Djenne Part 2 and Segou

The view from the honey wine bar

On our second day in Djenne, Lise and I went on a walk out of town to see some of the surrounding villages. We took a pirogue across the river, and found ourselves suddenly in an empty expanse of grass and dirt, a stark contrast to the dense mud brick forest behind us.

The Djenne skyline

We wandered toward the nearest village. We were looking for something by the name of Welingara, but when we arrived, the people there just pointed off into the distance. We couldn’t even see a village in the distance, but we just wandered anyway. Eventually some gray shapes appeared on the horizon, and as we drew closer they turned into a tiny, compact village. In fact, it appeared more as an extremely large familial compound than a village, the way it was walled off on the edges. We approached a young woman, drawing water from the well outside the wall. These were Fulani people, so our Bambara greetings were not even acknowledged. We engaged in a mutual staring/smiling awkwardly contest. Without the ability to communicate in French or at least break the ice in Bambara, I had no idea how to convey what we were there for. This led to an even weirder realization: what was I there for? Sure, we wanted to wander around the village, see how they lived, maybe have some tea, but what was this really? Gawking? Ignorant tourism? What did I know and not know? What did I want to know? I don’t know. I do know that the Fulani are a unique nomadic people with origins in Ethiopia, whose people stretch across the Sahel from Senegal to Sudan. I know a lot more than this, but I have never come face to face in their own homes, and I felt at a loss.
We motioned that we would like to go in and see, and she waved us in. Sure enough, when we entered, we felt like we had just walked into someone’s home, where daily life was just carrying on. The children were friendly and curious, which helped ease the mood, but within a minute, with little to communicate, we left. We walked to the other side, which took just a few minutes, and tried entering from a different entrance. This seemed to resemble more of a village than a home, with a path between partitioned living spaces. Kids followed, and eventually an elderly woman spotted us and started yelling and shaking her finger. At first I thought that she was telling the kids to leave us alone, but it became quickly clear that we were not welcome in her space.
We walked out and headed back to Djenne, feeling like we had half-failed in our quest. We hadn’t even figured out if that was indeed Welingara.

Our pirogue on the way back was run by a gaggle of small boys in a watery boat.

Back in town we had a new quest, and it was to find lunch. We could not seem to find any street food (mid-afternoon is the pits for eating in Mali, as everyone is having a siesta), or any restaurants that catered to locals. We asked around, looking for tion-tion, a supposed local specialty, and eventually ran into a young guy who invited us to his home for lunch. It was not tion-tion, but instead peanut sauce with rice, Mali’s best dish in my opinion. The young man was hospitable, having no problem bringing us right into his family’s home, giving us some of the already prepared food. Afterword, we headed back to his own place, down the road, for tea. He eventually told us he was a guide. It surprised me that this was brought up so late in our conversation. However, he never once seemed interested in getting us to hire his services. I was surprised to find out that he was among the same group of people that pounce on tourists and follow them around incessantly as soon as they get into town He asked us, out of curiosity, why we didn’t use a guide. It turned into a similar conversation as we had had the night before with the guides at the bar. Interestingly, we had been proven wrong that very day. If we had had a Fula speaking guide to take us out to that village, we might have actually learned a lot and had a richer experience than awkward staring showdowns. It can still be difficult, though, for someone who has never taken (and never really needed) guides, to finally decide that this is finally the perfect situation for one.

The mosque by night

The mosque by morning

In the morning it was time to leave Djenne. We went to the collective taxi stand, and waited for all ten seats (yes, ten). And then we waited. And then? We waited. It seems that all the other tourists here had their own vehicles. I am always surprised that for how many foreigners in Mali, very few of them are independent travelers/backpackers. Djenne is not a huge town, so outside of market day, there are very few locals trying come or go. Finally, at about 1:30 we were on our way. Halfway to the ferry, we got stuck in a puddle (lake?) and we all had to get out and push. A huge truck was already stuck in it when we tried to go. I figured it was a silly idea for our small Peugeot to try to make it through when a huge truck was already stuck, but the driver thought otherwise. It only took about 20 minutes before we were on our way again. After crossing with the ferry and arriving at the main road, Lise and I felt that we were done paying for transport, and decided to hitchhike back to Bamako.

