Malilog

[Velvet]

Malilog; Stardate 111008

As I sit on a bus headed for the airport in Montreal with the sparse yet pretty Canadian landscape zooming by the window, it finally starts to sink in; I'm heading to the motherland!

Something about preparing for this trip is different. Usually I meticulously research my destination and when the time comes to leave I feel somewhat nonchalant about it. This time I've done hardly any research and as I sit here trying to take in the scenery I think I'm a nervous wreck bubbling just under the surface. Hopefully a burger and a beer before takeoff will take the edge off. Or perhaps I should keep the edge on. Either way, I'm hoping there's a burger and a beer in my future.

And there was; I hit the Burger King at the airport while Heather made her way to the St. Hubert. We wolfed our quasi-meals and found a bar with ten minutes to go before boarding. I scarfed down a Canadian and struck up a conversation with the man beside me who is heading the same way we are. He's in mining, a gold digger from British Columbia on his way to Mali for the third time. He's obviously more comfortable with missing planes than I am because when I downed my beer and begged out of our conversation to run to the gate he just sat there. Oh well.

I gotta tell you I love Air France. The people are nice, the inflight magazine is hefty, they served the best airplane meal I've ever had and most importantly they still serve free drinks. The only beer option is Heineken, but who's complaining? Though Heather was resting when the guy came by I got her a small bottle of red wine too. Even in regular class there is a myriad of entertainment choices to choose from - I decided on The Dark Knight. The seats in the proletariot section are still small, and as I tossed and grunted the night away I placated myself with memories of dijon-style saute of beef accompanied by vegetables and Parisienne potatoes, with fresh baguette, gouda cheese, fruit, and chocolate raspberry cake. When grinding my kneecap into the seat in front of me didn't keep me awake, the drooling did.

At 9am we arrived in Paris for a seven hour layover so rather than killing time at the airport we got our butts on the train to town. Two things that were immediately apparent: there's graffiti everywhere, and everyone talks like Inspector Clouseau. We found a cafe and enjoyed some $6 coffees, and Heather got the omelette. The waiter was just rude enough to remind us where we were without dampening our spirits as we soaked in the street scene, which included a fair share of graffiti'd vans. We went to the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise and wandered through the gorgous memorials finding the final resting place of Bizet, Chopin, and others, and of course the alleged final resting place of Mr. Mojo Risin. Cheesy yet necessary, the pilgrimmage is complete.

Back on the metro we shared Heather's wee bottle of wine smuggled from the airplane and felt very Parisian in doing so. We ended up back at the airport with plenty of time for our flight. The next leg of our journey is on the same airline. I'm hoping for the same menu.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111108

What can I say about my first day in Africa? It's been so whelming I could easily pump out 10,000 words just on the last twenty-four hours.

Generally when a plane gets close to landing one begin to see the lights of neighboring towns. We saw only fires. Arriving at the airport about 10pm, we were met by Baba and directed to the car that would take us to our hotel that we had pre-booked for our first night. As we walked to the car we attracted a crowd of about ten people that followed us, trying to carry our bags, telling Heather she's beautiful, that sort of thing. We got in the beat-up Mercedes and headed into Bamako, Mali's capital. The traffic was relatively sensible, the main road quite good, and there were gas stations everywhere (about a dollar a litre). I can say without hyperbole that the air was thick. Exhaust fumes from black-cloud spewing vehicles, smoke from hundreds of open fires, and who knows what else, but it was certainly an olfactory adventure. We eventually turned down a road that was only identifiable as such because there weren't any houses built on it and found our hotel. We were shown our room, 15,000* if we used air-con, 7,000 if we left it turned off and used only the lazy fan that spun around only fast enough to make noise. We opted for the latter and sent the hotel guy to go buy us beers. We drank enough to get tired and turned in after about 28 hours of travel.

In the morning, well, the early afternoon, we got up to the first of what I suspect will be a series of hot, sunny days. In short order we got in the Mercedes and were taken to the poor side of town, arriving at a hospital. About a year ago I read in the paper about a Canadian organisation called Not Just Tourists that sends medical supplies to countries in need utilising tourist's unused luggage space. We tend to travel lightly so we signed on and brought two suitcases containing a total of twenty-five kilos of medical supplies with us. After a brief wait (I've heard it said that in the west we have clocks, in Africa they have time) we were shown to a doctor who quietly took the stuff off of our hands. I gotta say I felt a bit wierd about it, though I'll do it again. Sitting across from this man who became a doctor in such an impoverished country and seeing him having to swallow his pride and accept random charity from us whiteys was uncomfortable, though I should stress that he did not make it so, rather, it was the inside of my head created the situation. Anyway, Heather and our crew of four de facto guides left and were taken by my requst to a drum maker. I tried out some djembes and selected one, which I will pick up before we leave the country. I hope the goatskin drum head doesn't make it difficult to bring into Canada.

Starving, we went for lunch nearby. Heather and I both ate rice with delicious onion sauce and even my healthy appetite couldn't help me finish my plate. As the lady took my leftover food away I heard echos of my mother telling me as a kid, "Finish your dinner, there are millions of kids in Africa who would kill for that food." I washed down my guilt with a big beer and we all headed to the market.

There are about two million people in Bamako, and I think most of them were at the market, which was utterly chaotic. Along with thousands of others we crushed our way through throngs of booths selling absolutely everything piled high. We weaved around ladies carrying laden baskets on their heads and piles of bound chickens as merchants tried to thrust items into our hands. The atmosphere was so thick it was literally difficult to tell when we were inside or outside, or where we entered and left buildings. As we crossed into the fetish market we saw colorful dead birds and dried monkey heads, everything you need to keep the spirit world at bay.

We ended up back at the same restaurant for more beers where we haggled with our posse until nightfall. Against our better judgement we prebooked some tours, but given the short duration of our trip and the unreliability of local transport, we felt it prudent.

Back at the hotel we hammered out the final deal and gave half of our money to Baba, which should take care of a lot of what we want to do. Then we hit the little strip of bars along our "street" for beers and dinner.

