While Jonathan started working on the sail plans, Blai and I loaded up the boat. Jacques, the hotel owner seemed a little annoyed with our presence, so we decided we would have to figure out a different place to stay. Blai had been talking to Jacques about places for him to stay with his dog (and soon to come puppies) for a month. Jacques told him that the house about a hundred yards away might be available to rent for pretty cheap, but that it might be a little dirty since it had been occupied by squatters. Blai said its no big deals if there were squatters, to which Jacques replied, “no, squatters are not good,” giving us a subtle hint. Blai, a veteran squatter back home in Barcelona, tried to say that squatting in un-occupied places is not so bad, but Jacques obviously disagreed.
Although we did not intend to ruffle Jacques feathers by staying there, our presence probably made him work a little harder to find a place for us to stay. By the evening, Jacques informed us that we could indeed rent the house and that it would only be $20/month. The German couple and Alejandro helped us carry all of our boat possessions to the house, and we were shocked at how extravagant it was. It was obviously built for an expat, or a rich Malian who had lived in Europe. It had three bedrooms, three bathrooms, sit-down toilets, a kitchen, a huge living room, a huge foyer, a huge porch, huge gardens in front, and an upstairs terrace. Of course, there were the downsides. No electricity, no running water, all kinds of animal feces all over the floor, sacks of millet spilling all over the floor, graffiti, a caved in roof in the storage room, a few bats, spider webs, no furniture (except for a mattressless bed in the master bedroom), etc. We had just enough time to move in before dark, and we set up our belongings and mat on the floor just as if we were camping. In fact, that is basically what we were doing. Just camping inside a huge home. We relaxed in the foyer, cooked some dinner, then headed into town for the night.
Our mansion.
Again, we walked into the dark street and jumped excitedly at any passing car or motorbike, trying to get rides into town. I made it to town first on a motorbike, while Blai and Jonathan got a ride in with some high level government minister in a fancy car. After getting some wine sachets, we met near the concert and Blai called up Ishmael, the military officer he had hitch-hiked with the day before, who had promised he could get us in for free. Ishmael said he wasn’t at the concert yet, but he would call us when he got there. In the meantime, we headed to Terminus, probably Segou’s dirtiest bar. With such a large expat population and tourism industry, most of Segou’s bars are very foreigner friendly with comfortable seating, good service, live music, and prices to match. No surprise, these were not of our taste, so Terminus was our only option. We were on good terms with the semi-sedated bar staff, but always steered clear of the female staff. This place was barely a bar really, and was actually the most shameless brothel I have ever seen. The bar has two sections, the one with the bar, the other with the dance floor. To cross from one to the other, you must pass through the common area of the hookers, as they bathe, do their hair, cook, socialize and take care of their kids. There are probably ten rooms, all doors near the seating area, some visible from the street. There were shoddy paintings on the walls of Bob Marley, traditional masks and Malian singers. The seats were falling apart, and half of them were bench seats torn from cars. Yes, it was seedy, but it was cheaper, more interesting, and more fun than the other bars. This night, with the festival in full swing, there were actually a few more foreigners than expected. Mostly it was a few sleazy middle-aged men, dancing with the hookers. It was slightly disgusting, but their dancing skills were more comical than their desperation was sad. One of the men disappeared for about ten minutes, and it was not to get a beer.
We tried again to get in touch with Ishmael, but he now said he had left and was headed to the after-party. We had had enough of Terminus, so we decided to head to the after-party, which was halfway between the center of town and home. Jonathan and Blai got rides on motorbikes before me. Finally, a car of young guys pulled over, not to pick me up, but to ask how to get to the party. I said I would tell them if they took me there. They discussed it and let me climb aboard.
The nightly after parties took place in a big open space right on the river. There was a dance floor, lots of cool lighting, a bar, and an elevated DJ Booth constructed from a retired moto-taxi. It was still early, but the place was dead. We sipped a few beers, waiting for the crowds to come. When they didn’t show, we decided that the dance floor was ours. Our dancing was as uninhibited as ever, pulling out all the most ridiculous stops, for close to an hour before deciding to head home near 2 AM. My notes show no record of how we got home, so I can only assume that it involved a lot of walking and perhaps a motorbike ride or two.
I spent the first half of the next day trying to procure food for us. Our neighborhood, being so far removed from Segou, only occasionally had food for sale on the street. The mission took several hours, as I ended up walking halfway into town before finally getting a ride. When I got back with bags of rice and sauce and fried fish, the boys were busy cleaning the house. Two of the neighbor boys were also helping out. The first stage was to sweep all the crap, dust, and millet grains that covered the tile floors. The brooms were like our brooms, but without sticks, so there was a lot of long-term back-bending. After that, we carried buckets of the water from the nearby well, splashed them on the floor, and swept the water out the front of the house. It took almost the entire day to get the job done, and Abdulahi and his brother stayed and helped almost the entire time. We shared our lunch with them, but they didn’t want anything else for their labor.
The porch.
Living room
Kitchen (in the living room)
We were completely beat after pulling up so many buckets from the well, and carrying them to the house, that we weren’t sure if we could make it into town for the concert that night. Blai and I were tired, but willing to go, but Jonathan really didn’t think he could make it. I gave Jonathan couple of bissap teas spiked with gin and he was back on board, although swearing it would be a more low-key night than before.
We did our best to dress up for whatever the night had in store for us.