The Ferry Port

Of course, when we got out of the taxi there were several people trying to hustle us into the nearest bus or van. We resisted, saying we weren’t going anywhere, and casually went for some fried fish and rotisserie sheep. Every time a bus would arrive, the same man would come to us, insisting that we get on this bus, as whatever company it happened to be was “the best quality”. We kept saying “the next one.”
We started to walk down the road in the direction of Bamako. The man ran after us, confused why we were leaving. Explaining that you want to hitchhike is difficult with most people in Mali, but impossible to the guy that gets tips from bus drivers for getting you onto the bus. We waited for a couple hours, and there was a scary lack of traffic. I asked Lise if she preferred to take a bus, or camp and try again the next day. She said she wanted to camp, but minutes later a white SUV pulled over. The moment I open the door to air conditioning and pristine leather interior is the moment that I finally realize how dirty I am, and I get self-conscious.
It was a typical NGO vehicle, complete with chauffeur. The man worked for the NGO running environmental programs near Mopti. Conservation, sustainable farming techniques, planting mango trees and the like. I had worked with similar projects during my internship in Ghana. He was heading to Bamako to catch a flight to Paris. We wondered if he would be on the same flight as Lise, as they were leaving the same day.
We decided to stop in Segou. When we arrived to the outskirts of town, our new friend treated us to a dinner of fried chicken (!) and toe, a millet cake with a savory sauce. He then insisted on taking us all the way to our impossible to find little guesthouse. Nobody in town had ever heard of it, because it is simply a family’s home with a few extra rooms.
Later that night we went to Alphabet, an artsy little café with live music. It had a relaxed and unique atmosphere and was a bit sophisticated for my taste. The music was more folksy than most Malian music and everything about it made me feel more like I was in Seattle than Segou. It also felt like the kind of place that a hippy foreigner would have set up to appeal to other foreigners in town. I usually hate these kinds of places and avoid them at all costs. But for some reason I did not mind this place much. On this night we were the only whites in the place, but we could still hear the Malians speaking to each other in French. The owner, Oumar, eventually made it to our table to introduce us and have a chat. Oumar was indeed Malian. He was very flamboyant and charming. He told us about how he had lived in Paris for 20 years and had worked as a model. He was an interesting character, and I think his presence in the Segou music and arts scene is important as someone who can relate to both Malians and foreigners.
Segou has a great reputation, but as we wandered around the second day, we didn’t really get the big deal. There are plenty of expats and NGO workers here, as well as a wealth of elderly tourists with fanny packs (sorry Mama). I assume, for the people that want to live here, that it is more relaxing than Bamako, but they still have plenty of decent restaurants and expat bars. It does carry quite a bit of significance as the homeland of the Bambara people, Mali’s largest ethnic group, comprising a third of the population. What we saw were things we couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to) afford, Tuareg trinket sellers, and a less welcoming attitude to foreigners than I had seen in other places. Of course, this comes from a tourist town, but in reality, there is no landmark or famous thing that would draw tourists. It is sprawling, and not unlike a lot of nomal mid-sized towns, except for the expensive hotels and restaurants. I really don’t like people try to rip me off in a place that, to me, shouldn’t be interesting to foreigners.
We wanted to get out of town to Segou Koro, or “Old Segou”, nine kilometers out of town, but there didn’t seem to be any public transport there. Taxis wanted something $10, so we decided to hitchhike. Because Segou is focused on the Niger river, it is long and skinny, hugging the banks for miles, and miles. We did not realize this at the time, though, so we figured we could walk to the edge of town. This would have taken us nearly two hours, but fortunately a guy stopped for us in his car. He said he was not going to Segou Koro, but if we gave him $2 for gas, he could take us there. I did some quick math, and decided that he was actually being very generous with that fare, so we hopped in.
Segou Koro was far more interesting than Segou. It was completely mud brick, and had a few great mud mosques. And unlike Djenne, this was more out of choice than bowing down to tourism. The guide book said it is customary to visit the chief and pay him $5 to visit the town, but we didn’t seek him out, as this would be a huge amount of money. It is normal in Africa to pay tribute to chiefs when passing through small villages, but I will never pay when it is extortion of tourists. Also, I would normally give kola nuts, or tea, instead of cash. The only trouble in the town was a few kids that asked us for cadeaux. They followed us around out of curiosity after realizing we were not going to pass them out candies or money. The town was interestingly traditional (some would say underdeveloped) for how close it is to Mali’s third biggest town.
We managed to hitch a ride back from there with an SUV of wealthy well-dressed (traditionally) Malians from Bamako coming back to Segou to visit family. When we got back, we still had enough time to try to visit a fishing village across the river. So we went down to the port to look for one of the public pirogues. We went right to the boat that was loading up and asked the driver...uhh, captain, if we could get in. He looked at us blankly, but not because he didn’t understand us, but because he didn’t know what to do. The guidebook had said that this boat would be about $.50, so we expected to pay this. All of a sudden, though, a guy speaking French and wearing some semi-official tag around his neck came up. He said we had to pay 1000 Francs ($2). We said the fare is 200. He said it was 1000 for us. Lise accused it of being a racist or anti-foreigner policy. He explained that the locals from across the river come here for commerce every day and pay 200 Francs, but since we are just tourists (which he said would include even Malian tourists), we must pay 1000. Lise said, “But I live over there.” The man paused, probably thinking, oh, maybe she is with the Peace Corps or some NGO. I told her to keep distracting him, while I went to speak directly to a different pirogue captain. Again, on a different pirogue loading up passengers, the captain just stared at me blankly until another one of these “officials” from the tourist office came to me and explained the same thing. And in the end, Lise and I decided to take a stand against this policy and refused to pay an extra $1.75 “tourist tax”. They claimed that the money would go to the local fishermen, which, even if it did (which I doubt), they are probably better off than a lot of people in Segou that don’t have a profession at all.
Later that night, we were eating at in an egg sandwich stall, and we ran into somebody from the tourist office who had seen us at the port. Lise tore into him. She had collected her thoughts, and let them simmer, and she yelled at him in front of everyone. It was awesome. Within five minutes she had him apologizing profusely and promising to give us the local’s fare the next day. When she said we had to leave the next day (putting the guilt trip on) and that we would never get to see this fishing village, he got on his phone, saying he was going to call the people in charge right then and talk to them about changing the rules. I don’t know if this would ever happen, but he promised he would give the powers that be her input.
The next day we had to get back to Bamako for Lise’s flight. She preferred to hitchhike than take the bus, so again we started trudging down the long boulevard out of town. We got picked up quickly by two young Tuareg guys, Mohamed and his brother. They were from Goa, in the north, near the border of Niger, but were in Segou for university. They weren’t going to Bamako, or the edge of town, but they said they would take us to the roundabout on the edge of town that met with the road to Bamako. When we got there, they insisted on helping us get a ride. I wasn’t sure of this, because I thought the drivers would think they would have to give a ride to four instead of two. They were aggressive, though, and stood on the road and flagged down the first car, a large white SUV. They spoke with the large man, who also happened to be from Gao, a Songhai, and insisted that he take us. Lise went to the window and said, “We’re going to Bamako”. He said, “And?” She paused, “and can you take us?” He said, “And?” She said, “Please?” “Ok, get in.”
He was an awkward man and I felt uncomfortable the entire ride, but in hindsight it was still an interesting experience, and that is what counts in the end. He was the CEO of a gold company (Mali is the third biggest gold exporter in Africa), and he acted as I would expect. He was rich, but unfriendly. He had a Belgian wife, and spoke with an accent closer to Lise’s than to a Malian (as I understood it). He insisted that I sit in the front. He never smiled, just spoke to us condescendingly. He took us as low class, which we are I guess compared to him, but I was not being used to being treated like this hear. He also seemed to have a weird paranoia about him. If I said something to him in English, he would ask what we had said. I looked back at Lise a couple times, and he asked why I was looking at her. I didn’t know what to say. I was relieved when we arrived in Bamako and we exchanged cold goodbyes.
That night we arrived at the airport exceptionally early as her flight was late at night and taxis are more expensive then. We said goodbye, not sure when we would see each other again. She had to go back to Paris for her last semester of grad school, and I would still be here, wandering around Mali or West Africa for a while.

