The road to Timbuktu
Ah, Mali. Gate to the mighty Sahara, keeper of Tuareg culture, home to the largest mud structure in the world. I'm not exactly sure why I wanted to go to a country whose greatest claim to fame was that it held the largest mud structure in the world, but heck, that's got to be a lot of mud, right? Everything I'd heard of Mali made it sound so empty and desolate, I had to investigate and see what was really there--which mostly turned out to be a lot of emptiness and desolation. But also all that other fun desert stuff, like camels and Tuaregs and magical nights under desert stars and even a few cactii. So even though my friend Lisa and I had just finished two satisfying but gruelling years in Senegal being deprived of modern conveniences, only to go to a country even more (WAY MORE) lacking in everything, we had a really fantastic time. Well, until she almost died. But that's another story.
Both of us were a little hesitant about going to Mali, since the embassy had sent us warnings not to go near Timbuktu due to rebel activity and highway banditry, and of course the only reason we were going to Mali was to say we'd been to Timbuktu. The thought of spending 10 days in this unknown, dusty, poor desert country without even going to Timbuktu wasn't so appealing, so we thought, well what the hell. We'll go anyway. Our trip began in the Dakar (capital of Senegal) airport, where we met 3 other Western travelers, and after a brief chat we were all quite relieved to know we weren't the only idiots out there going to Mali in the hottest of the hot season when all guidebooks say DON'T GO. Did I mention we were in an airport? This is because, given our options, Lisa and I decided to splurge and fly to Bamako (capital of Mali). Option 1 was taking a bus: a 5 day nightmare that usually ended in disaster somewhere near the border. Option 2 was the train: some German friends we met went to the train station to ask at what time the train was arriving, and the woman said, "oh I have no idea," and they said "but it's a train," and she said, "well it depends on if the train derails or not today." So, we flew.
Interestingly enough, this was a Muslim airline flying from one Muslim country to an even more Muslim country, and they served pork on the plane. And NO ONE KNEW! Lisa and I watched with slack jaws as the very devout but unsuspecting Muslim passengers shoveled the pork quiche in their previously untainted mouths.
Anyway, two of the Westerners we met in Dakar were Canadian, and we all wanted to see the same things in Mali, so we kept traveling together, and that way we could sort of pretend we were Canadian, too. Bamako was about the size of my high school football stadium, so we left town the next day. For the horrific bus trip that ensued, see entry "Mali and the Bus of Doom." It ended with us stranded in a bus station at 4am, exhausted, miserable, hungry, cramped, a day late, frightened, and quite, quite sure that if all transportation in Mali was like that, there wasn't a chance in hell we were going all the way to Timbuktu. But as chance had it, there just happened to be a guy in the bus station who had a car and driver for rent, and after two hours of negotiating, the car was ours! And even better, it was a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser, possibly even the Eddie Bauer edition. The four of us piled in and took the smoothest ride of our lives to the fabled city of Timbuktu.
Salt caravan coming from the Sahara
I don't think I've emphasized just how difficult it is to get there if you don't have our luck. Once you get to Africa, and get to Mali, and get to Bamako, and get to the base town Mopti, taking hell-buses or train wrecks the whole way, then the true difficulty begins. Since Timbuktu is so remote (and frankly uninteresting), hardly any public cars go there. So you have to wait days just to get a seat in a packed, ancient Land Rover (the terrain is too rough for anything but a Land Rover). We met a couple girls who had waited two days on the side of the road, and another group of Peace Corps volunteers whose trip had taken 17 hours from Mopti (ours took 6). And of course, they drive like hellions, so your chances of surviving the trip are slim at best. Not to mention the reputed bandits and rebels the whole way. But, you do have options...you can take a camel (at least six days of excruciating pain and boredom) or a boat (three days of having to poop over the edge and sleep on a rice sack).