With bus tickets in hand and a subsequent alarm setting of 5:40am, we were just finishing up our beers to go back to the hotel when some young men sat with us. They told us of two live shows going on right then, both free, and with one being within walking distance we finished our bottles and followed our leaders. Five minutes later we were at the Palais des Arts, a fairly big building that hosts music and theatre. Around back was an outdoor area called the Cafe des Arts and a band called Mondank (sp?) was kicking it down before an audience of about thirty people (I noticed a poster for an upcoming show featuring a band called Farty. Betcha they stink). Several ladies were up dancing as the band, which consisted of guitar, bass, djembe, drum kit, gori (like a smaller kora), and vocalist played original music with that unmistakeable West African sound. As the band weaved thousands of notes around one, and sometimes two chords, the vocalist sang in the through-composed, seemingly unconnected way indicative of the style through big, overdriven speakers, which lent creedence to the sound.

Three or four men joined the dancefloor and danced in unison as if we were an audience to some low budget music video. After a couple of hours and several rounds bought by yours truly our hosts started to aggressively try and sell us things. When they asked earlier what I did for a living I quickly answered that I was a boxer, so perhaps with that in mind when I gave one guy and aggressive in-your-face "No!" they were quick to relent. We took that as our cue to get oursleves back to the hotel for bed, which is exactly what we did. Around 1am we hit the sack in our positively sweltering room.

http://www.jambands.ca/sanctuary/showtopic.php?tid/250169/ Videos from the show

There is so much I'm leaving out, but I'm finding it hard to focus on the Alphasmart right now.

*1,000=$2.35

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111208

When the alarm went off this morning I was jarred from a dream while Heather wasn't woken at all; she was still awake, unable to sleep due to the heat, despite several nighttime showers. I dragged my ass out from under the mozzie net and took a shower myself, and despite hating hot showers in general and sweating bullets, the frigid water was still quite shocking and painful. It seems our pre-arranged taxi wasn't, so we flagged one down and made for the bus station. The ride to Mopti left at 7am(ish) and is scheduled for about ten hours. The bus is surprisingly comfortable - sure it's no Greyhound but it's not the packed Indian-style ride I was expecting. Baba showed up as planned and gave us envelopes to give to his contact in Mopti, greatly easing my slight concern that we had been sheisted. The full bus contains four other foriegners and no bathroom. Poor Heather is feeling sick and trying hard not to puke the whole time, and she's being super-strong about it. The road is surpringly good as we pass by village after village of mudbrick compounds, often stopping as ladies clamour aboard trying to sell indistinguishable items.

The view out the window is like a moving CARE infomertial, trees and patches of grass growing out of the dirt as people make their way, driving cattle, herding goats, and absent-mindedly swatting flies from buckets of fruit for sale. I saw a guy riding a bicycle with a goat on the back. I also saw one solar panel in the seemingly otherwise unpowered villages, and it was accompanied by a prominant sign advertising the agency that supplied it.

Sparodically napping, I was awoken on the bus to find the cutest little girl tapping on my knee, she was about two years old. When I opened my eyes to look at her she broke out in a huge smile, and I smiled back. We made faces at each other and laughed for a minute or two until her father collected her and parked her back on his lap. It's pathetic to think that statistically speaking, being Malian she has a fifty-fifty shot at surviving another three years.

The terrain is flat; prairie flat, with baobob trees and termite mounds poking up from the horizon. It's dusty, arid, and hot. There isn't a cloud in the sky, and it makes me wonder how the trees can appear so lush. The bus stops at yet another village, more ladies ply their wares. It's fascinating and relatively comfortable, and as always it's good to travel local-style. After 9.5 hours (the ride cost 8,000) we finally arrive in Mopti. Though the ride was relatively painless, and Heather eventually started feeling better, we were hot, tired and hungry when we got off the bus and into the mayhem that accompanies arriving busses in these parts, so we were very glad to see our contact and get in his 4x4 to our hotel. As we walked in we were happy to see a nicely decorated, clean place with a nice room for 13,000. When our guy showed us the pool I made a run for the water; our guy wisely held me back, as I was fully dressed and still carrying my backpack. As quick as you can imagine I suited up and dove in, it was glorious. Then I ordered a couple of poolside beers and made small talk with some other travellers. A bit of asking about has reaffirmed for me that we probably got an excellent price on the stuff we've prebooked, and by 7pm Heather and I hit up the rooftop restaurant for our first meal of the day under the giant full moon.

Enough jetlag remains that this all still seems a bit surreal. The fact that we go to Timbukto tomorrow makes it even more so.

[gentlemonkey]

Sounds like fun Todd!

[Ms.Huxtable]

Thanks for keeping us up to date Todd. Have a great time!

[bradm]

I tried out some djembes and selected one, which I will pick up before we leave the country. I hope the goatskin drum head doesn't make it difficult to bring into Canada.

Yours Truly got hassled trying to bring a djembe into the USA when we went to moe.down in 2004. The border agent wanted some kind of "certificate of manufacture" to ensure it wasn't made from the wood of endangered trees or using the skin of an endangered animal species. If you have the chance, you might want to see if the store that sold it to you could provide something like that.

Aloha,

Brad

[Velvet]

Well bradm, it wasn't a 'store' that sold it to me, but thanx for the tip - I'll look into it.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111308

Some beers and guitar playing on the terrace closed off the night for me last evening, Bob Marley song after Bob Marley song until they closed the bar ridiculously early at 11pm while Heather caught up on her sleep. For me, the 5:45 alarm (this is becoming an unfortunate habit) came too soon.

At 6am we joined British Steve and our driver for a 4x4 adventure. The four of us set off down the asphalt ribbon for an hour or so until it ran out, then we split our time between a rough dirt track and just straight up bush driving. The ride was fast, long, jarring, and unbelievable. I almost chipped a tooth or two, and the seatbelt was on to keep my head from repeatedly bouncing off the ceiling. As we progressed past village after village of traditional African living where herding goats and pestling grain seem to be the chief concerns, the surroundings started containing more and more camels ridden by Toureg men decked out in blue robes and turbans. The scenery was sublime and the experience unforgettable.