Djenne Part 1

After the New Year, Lise and I were set to leave Bamako, and move up country. She only had a week and a half in the country, so we didn’t have the luxury of time to hitchhike. This would lead me to take my first long distance bus ride of the trip (nearly four months!). Of course, taking buses for me used to be commonplace. I traveled around Central America, Ghana, Thailand and India almost entirely by bus, so I was used to the challenges. The wait, the lack of space, the heat, the cost, etc. Traveling by thumb, of course is not easy either, and presents different challenges. The challenges of hitchhiking are more immediate, though. You often walk very far to find a spot, or have to navigate unfamiliar local transport to get out of big cities. Your pack is heavy, and you are never sure if you are really going to get a ride. The uncertainty is the biggest challenge. With a bus, though, you know that, eventually you are on your way. But upon entering your vehicle, whether by hitchhiking or by bus, the difficulties are inverted. In hitchhiking, the benevolent giver of rides will pick you up, and all your troubles are gone until you need to look for your next ride. On the bus, though, this is when the problems begin.
Traditionally in Africa, as in many developing regions, the buses leave when full. It would not be an economically viable business unless this way. However, on my first bus ride in Africa (in Ghana two years ago) I purchased a ticket for a bus that would leave at a specific time. And miraculously it did, and it was not nearly full. I still don’t know how this happened, but I think it left a misleading impression. We had learned that the last bus leaving for Mopti would leave at 4:00, so we arrived an hour early. We were hustled by two insistent guys toward the office of the bus company we planned to take. The ticket price was what we expected, and we paid our bag surcharge (standard in Africa, a scam in other places). We didn’t expect the bus to leave on time, necessarily, but we did not want to underestimate their punctuality. We had a beer at the bus station’s seedy bar, then waited patiently near what we assumed would be our bus. We snacked on various bus station treats and homemade drinks. In a way I was annoyed by the heat, dustiness, and loudness of our surroundings, but at the same time I remembered that this environment was one of my favorite aspects of traveling and I had truly missed it. Finally, near 7:00 there was a bit of commotion. It seemed that enough tickets were sold to ensure our bus company a small profit, and our bags started to be moved to the top of the bus. We were the first people on the bus, and for some idiotic reason we secured our seats in the very back seats. The bus was idling, and a hole in the floor was letting the exhaust collect in the air around us. We sat waiting patiently, trying to figure out how to open the windows for thirty minutes. Then somebody climbed on to the now crowded bus and called “Angata!” Let’s go! Everyone started to get off the bus. We followed and joined the crowd centered near the front of the bus. The bus driver had a clipboard with everyone’s name on it, by order of when their ticket was purchased. Our names were the second on the list, and we climbed back on and resumed our poorly chosen seats. We continued to idle for another thirty minutes. Sweat poured from me everywhere, and we choked on the air. Nobody around us seemed bothered by the accumulating smog, but instead seemed very preoccupied with playing with their tricked out cell phones. At one point there were four different guys playing music on their phones at full volume, making a disgusting and indecipherable mix of distorted music.
After another half hour we started moving. I expected the movement to relieve us from the heat and exhaust, but no windows were open in the back of the bus. We finally figured out how to open our window, but when we did, the person behind us immediately shut it. A little about Malians. More than anywhere I have been, Malians are intolerant of the cold. Even on hot days in Bamako I occasionally see people, at all hours of the day, wearing heavy parkas, sweatshirts, or hats. I wish I had taken pictures of all the people I had seen wearing ridiculous hats that they found who knows where. Furry Russian hats, jester hats, santa hats, etc. If it was warm, they were wearing it. A sleek, behind the head pair of ear muffs was also very popular with young guys. After all, this is January, and it frequently dips down to 90 degrees.
So we were in a constant battle with the people around us over the openness of the window. The heat was bad for us, but the exhaust was making us nauseous. I felt like I had grown soft, as I used to masochistically love these difficult transit conditions.
After thirty minutes of driving we stopped at the edge of Bamako at some sort of transit point. Our bus was mobbed by beggars and people pushing cold drinks and road snack. I got out for relief. The hawkers wanted too much for what they had on offer, so I consumed (relatively) fresh air. People bought provisions for the long journey, and the bus driver crammed the nooks and crannies of our bus with additional passengers. People laid in their aisles, limbs everywhere.
At 9:00 we hit the road finally. Although it was a long wait, this was actually good for us, as we wanted to arrive to our destination in morning so as to avoid paying for a hotel for the night. We were on the bus to Mopti, which theoretically takes 7-10 hours. We would be getting off, however, two hours before Mopti at the turnoff for Djenne. I assumed that this would take us somewhere between five and eight hours. At two in the morning, though, we had only made it to Segou, which should normally take between two and three hours. Lise and I managed to get occasional scraps of sleep, interrupted by our frequent stops to load more travelers.
At 10:00 in the morning we finally arrived at the turnoff for Djenne. When it was all over I felt it was probably my most uncomfortable, unnecessarily long bus trip of my life. This might be true, but I could easily think of several journeys that rival it, and that I did not mind at all at the time. Four hours standing in a cramped bus in Guatemala, clinging for my life in the back of an overloaded pickup in Honduras, an overnight third class train in India. Each of these, though grueling, I had thoroughly enjoyed. Hitchhiking had made me weak.
We hopped into the bed of a large truck with benches. There were maybe eight Malians, two French, one Belgian and us. This would be the most touristy (Microsoft Word suggests that I use the word “tourstiest”) destination of the trip, but I was still excited to see a place that I had read about many times.
The truck moved along a paved road, until reaching water. We waited for the tiny ferry to retrieve us. We were hounded by people selling food and trinkets. They were extremely persistent. I watched an elderly tourist (I see many more middle aged and old tourists in Mali than I see young backpacker types) pay $3 for a bottle of water that should only cost $1. I was nervous about hating a place that I wanted to love.
We crossed the river, and on the other side awaited us even more trinket pushers. Eventually we reached the center of Djenne, the historical town that sits on an island of the Bani River, a tributary of the Niger. It is most famous for it’s mosque, the largest mud brick structure in the world, built about a hundred years ago, modeled after the much older mosque that used to stand in its place. For centuries, like Timbuktu, it was a center for Islamic scholarship and it attracted students and traders from all over West Africa. We arrived in the midst of its famous Monday market, which takes place directly in front of the mosque. We were hounded by guides and people offering us hotels, but we ignored them, as we had studied the map enough to know how to get to our guesthouse with confidence. We bargained for a place on their roof top ($5 per person was reasonable) and they even arranged a mattress and a mosquito net for us. We could see over the entirely mud brick town, and even had a view of part of the mosque.


