But he was not the man to go about telling his neighbors that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan. His enemies said that his good fortune had gone to his head.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?

I was already singing by the time I was six years old. My neighbors would ask me to sing at festivities—marriages, baptisms, etc.—and they would give me presents. In 1973 [when I was 15], I went to the Institute for the Young Blind in Mali to learn Braille. When I was there I taught other people how to sing and dance.

Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.

Our object should be peace within, and peace without. We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large.