I woke up as the sun was just beginning to reveal the day. I was on a mission and there was no time to waste. I quickly packed my tent and climbed down from the terrace of my old house in Segou. I greeted the groups of old men lounging on the side of the road as if they hadn’t moved since I had left several days before.
When the first moto taxi came, I explained that I needed to get to the transport hub for Markala. One of the nearby young men helped translate as the driver had no idea what I was talking about. We loaded up my bulging pack on the roof, and I carried my tub with gifts for the river boys.
When we got to the station (well, side of the road where mini busses tend to congregate), the driver tried to triple the price, which was shocking as price gouging had been so rare for me in Mali. Everyone else had already paid and disappeared, and nobody was there to help me out. So we negotiated a more reasonable fare and I was hustled onto the next bus to Markala.
I didn’t know what the normal fare should be, but when we arrived an hour later, the driver asked me for double what I had expected. I was not going to let this slide either and I offered him nothing or what I was almost certain the normal fare was. He quickly gave in, and I was hustled onto the next bus to Ke-Massina. These were pretty mild attempts at extorting money, but it made me that much more glad to know I was about to get back on the river where everything was so simple and care free.
It would have taken an hour and a half to reach the town in a private vehicle, but this was an African mini bus, devoted to picking up anyone and all their wares or animals that had made it to the side of the road. The requisite breakdown occurred early on and there was at least one long wait to accumulate more passengers at a main junction. Five sweaty hours later we rolled into the humble town of Ke-Massina, the last town I knew how to get to by road. Once again, I was asked an exorbitant price for the trip we had made. I got a little too defensive a little too fast, and the driver quickly saw I was not so green to Mali, and gave me the real price.
Ke-Massina was a mid-sized town with the luxuries of occasional electricity, a military post, a thriving Saturday market, and two bars. I was not sure how long until the boys would arrive in town, but when I had left them, I knew they would make a good pace, since they departed with strong sailing winds. They had 90 km to go from where I had last seen them to Ke-Massina. It was day three, and I would not have been surprised if they had made it that day. I found the closest food stall near the center of the boat action, got some rice cooked in tomato sauce (not unlike a greasier version of Mexican rice) and told them that I was waiting for a few ruffian foreigners to be arriving any day now. I hoped that if I wasn’t around when they arrived, they would at least be alerted by the food servers that I was in the area. The boys had no idea that I was coming back. I wanted it to be a surprise, especially since I was bringing a healthy stash of wine sachets and peanut butter sachets.
The people that served me the rice were the most pleasant I met in town. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people that seemed to have hustler tendencies. A couple guys would approach me asking if I needed a place to stay, or someone to carry my bags. Although the vast majority of Malians are incredibly genuine and helpful, these guys were too obvious. One man continued to follow me, inexplicably, everywhere I went. I felt like he was just waiting to figure out a way that he could extract money from me. He had mentioned that he was the son of the chief, which made me wonder if he was trying to impress me, or if he had been sent to mind me, to see what the strange “toubab” was doing in town. I had no patience for this, and had to tell him to leave.
I spent several days in Ke-Massina waiting around for the boys. Being attached to my huge bag and heavy bucket of gifts, I was not very mobile. I was camping on a sprawling beach outside of town. Every day I would walk to town to buy a huge bag of rice from my favorite food vendors, then walk back to the beach. The weather had turned incredibly hot, and, without shade, all I could do was take constant swims in the river. I read. I ate. I napped. I tanned. And towards the end of the day I would sneak into the wine stash while children and teenagers, just finishing school, would creep closer to me and watch as I set up my tent. Sometimes they would come and talk to me. Although they probably wanted to know what the hell I was doing, just mysteriously camping in their town, I took the opportunity to see what they were learning in school. I would quiz them on Malian geography, and they would tell me stories from Mali’s history. The great warriors from different tribes, historical wars, and of course the famous story of Sundiata Keita. In the middle of the discussion, a young man, heavyset, in a robe, walked up, sat down and watched. His presence made me uneasy. He kept looking at me in a way that I can’t explain. It wasn’t curiosity, friendliness, or suspicion. Even if it would have been a negative look, I would have felt more comfortable since I would have been able to read him. His eyes were narrowed and he had a subtle grin. When the conversation lulled, he casually interjected, speaking to the kids in Bambara. His words gradually built dumbfounded expressions on the kids’ faces. Their eyes widened, some gave nervous giggles, all while giving suspicious glances back toward me as he spoke. It grew extremely uncomfortable. I asked the kids what he was saying, and none of them wanted to say anything. Finally, one of them started to tell me that he was some sort of mystic (I can’t remember the word they used for hit) and he had had dreams of my arrival a week ago. He had known that I was coming. They wouldn’t tell me any more than this, and the man just grinned. When he was finished, I shook his hand and he left. The kids followed.
On the third day the boys still weren’t there. I was worried. It had been incredibly windy and I knew this was hurting them. Some mornings I had been bombarded by wind-blown sand so strong I had to leave the beach. My tent had nearly collapsed. I did some accounting of days and my schedule. I was flying out of Mali on the third, and I wanted to be in Bamako a few days early to tie up loose ends to the trip and buy gifts. I knew it would take at least ten days to reach Mopti, where I would leave to go back to Bamako, but it could easily take two weeks. This meant that even if they arrived this day, I would be cutting it close. I sent a text to Jonathan to see where they were. I didn’t hear back, so in the afternoon, I decided to throw in the towel and head back to Segou. Perhaps I would not be re-joining the boat trip after all. I went to the food stall with my bucket of gifts for the the boat, and told them that my friends would be arriving soon and to give it to them. I tried to give them a tip for their help, but they refused. In addition to the wine and food, I put a couple of books in the bucket as well as some warmer clothes for Jordan, who had almost nothing warm for the nights, and no tent or sleeping bag. I sent Jonathan a text saying that when he arrives in Ke-Massina there would be some things waiting for him by the port. I found a bus heading back to Markala and hopped on. For a second time it looked like I was saying goodbye to the boat trip.
Then, halfway to Markala, I got a call from Jonathan. I told him that I had been waiting in Ke-Massina to rejoin the boat trip, but it looked like it would be too late. He insisted that I go back and wait for them. They were 20 km away and he said they would try to make it by that night. I said it would be too late. I was already on the bus and if I got on the boat now, I could miss my flight if we made slow progress on the river. He said I should wait anyway. The crew just wanted to have one last beer with me (there is a bar in Ke-Massina right?). It sounded reasonable, so I announced to the bus driver that I wanted off.
Thirty minutes later another bus came in the other direction and I hopped on, back to Ke-Massina. Such a beautiful town on such a pristine spot of the river, with such a mixed bag of characters. It felt mixed to go back, but I just hoped that they would actually make it that night.
I got the occasional text from them. It was windy, and they were moving slow, but they were paddling into the night. I set up my tent, wondering if they could really make it. I woke up early, a little disappointed, and wondering if I should just move on. Then I got a call from Blai. They had just arrived and they were looking for me. There was little surprise that when he and Fura found me on the beach, that they had already found the bar and had started drinking. It was 9 AM. Blai and I arrived with a massive sack of rice to find Jordan and Jonathan already on their third round of beers.
The party began again.
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