This Time: Buying the Boat, Part 2

January 15th, 2011

The tea was almost ready before going to bed next to our boat, when we heard a movement on the beach around us. It was dark, so it was hard to tell what was going on until I heard the mooing. Within minutes we were surrounded by at least a hundred cattle. They had just walked in under the silent command of a few Fulani cattle herders. They were on their way to Bamako to sell some of their herd. The Fulani spend part of the year grazing their cattle on the edge of the Sahara, but eventually migrate south to greener land during the dry season in which there is less disease and the low river levels allow them to cross more easily. A night on their nomadic journey somehow coincided with one of ours, and I felt privileged to share the beach with them. They must have only stayed for 6 hours, as they had moved on by the time I awoke, leaving behind a beach full of dung and a single cow too sick to continue.

Mohamed, the boat builder in charge of repairs, said that he could have the boat re-sealed in one day, but Jonathan and Blai wanted to make sure that it was done meticulously, so our time in Koulikoro stretched into an extra week. When we took the boat out of the water, the first thing we did was take little metal scrubbers to every inch, outside and inside, of our 12-meter boat. Mohamed seemed to think it was silly and unnecessary, but he waited patiently for us, and a dozen enthusiastic kids, as we took a day and a half to finish the job.

Scrubbing the boat down. The left half is what a clean boat looks like.

The kids were eager to help, not only out of the goodness of their hearts (and maybe boredom), but also because we gave them the dirty metal sponges when we were done.

How we would actually seal the boat was a big controversy. In Koulikoro they use shea butter to seal the small fishing pirogues, and tar to seal the large sand boats. Jonathan had the idea of using both to make it an even better seal. He and Blai proposed the idea to Mohamed, and he seemed hesitant at first, but eventually agreed to it. I didn’t really care one way or the other. If it was me, I would have simply let him do what he always does, since I know nothing about sealing boats. Jonathan, who actually works on boats, had at least some idea, but at the time I don’t think I realized he was really out of his realm.

After washing the boat, we sanded all the seams, then used a chisel to pound burlap or old cloth (found discarded all over the beach) into the seams. By this time, Jonathan and Blai had spoken to another boat builder who said it was a crazy idea to use tar and shea butter together as a sealant. We told this to Mohamed, but he seemed into the new idea. When Jonathan tried to argue and say that maybe using just shea butter would be better, Mohamed said, “please, this is my work, I know what I am doing.”

Mohamed at work.

Putting the burlap into the seams.

Mohamed is excellent at working with wood. Without even measuring he patches this hole perfectly.

Measure.

After all the seams were sanded, and stuffed with fabric or burlap, Mohamed filled them all with molten shea butter. The next day we melted the bricks of tar and smeared them on the seams. The final step was to use a final coat of hot shea butter butter to cover the entire boat. We would wait until the next day to see if this would all actually work out.

Blai applies the first coat of shea butter.

Melting the tar.

Applying the tar. The tool for this is made from a random stick wrapped with discarded cloth found on the beach. The fire was also made with random sticks and woodchips found around the beach. This trip has been a constant lesson in resourcefulness.

Tar was on everything, especially our feet, resulting on everything else getting on our feet.

And finally, putting on the last coat of shea butter. We bought 66 pounds of shea butter and used more than half of it.

Our time in Koulikoro that was not spent working on the boat, consisted of camping next to the boat, cooking our meals, and preparing provisions for the trip. The provisioning was difficult because of the town’s length. We managed to hitchhike around with ease along the town’s main road. Just stick out the index finger, and one of the next few guys on motorbikes would surely stop and give you a lift as far as he was going. It was fun to have races if all three of us were trying to get to the other side of town. Sometimes it would take three rides. Blai would hitchhike on the motorbikes with his dog Fura, though I don’t know how he did it.

Walking around town proved difficult. The people were so warm and friendly that it did not take long to know everyone around. This meant long greetings with nearly every person we passed. And it was not a simple “bonjour”, but a long series of greetings in Bambara.

“Inisogoma”
“Nba, Iniche”
“Nba,”
“Simigobedy”
“Nba, Simigobay”
“Nba, Ikakane”
“Nba”
etc. etc.

These can go on for a long time, and sometimes the order or repetition of the same words seems arbitrary. I don’t know the literal meaning of each greeting, but they essentially are saying hello/good morning/afternoon/evening/night, asking about the family, the work, if you slept well, if you are healthy, etc.

Sometimes I loved greeting everyone, and sometimes, when I had important business, I would stay off the main road to make progress with my day.

Frequent soccer games took place in the evenings on the beach near our boat.

