Scenes from Segou Part 1

Scenes from Segou

After the festival, Blai, Jonathan and I stayed in Segou for over a month. Blai needed to stick around as Fura was about to have puppies, and he didn’t want to deal with this on the river. Jonathan had decided to build a sailing rig for the boat, a process that was dragged out slowly. I had no choice but to hang out, relax, and help with the sail construction.

Roommates.

We lived in Sebougou, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Segou, that felt more like a tiny village than one of Mali’s biggest cities. There is no running water, just a well, and although there are power lines along the road, almost nobody has access to it. We made friends with many of our neighbors and by the end of it we felt a sense of belonging in the little community.

I will not write about everything that happened during the month, just provide short vignettes or anecdotes of what we experienced during our time there.

Millet Sacks

We had no furniture in our house, but we had learned to be resourceful. The rats had torn into the huge sacks of millet, so we simply tied them back up, arranged them around our yellow mat, and we had couches. In fact, by this point on the trip, laying on the mat, leaning on the sacks had become far more comfortable than a chair.

Chief

The chief seemed to be the caretaker of our house. In fact, we really had no idea who owned it. We assumed it belonged to some foreigner, and the chief simply had the key and wanted to make a few bucks off of it until whoever owned it came back. $20 covered it for the month.

Chief was a tall man with style. He always wore long robes a skullcap and sunglasses, although these were not for style, but because he was missing an eye. He didn’t speak a damn word of French, but he would come by our house for conversation at least every couple of days. He and his little brown dog would walk up, he would announce his presence, and we would come out to greet him. His huge smile would reveal a mostly toothless mouth as he went through the long list of Bambara greetings, refusing to let go of my hand until I had replied “Nba” to every last phrase. It would climax with both of us yelling “Nba!” simultaneously. Then he would move on to Jonathan and Blai. Then he would look around, and we would all realize that was about as far as our conversation would go, so immediately transitioned to goodbyes and more handshakes.

Chief must have had many wives, as everyone who lived in our vicinity seemed to be his child or some other close relation. When a couple of his sons that lived next door came to take two of the grain sacks that we were using as furniture, we complained to chief. He made it right by bringing us a few chairs to replace them. I assume that the problems he usually has to mediate as chief are simple, but from what we saw, he was a fair and understanding leader.

Blai and Chief became peanut buddies. Every once in a while the chief would call for Blai, waving a key. They would walk to a nearby concrete building used for storage. Chief would discreetly unlock the door and open a big sack of raw peanuts. He would take a few handfuls and give half to Blai, putting a finger to his lips, telling him to keep quiet about the gift.

Malaria

After a couple of days of intense fever, Jonathan finally gave in to go to the hospital, admitting it might be malaria. He was looking awful at this point, so Blai ran out to the road, flagged down a guy on a motorbike, and made him come to our house and take Jonathan to the hospital. Blai hitched in next, then me.

At a hospital in Mali (probably in Africa, maybe the whole developing world?) it is very DIY. After they checked Jonathan into one of the only private rooms (without asking if he preferred the cheaper communal rooms) we were told we needed to go get a malaria test. Blai ran to the in-hospital pharmacy to buy the test kit. Then we had to find the doctor again. He took the blood sample, then handed it to me and told me to get it processed. I found the lab, and paid for the test, being told to come back later…how long was not specified. When it was ready, it turned out positive of course. We had to find the doctor again, who wrote us a prescription for all the medical tools necessary, and Blai went back to the pharmacy. He came back with an assortment of pills, tubes, needles, bottles of IV fluid and bags.

Jonathan was in and out of delirium. We were (fairly) certain he would be fine, so his nonsensical babble was mostly entertaining. The nurse eventually arrived to hook up his IV, and give him some pills. Blai left soon after, but I stuck around to make sure he was ok, and to take advantage of the oulets in his room. I had brought my laptop, and phone, and was getting everything charged. When the first IV bag was finished, Jonathan insisted on putting the second bag in, as he wanted to check out before night, so he wouldn’t have to pay for a second day. I told him it was a bad idea, but he insisted. When the nurse came back, and saw the second bag already hooked in, she seemed annoyed and disconnected it. She said he would have to stay the night.

The next day he was in much better shape, but now we had to face the bill. The private room was $30/day, which seemed pretty outrageous. Blai went and spoke directly with the doctor and explained that we had not asked for a private room and we would only pay $2/day. Blai had expected to bargain a price somewhere in between, but the doctor didn’t put up much of a fight, and just accepted the money directly. Interpret that as you wish.

It took Jonathan about five days to regain his strength. It took Blai and I about five minutes to start taking malaria a little more seriously. I started sleeping in my tent and Blai rigged up my mosquito net. I finally broke out the mosquito repellent that Lise had given me a month earlier that I had been saving in my bag.

Free Fish

We were living the highlife. Actually, we were living the high life for a few bums that had been hitchhiking and living in tents or a truck for most of the last few months. We had a house, without power or water, and we had a boat, also without power. It didn’t stop us from having sundowners in our “yacht”.

During one of our evening paddles, the fish were jumping around us. Within minutes, one of them hopped right into our boat. It flopped around and a panic ensued, as we rushed to stop it from jumping back out.

It was no feast, but a hard-earned appetizer.

Blai also found pants on the far bank that night. They made him look like a pirate/cowboy.

Bamboo trek

After the festival, traffic in Segou was modest, and getting rides to and from town were more difficult than normal. I had been in town to run some errands, such as pick up some bamboo. We had figured that having one bamboo was good, but if all three of us could use it on the boat we would really fly.

After using internet for a little longer than I had expected, I was stuck just before sunset trying to hitch a ride back with the bamboo. I had seen it done before on motorbikes, so I didn’t worry much. Unfortunately, though, the sun was almost down and people could not see me very well.

Suddenly I felt a jolt from behind, and the bamboo scraped across my neck as a motorbike nearly lost control in the dirt next to me. The driver had hit my bamboo poles with his shoulder, sending them flying forward. I was disoriented, and annoyed that he hadn’t been more careful. He felt the same about me. We silently walked towards each other, and he picked up a piece of discarded cloth on the ground and tied the ends of the poles together, so it was both easier for me to carry, and one of them wouldn’t stick out in the road. He got back on his bike and went on his way.

One of my sandals broke en route. I still had six km to go if I couldn’t get a ride.

My other sandal broke. I still had 3 km to go if I couldn’t get a ride.

The bamboo was digging into my shoulders, and switching sides was no longer helping.

At nearly 11:00 PM I finally hobbled barefoot into the house. It was the first time that somebody had had to come all the way home without getting a single ride. But at least I had that bamboo thing taken care of.

The next day, Blai, inspected the bamboo, with great disappointment. He said it was too thin, and not straight enough. I said it was the best he could find. He said he wouldn’t share the cost of this bamboo, and I would need to take them to the shop and get my money back or an exchange.

Showers

For the first week, we enjoyed our private bathrooms with shower. We would happily carry buckets of water in from the well behind our house to wash ourselves. This charade quickly died out when carrying water got boring, and we would just walk down to the river with our soap. The women would get a kick out of it as they washed their dishes and bathed beside us.