What was Timbuktu like? Hundreds of years ago it was famed as a city of gold, a center of great learning and knowledge, an oasis of greatness in the middle of the desert. Today it is...not quite so impressive. But we still had a wonderful time. Lisa and I had carried a bottle of champagne from Senegal to toast our arrival if we ever made it. After our champagne toast we tried to walk around town, but the heat was so intense, we made it about 10 feet outside of the hotel before having to turn around and sleep three hours under a fan. Timbuktu is small, the streets are all thick sand, the buildings are old and crumbling, but there are several ancient mosques and sites, and there's certainly a feel of being in the last place on Earth. It's also about the least touristy place on Earth. We thought there'd be tons of restaurants and hotels and travelers, but nope. Just a lot of sand. We only spent one night there, but that night we sat out under the stars at the Tuareg encampment near our hotel, drinking tea with the nomads and listening to their tales of crossing the Sahara on camel. The one and only employee at the hotel cooked us a delicious bread and meat-sauce dish, and we fell asleep very, very contented.
Djenne mud mosque
We made it back to Mopti in one piece, and continued with the Canadians to Djenne, home of the UNESCO World Heritage site, the giant mud mosque. It's what is sounds like: a huge mosque made entirely of mud and re-mudded every year. In fact, the whole town was made of mud, and it was so old and un-modern that I think Jesus would have looked out of place there. It was incredible. You know how you always wonder what it would be like to go back in time and see how people really lived? Well, go to Djenne.
A Dogon cliff village
Our next adventure was a three-day trek in Dogon country. Mali is pretty much the flattest, most desert-like country you could imagine, but there is one giant, thousand foot cliff that runs about two hundred miles across the country. The Dogon people have made their homes in the cliff, and live today much as Fred Flintstone. We visited many of these villages on our trek (trekking up cliffs in 140 degree weather is not advised in the guidebook), and it was a shock how primitively the people lived, even to us seasoned Peace Corps volunteers (and Canadians). I mean, I thought MY village was primitive! If you ever wondered what it would be like to live in the past, and are magically transported to Djenne, then wish to go even further into the past, and you might end up in something like modern-day Dogon country. It was absolutely fascinating. The people were warm and friendly, shared their millet beer with us, and always offered us smiles. Each night we camped out on the roof of a basic hostel, because it was too hot to sleep indoors. My favorite memory was touring a village and finding some children having a blast using a slick rock face as their playground slide. Here's one of the Canadians trying it out:
Thus ended our Mali adventure. Oh wait...the near death part. How could I forget. (rest of story to come...)
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Page Summary
June 2007
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So, I haven't written in quite a while, but a lot's been happening. Never a dull moment when you're done with Peace Corps and bumming around Africa til your money runs out! Lots of good stories to tell, of Mali, and Timbuktu, and Morocco; you'll laugh, you'll cry, but at a later date cause I'm too tired to write it all tonight... Just a few more pictures of my last day and my Chiquita banana outfit... Ah, the end of an era. I am now officially moved out of my village. The last donkey cart has been loaded and set off into the sunset. On my final day, my friends Anne and Shannon (thank her for the photos) came with me. It was charmed from the start; our bus from Kaolack, usually crammed full of snotty children, vomiting babies, chickens pecking your feet, goats bleating in your ear, and two fat cheb mamas on either side of you, was shockingly and orderly filled with German tourists. The luggage had been stacked with precision care. Each tourist maintained their personal space and spoke in polite, indoor voices. I knew immediately this was one trip I wouldn't end up getting peed on. Let me start with the good news. I'm in Dakar for my Close of Service conference, which means basically I am finished!! Just a few babies to kiss, kola nuts to hand around, and I am outta here. My village has been talking for months about the going away party (dancing, check. drumming, check.) they are going to throw for me. Don't confuse this with generosity; they'll make me pay for everything. But the thought is there I suppose. I had been envisioning sneaking out at the crack of dawn before the chickens wake up and alert everyone to my presence, but I agree now it's best to have a real ceremony, and it will be nice to hear lots of speeches about how great I am. Not that I really am, but Senegalese are known for their over-the-top flattery. The volunteer before me was an older, retired