One of my tasks before leaving was to acquire grog for the journey. We were, after all, getting pretty rugged and piratey. Beer was impractical (heavy and impossible to keep cold), and the little sachets of gin were fragile, (relatively) expensive and, well, we didn’t want to drink liquor on the boat. So I went in search of the locally produced honey wine. Even though Koulikoro has relatively high proportion of Christians, it proved difficult. Eventually someone offered to take me to the source on his motorbike, and off we went. We arrived at a normal-looking family compound, except that the requisite men hanging out in chairs were far more sedated. I could smell the sweet scent of fermenting millet, and saw crates of cheap wine and emptied gin sachets. I inquired about honey wine and they said they didn’t have any, but they could have some ready in a couple days if I was interested. $.60 per liter. I said I wanted a discount on 20 liters, and they offered it to me for $.55 per liter. Deal! Two days later I was back with Jonathan with a 20 liter jerry can. We sampled the millet beer as they filled our order. As we sipped, the town drunk walked in. I had encountered him a few days earlier in town when he grabbed my arm, slurring and drooling, as he pulled at me, almost getting us both hit by the bus. He immediately recognized me and came right towards me with a brimming cup of rotgut red wine. He was excited to see me again, and wanted me to sample his wine. He expressed this by lurching towards me, waving his cup, and simply pouring the entire contents of his cup into mine. Of course, mine was almost full of millet beer. I had nowhere to go as red wine went all over the brand new pink pants I had just had the tailor make for me the day before. He giggled and then walked away. The other guys yelled at his insolence, but he just laughed and slurred some more. We hung out at the compound for a while, enjoying the quirky company that can only exist at the local home brewery in a Muslim country.

Posterboys for the wonders of millet beer.

Pounding the millet.

When the boat was finally ready, we shoved it into the water. Water started rushing in through the cracks immediately. Mohamed saw our nervousness and told us to wait. Young guys with buckets came and started filling the whole boat with water until it was completely sunk. We did not know about this step before, but essentially it lets the wood soak up water and expand, therefore closing up the cracks. It sat there like this all day, and in the evening we emptied it out again. It still leaked water, but not as much as before. Jonathan and Blai were angry. I didn’t really know what to feel. I was glad that our boat was ready, but not excited that I had felt lied to. In the end, though, we had prepared for a wet trip and had enough plastic containers to protect pretty much everything. We even had large pieces of vinyl to tie up our backpacks with. I knew Mohamed was embarrassed because he had taken a risk on our idea of using shea butter and tar together. I don’t know if it was better or worse, since I don’t think that any pirogue in Mali exists without a single leak. I think that Mohamed was in a pickle with Blai and Jonathan. If he had ignored their idea and the boat leaked, they would have been mad that he hadn’t listened to them. But he did listen to their idea, and it didn’t work, but they still blamed him for not changing his mind when given the opportunity.

The night before we left was the eve of Military Day, a national holiday. This was cause for celebration, and a Togolese friend of ours, Fufu, was throwing a big party at the bar he owned. Even though only a couple people there knew about us and our boat plans, we treated it as a big send off party for us. Fufu let us in without paying the cover, and even gave us a small carving of a pirogue as a gift. The party was packed and I have never seen so many sober people dance with so few inhibitions. Everyone was outdoing the next person in creative dance moves that completely shamed us pale folk. We danced anyway, though, and left everything on the dance floor. When we got back to our pirogue in the wee hours of the morning, we were happy to find all of our belongings untouched. The kids had been getting a little too curious lately, so we put some sheep bones in the boat and tied Fura to it. She wouldn’t let anybody near her bones. We piled into the boat and paddled just across the river to have a more relaxed place to camp without the constant attention from the kids and passersby.

Fura did in fact get protective one night when kids were dancing too close to her bones. We didn't know we had this picture until weeks later.

Long exposure shot of the boat at night.

We were finally ready to depart on January 20. We had blitzed the Sunday market a couple days before, and had full containers of fresh fruits, vegetables and plenty of rice. Children had amassed to watch as we loaded the boat, and just before sunset we set out. We quickly showed our inexperience as we zig-zagged our boat across the river and into the current. We were uncertain what kind of progress we would make and what kind of challenges the river would present us with. We knew very little of the river, what it would do to us or how we would make it. The fact that we were traveling with a pregnant dog should give a clue to our common sense. We were completely ignorant. But as I read in a book about travel on the Niger river in Guinea, “Ignorance is the root of adventure.” And I would say that is the truest phrase to describe my travels in Africa so far.

The family of the fisherman who's boat we purchased. He is standing in the back, on the far right. The family was wonderful to us and let us store all our belongings in their house and tolerated, and even enjoyed, us coming in and out all the time. The big man of the house is right in the middle with the white hat. He is one of three people in the house that has fallen victim to "River Blindness", which is caused by a parasite entering the body after being bitten by a black fly.

A calabash of millet at the family's house

The boat is packed. 80 liters of water, 20 liters of honey wine, 4 "I Love Africa" buckets for dry food, 2 plastic jerry cans modified into crates fruit and vegetable storage, 3 jerry cans modified into personal belonging storage for items of immediate use, 1 120 liter container for tents, clothes, maps, books, etc., 2 machetes, 3 paddles, one bamboo pole, 3 backpacks wrapped in vinyl, 1 large mat, and more!