After about seven hours we stopped to take the ferry across the Niger River. While we waited I found lots of kids to play with. We amused ourselves by drawing pictures of each other in the dust caked to the side of our 4x4 and playing hacky-sack with first an unidentifiable fruit peel, and then an empty cigarette pack. Soon the ferry was full; three vehicles, about a dozen people, a cow, two goats, and lots and lots of chickens. Off we go, landing on the other side in Timbuktu county. Ten more kilometres and we enter the fabled but quite real city of Timbuktu.

Established about a thousand years ago as a holding area for the nomadic desert-dwelling Toureg people, Timbuktu changed hands several times and eventaully grew into a major trading centre due to it's location on the fringe of the Sahara Desert (making it a hotbed of the salt trade, which it still is) and proximity to the Niger River. A major university and library were established here and the place grew to legendary status. The city burned down in the 13th century and truth be told I don't think they bothered to do much rebuilding. There is little beyond the name that is worthy of attracting weary travellers nowadays, aside from reaching a locale that many explorers dedicated and lost their lives trying to reach not much more than a hundred years back.

We checked into a cheap place to stay (though as we were told, many things here are more expensive than the rest of the country, I suspect due to the difficulty in getting here) and headed out for a walkabout and lunch. Us whiteys attract a lot of attention here and after a walk through the market and a few pics of the big mud mosque Heather was tiring of the company and decided to head back to the hotel. I noticed the radio station and poked my head in for a look inside. Very, very basic and primative with a range of 100 kilometres, it's still good to know that such an isolated place deems local radio important.

I went back to the room and grabbed the guitar to see what would happen. Strapped to my back Springsteen-style I hit the streets and made it about two feet before a Toureg told me to follow him, as his father is the big Toureg musician around these parts. A short walk through the Toureg market and we were at his family's house, or rather, the tent they live in in the yard of someone else's house. The dad wasn't there so the guy tried to sell me jewelry (all the Touregs make and aggressively push beautiful silver jewelry) so I left. A block away some Touregs asked me to play for them so I did. I was very soon surrounded by about forty people clapping and dancing. Walking around here with a guitar is like being fifty feet tall. I walked on and recreated the scene a couple more times, and eventually a young guy wanted me to come to his family's house. I explained I'd be happy to but I didn't want to buy anything. He said he understood, but it was no problem as he was not a jewelry maker like the rest of his tribe; he was a student and wanted to be a musician. Okay, I went. On the way we saw two goats in a headbutt fight. As it happened a group of locals gathered around to watch, I guess random goat violence is a passable form of entertainment. They went at it about ten times, crashing headfirst into each other with amazing force and brutal strength. Eventaly one goat went down and everyone went back to what they were doing, including me and my new friend. Again, his family's home was a yurt-like tent in the yard(?) of another family, and when we arrived he pulled out a blanket, we doffed our sandals, he grabbed his "guitar" and we sat down and played together. His was the traditional instrument of his people, I saw one in Bamako but I forget what it's called. It has a small wooden body with an animal skin top and essentially a sawed off broomstick for a fretless neck. The three nylon strings are permanently fixed and absolutely untunable. I tuned my two high strings to approximate his and wow was he pleased to hear me play along. His playing was more rhythmic than tonal, something that was pointed out to me when we switched instruments and he corrected my playing by showing me the proper rhythm paying no mind to the notes themselves. Eventually he stopped playing and asked me to play the blues on my guitar. I did so, making up the desert blues (Got the desert blues; Got the sand in my shoes; Got the desert blues and I'm stuck here in Timbuktu) and his whole family appeared dancing and clapping and pleased as punch to have me there. I found it kind of surprising because I haven't heard anything like blues here (unless you count Ali Farke Toure), only Malian music and reggae, but it sure was fun. By this time the sun had gone down so I begged off and found my way back to the hotel to find Heather asleep. Went to the restaurant and drank some Cokes spiked with airplane bottles of CC that I brought from home and chatted with a British dude, repelling sales pitches from the locals the whole time. Ran out of CC and switched to beers and now it looks like I'm closing the place all alone.

Drunkenly I sit here, swatting away malarial mosquitos and listening to the crickets under the stars in one of the worlds most famous out-of-the-way destinations. I was thinking of bed, but I hear drums in the distance. I'm gonna see where that's coming from.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111408

Last night I staggered around following the sound of drums as it bounced around town. I headed this way and that until the drums stopped. Before going on my search I had stopped by the room and emptied my pockets of all money and valuables (I may be crazy but I'm not stupid) save enough for one beer. Now with no directions to mistakenly wander in I decided have that last beer.

The streets of Timbuktu are busy at night, but after stopping in to a few establishments and finding no beers for sale I decided it was perhaps most prudent to get my drunken ass back to the hotel. I didn't think I was very tired but I was out in seconds.

In the morning Heather's stirring woke me up and we decided to do a walkabout before it got too hot. We aimed north through the side streets seeing how life goes by here. It feels kinda like strolling through Mos Isley, without the stormtroopers. We eventually ran out of town and found ourselves in the Sahara Desert. Turning around we zigzagged until we came across the Flame Of Peace Monument, where about a dozen children were waiting for us. "Shouldn't you kids be in school?" I asked, and they all pointed at one kid, "Yes, he should be!"

Centuries ago this area was the stomping grounds of the Toureg, who were ultimitely exiled to Libya and Algeria. A few decades ago those countries experienced problems that brought the Toureg back to Mali where they started to revolt, asking for a big chunk of the Sahara they could call their own. After years of fighting, the current president Amadou Toumani Toure instilled peace, and in 1996 10,000 people gathered and burned 3,000 guns from both sides here. Surrounding the remains of some of the burnt weapons this memorial was built, and though relatively unremarkeable in size and structure the significnce of what it represents is enormous to the people.

Some more walking brought us past some crazy music. I poked my head in and though the main instrument (that sounded like a wailing distorted electric guitar) was recorded there was a man drumming along on an upside-down gourd of some kind. It was all in preparation for a wedding, I met the groom (who looked like a prince in his white gown) and danced with the ladies, much to their amusement and mine.

