It was a quiet morning. The previous night’s rains seemed to dampen not just the soil but even the rustling of leaves on trees and plants around the village. It was a very pleasant walk to breakfast with my host family that morning. The smell of the monsoons sweetened the air as rows or corn sprang from the earth all around. I said the morning’s greetings and settled down in my usual spot for porridge. As an added bonus, Abi had made galletes, a small round cake-like food made from corn and fried in shea nut butter.

We sat over to the side of the family courtyard due to the large puddle in the middle of the compound. Outdoor meals were a nice way to convene in the morning. Following custom, we ate in silence. Hollowed-out calabash spoons in our left hands and galletes in our right, we enjoyed the morning feast. Across from me sat Kahdja, a striking young mother in her twenties. A relative of my host father, she spent the rainy season assisting with the harvest, accompanied by her son Abou, just under two years old.

Like many Malian toddlers, Abou had a stream of snot running out of his nose that morning. “A Land without Kleenex,” I thought. By mid-breakfast, the stream had grown in size and was already running into his mouth. Nothing alarming by Malian standards but nonetheless it was mixing with the thick goopy porridge in his spoon and forming an inextricable mixture.

Now, before I go on, a word about phlegm in Mali. Phlegm is not really the gross substance we make it out to be here in the good ole’ U.S. of A. Just another thing to eliminate and then move on with your day. A good farmer’s blow, a swift wipe, and finally a flick of the finger and you’re on your way. For the more stubborn (read: sticky) days, a gentle wipe on a tree, house, or passing goat and you’re all set. That said, I continue with my story.

Abou’s snot was now mixing with his porridge, and prodding from senior family members urged Kahdja into action. The only problem was that at the moment her left hand (“nose hand” in the Malian lingua franca) was occupied, along with her right for that matter. Kahdja shifted her weight from side to side in her flimsy bamboo chair as she tried in vain to sneak a pinky or a wrist up to Abou’s face. The whole family seemed to freeze, contemplating Kahdja’s next move. Lacking any sort of table or plate to rest her spoon or food on, this was an exciting diversion from otherwise boring village life. Would she hand her items to another family member and do the wipe and flick? Would she explain to Abou how to proceed? Or would she simply wait a little bit longer until she was done eating?

No, Kahdja was much more resourceful than this. In what seemed like slow motion, Kahdja bent low in her chair towards Abou. I sat motionless in anticipation. What Kahdja did next made me wince like I have never before. Enveloping Abou’s nose and mouth in a gentle kiss, Kahdja slurped up the snot like a child with a bowl of Jell-O at summer camp. My eyes the size of silver dollars, Kahdja turned to me and stared, her mouth full of Abou’s phlegm. Sensing my disgust, she grinned ear to ear as she spit the snot across the courtyard. Going right back to her breakfast, she laughed hysterically at me. I looked down at my calabash full of porridge, the same color and consistency as Abou’s snot that just moment’s ago was hurtling out of this young woman’s mouth in front of me. I set down my spoon and walked in silence back to my house. As I left, I heard the sound of Kahdja’s laughter echoing across the fields of corn.