woman who had lots of personal money and no grandchildren, so when she left she handed out bicycles. BICYCLES. This is what my villagers are assuming they'll get when I leave. However, I will be giving out nuts instead. I intend to get away with this by laughing it off, as everyone keeps talking about what a great sense of humor the Senegalese have. I don't know if they'll give me a going-away present. A volunteer who finished and left when I came to country was telling me that her family tried to give her a goat to take back to America and share with her family. She explained goats aren't allowed on a plane. Her villagers patiently explained that that's why you tie the goat on TOP of the airplane. I don't know what eventually happened to the goat. I dread writing this entry. But I know I’m going to get asked a million times what I’m doing after Peace Corps, so here’s my best shot. With two months left, I feel as though I should have some sort of “plan.” And yet, not really. So, around sunset every evening I take a nice half hour to hour jog through the bush. It’s my most serene, contemplative time of day. Yesterday however, I got a few miles out on my usual bush path and ran into a raging bushfire of true Bambi magnitude. To be honest this came as no surprise, as I could see the smoke from miles away. I figured it was safe enough to run anyway and turned back only, to my chagrin, when I saw actual flames across the path. It may strike you as odd I’m casually running about while fires rage nearby…nah. It’s pretty much the norm by now. And the more I got to thinking, the longer the list grew of horrific dangers I came across pretty much daily on my ‘peaceful’ jog. Here’s a couple:
I typically don’t like to give out money to my villagers, as it gives them the wrong idea about why I’m here, and also leads to battalions of people beating my door down to ask for cash. I try to please them in other, non-monetary ways. I found the ultimate village appeaser: tribal dancing. If I put on a bu-bu and wiggle around and kick up sand and do weird things with my hands, it’s like I’ve just bestowed on them all brand new TV sets. It literally makes them that happy. African dancing is by no means “normal.” You’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like if a fat scarecrow was walking on hot coals while being attacked by killer bees, while wearing lingerie and covered in a blanket. Clearly I look like a complete idiot trying to mimic this. I don’t even feel any shame over this; there’s no way ANY white person is going to come close to mastering the moves (I’ve seen some brave souls try, but sadly, fail). But I figure, hey, if I can make a whole village THAT ridiculously happy by making a fool out of myself every once in a while, why the hell not. Last week was a traditional wedding ceremony. For weeks, my family asked me if I’d attend. The day of, giddy with anticipation, they prodded me as to whether I’d dance, to which I replied a cool “wait and see.” I made my appearance at the party, fashionable late as the sun sunk low on the horizon, dressed in an ice-blue lace bu-bu (a few tomato sauce stains discretely hidden), making my way among the crowd as non-chalantly as a single white person in a sea of black skin can. Immediately, a ripple of excited whispers cascaded through the crowd…WOULD she? WOULD the toubab dance? I bided my time, casually photographing the other dancers and making chitchat. My every move was followed by hundred of eager eyes. I made as if to leave—heard an audible gasp of angst—and turned back, kicked off my flip-flops, and made my way to the dance arena. Excited cries rung out. She WOULD! She WOULD dance! The drummers started up, I jumped around a little, hit random stuff, picked up sand and threw it—the usual—and the crowd went wild. Usually only about 2 minutes of this is enough to make them happy. Then they clap like mad and laugh and laugh and laugh but assure me I can dance like a pro (oddly, I sense no sarcasm in this), It’s only women allowed, but my male counterpart said he snuck around the back of the fence with the village chief to see if I had what it took. He’s in awe now, leading me to believe that there’s really no elaborate African style or rhythm at all, it’s just rolling your eyes back and acting like you’re possessed. And I know what you’re all thinking. And the answer is NO. I will NOT perform an African tribal dance for you when I come home. So don’t even bother asking. I should explain the title. Few people in Senegal speak English, but those that do seem to have truly bizarre beliefs about colloquial terms we use. Nearly everyone insists, vehemently, that all bosses and important people are by and large refered to by Americans as “Big Cheeses.” I went to a fortune teller once with my language teacher, who translated the soothsayer’s interpretation of scrambled chicken bones into “You will have 2 children, a girl and a boy, own your own car, return to Senegal to visit, and marry a Big Cheese.” Anyway, that is what I had visit last week in the village. A Big Cheese and an even Bigger