After getting to town, we again tried to get in touch with military man Ishmael. His whereabouts were ambiguous, so we waited in a small restaurant to get some rice and sauce with beer. Upon hearing that we were too poor to get into the concert, one of the servers said he could get us cheap tickets. I was skeptical, but Blai talked him up. He said he could get us festival passes for about $12, or a one night pass for $6. This sounded suspiciously close to the price that Malians pay, so I figured we would get a wrist band that would only work for locals. We decided we would try to wait for Ishmael, because this wasn’t the most important concert of the festival. Although I really would have liked to see Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra, the other headliner, Oumou Sangare, was the last Malian artist I would want to see perform.
Once again, Ishmael didn’t come through for us, so we decided to go to Alphabet, a bar I had mentioned from first time in Segou in early January. I wanted to meet the owner, Oumar, again, since he was such a nice guy. There was a live band and the bar was packed. I saw Oumar schmoozing with everyone else, and decided not to bother him, since he might not even remember me. Although the music was good, this didn’t feel like our scene. Everyone else (local and foreign) was a little too classy and even though we tried to dress up this night, we still looked like dirty river bums. So we left to get an egg sandwich from a nearby street stall.
As we were eating, two young women pulled up in a nice car and started talking to the egg sandwich dealer, asking him for directions. They were beautiful, and Blai couldn’t stop staring. As soon as they pulled away, Blai asked the man where they were going. A bar. Which bar? A club. Which club? Le Cinquantenaire. Where is that? This way, then that way. We had nothing better to do, so we headed that way. The dirt road was filled with trash, standing water, fancy SUVs and well-dressed Malians hanging out outside. We could see that there was a booth collecting cover charges, but we ignored it and tried our luck at walking through the front doors confidently. We were turned away quickly, and asked to go pay the $10 cover. No chance of that happening, so we headed back.
The concert was finishing up, so we stuck our thumbs out into the traffic, hoping to get a ride to the after party. We got a ride from a guy in an SUV from southern Ghana. He was, like most people from there, a pretty raucous partier. I sat in the front seat and immediately noticed a gin and tonic sitting next to him. He was already drunk and sipped the drink not so slowly. His driving, however, was crawling. And swerving. As yelled over the loud music and fixed himself another drink, his car casually swerved from one edge to the other. Luckily the traffic was only going in one direction. We must have been holding up a dozen cars. All of a sudden, as a new song came on, he stops, and yells, “Be quiet…and listen! To Ali Farka Toure,” as he turned up the volume. We continued in silence as we arrived to the after party.
This night, the party was packed, although we still left our dancing as uninhibited as usual. Usually white people dancing in Mali immediately become the center of attention, but this was a wealthier, more mature crowd, and the Malians couldn’t have cared less about our presence. We were completely uninteresting, and it felt nice for a change.
When we left, we thought the night was over, but little did we know…
We stuck our thumbs out, and the first passing car stopped for us. It was a young man, looking very cool, with two young attractive women. He said he was just dropping them off, since he had offered them a ride. He said he could take us all the way home, or we could come with him back the bar that he owned. Which bar do you own? Le Cinquantenaire. So we were now with the owner of the bar that we had not gone to because of the $10 cover. As tired as we were, we couldn’t miss this opportunity.
The club was still going strong when we arrived at 2:30 AM. We entered proudly with our new friend, who we came to know as “Le President”. The club was flashy and beautiful people were throwing around money on expensive bottles of liquor. We couldn’t even afford a beer, but we probably didn’t need any at this point. It was a fun atmosphere, but it wasn’t long before we realized that this place didn’t function that much differently than Terminus, it just had a little more class and a more convincing front as a bar. Within minutes of entering, Blai saw a woman in the bathroom…earning her wages, even though the bar is in the ground level of a relatively expensive hotel. So maybe not that much more class, but definitely more expensive booze.
The highlight of the night was watching “Le President” making himself the center of attention when a local rapper got the mic and performed a song praising him. He really was the man here.
Meanwhile, Blai had been dancing with a beautiful young woman in a white dress. I assured him that she was a prostitute, but he didn’t think so. After an hour, even I was skeptical, since he hadn’t even bought her a drink and she still wanted to dance with him. After a little longer, though, she made her proposition, and requesting 150 Euros (~$220). That signaled time to leave. We thanked Le President, and groaned at the difficult task of getting home. Somehow Blai got separated from Jonathan and I. As we were walking down the main road, a police officer saw us and pulled up on his motorbike. I had a difficult time understanding him, partially because it was French, and partially because he was slurring his words so badly. He said we needed to come with him. He was unclear if this was because he was giving us a ride, or we were in trouble. Clearly we had done nothing wrong, but he was drunk. We insisted we were not getting on his bike, and he seemed upset with this. He rode alongside us for a couple hundred meters, until we arrived at the nearest police station. He tried to summon us inside, and we ignored him. He asked for our passports, and we just walked away. He kept yelling, but eventually another officer came and took him away.
Further along, minutes before the first sign of the sky getting lighter, we heard footsteps coming towards us. We couldn’t see what it was, but it sounded like a huge crowd. Finally, out of the darkness emerged this crowd, filling up the entire road. There was about two seconds of fear, before we realized it was the military going on a morning run. Hundreds of soldiers passed us, and we loudly greeted them in Bambara, “Inisogoma!”, to which we got dozens of responses in unison, “Nba!”
We walked over halfway home before a car full of young guys and a blasting sound system pulled over and picked us up. They seemed nervous around us, but they took us all the way home. The sun was almost up by now, and it would be another hour before Blai finally made it home. Thus, on a night that we almost didn’t go out at all due to our exhaustion, we ended up pulling a wild all-nighter.
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