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.