Half starved we went to a restaurant and accidentily ordered enough food to last us a week. Shocked to find out that it was only 9:30am (we thought it was noon) we did some more walking and hit up the post office. On our way back to the hotel I stuck my nose into the second cemetery we've seen here, passing a school on the way. The cemeteries look like rubble-strewn nothing, with a small handfull of painted wooden signs marking the dead. The markers were so plain you'd think they said, "garage sale." From the school we could hear children loudly reciting the English alphabet, and you'll be pleased to know that at the end they said "zed" and not "zee". I stuck my head over the fence during their second recitation and started a mini riot. Booted it back to the hotel and relaxed with a beer.

It's amazing that the locals find it chilly here, wearing multiple layers. It's hot.

Late in the afternoon we were led out behind the hotel to our camels. We mounted up and made our way about six kilometres into the Sahara Desert. The ride was pretty uncomfortable but I placated myself with the knowledge that things could be worse; I could be the camel. Before too long we arrived at the small Toureg outpost and were shown our quarters, which were spartan even compared to the Toureg's residence. While they stayed in their yurt-like tents, we had a mat on the sand beside a curved wall that served as a windbreaker. There were large beetles all over the place making cute little tracks in the sand and burying themselves in preparation for the long, chilly night. It seemed like they were happy to steer clear of us so they were okay with me.

Soon it was dark. Our guy, whose name was Mama, brought over a large bowl of meat, rice, sand, and gravy for the five of us (Heather and I, British Steve who we had ridden with, Mama and his friend) to share. We circled around the bowl, each grabbed a spoon, and dug in. For desert dessert Mama carved up a big oblong watermelon. After dinner came the big sales pitch. Mama and friend pulled out their wares, which consisted of a series of necklaces and bracelets, and showed them to us. The deal was, if you saw anything you liked, you were to take it from their mat and put it on yours, and when all the selections were made the bargaining would begin. A word to the wise, bargain all you want, but if you put something on your mat you won't be leaving without it. We had heard of the Toureg style of bartering many times; they make one offer, you make a counter-offer. Then they make another offer and so do you, and then each has a third chance, and in the end you have the price ("First offer is strong like death, second is sweet like life, the final is sugary like love"). Or so they say. Steve and I adamantly ignored any and all items pushed towards us, while kind Heather deflected the sales pitch to herself by placing both a bracelet and a necklace beside her. The three bids were made and no common ground was found, so the guys made a fourth, fifth, sixth and so on offer. Finally they agreed to take Heather's third offer, which it seemed nobody was overjoyed with.

The children came over and I pulled out my tape recorder. With the kids came two impossibly small kittens which couldn't have been two weeks old. As the night started to get chilly Heather coddled the kitties and I pressed my record button. First three girls ranging in age between about two and nine sang a bunch of songs. It was beautiful, reminding me at times of Indian music, Inuit throat-singing, and antiphonal field hollers. The music was tonal and full of inflection, and it was really impressive. Soon the rest of the kids, about six or seven in total, came over and sang more and more. The boys made for some loud, cacaphonic stuff and after an hour or so I feigned dead batteries. The kids went to bed and so did we. I offered up tequila shots all around but having no takers I abstained. With only the occasional goat bleat and camel fart to disturb us and the near full moon shining bright on the desert sand, we laid our heads on the stiff pillow and our backs on the surprisingly hard ground and tried to sleep, with Heather still coddling those two tiny cats.

At one point in the night the three of of were awoken by a camel that trotted by not more than a metre from our feet. Heads shaking in wonderment, we roll over on the hard Saharan sand and simultaneously have one of those, "am I dreaming?" moments.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111508

Neither Heather or I slept well. She did a lot of tossing and turning keeping the kittens warm and safe from squishing which kept me up, and when I did fall asleep I would snore and wake her up. About 4am or so I thought one of us might as well get some shuteye so I got up and waited for the sunrise. The animals predicted the morning with increasing blatting and snorting, and soon I was treated to a pretty little desert sunrise. In the dim light I watched as two women emerged from their tents to start the daily chores looking for all the world like a pair of stealthy ninjas in their dark blue robes. When the sun came up everyone started getting up. Mama and his friend went to fill up the camels which amazed me. One guy would tip back the head of a kneeling camel and hold its mouth open to much camel protest while the other tipped a watering can into it's mouth, pouring a few gallons of H2O down the creatures throat. The braying took on a gurgling sound as the camels tank got filled, and the procedure was repeated three or four times. Before long we hopped on our rides and headed back towards Timbuktu. It was just as we neared the city that I finally started getting used to riding the camel and then we were dropped near the hotel again. We gathered our things and got a truck to the Niger River.

As we waited for the next leg of our journey to commence there were a few kids scattered around and pretty soon they started asking us for stuff. I am loath to give handouts, especially to kids, so I pulled out my guitar. Again I was quickly swarmed by dozens of the little tykes who seemed to come out of nowhere, and for the next hour or so I went between playing songs for them and letting them all have a try at the instrument themselves, while Heather had about seven girls braiding her hair. Finally the boat arrived and the two of us, an older Dutch couple named Johann and Ritt, and a crew of three set of for a three-day journey back to Mopti aboard our long, thin pinasse, which could easily seat fifteen passengers plus crew.

About forty-five feet long and about seven feet wide and fitted with a pair of standard outboard motors lowered through a hole near the back, our ride has thin benches, an eating table, a bathroom behind the engines comprised simply of four walls and a hole in the floor, and a cooking area. We traverse around the vessel by walking along the ten-inch wide gunnel that rings around all sides. Though plain, the boat has all we need to meander lazily upriver casting glances at the villages and waving back to the children on the bank. Everything except ice-cold beer. Wondering how I was expected to wash down tequila, with an hour left of sunlight we passed the city of Djiri. The boat pulled in to the bank where men and boys were socializing, washing clothes and bathing. Heather seemed happy to stay on the boat and deny that she was darting her eyes back and forth behind her sunglasses so I bound onto shore and found a bar and ice in short order. Combine hot beer, ice, cooler, and patience and oh what a treat.