We explored the crowded, but small market. Although it was famous, to me it was simply like any other market it any other town in Mali. I am a sucker for markets, but this was only unique because of its location directly in front of the mosque. I also would never want to buy something here unless I was sure of the price, as the touristy nature of it inflated prices for us “Toubabs” (ever seen Roots?) or foreigners.

Packing up at the end of market day

The end of market day from our roof top

After a quick meander and a snack, Lise wanted to get a hold of some of that local millet beer. There were no real bars in town, just hotels that served over-priced beer. I was worried about asking around for the millet beer, as this is a very Muslim town, and I didn’t want to come off as a booze-fiending toubab. Luckily Lise had no problem asking any passing person if there was a place to get the Nya (millet beer). We were passed from person to person, slowly moving in the direction of its source. It was a couple of kilometers from town (the island of Djenne can’t be more than 5 km across an any directions). Eventually a young boy pointed us towards an unmarked mud brick building that looked like any other home on the street. There was no door. I clapped, as they do here, to announce my presence, and quickly a young woman appeared. We asked about the millet beer, and we had found the spot. Although there was no more millet beer, they said they had honey wine, so we bought a liter of it and sipped. It was sweet and much stronger than the millet beer we had known (hence it being referred to as wine) and at the end of the bottle we were feeling pretty good.
We were soon joined by a few young guys, one from Djenne, the other two from Burkina Faso. They said they were guides, which made me skeptical of their motives, but they turned out to be completely genuine. One of them even paid for our honey wine. We had long conversations about all sorts of things. They were an interesting mix, representing West Africa’s religious makeup. One was Muslim (the guy from Djenne), one a former Muslim turned animist, the other a Christian. At one point the issue of hiring a guide came up. We said we didn’t have one because it is a little expensive, and we like to experience places on our own, meet the people we happen to meet, and not be led around. They understood, but still said there were many things that we might not catch without a guide. I took their words as genuine as they were busy and had no need to be our guides.
We took some bottles of honey wine to go (at a $1 a liter how could you not?) and made our way back to town. We could hear the calls of prayer echoing throughout the mud village. The grand mosque has speakers, but occasionally the muezzin would do the call to prayer old school style, and just stand and yell it out unplugged.
The night on the roof was freezing, and my +60-degree sleeping bag just wasn’t cutting it. But in the morning, the rising sun immediately scorched us and we had to get off the roof. We went to the Islamic library next to the grand mosque and paid our $2 entrance fee. A tall man in a long robe with the keys and opened it up and gave us a brief tour. Normally I would feign like I understood all of the French, but this was important to me, and I constantly checked with Lise to make sure I understood correctly. There were shelves of books dating from the 13th century. It was all written in Arabic script, however, the language itself was sometimes Bambara, Songhai, Tamashek. Subjects ranged from mathematics to geography to science to Sufism to many other Islamic related topics. The breadth of study that was occurring right here in Mali 700 or 800 years ago was astounding. It is hard for westerners to imagine pre-colonial Africa as connected to the outside world, but it certainly was internationally involved centuries before the Portuguese started poking around the west coast of the continent. These days, the grandeur of the scholarly West African cities has fallen a bit. Djenne has been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. At the time, I did not know what this entailed, but later I read a NY Times article describing the difficulties that makes for the town’s development. At the time, I was under the impression that the fact that every building (post office, police station, etc. included) in town was made from the traditional mud-brick design was natural and honest. However, the residents are actually not allowed to build their house a different way, as modernizing would put their Unesco label in jeopardy. Many people have to rely on tourism to make a living and many people with the means to modernize their homes with things like tile floors cannot. I enjoyed seeing a town that appeared to be so pure and traditional, but I was disappointed to find out that this was imposed on them. In my eyes, a place that is forced to artificially maintain its heritage for the sake of tourism, while appealing to the ignorant (like me), is as bad as one that has forgotten it all together.

