Binta and the Great Idea

I found the movie's end a bit of a surprise. The way Souleyman was talking about the tubab, I was sure he had Binta's father convinced that the Western ways of living are great ones, and that he might want to embrace them. Instead, his great idea was to adopt a tubab child so that it may grow up in their society. Binta's father feels that the Western technological and military advances are not all that advantageous but quite the opposite. They ruin people because they have weapons that could destroy each other, etc. In Binta's society people look past the fact they are poor and learn to work together, to respect each other, and I could not agree more. Soda's situation is a great example. As a girl growing up in Binta's society, she wants, no, she desires to go to school, but her father won't allow her because he thinks it is her duty to stay and take care of the house because one day she will marry and become a mother. In the Western society, kids are forced to go to school. They throw away the opportunity to be so much more. I believe it is more rewarding to learn that wealth is not everything than to live in constant competition and become greedy and selfish. The reward, of course, is happiness.