The Eighty First Story

Sitting in this spot, the reality of where we were really started to sink in (for me, my mother is a little quicker on the uptake, I think). We arrived in town by mid afternoon, and the very first thing Mamadu did was to order us food (We had already learned to order food at least three hours before getting hungry). He asked us if we wanted meat or no meat. Mum and I looked at each other, shrugged a little and asked for meat. He shouted something to a little boy, and we wandered around the rest of the day, only later realizing that the child had gone to catch the town's one goat.

Now- I'm quite certain we paid more than enough to replace that goat. It's not that I feel bad about it, per se. It's just- what if some other travelers came through the next night, and the townfolk had not yet gotten a new goat and had to explain this? Or maybe that's what happened- maybe this place usually had a goat on hand, it had recently been consumed, and when we surprised them by ALSO asking for meat, they had to scramble, and as luck would have it, someone else had a goat. But what if that emergency goat already had plans? What if it was meant for a particular feast, and now there was no goat? What if someone had to get married with no meat dinner? What if someone had already started to prepare it for a sacrifice and had to start all over?

In short- I spent the night thinking about how, in a place with very few travelers, one set could really fuck things up if they wanted to. We didn't order meat again till Timbuktoo.

the Seventy Seventh story

 

 

We had planned to spend our remaining four days in Djenne, but... we didn't. Instead, after one full day, we made our way back to the Carrefour and hopped another bus, this one going south. We got as far as Sikasso, jumped out, and asked folks what to go see. Unanimously, everyone I managed to communicate with agreed on this place, who's name translates to something like "Mosque of the Grotto". We hired ourselves a cab for the day, and headed out, expecting to see a mosque much like the rest of the ones we had seen.
But no. There are no photos of the wonder of this place, because it was too beautiful, and I too tired, to muck around with the camera. There's this one snapshot, and that's all. These rocks were worn with centuries of worship, prayer carpets made simply by so many knees kneeling in the same spot. There were droplets falling from this, the skylight, making a thin, sparkling, glowing veil. Mum and I, an agnostic and a raging athiest, looked at each other, and agreed that this was the right place to worship god.

the Seventy Sixth Story

This tree, when we were walking up to it, was in full bloom- covered in large white flowers that, from a distance, looked like magnolia. As we got closer, some of the flowers started to lift off; by the time we were within a hundred yards, it was bare, and the sky full of egrets

the Seventy Fourth story

After Timbuktoo, we wanted to go to Djenne. Djenne was on our way home. It also has the largest mudbrick structure in the world, and because of the impredictability  of travel, we had four days to spare. We got off our bus at the Carrefour (literally "crossroads" but there were so few that no one seemed to feel any need to name any of them). and set ourselves, as per normal, to wait until there were the requisite number of folks to persuade the driver of the pickup truck to move it. We asked if another bus would be coming by the carrefour later. We were told probably tomorrow. We asked what he was waiting for, then. He said he was waiting for the next bus so there would be more people. We asked if he was planning on waiting overnight. He shrugged. This wait was much more pleasant than most of the others had been, though- there was a local politician waiting for the same pickup, and after sharing his rather tasty bagged lunch with the both of us (we had long since stopped making a point of telling people that we were not, in fact, the forward guard of some aid agency) he persuaded the driver to maybe start out a little sooner than planned. We did spend some four hours out by the crossroads, but this meant we made it to the river crossing right at sunset. The oranges and purples and wonders reflected back on the water, perfectly silhouetting young men standing up in their small boats, poling their way back to the shore. We arrived in town after dark, but our new friend escorted us to a small hostel and introduced us to the proprietors, who then took it upon themselves to make sure we got dinner.

The following day there was a wedding at the hostel, in the courtyard. We found a high point, up on one of the roofs, and watched as everyone mingled- Fulani, Tuereg, Bambara, western aid workers, hostel owners; all in different ideas of formal dress. It was grand, and glorious, and oh so very bright.

the thirty sixth story

another story from Mali, this one very short. The Dogon country features some remarkable gorges. We stayed part of a day and two nights in a village located inside one of these, with very very tall, very very steep walls on two sides. There was a donkey in this village, too. He would bray, and, with the echoes, the sound simply never left the valley. It would bounce back and forth, the echoes echoing each other long after the donkey had brayed again, harmonizing with himself.

The Twenty Seventh Story

While we were in Mali, my mom and I wanted to get to Timbukto. There were two main reasons for this- the first was the libraries, and the second was the simple fact that it is Timbukto. I mean, you just can't get that close to Timbukto and not go. "That close" though, gives the wrong idea. It is still hard to get to timbukto. There is no road. There's the River Niger, and there's 4x4s. We got it into our heads that we wanted to take a boat. Boats are expensive. We had met up with a pair of British folks, and we were going to try and get together to find passage. They found some other folks (another british woman and a couple, one Danish, and one Bulgarian). The bunch of us ended up splitting a boat with another group from Spain, and a French lady traveling with her Senegalese husband. The last two actually knew what they were doing, the rest of us were dumbasses. Because we had negotiated separately, the english speaking group was to be sleeping on the boat, while the spanish speaking group was to be camping on shore. The first night, there was a storm. It was amazing- the wind was shearing horizontally, driving rain in front of it like a blade. The spanish tents ripped themselves to bits in their attempt to blow away. The boat was leaky, but designed for these storms and thus mostly fine. Clearly, the spanish people needed to come in. But the english speaking crowd had spread out blankets and mosquito nets and what not covering every inch of the boat, so for a long time, we ended up with all the Spanish people sitting in a row on three sleeping bags. Eventually, through diplomatic means, we were able to gain some more land, but there just wasn't enough room for everyone to lay down, so we all played cards and accused each other of cheating in languages we didn't understand.

the fourteenth story

Been a bit, here's another short, unedited story.
In Mali, with my mom, we went on a walk through the Dogon country. At one point, we dropped off our packs in one village and walked to another- Mamadu knew I was a metalsmith and wanted to introduce me to the blacksmith. On the way back, Mamadu looked at the sky, and casually said "maybe we should hurry". Mom and I thought very little of it, he seemed so relaxed about the idea; and while we didn't stop to take pictures, we didn't really hurry, either. After about fifteen minutes, Mamadu looked at the sky again, and said, in his same, relaxed manner "Maybe we should hurry". Mom and I started walking faster, but the rocks were tall, and climbing not easy, so we still weren't making good time compared to what Mamadu would do on his own. About half way home, Mamadu looked at the sky again and said, with respect but a bit of an annoyed edge "Maybe we should hurry". Mom and I got the point, and started moving as fast as we really easily could. Then, about 3/4 of the way there, Mamadu looked at the sky, grabbed my bag and said "Maybe we should hurry", and started helping shove us up rocks. Within sight of the village, but with one very large dropoff left to go, Mamadu looked at the sky and said "Maybe we should hurry" Only then did mom and I see what he had seen over an hour before- a black wall. We started clambering down the cliff. Mom, who has always been more comfortable with down than I, took my camera, and all three of us entered into the downward climb at a speed that makes more sense as a partially controlled fall. We made it to the bottom just as the sand hit. I grabbed my camera back and wrapped it in my hastily removed headscarf, and we started trying to run for the village, totally blind. Just as we made it to the village, the sand stopped, and the rain hit. Newly exfoliated, we sat in our lovely mud hut, built with its back to the direction of the wind, and watched waterfalls form on the rock walls of the valley.