New Year's in Bamako

A Sotrama crossing the Niger river in Bamako

Beautiful Bamako

Lise arrived on the 29th and would stay for about ten days. We would be traveling in a more typical backpacking style, but we still had plenty of adventure. The first of which came in less than 24 hours of her arrival. We were shoving our way through that dreaded central market area, which I came to learn is unfortunately the most direct path between the two bus stations I usually used. A book caught Lise’s eye. “Mamadou et Bineta”. It was a series of books that the French put out during colonial times to teach French to Africans. It used drawings and topics related to African village life, and if not to learn French, looked like an interesting historical souvenir. On top of that, Lise was beginning to teach French to West African immigrants back in Paris, so she thought it might be interesting to look over. The price, unfortunately, was $8, which seemed a little steep. As she was haggling over the price, a man emerged, saying he had a shop with many more of these books at a cheaper price. I was a bit wary of most people that approached me in this market by now, but Lise decided to follow him. Of course, this wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, I had just had bad experiences with people trying to hustle me in this market. No harm in looking. The guy refused to speak to me in French, and made bits of conversation in his smattering of English. In fact, he barely wanted to speak to me at all, but kept the conversation going with Lise in French. When we arrived at “his” shop, as expected, it was not his shop, just some other shop where he hoped to make a commission. Of course, he told us to wait outside, while he went and discussed the percentage with the shop owner. I refused, and followed him in, which annoyed him, even though I could not understand their discussion in Bambara. Lise did the haggling, which she is good at, and got the book for 3000 Francs ($6). Since she had mostly big bills, which are very hard to break up here, I suggested that she pay with a 10,000 Franc note. I will admit that in this particular circumstance it was not a good idea, but usually there is nothing to worry about. The worst thing is trying to pay for your 300 Franc plate of rice and sauce and realizing that you only have a 10,000 Franc note.
So I stood outside as she made the exchange, and the guy that had brought us there, quickly walked out and away from us. Lise said he was going to get our change. I did not like this, and I did not like this guy, so I said we needed to follow him. Usually in this scenario, the shop owner will grab the nearest small boy and send him off to get the change. This, however, was not common, so we followed him, which apparently he didn’t expect. He walked faster, ignoring us. When Lise stopped him and asked where he was going to get the change, he said he gave the money to a small boy. We never saw this small boy, but then again, it was not impossible. We kept following, he kept ignoring, and getting defensive. Then he said that the boy went to buy some weed for him, and that he would need to sell it to get our change. I was sure that he was just saying this to scare us away. Lise started getting angry with him, just really telling him off. I was very glad for this, because he continued to ignore me in French, and gave me short answers in English. She had much more ability than me at this point. We followed him through some dodgy neighborhoods, and I was waiting for somebody to reach out to us as it was obvious that there was a conflict going on. Then he told us to wait. He said he was going down this other street to get the money, but we couldn’t come with him. Of course, I told him no, and he yelled at me when I tried to follow. I let him get some distance on us, then followed him. He ducked inside a doorway, and I waited where I could see the front and side entrances. Surprisingly he came out, and even more surprisingly he gave us money…but only 2,000 Francs. He still owed us 5,000. And for about half an hour this continued, and we slowly got our money back. A thousand here, 500 there. He thought we would give up. I kept looking out for police (there are many in Bamako) but he knew where they were already and kept far away. When he only owed us 2,000, Lise said we should cut our losses and move on. I said it’s not about the money; that we can’t let him think that he can get away with this with the next foreigner he comes across. This wasn’t for us, it was for the next people. She agreed, and started yelling at him again. At one point, we were nearly alone, hidden from view behind a large truck. He used the opportunity to intimidate, and gave me a shove, telling us to stop following. I held my cool, but wondered why the one person that actually could see us watched silently. Eventually I realized that he was indeed known in the neighborhood as a pusher, and that everyone watching us probably thought this guy had ripped us off on some weed, and therefore would not come to our aid. We managed to get all but a thousand back, and he even offered me a few coins amounting to 500 Francs. I refused them, saying I wanted the whole thousand back. At this point we were near the bus station, and he tried to jump onto one of the buses. He was kicked off almost immediately, though, and I was glad to see that he was panicking a bit. I told Lise that we needed to use our last line of defense, and draw attention to him as a thief. The word alone is deadly in Africa, and I have heard of many stories from across the continent about mob justice severely injuring or killing thieves in crowded areas. I even the tail end of a mob chasing a thief through a market in Ghana. So as soon as I knew there were at least a few people within earshot, I started yelling, “thief, thief!” and Lise joined in. Quickly the man panicked, and swept his foot around and kicked Lise in the calf. It was not even strong enough to hurt, but I still couldn’t let him do this. I lunged at him, and shoved him almost knocking him down. But then he came back and punched me square in the nose. At that moment, a very tall, middle-aged man grabbed him, and broke up the fight. The thief went off running safely into the crowd. The tall man said that he was a disgrace to Mali, before walking away. I looked around and everyone was shocked at what they had seen, but still, nobody wanted to help us. Unless he is that well-known as a dealer, I am still confused by this. Mali is one of, if not the most, friendly and helpful countries I have traveled in. Everyone is willing to help you in any situation, however something was different here and it disappointed me.
Even though that man got away with $2 of Lise’s and I got punched in the face, we felt like we had won. All I really wanted to do was make him think twice about ripping people off that simply want to buy educational literature. Then again, we learned our own lesson about market transactions (although I have never had something like this happen) and it is something that all travelers need to learn the hard way at some point.

