreciation for what they do. It is completely expected and the consequence of not doing their duties is beyond our comprehension.

So, the next time you think your job and life are so terrible, just remember this little snippet of video. I have to sometimes remind myself how good I have it because man, sometimes I wonder, all these things in our life that is supposed to make it easier seem to sometime complicate it and I can't keep up!