And It All Ends With a Donkey

March 31, 2011

I had my freedom again, but there wasn’t much to be done with it. I had a couple days to get to Bamako for my flight to France.

I was in Sevare, just a few dozen km from Mopti. Although this city doesn’t appear to have anything going for it, there were a surprising amount of hustlers and hasslers. As I tried to walk out of town to get my thumb in the air, people kept following me and pointing me in the direction of the bus station. By the time I was on the main stretch of road out of town, there were three guys following me, trying to insist that I needed to go with them to the bus station, where they planned to collect a modest commission. One of them was either drunk or crazy, one was persistent and uncouth, while the other was trying to play the good cop, telling me that they were bad people not to be trusted (which implied that I should trust him instead. I tried ignoring them for a while, then politely telling them they needed to leave me alone. Yelling and acting crazy didn’t have much effect either, so I finally went to some men hanging out ouside of a shop and explained to them that I was having a problem. They simply told them to go away and leave me alone, which actually worked.

Now I could hitchhike in peace. My luck with this in Mali had been so mixed. Hitchhiking locally around towns had worked far better than I ever would have imagined, but getting long distances only seemed to work half the time. This turned out to be one of the bad halves.

I watched the outskirts function around me for hours. Food stalls opened and closed. People responded to the call to prayer. People passed by on bikes. Children made their way home from school. And I sat, waiting. When it got dark, I gave up, and decided to just flag down a bus (during the day they were stopping for me even though I was just standing there). This did not, work, and I was surprised to find that no bus would stop for me now. Somebody told me that I had to go a km up the road to the bus’s “second station”. When I got there, I was told that the busses were no longer stopping here, either, as it was night time. Apparently there was a rule in this region about busses stopping after dark. Something about insecurities. I didn’t know what that meant, but it is safe to assume it had something to do with highway banditry. So now I had to make my way a few more km out of town to the gendarmerie checkpoint. This was going to be a drag. Luckily, though, after only ten minutes of walking, a car pulled over for me (I didn’t even have my thumb out). It was a man and his family, and he took me all the way to the checkpoint, which was well past his actual destination.

The checkpoint was dark, except for a few candles and lightbulbs hooked up to car batteries for the people vending food to passing travelers. After an hour of waiting in the muggy night, I managed a seat on a bus after bargaining for the price. As usual, it was hot and crowded. Worst of all, though, because of this fear of insecurity in the area, our bus wasn’t about to make any pit stops for food or bathroom. On the other hand, it meant that our bus would crawl into Bamako that much faster.

My arrival in Bamako was a low-point in the trip. When I had first been to the town, I was in love with it. Part of it was because we hadn’t been in a big city in so long, and I was yearning for that thrilling pace of life. It also meant the arrival into black Africa, which had taken far too long. This time, though, I had little desire to deal with the trappings of this urban sprawl. I did what I could, though to savor my last days on the continent. I visited the Togolese restaurant for some fufu with groundnut soup, the best food in Mali, guaranteed. I also found the best dining location in the city. In the thick of the market there are a couple of staircases on either side of the road that lead to nowhere. They are obviously part of some footbridge project for people to cross over the impenetrable mass of the market, but it was never finished. Therefore there are two landings facing each other about thirty feet high, with nothing between them. I bought a sandwich in the market, then hiked up the empty staircase. As I ascended above the swarming throng of people, attracting attention from many down below, I wondered why nobody was using these stairs for anything. I wouldn’t know what people would use them for, but Malians (dare I say Africans?) are incredibly resourceful, and almost nothing ever goes unused.

Most people watching me eat my sandwich just laughed and waved, though a few gave me befuddled almost disdainful looks. Finally, as I had kind of been expecting, a rough guy in tattered clothes started yelling at me. I couldn’t really hear him, but it was obvious that I was doing something wrong, according to him, and he wanted me to come down. I just smiled and waved. My view of the market was beautiful, and I wasn’t about to give it up because I was breaking some obscure rule. Finally, the guy came up the stairs to tell me that I needed to get down. As he explained in French that he was the caretaker of the stairs and nobody was allowed on it, I just continued to smile without responding. He asked if I spoke French, and I acted like I didn’t understand that either. “Are you French?” “French? No.” “Where are you from?” I shrugged, not understanding him. “Italy?” No. “Spain? No. “Palestine?” “Yes!” I was really hoping he didn’t speak Arabic as he could have called my bluff. He eventually realized that I wasn’t going to leave or understand him. I pointed at the sandwich, indicating that I would be finishing it and then leaving. He seemed ok with this, and sat down next to me, watching the commotion below.

On the afternoon of Saturday, April 2, I headed toward the airport. Instead of shelling out $12 for a taxi ride, I decided to take a bus in that direction. I knew it wouldn’t go all the way, but I was fairly certain I could hitchhike the last couple of km. Little did I know what form it would take.

I started to walk toward the airport after the bus dropped me off. A few cars zoomed past, probably not even seeing me. Then something special happened. A donkey cart was coming up behind me. Two men with two little boys, who whipped the two donkeys, walked along a cart piled high with hay. I asked if I could go with them. They didn’t speak French, but they knew what to do. They threw my pack on top of the hay and we continued walking together. I had bought some popcorn and biscuits as airplane snacks, so I shared them with the boys. They seemed nervous to take the food as it was distracting them from their job of driving the donkeys. The men just laughed. It felt fitting that I was getting a ride with a donkey cart. I had learned a lot on this trip, such as how to operate a donkey cart, how to hitchhike, and, most of all, how to not miss interesting opportunities. This felt like a little reward from the travel gods for how far I had come.