Dirty Crew

Do you want to see how dirty our river crew was?

Jonathan Diarra

Joey Traore

Blai Coulibaly

January 28, 2011

A second day of heavy Harmattan winds forced us to take an extended lunch break. We happened to find shade on the side of the river near four sleeping fisherman. I assume they were taking a break from the wind, or at least just trying to stay out of the sun. It wasn’t until after we had started to cook that I realized that a rifle lay next to one of them. I was surprised to see that they had a gun (for what purpose, I am unclear), but probably not as surprised as they were to wake near a group of white guys just casually cooking up a pot of rice.

Self-portrait during the break. Tar stains can be seen on my shoulder and on Jonathan's face in the photo above. Even Fura had tar in her fur.

By our third day of Harmattan, we were getting pretty frustrated with our inability to move during the day. We had made a total of about 12 km in the past two days, and we needed a way to at least stay somewhat productive. So we decided to use some of our free time to collect firewood. Finding wood in the evening had proved difficult if we were anywhere near any settlements. So when the wind kicked up, we pulled up to an island on the river and went on a search for wood.

I walked through some fields until I arrived at a large clearing with a few trees scattered about. All of a sudden a herd of sheep emerged on the other side of the clearing to graze. I didn’t see a shephard, so perhaps this island was being used as a natural pasture. All of a sudden Fura emerged from behind me, and went straight for the sheep. I assumed she was just playing, but I ran after her, just in case. The sheep bolted back into the bush and Fura pursued. It wasn’t long before I realized she wasn’t playing, but hunting. She re-emerged from the bush, after separating a tiny lamb from the pack. She chased it into the middle of the clearing and took it down. I ran after, and pulled Fura off the helpless animal. The lamb quietly limped away, back to the herd. I was scared that we would have been in a messy situation if Fura had actually killed somebody’s sheep. I don’t know what we would have done. Left immediately? Looked for the owners to apologize and pay for the animal? Eaten it, so as not to waste it?

Blai and I hacked some dead branches off a couple of the trees for a while, and eventually the sheep owners came into the clearing with their herd. I was surprised to see them, and a little embarrassed that they might have seen Fura’s attack.

We loaded the bow of the boat with as much wood as we could fit, and by now the wind had died down, permitting us to move. After a couple of hours, we saw some men on the shore, summoning us for some reason. They were sand miners, with a large pinasse (a wooden boat like ours, but larger). They wanted to meet us and share their lunch. They said they had come from Segou, which they said was not very far, and would be going back there that night. They gave us the rest of their bowl of fishy rice and said they were on their way to go dig sand. They told us we were welcome to stay there as long as we liked, and even offered us their still burning coals and a packet of tea and sugar in case we wanted some. We ate the rice as we watched them dig sand in the middle of the river, but also decided that it would be better to move while the wind wasn’t strong.

This camp spot was thoroughly exciting simply for the presence of grass. Also, notice how well-organized our camp is.

Soon after, though, we saw a tiny settlement with a few cows. We decided to try our luck obtaining some more milk. The few people there didn’t speak French, so once again, Blai enjoyed pantomiming what we were looking for. They told us to wait, and 20 minutes later, we had another fresh liter of milk.

By the end of the day, we had only made 8 km, but we knew we were getting close to Segou, Mali’s third (previously second) largest city. Unfortunately, though, every fisherman told us distances that seemed wildly inaccurate. From 5 km. to 40 km. to “you’ll get there tonight”. We should have known better than to ask people with different concepts of time and distance than we have, but it was too tempting. We were growing weary from the wind, and slightly lonely after ten days in river solitude. We all had dreams of what Segou would be like, even though it wouldn’t offer us much in comforts that we had been doing without. We knew we would still be camping, as we were not about to pay for guesthouses, the food wouldn’t be any better than we were cooking (although there would be meat), and even though we would thoroughly enjoy cold beer, it would seem very expensive after spending so little while on the river. Most importantly, though, we would be arriving just in time for “Festival Sur le Niger”, Mali’s second most famous music festival (second to Festival au Desert, near Timbuktu). I was more excited about the opportunity to be in town for this weeklong festival, as there would be some of my favorite West African artists performing, such as Amadou and Marian, Femi Kuti (son of the famous Nigerian singer Fela Kuti) and Vieux Farka Toure. Unfortunately, though, the cost of the concert portion of the festival was steep, at about $140 for four days of concerts. Blai was not about to pay this, and neither was Jonathan, who had grown to hate most any Malian or West African music I had exposed him to. I would have paid for this rare opportunity, but they were convinced we would figure out a way to sneak in some how. Blai has been to many music festivals in Europe, but has never paid, and was not expecting to now.

Tea was an essential fixture as a pastime during our long periods of waiting for winds to die.

As we set up camp that night, two men in a pirogue paddled past us, yelling “Angata, angata”, or “let’s go, let’s go”, as the wind had completely stopped. It was the moment to make the distance. We knew we were wasting the opportunity to make some distance, but our paddling even in mild winds had left us too tired.