For New Year’s, Lise and I looked for where the live music would be found. We heard of my favorite Malian musician, Salif Keita, doing a performance at his night club, though it cost about $60, so it was out of the question. We asked around, but the only music that would be free was at Independence Square. I was into this idea, so at 10:00 we walked through one of the main boulevards in town and arrived where there was a huge crowd. We explored the edge of the crowd, trying to find a spot where the stage was visible. Unfortunately, the whole center of the square was roped off and filled with seats reserved for some sort of people far more important than us.
We decided it wasn’t quite worth it, and left before it began at 11. We took a taxi to the Hippodrome, the area of town with the most upscale nightlife. We considered splurging on a cover charge if there was some live music. I ran into a hustler that I had met on more than one occasion in the market using the old, “hey, my friend, remember me?” Then if you don’t say yes, he will say he met you at some touristy place that you have probably been to. When I spotted him, out of curiosity, I went up to him and asked if he remembered me. “Oh, yes, from the artisan shop.” I told him that I have never been to an artisan shop, which is true. Then he forgot about this detail and tried to hustle me into a taxi that he said would surely take me to a live music venue with no cover. Lise and I didn’t buy it and we were running out of time before midnight. So we ditched the Hippodrome and wandered into a nearby neighborhood to see what the average Bamako resident was up to.
A ten-minute walk from the Hippodrome, and we felt more like we were in a small town or village than Bamako. People were wandering the streets, some music was playing here and there and a few firecrackers were exploding. Nothing grand. We asked if there was a local bar, and we were pointed towards what they referred to as a “Cabaret”. This sounded good to us, but when we got there it seemed that calling this kind of place a Cabaret would be a little like referring to MD 20/20 as a fine handcrafted wine. Upon entering, we saw rows of benches and tables, in the kind of cramped, drinking-focused setup the way I would expect a decrepit pirate bar to look. The seats were filled with middle-aged and older men, hunched over a variety cups of millet beer, honey wine and cheap Malian red wine. Lise and I were welcomed instantly, and the men laughed and shouted as they squeezed together to make space for us.
We struck up conversations with the various men of various drunkenness. They poured unknown liquids into our cups, and we drank happily. We passed around our party hats (yes! we had bought party hats which were being sold in the streets all over Bamako and had been wearing them all day) and each old man delighted in putting the shiny cone on their head and taking a hearty drink. One exceptionally drunk man, Andre, saw that I had firecrackers. I had wanted to take them out behind the bar, but he decided it was better for everyone to enjoy them, so he grabbed a couple and lit them right there in the bar. This didn’t alarm anybody, and some got a good laugh at it. I wondered if this bar was packed every night, or if this was specifically because of the New Year. It was not festive, but it was exactly where I wanted to be as I entered the New Year.
After midnight, we decided it was time to move on, and we didn’t walk far before finding another party. It was a neighborhood party, mostly populated by teenagers and children. The speakers were turned up to ten and they crackled to a point making the music barely distinguishable as music, but there was rhythm. The dance floor was divided between the young adults on an elevated slab of concrete under an awning, and the children off to the side. Lise and I waded into the children’s dance floor and busted moves. We wanted to dance with the children, but as soon as we moved, the kids would stop and watch us. So we grabbed the hands of individual kids and danced with them. Once our presence was known by the masses, though, we were dragged off to the other part of the dance floor. We attracted plenty of attention, but were left to dance in the crowd for a while. Eventually, though, the DJ was initiating some sort of dance showcase in which he called some of the better dancers into the middle to show off their moves. Of course, we were forced into the middle and we got plenty of cheers as we strutted our stuff. Lise is a very good dancer, but she is modest. I, on the other hand, have only the ability to put out the most ridiculous and obnoxious moves, which in this scenario gets the best reaction from the crowd. And we got plenty of cheers. Soon after we finished in the limelight, we had to duck out unnoticed, as the attention was getting to be too much.
On our way back home we passed by the flashy night clubs and laughed about all the money the people were spending in them, knowing that we had had a far better, and more interesting New Year’s than most of them. We somehow managed to find a Sotrama to take us home. We reached the transit point, then walked through the market. It was eerie to see this normally crowded and sweaty place in the dead of night, empty, save for the vendors that have no place to go. Makeshift shelters and the occasional mosquito net lined the edge of the road, concealing the people whose entire lives are spent surviving in and off the market hustle.

Bamako

Bamako. Crowded. Sprawling. Choking. Polluted. Fast. All of those developing country big-city adjectives. I felt back in my element. I had learned how to travel in the bush, but now felt back in the kind of environment where I had learned to travel, and I felt nostalgic with my airways clogged with exhaust, froggering across traffic and navigating clattertrap public transport.
My first few weeks in Mali were spent in and out of Bamako, doing various errands and just exploring. On our arrival at the large youth hostel, we were accosted by hustlers trying to make offers on Blai’s and Felix’s vehicles, and sell us tours, jewelry and drugs. We were not into that, so we got out of there. Felix went to stay with a German friend living in Bamako, and I got into the cargo area of Blai’s truck with Susan and Fura, Blai’s pregnant dog. It was deathly hot and humid, and I waited in there for nearly an hour for Blai, Jonathan and Ignasi to find a place outside of town to camp for the night. When I finally climbed out, it was dark, and we were in an open area among a spread out village. A man arrived to see what we were doing. We asked if we could stay here and invited him to tea. He said it was fine to stay and we cut open a watermelon and passed it around.
I had arranged a place for us to Couchsurf, but the next day Jonathan and Susan decided to stay with Blai and Ignasi and go to a nearby National Park. I wanted to stay in the city, so they dropped me off on some wide boulevard far from the center of town. I had no idea where I was, just that I needed to get to Magnambougou Projet, the neighborhood of my couchsurfing host. Somebody on the side of the road showed me the proper “Sotrama” to take and I hopped into the green Mercedes camper van converted into a bus. Although there were nearly 20 people piled onto the rickety benches, they squeezed me in and threw my pack on top. After thirty minutes, we arrived at a crowded transit lot on the edge of the central market. I asked around for connections to Magnambougou, but by the time I found the right bus, I had gotten a text from my host, saying he had already left for work, and that I would need to wait until tomorrow.
I walked, no, shoved my way through the market, keeping my eyes on the central mosque and Cathedral to keep myself oriented. Navigating a market of this size, with so many people is like white water rafting. It is necessary to move faster than the flow of the river to really be in control. Boulders and log jams are obstacles to avoid before it’s too late, like someone pushing a cart through the crowd or a motorcycle about to emerge through the crowd, ready to impale your crotch on its front tire. In a sense, the whole city can be thought of in the same way, just on a bigger scale. It was one of if not the most intensely crowded and sweaty markets I have ever been in, and trying to make it through with my 50 pound pack getting a free ride made it that much more…exciting.
I finally arrived at the youth hostel, shook all the hustlers “welcoming” me to Africa, bargained for a dorm bed, and felt free in my solitude for the first time in months.

I spent a few days couchsurfing with Noumouke Kone, a young sports radio journalist, and his family in a neighborhood far from the center of town. I had more trouble communicating with Noumouke in his mumbled French than with almost anyone, but it was still a good time. He and his family were extremely hospitable, and they truly spoiled me. I tried to wash my clothes, but they insisted on doing it for me. They cooked all my meals, and bought me Cokes. I wanted to explain to them that all this special treatment was not necessary, and that I preferred to be treated as part of the family, but I thought they might be offended. I lived a life more comfortable than I had since I left France.

Noumouke Kone

Noumouke's hood, Magnambougou Projet

At the station where Noumouke does his sports radio show every Sunday

Noumouke's co-worker and I.