Cheese, meaning the Peace Corps Director of Senegal, and a Peace Corps Financial Director from Headquarters in DC. Sleeply little Ngekhokh doesn’t get many international diplomats nor people of distinction, so they were quite pleased with the news. The PC staff were coming to celebrate/inspect our grant project, building gardening sites. I am happy to report that work has actually, miraculously, occurred. The well digger has completely finished both wells, the village men gathered an unprecedented three weekends in a row to repair the barbed wire fence, and women have already been fertilizing and measuring their gardening plots. All this progress makes me heady with success. The water in one well is of a very high quality. The water at the school well, however, is a little salty, but we did a watering test and our seeds sprouted, so we’re going to give it a shot. Both wells were “named” after me, Megane, which is actually a renault car, but I’ll go with it. Senegalese have a bizarre custom of naming inanimate objects after a person. People constantly ask you to give them things, like the shirt or earrings you’re wearing, or your house. To which the normal reply is “Tudd naa la ko.” Which roughly translates to “Hell no, but how about if I name them after you?” So I have pants named Lira, a shovel named Roger, you get the idea. Anyway, since we get few important visitors, my village wanted to make a real big deal out of their visit. Also, they were genuinely pleased with the project, and sincerely wanted to thank me and let my administrators know how happy they were with me. I’ll admit, I was really touched. They set up a loud-speaker system, drummers and dancers, and rented plastic tables and chairs, and held a little ceremony under a big neem tree. My American Big Cheese bosses came, and a half dozen people (including myself) gave a little speech about what my time in the village had meant. My counterpart and best friend said they’d never dreamed an American with everything going for her would give that up to live in the desert among them and try to improve their lives, and that through my work with the school and the grant project, I had made a huge, long-term impact on the village, though it may seem like only a small achievement to me. It was very heartfelt and kind. Between the grant and all the tribal dancing, I’m sitting in a pretty good position in the village, and with only 2 months left I’m hoping I don’t do anything to accidentally mess that up. I’d like to leave on a good note. It’s not a delicious hot sauce. It’s the biggest Muslim holiday of the year! And this year it weirdly fell on New Year’s Eve, making a doubly big holiday! To Senegalese Muslims, Tabaski means reliving the ancient story of God’s sparing Abraham from sacrificing his only son and benevolently replacing him with a ram, by buying and slaughtering a ram of their own. To me, Tabaski means getting sick from rancid ram meat. It’s a festive time though and a lot of fun, as well as a great photo op. I visited every family in my village to distribute kola nuts and wish them happy holidays, and witnessed about 50 ram slaughterings in exchange. I had to take a photo of each one. Thank God for digital cameras. As the tradition goes, each family must purchase a ram or be ostracized forever. However, rams run anywhere from $60 to $100! Your average peanut farmer does not have that kind of money. But the pressure for a ram is so great families sacrifice basic essentials such as medicine and abundant food to throw a huge Tabaski bash complete with new hair weaves and bubus. According to global Muslim traditions, one third of the meat is for the family, a third for friends, and a third for the poor. But wait a minute…they ARE the poor! Save maybe Sudanese refugees they’re about as poor as it gets. Who do they give the meat to? Each other? The same thing happened at Ramadan, when my villagers told me they were fasting in order to know what life is like for the poor of the world. I didn’t know how to break it to them that THEY were the poor of the world. They were who every other Muslim in the world fasts for. I really feel like Islam needs to lighten up a little on the charity rules; if you ARE the poor I really think it’s ok to just enjoy the few meager pleasures you can get. The thing about Africa is, it’s hot. From 11am to 5pm you’re pretty much stuck sprawled on the bed soaking your sheets in sweat too weak to even fan yourself. The upside of this, though, is that I have caught up on some excellent reading. Since literature has been a pretty substantial part of my life here I thought I’d share some of my favorites. Perhaps you are eagerly awaiting the results of my procedure to see if I will be horribly disfigured, or maybe even have some super cool lightening-bolt scar. Well…neither. Currently I (still) have a big mole on the side of my face, and here is why. Before surgery I raised several questions to the dermatologist, expressing my hesitation due to lack of information, and he then agreed yes, there was really no need to get the mole removed at all, and