As the boat had a later than expected start today, we had to travel a couple of extra hours after sunset to arrive at our first camping spot. When we did I had drank enough beers to easily fall off the gangplank and into the water, but no harm done we stood and stared at that glorious spectacle that can be had from nearly every vantage point on this wonderful planet, the Milky Way, made even more spectacular by the powder-like sand coursing between our toes and the sound of drumming and singing coming from a nearby village. Beckoned back on board for a dinner of rice and bones and conversation with our travelling companions and soon enough it was time to sleep. It's hard to believe only a week has gone by.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111608

When I went to bed last night it was warm enough that I doffed my shirt and got down to my skivvies. As the night progressed I groped around trying to find more and more clothes as it got downright chilly. By the time of our 4:30am wakeup call I looked like Milton Berle on a bad day; wearing as many shirts as I could find, the legs (only) of my convertable pants/shorts, and Heather's dress pulled tight around me in lieu of a blanket.

We hopped aboard and made our way by the light of the moon. As the sun rose we were treated to yet another Lion King view that looked like a collaboration - orange/blue water by Van Gogh, sky by Monet, and stark shoreline by Disney & Co. Cheesy as it is I got out my guitar and lured the sun out of the water with a George Harrison number. The Dutch couple shared their breakfast of bread, jam, and cheese with us which we washed down with instant coffee (Nescafe is the only coffee available in this country it seems) and settled in for a second day of relaxing, scanning the shore for hippos, waving to the locals who invariably greet us as we pass, and lazily reading. I've chosen this leg of the journey to read Heart Of Darkness for the first time. I'm enjoying it, but it's making me a bit weird.

Our captain pulled alongside a fishing boat to purchase some dinner and grabbed a couple of fourteen inchers. I generally refuse to eat anything that comes out of the water (tuna doesn't count - that comes out of a can) but I'm always willing to try a bite. As I lazed with my book I kept an eye on our chef as he chopped the whole fish into cross-sections, scales, guts and all and put it in a bowl which then got placed on the roof to sit for an hour in the hot sun. When his charcoal was hot he mixed oil, onions, cabbage, tomato sauce, lots of salt and a couple of packages of what I suppose was powdered chicken cubes and boiled it for a long time. He eventually added the fish pieces in their entirety and stewed it all up. We pulled into a tiny village where he bought some rice and that got cooked on the other charcoal stove. After almost two hours it was lunchtime. I had watermelon, though to be honest, the bite I had of Heather's was pretty good. I think supper will be the same, and here I am out of beer.

We saw a couple of hippos along the way, and the captain turned around so we could get a better look. They were in the water and we could only see them when they raised their massive heads out of the water for air. People who forget about mosquitoes say that hippos are the most dangerous animal in Africa with all the people stomping and boat flipping they apparently do. It's hard to believe they're that dangerous when you consider how quick our boat was to go after them. As if a guide in India would chase down a cobra.

We stopped at a small village for a little walkabout. Made entirely of mud, as are all the villages we see from the boat, the huts and yards were connected only by little walkways leading to the small mosque. We were led around town hand-in-hand with a few of the multitude of children that swarmed us as we got off the boat. It's sometimes possible to forget the poverty as the smiling children stand in the doorway of their sandcastle homes wearing the biggest smiles. Every child wants to touch us, to shake our hand. One asked us for our autographs. Sure, most ask for 'cadeau' but none seem disappointed when we don't comply. No harm in asking I suppose.

After fifteen hours of boating we finally stop to camp for the night. In the last couple of hours Heather started feeling sick, we suppose she got too much sun. I had been hankering for a beer run all day so as the tents were being pitched our captain took me on a trek through the dark towards the village a few kilometres away. We followed a red light atop a tower of some sort, but about halfway there we turned off. Soon I saw a light; it was a lantern about ten metres away. My apologies if I make too many references to Tatooine but we came across what looked exactly like Luke Skywalkers home, a couple of concrete bunkers shaped like large igloos and lo and behold, 'twas a cantina, inhabitied solely by the bartender. Turns out it was a hotel as well, though being the only building within site well off the water and nearly invisible (at night anyway) I can't see how it gets much business. Well, it got mine. I bought four hot beers and five hot cokes and inquired about ice. The barkeep yelled and a young man appeared out of nowhere and led us another kilometre hence, to the red light which turned out to be a television transmission tower. Next to the tower was a fifteen-foot satellite dish, a large generator, and a hut. Inside the hut was a man laying on his bunk watching tv. I suppose that since he has to run the generator all the time, he's the go-to guy for refridgeration. I bought a bunch of ice from him and we made our way back to the tents where I found Heather heavily engaged in vomiting, an activity she kept up all night while I slept like a stone, opting to cool my beers for tomorrow's boatride.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111708

4:30am came very early, as I suppose it does by definition. Heather was still alive, but just barely, after spending the evening in the throes of illness. Her insides were scattered about the campment and her muscles were very sore due to the mass expulsion. Back on the boat the crew had moved the table and laid out mattresses for her to lay down. Laying there she looked like she was in a funeral pyre. While she was feeling better it seems like a while before she'd be 100%. We set off in the dark and as the sun began to rise we entered the massive Lac Debo; so big you can barely see land on any side.

The weather got rough and water breached the gunnels as we tossed from side to side. As Heather lay on the floor I eyed the obviously inadequate lifejackets and tried not to look worried. After a while the crew lit up both engines at once (for the first time) and we powered towards the mouth of he river. Safe in the calm water we had breakfast (Heather abstained) and turned our attention to the shore where the colorful and varied wildlife would give an ornotholoist a woody.

The crew pulled out one of the engines and spent a considerable amount of time poking at it and scratching their heads, hammering at it hammerless (sometimes using one part of the engine to hammer another part) and causing me to wonder if today's twelve-hour journey might be inadvertently extended. Though Heather seemed to improve with every hour, for her sake I hoped not, though as expected they managed to coax the motor back to working order.

