I ran into my neighbor Barbara Ann at the supermarket. We chatted for a bit and she dropped the news that she was going to Maui for two weeks. I don’t know whether she had something in her mouth or I had something in my ears, or something got lost in the general hubbub, but she actually said she was going to Mali, not Maui.

Mali is an impoverished, landlocked sub-Saharan country in north central Africa; Maui is a beautiful Hawaiian island full of tourists and honeymooners, resorts and spas. But thinking Barbara Ann was going to Maui, I exclaimed, “That’s wonderful! You’ll love it!”

She gave me a very puzzled look because, although she had never been to Mali, her minister had described it as one of the neediest, poorest countries in the Third World. Barbara Ann was going as part of a church group to help build a high school there out of mud bricks and tin. “You’ll love it” simply did not fit in with her mental picture.

“It’s so beautiful,” I yammered on. “Every time you turn a corner there’s another spectacular view. The ocean, the volcanoes, the whales ...”

“I thought it was landlocked,” Barbara Ann stuttered.

“No, it’s an island all by itself. There’s water everywhere. If you take the Hana Highway, there’s a waterfall at almost every turn in the road.

“But the desert ...”