One morning, Noumouke’s father took me out of town to show me the private schools that he runs. I was a sort of guest of honor, and all the kids said in unison “Bonjour Joey”. I sat and watched as the couple of dozen kids recited French pronouns and verb conjugations. The teacher would rap the kids on the knuckles when they gave a wrong answer, and I couldn’t help but think of the gangrenous finger of the corporal punishment victim Susan treated in Mauritania. One boy tried to move his hand at the last moment, which earned him a double-strength smack that broke the stick in two and set him off sobbing. Noumouke’s father also took me to a nearby high school and a German aid project. All of it was very fascinating, though I wished that my comprehension of French was better so I could have caught all the details of what they were telling me.
I spent my evenings, when Noumouke was at work, with Noumouke’s friend, Cheikh. He used to work the “hotlines” at a radio station with Noumouke, but the work was no temporary. He seemed like the kind of good-natured guy that dreams big, but can’t seem to catch a break. His sister works with American missionaries as a translator. As expected she said she loved her work and that the Americans she works with are all very good people (which I do not doubt). When I pressed her more, though, she did have her issues with the evangelizing they are doing, especially in a country that is between 80% and 90% Muslim.

Cheikh prepares the tea...

...and puts it in an awesome Obama shot glass

After a few days of unwarranted hospitality, I met up again with Susan, Jonathan and Blai for Christmas. It was fairly uneventful and basically consisted of us trying to get into bars with live music that, usually are free, but were trying to charge exorbitant covers because of the holiday. We ended up in a nice restaurant occupied by a mix of foreigners and rich Malians. The band was not representing Mali’s rich musical heritage, but instead played a bizarre mix of covers. We were by far the lowest class, dirtiest and rowdiest group in the place.

My awesome feet, awesome pants

Christmas in Mali is weird. Yes, it’s a Muslim country (only 2% Christian), but it does not seem to align itself with the Arab world. Like most of Sub-Saharan Africa, it tends to strongly emulate western culture. And this means that during Christmas time people are in the streets peddling inflatable santas and red santa hats. And every live music venue was having big parties. Everyone was dressed to the nines, and not for Jesus, but because it’s Christmas damnit!
Around this time we experienced our first taste of bad African cops. Blai was pulled over twice, albeit for valid reasons in a western country, but here it was obviously out for bribe extraction. The first time, Blai saw Felix going the opposite way on a motorbike. We were in traffic, so Blai jumped out, and Jonathan took the wheel. It took playing very ignorant to get out of a bribe on that one. The other time, Blai was talking on his cell phone, and had the $20 fine reduced to a $10 bribe. Jonathan was stopped in the street at night twice. The first time, they searched him, looking for drugs. The second time, they demanded him to just get in their vehicle. He refused, so they searched him, and again were disappointed to find nothing.
After the holiday, I parted ways again with the rest. They went to a nearby town, Siby, where they met up with a friend that Susan had made through her interest in drumming. I stayed in Bamako and waited for Lise, who would be joining me for New Year’s.

Lots of pictures of a road

December 16, 2010

We left Nouakchott, heading southeast toward Bamako, Mali, on a narrow strip of road straddling the border of desert and savannah. At times it was so distinct that we had sand dunes on our left, and grass and small trees on our right.
When we arrived at the first military checkpoint, Blai, our revolutionary Catalan driver, said, casually, “oh, we need to give them a fish.” I was shocked that he was so willing to give up a gift for a military checkpoint, and also that the gift would be fish. But then he handed us a pen and paper, and I understood. He didn’t say “fish”, but “fiche”, the French word for form. We wrote down our passport numbers, names, occupations on the paper, and passed it off to the officer and we were on our way. Then Blai put Jonathan and I to work, filling out forms for the dozens of military checkpoints we would be passing through. We got bored once and made our “fiche” on a large leaf. The officers almost found it humorous, but did not accept it.

Steamroller

Cows. I don't know why, but I felt compelled to put this in black and white.

By the fourth checkpoint, the officers began asking for “cadeauxs”, gifts, like children had done in Morocco. They were not aggressive, though, and usually a simple, “no, sorry” would do. Sometimes they made up excuses, that their kids needed shoes, or that they were very hungry. More than once, officers told us that they had a headache and wanted some headache medicine. I had never seen such childish and half-hearted attempts at bribery. If they really needed a bribe, I knew they could call us out on some small thing, and not let us pass until we paid. It never happened.

I slowly learned about the convoy. Blai and Ignazi, long-time friends about 25 years old, had driven from Spain. Blai was hoping to sell the truck in Mali, while Ignazi was just along for the adventure and would be flying back to Spain soon. Felix, a young German doctor, who had met them in Morocco, was driving his Mercedes van from Germany to Mali. He would be visiting friends that he had made when he had interned at a hospital in Bamako four years ago. Alejandro, also from Barcelona, had met Blai and Ignazi along the way. He was mysterious, and I learned very little of him for the time being.

Felix's van.

Ignasi in Felix's van, Blai's face on the left.

Felix, what's the problem now?

Jonathan and Blai

Can we please have a caption-writing contest? What is this boy yelling at us as we pass him?