You'd think that after nearly forty hours on the boat passing by basically the same scenery the whole time that I'd start boring of it, but I don't. I had to force myself to read the Conrad book (which was good, and short, and gave Heather the perennial joke "Oh, the snorer," referring of course to yours truly). It was the same on the ten-hour bus ride, and the 4x4 trip as well. I am fascinated by everything I see. There is something here that draws my rapt attention, and I really believe it has to do with the resonance of the land. This is the motherland, and I don't think race plays a part in it. Humankind first crawled out of the water somewhere around here, and I am human. This land is the grandfather of almost all music, and I am a musician. I honestly feel like I'm at home, though culturally it seems perhaps I shouldn't. This will not be my last trip to Africa.

When we pull into a village it's like the Rolling Stones just got out of a limo; essentially the entire population comes out to greet us and to shake our hands, and to keep the analogy going, a lot of them are topless. The kids love it when I pick them up and hoist them into the air. I don't even dare bringing out the guitar for fear that we wouldn't be able to leave. It's possible they are just hoping for a little "bateau" but I don't think so. I think it's a combination of boredom and curiousity. The main activities seem to revolve around two-handed mortar and pestling, wind-cleaning cous-cous, washing clothes, and herding, and even these activities don't seem to occupy too many people for too long. Certainly in these small villages school doesn't seem to be an issue, nor does any serious sort of commerce. Perhaps without too many dollars to spread around the fight for the mighty buck falls low on the priority list.

Finally we made it back to Mopti where showers and menus and beers without walking two kilometres are the order of the day. We're gonna try and chill here for another day, do some laundry, and hopefully find some live music before heading out for another adventure. We may have to head out in the morning, though only time will tell.

[Schwa.]

so awesome!

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Yes, thank you Todd for the words. Just great.

[ollie]

I love the continual search for beer sub-plot. Thank you Todd!

[Ms.Huxtable]

A remarkable read. Thank you Todd. I hope Heather is back to her old self.

[Schwa.]

ya gotta walk around the next village yelling: WHERE'S MY KIDS!?!?

[Velvet]

Well, after spending five days exploring Dogon country the Alphasmart inexplicably deleted all the files after showing a message about checking RAM files. I think this happened in St. Petersburg and the Alphasmart support dudes helped me retrive them. Fingers crossed.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111808

Time told and we left the hotel at 9am. We were taken about ten kilometres away to Sevare where we met our trekking companions, a couple from Madrid, David and Martha from PEI (Islanders might know David as owner of Frosty Treats in Kensington, “Don’t drive by, drive inâ€), and our new old friend, British Steve.

We and our guides piled into a couple of vehicles and headed for Dogon country, Mali’s most popular tourist area and a trek that makes many “must-see-before-you-die†lists.

Eventually we left the standard asphalt roads and bounced along a concrete slab route that delivered us to our launching site, Djiggibombo. We were herded into a shaded area lined with bamboo lounge chairs and ordered beers and soft drinks while we waited for lunch. I pulled one of our guides aside and asked if he had managed to secure our “package†from Mopti, and he had. I’m not the kind to embark on a five-day hike without pot and for 25,000 (about $60) we were handed three airmail enveloped stuffed with at least two ounces on “the good stuff†(pronounced “shwag†back home). Rife with stalk and seed and coming from Ghana, I bought a pipe while Heather tried out the Rizlas. Then it was time to hit the town, and after a sustained abstinence my mind was ready to be blown.

We walked around Djiggibombo (population 2,000) and I was near tears at the beauty of the place. Walls made from loosely stacked rocks marked a families homestead, within which would be a mud hut and several mud granaries, or closets if you will, one for the husband and one per wife (a man can have up to four wives in these parts) and each topped with sun-grayed thatched pointed roofs. The beauty of it requires a much more skilled wordsmith than I. The yard walls collectively created the pathways that traversed the town, and we walked these paths until we arrived at the town square, for lack of a better wordshape. Here we were introduced to the town elders, who gladly received cola nuts from us.

It used to be that tourists would pay a dollar or two as a gratuity for visiting a Dogon village. The elders got together with the government and decided that voluntary payment in cola nuts would be preferred, given that they liked to eat cola nuts (which are not grown in Mali), but they don’t like to eat money. Don’t get me wrong, there are people in Dogon eager to sell you statues and masks and the like for money, but virtually all currency between Dogons is in trade. Anyway, there in the main area was a sacred area women aren’t allowed to walk on and a stunning, huge baobob tree. These trees are virtually everywhere. They have short, angular branches and dangle large oval fruit, but the most curious visual aspect of these trees results from the locals stripping the bark to make rope. What is left is a tree that seems to have large rings every five or six feet. When you scatter these trees around those stone walls, with the top of each pointed granary bowing this way and that you get an elfin effect that is reminiscent of something out of Lord Of The Rings, or perhaps Hobbitland. Add in the men walking around with their traditional hats perched on head and axe slung over shoulder, the women wearing wonderfully colourful gowns and balancing baskets on their heads as if it wasn’t remarkable at all, and the children. Oh the children, surrounding you and yearning to hold your hand. It really was quite surreal and perhaps the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. My yardstick for such statements is Macchu Piccu, but that Peruvian mountaintop is dead, where this place is alive. It’s a living breathing town just doing what it does to the slackjawed amazement of all comers, it’s realism making it all the more surreal.

Heather and I went for a walkabout by ourselves and were instantly hand-in-hand with three little girls. As we sightsaw our way toward the edge of town the girls made it clear that they had to go and we had to join them. We trod over the sunbaked sand and gravel pathway as the barefoot girls scampered ahead pulling us along. We ended up at the school, which had just ended for the day. The largest and only brick building in town, I was interested to see the classrooms. I found them closed up but no problem as several of the dozens of kids I had around me moved the rock that held the door shut and creaked open the metal grated door. We all went inside where the blackboards that took up one wall in the fairly large room still displayed the day’s lesson, au francais of course. The other three walls were lined with twenty desks, each designed to be shared between two or three students. Probably around fifty students per class, and likely only a few pens to share gauging from how often and consistently the children ask us for them (“Ca va Bic?â€)

After getting mobbed by beautiful smiling kids in the schoolyard Heather and I headed back to the calm of the campement where the rest of our crew were relaxing in preparation for our first hike.