Dakar certainly wasn’t the place to have it done, and he certainly wasn’t the doctor to do it, since he admittedly wasn’t very talented at making subtle scars. WHAT??? Where was that answer a YEAR ago when I first raised questions about it?? Or a MONTH ago when he himself told me to let him remove it asap? If I hadn’t raised questions would he have just cut the thing out unnecessarily and left a huge scar? Clearly, after two years I still am at a total loss for how things work here. I am just baffled. But, I guess, hurray! Am really, really, really, relieved and glad there’s no health risk and everything’s fine. As long as I keep getting it monitored there may never be a need for removal. I just got to Dakar today, for quite a chunk of time, maybe 10 days. The reason? I have a mole on my face that has been "acting funny" and needs to be removed. I think. As I'm no doctor I really have no idea what needs to happen. For many months now this mole has been growing and now looks like a very red and angry old man. It also periodically crusts over and falls off. Literally, the whole thing falls off my face and then regrows, often accomanied by profuse amounts of blood and weird sensations. Naturally, I began to grow worried. I contacted our medical staff several times, and received such straight-forward answers as "oh god no, NEVER get it removed here," followed by "why don't you just get it removed here?" followed by "well what do YOU want to do?" I don't know! I'm not a doctor, it's not like choosing vanilla or rocky road, this is my health at stake! I can't just make a decision based on no information whatsoever. So I consulted with several knowledgable friends and people with mole experience, who urged me to get it removed as soon as possible. This seemed wise to me. However, that means getting it removed in Africa, where you are probably more likely to die from going to the hospital than from whatever ails you. When I queried the medical staff, I got a suspiciously familar jumble of responses; "oh it's fine to get it done here! No problem!" to "We strongly recommend you not have this procedure done in Dakar," to "well what do YOU think you should do?" So here's what I was left with, and mind you, no credentials whatsoever to help me decide; which is the greater risk, to wait 4 or 5 months and have it removed in the US, though it could be melanoma and in that case very serious, or to have it removed immediately under less than ideal circumstances? Potential skin cancer vs potential gangrenous infection/disfiguring scar? Vanilla or rocky road? Rocky road please, just hold the gangrene. It would probably be wise of me to discontinue this blog since I’m sure in the preceding months you’ve all given me up for dead or running around crazy in the bush with a stick through my nose. But for those of you still loyal enough to check for updates, I am happy to say I am alive and healthy and my posting silence has not been due to any exotic diseases, just our computer being broken. So here I shall attempt to recreate a little picture of what has been going on lately. I’ll hurry before the computer breaks again. And a few other updates from the Ngekhokh Daily Times… As many of you may have noticed, I was not home for Christmas. I certainly noticed. However, it gave me a chance to see more of the country, save some money, visit some friends, and hell I’ll be home in just a few months anyway. It actually wasn’t a big deal, since here it is hot, sunny, and Muslim, all of which are not particularly evokative of Christmastime. And when you’re away from Christmas music, cookies, eggnog, holiday sales, decorations, and mall Santas, you just don’t think about it too much.
So with all this traveling around you may be asking yourself, what the hell is she doing down there, isn’t she engaging in some sort of important resume-building skills? Well, I am. Between the holidays, I’ve gotten this year’s EE program rolling along quite nicely. The teachers and I did several curriculum planning sessions and EE trainings, and have finished a couple lessons. As I near the end of my service I’m trying to see as much of the country as possible. To the untrained eye it may seem dry, flat, and dusty everywhere. But after being here 2 years the subtle differences between regions really stand out and amaze. For Thanksgiving, I traveled to the very north of the country, on the border with Mauritania to visit my friend Erica’s site. Bordering the Sahara, the main difference was it was drier, flatter, and dustier than my area. Regardless, the desert environment really does hold a quiet beauty. Life moves so much slower, herders on camels drift through the sands and sit by campfires in the cool evenings. In Kaolack I could probably walk the streets naked banging a pot with a spoon and I’d just blend in with the general chaos and lawlessness. But up north, long, conservative, traditional dress is all you see, people are much more serious and reserved with their talk and joking. Here I am with Erica and her host family. Notice the head scarves and lack of exposed breasts. |