In the afternoon, Blai mentioned that he had brought some beer from Spain and still had some left. This led to a brief stop on the highway. Jonathan, Susan and I got to enjoy our first beer in nearly a month. It was warm, bordering on hot, but it didn’t matter. Blai said he had crossed into Mauritania with his dozens of beers by simply giving a few to the border guards.
About an hour after sunset, we were still about 40 km from Kiffa, the halfpoint between Nouakchott and the border. I had dozed off, but woke suddenly to yelling. “Shit shit shit shit shit!” Blai yelled as he slammed on the brakes. I came to just in time to see a huge hole in the road, then nearly hit my head on the roof as we slammed into it. As we heard metal slam against asphalt, Blai was yelling again, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Blai stopped and jumped out. Jonathan was right behind him. I was still trying to figure out where I was and slowly crawled out. Blai and Jonathan were moaning as they assessed the damages. A pool of oil was forming under the truck and flowing off to the side of the road. I am not a mechanic, so I was useless in helping and useless in explaining what the problem was. The oil pan was damaged. Not cracked, but we needed to replace a screw. Blai is a mechanic and Jonathan might as well be. Their prognosis did not look good, but it seemed they might be able to jury-rig something. Then we noticed the broken down shell of an abandoned car about 50 meters in front of us. Jonathan and Blai walked towards it, hoping to lift a hood ornament off of it or something. Then they realized that, like Blai’s truck, it was a Renault. This gave some hope, and they tore into the hood, digging into the car’s innards until they pulled out the golden piece. They were cheering and whooping as they ran back to the truck with their tiny plunder. They made the fix in a matter of minutes, and the flood of oil was reduced to a minor drip.
At the next checkpoint, the police said that we could not continue further. They said it was no longer safe to travel, and that we needed to stay at the checkpoint for the night. I wasn’t sure if it was because of driving on the bad road at night, or the threat of kidnappings, as we were now on the edge of the “red zone” for security. We conferred with Felix. Blai wanted to force our way through, Felix wanted to stay. After speaking with the officers, they permitted us to pass the checkpoint, but only to go off the road toward the nearby village to sleep.
The next day, we were slowed by the deteriorating road. At each checkpoint the officers assured us that it would get better soon. It didn’t. We had thought we would easily pass through the border today, but it looked like we would cut it close. Even where there was new road, it had been poorly constructed, and was destroyed the moment a heavy truck passed over it.

This road could not be more than a few years old, destroyed already.

We passed through a small town whose poverty shocked me for the first time in years. For some reason, this town was far worse than anything else I had seen in Mauritania. The accumulation of trash alone was staggering. Everyone looked desperate. We were now in farmable land, but it looked like nothing was being grown here. The donkeys looked sicker than the people, but barely. Every building was in ruins. I wanted to stop and explore, figure out what had gone so much worse in this town then the others along the same road. Unfortunately, I was the taker of rides, not the giver, and had no say in where we made our occasional stop.

Unfortunately this photo does very little to convey what I saw in this town.

Many Europeans come to Africa with their own vehicles; a concept in traveling that is completely foreign to me. I always assume that bringing your own vehicle is just for the rich, but I have learned that while it is more costly, there are ways around this, through being business-minded. Although Blai’s truck was a gift, he could buy it in Spain for much less than he could sell it for in Africa. Therefore, many Germans come to Africa, Mali in particular, with their Mercedes camper vans with the intent to sell them. They can buy them in Germany for 2,000 Euros, and depending on the year, sell them for a profit of one or two thousand Euros. They will then be stripped and turned into local busses. It is not a huge profit, but it covers the cost of gas for the trip. Some people also bring other goods with them, such as bikes and electronic equipment that can be sold at a profit. It sounds attractive. You can go wherever you want. You don’t have to wait for buses, pay for taxis and you can go to the most out of the way destination that you want. I have thought a lot about it. However, after a brief experience with this kind of travel, I have concluded that I prefer a more close to the ground kind of travel. With a vehicle, it is even more difficult than normal to not seem like a loaded foreigner. You don’t meet the same people that you would in a bus or when hitchhiking. Yes, you have the ability to go to that out of the way village, but you don’t go; 100 km off the highway and back costs too much in gas. You have too many pleasures; your own bed, a kitchen to cook your favorite foods, plenty of space to store treasures from home. Deprivation is part of travel. There are too many extra needs (parking space, gas, water, etc.). Too many things can go wrong, and I am no mechanic. Though I will always admit that having your own vehicle makes it easier to make impromptu stops in places that look interesting. The important thing is not being so destination-driven, so that you actually stop at these places.

I had an intense obsession with this new technology I saw in southern Mauritania. It is the THREE DONKEY SETUP!!!

Anyway, by the time we reached the border we had passed through 35 checkpoints in two days and filled out as many forms. We arrived about an hour before the border closed, but we were disappointed to find the line of cars stationary. We investigated, and the guards said the border was closed for the night. They said the computers they were using ran on solar energy and the battery was empty. This was a hard scenario to imagine, but there was little we could do other than find a place on the side of the road to settle in for the night.
In the morning, it took a couple of hours, but we finally cleared customs and Felix and Blai had to buy insurance. Then we drove thirty minutes to Nioro, where they had to do additional paperwork for bringing their vehicles into the country. In the afternoon we finally started heading on our way with some promise of making it to Bamako soon. I wanted to arrive that night, Saturday, to catch some of the live music in Mali’s capital.
Although the border between Mauritania and Mali is fairly arbitrarily drawn, the fact that we were now moving due south resulted in a quick change in scenery and culture. There were no more (or very few) Moorish people. The camels seemed to disappear, giving way to more donkeys and horses. The desert was now a memory, and the greenery we were starving for became a reality.

An afternoon stop outside of a village...ok, so it's not sooo green, but you get the idea.

We started a soccer game.

Blai climbed a tree

We moved slow, though, and by nightfall we were still a couple hours from Bamako. We stopped in a village to find some dinner, and I was thrilled to feel like I was finally back in black Africa. I already felt a million miles away from Mauritania, and like I had taken a first step into a new part of the journey. The single road going through town was dark, crowded and lively. It felt sweaty, dirty, louder, energetic. There were plenty of eating options on the street. Various tables were serving up chicken, rice and sauce, millet porridge, fried plantains and yams. I ran up and down the street, surveying the options, taking note of the popular stalls and the friendliness of the cooks. I landed on a bench in a dark corner tucked in between buildings. I perused the offerings, and pointed toward a ball of millet porridge and sauce that the man next to me was eating. They gave me a large sticky ball of the millet (I learned later that the dish is called “toe”) and poured on a slimy green sauce made from okra. I asked for the pepper, and they passed me a bowl of chili powder. I showered my bowl with it, tossed away the spoon, and dug into the hot mess with my hand. It burned my fingertips, and it was not even that good, but it was a tangible sign that I was back in the region I was looking for.