Around 3:30, when the sun had waned enough to downgrade itself from blistering to blazing, we seven and our guide Hama set off.

For the first kilometre or two we followed the concrete and sand road, eventually veering left across the stone and brush. We reached the edge of the cliff that descends into the vast flat valley and started down. We scaled the rockface following a generally natural path that had been occasionally augmented over the centuries by rocks stacked vaguely step-like. The going was a bit nerve-wracking at times, and we were amazed to see women walking up the cliff with two and sometimes three baskets perched on their heads. On their way back from market twenty kilometres away, these women were in no mood to get their pictures taken by lazy tourists who sweat bullets just three kilometres into their journey.

People here work very, very hard.

Now in the valley proper, we tramped along the sparsely-treed and hearty-bushed savannah for a couple more kilometres before arriving at our campement for the night, finishing our day in the village of Kanikombole.

I should explain that the campement is basically a hotel, except the clients sleep out in the open on the roofs. Hotel is a bit of a grand word for it; a campement is actually a kitchen with a beer/soda refrigerator aside a bathroom or two (literally a hole in the floor surrounded by walls about five feet high) and maybe a shower, all basically walled together creating a central courtyard.

At camp we basically had beers and dinner and traded wows about the day, ascended to our beds by crawling up a log with steps notched into it and slept under a gorgeous starry night as the Dogons went about their business all around us.

Basically, one of the greatest days of my life.

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 111908

In the middle of the night the whole neighborhood was awakened by a noise so huge and so close to where I lay that I instantly thought that the roof of one of these mud huts supporting sleeping tourists had caved in. I immediately noticed that I was fine, and decided to go back to sleep and wait until morning to get the mortality headcount. When we woke to the sound of a thousand animals waking to the sound of another thousand animals we found that a large branch of the baobob tree next to the campement had come down in the night, quite a rare occurrence it turns out. By 6am I was on the ground investigating, and several people were already engaged in tearing the branch apart and hauling it away. The branch was about two feet thick and I can’t possibly guess what brought it down, but with the amount of people filling their baskets with leaves and hacking away at the wood with primitive hatchets I bet all evidence was gone by noon. We would be long gone by then, of course.

Heather woke up very ill in the stomach. She skipped breakfast and put on a strong face as we headed out for the days hike. She was pretty much doubled over in pain so it was fairly slow going; the two of us fell behind our group and made our own time to the next village. I felt very bad for her, but we took our time and she was tough. We trekked through the plains passing by a few villages along the way, each basically the same; naively elegant, seemingly fragile yet obviously resilient, and stunningly beautiful. Along the way we also passed women busily whacking away at millet with their logs and pestles, often with a child trivially strapped to their back, and men with their children storing hay in the trees for the dry season, creating what looks like nests for Big Bird and all his friends. Donkey-drawn carts pass by, as does the occasional motorcycle careening dangerously along the sandy path. Most of the children we pass come running, many to ask for bonbon or Bic or our empty water bottles (talk about convenient charity) which they use for everything from water storage to soccer balls, but many of the kids just want to shake our hands. By noon on day two I’ve signed two autographs.

When we stopped at yet another village for lunch I decided to hit the town looking for a jam. I had a few kids trailing me when someone called me over. He went inside and emerged with a drum made from a large calabash. We sat down and played for a bit. He would lay out a groove and I would try to find something to blend in. Whenever I fell back on the basic pentatonic minor scale the guy would give a satisfying grunt. Makes sense, given that the magical five-note scale western guitar players have relied on for years originated here. We made some really interesting music, but I soon begged off to check on Heather and make sure I caught lunch, telling him I’d be back. After lunch I went back, this time armed with my tape recorder. We jammed for almost an hour, gaining an audience of several dozen, and two flautists. We had a lot of fun and everyone was enthralled when I would play the music back to them between songs. I often bowed out, content to listen to the steady antique beats punctuated by the cacophonic rhythmic pulse of the flutes. The music reflects the simplicity of their architecture. Subtle, unique variances occur within constant repetition, so vastly different than the Western style of cookie-cutter individualism. All too soon came the call to prayers from the mosque, and we all parted company as I Pied Pipered all the kids to the edge of my campement.

Again when the sun lad waned a bit we set off for the afternoon hike. Heather was feeling dramatically better after a rest, some medication, and a lot of pot. As we were told and are finding quite true, Dogon is free, there are no police here and we can smoke wherever we want. We likely won’t want to deal with the paranoia of smoking in the cities so we’re gonna try our best to get through all of this weed here in Dogon country. We’re doing admirably well but I suspect our task is nearly impossible.

After a long, hot, dusty walk, we were happy to arrive in the very appropriately named (until we leave, I suppose) village of Ennde, where we found a really nice campement, one I would even go so far as to almost call a hotel. They had toilets, really cold beer, and good showers, and I can’t measure how much better I felt after utilising these amenities.

We all seemed to be hitting the beers well so when they brought us a tray of orange(ish) wedges tequila was the obvious next step. Only myself, British Steve, and our guide Hama imbibed, and there were laughs aplenty when we taught Hama the proper salt/shot/lime(ish) technique for his first taste of tequila.

I was surprised later when Hama was the only person I could get on board for trying to find a local bar in this, the largest village we had seen. We grabbed my guitar and stumbled through the dark together until we unfortunately came to another campement. I found a Frenchman who loved Neil Young and we sang and partied together for a while. Loaded, I eventually stumbled my way home and climbed the notched-tree ladder to find Heather asleep under the stars, so I joined her.

[Ms.Huxtable]

I was saying to bouche only a couple days ago how sad I was that I didn't get to read about the rest of your journey.

I am thrilled that the alpha-smart pulled through and we get to share this experience with you.

[Velvet]

Unfortunately the Alphasmart didn't actually pull through - I had to change the internal battery and remake up the logs.

[Velvet]

Malilog Stardate 112008

Waking up here is magical, though if you like to sleep in, look elsewhere. Mali is chock full of goats, with an admirable number of roosters and donkeys and other living noisemakers thrown in, and the critters like to get a jump on the day. Laying under a mozzie net on a thin mattress, deep sleep is infringed by the first critter call of the day, generally a rooster. From off in the distance comes the response from another village, prompting more local critters to get in on the act. Donkeys need a minute or two of revving up to get to full hee-haw ability, and within minutes only the hardest core sleeper still sleeps as all the animals bid good morning to each other. Very soon the chorus is augmented by the drum-like thump-thumping of early bird millet pounders, and sleepy or not, you’re up and feeling around in the weak twilight for your glasses.

That’s when you sit up and shake the cobwebs out of your head and remember that you’re smack dab in the middle of fairyland. Yawn, stretch, teeter down the notchlog with toothbrush in hand, piss in the hole and it’s time to start the day. Good mornings (to the tourists) and ca vas (to the locals) all around and it’s breakfast. Instant coffee, bread sticks with jam and cheese wedges, and Martha’s mind-numbingly delicious treat of Kraft peanut butter brought from home is the standard breakfast and I was happy to see Heather in good health joining us for the morning meal.

The village we had slept in is noted for making blankets. The weavers have basic looms that are basically a spike in the ground about twenty feet away from some complicated wood bracing with the fabric stretched between the two. I shook the hand of an old man who spent his days involved in this work and his palm felt like it was made of stone. Whether it was one rock-hard callous or a thousand I cannot say, but I’ve never shaken a hand like it. Again, people here work very, very hard. Heather and I spent some time haggling and bought seven blankets, the purchase of which came with a porter to carry the sack to the next village where we would rendezvous with a 4x4 carrying our luggage.

We toured the village and found similar amenities to the previous villages we’ve visited. There was the local courthouse, which is a waist-high mud dwelling where the elders pass judgment on local cases as they come up. As there are no police in Dogon country, they take care of their own justice. Women are not allowed to enter the small building, but they can listen and offer their opinions and testimony from just outside. Even if a woman is the one being tried, she is not allowed to enter. Cleverly, the ‘court’ buildings are always made waist high to discourage people from fighting inside. Each village also has a mosque, the size of which is relative to the size of the village and the number of Muslims living there. Sometimes the mosque is so small they look like they could only fit three or four people at a time. There is often also a Catholic church, identifiable only by a cross, and there is always a brick schoolhouse, which is usually the only building not made of mud.

Each village has a hut for women to stay in when they are menstruating, a time when they are not allowed to stay with their husband, or if unmarried, with their parents. Men are forbidden from entering this windowless hut and women must stay inside until the end of their period. Even male children are barred from this area once they are three years old.

Most of the villages are next to the cliff that leads out of the valley. When the Dogons first came to this area millennia ago they sought out areas of cliff that had an overhang to shelter it from the rains and they built their villages halfway up the cliff. As the centuries went by and the Sahara moved in, many of the critters that kept the people up the hill disappeared. Nowadays there are no lions or tigers to bother the people so about two hundred years ago they decided they were sick of going up and down the cliff all the time and built their villages on the plain, in the shadow of their former home. Though the old villages were also made of mud, the strategic positioning that sheltered them from rain saved them, hence every village has another looming above it. These villages are uninhabited (though animist spiritual leaders were the final holdouts – we visited one upper village where the old medicine man that lived up there with his snake had just died a couple of years before), though some villages still use them for storage.

Today’s walk was big, and split into three segments, seven, six, and five kilometers. The middle hike took place during the noon hour and was hothothot. The heat doesn’t deter the locals from working through it, rather they find it quite cool this time of year. How many people have I walked by that are wearing three layers topped with a winter jacket zipped all the way up while I’m sweating off my sunscreen in shorts and a t-shirt? Our final stop today was back on top of the cliff, an ascent we were dreading which turned out to be gorgeous and not too tiring. The village we stayed in was surrounded by rock formations that seemed to balance tentatively in a geological game of Jenga and was reminiscent of some of the more picturesque episodes of the Road Runner.

This would be our last night as a group of seven, with the Spaniards and British Steve scheduled to leave after lunch the next day, so we had a little celebration. One of our guides brought us a plastic water bottle of locally made millet beer, which is served warm and quite tasty. That made the rounds while I inquired about stronger stuff. Soon there was a small bottle of Dogon gin on the table, a harsh local moonshine they call chappa-chappa. My very real fears of blinding myself were pushed aside by my equally real growing inebriation, and all the time we were kept in stitches by our guide as he told us the hilarious story of when he first flew to the West, arriving at the airport in NYC after knowing nothing bigger than Bamako. By this time my snoring had segregated us, and when sleep time was unavoidable Heather and I crawled up a roof as far from our group as possible and fell into a deep sleep.

[Baj]

Man I love these, THANKYOU

[Velvet]

Malilog, Stardate 112108

Again, nature’s alarm clock rings nice and early, in a snooze-buttonless crescendo of squeaks, squacks, and honks, and the prehistoric stone towers that surround the village of Benimato give the wakeup an extra dash of unholy beauty that cuts through a hangover like mortar through millet. It’s like camping on location in the Grand Canyon on the set of a Spielberg movie about the Keeblers. If you get the picture.

The previous night our man Baba had told us that the people in Benimato village put on a show for the tourists to raise money for the local school. He assured us, and I believe him, that all money went straight to the school, no bullshit, and all the tourists generally give pretty generously, and the seven of us responded by giving around 150,000 to him, signing our pledges in a notebook. After breakfast we were taken for a walk around the other side of the rock mountain that borders the village on one side. Over there we treated to a performance of music and dance by members of this small village. It was an hour long performance rehearsed and performed for the twenty-five or so tourists who were staying in the village that night.

About six musicians, most playing tama, commonly known as talking drum, tapped out repeated unison rhythms. Held under one arm and played with a curved stick, the player can widely and suddenly change the drum’s pitch by squeezing it, and a group of them playing together inadvertently creates microtonic chords that randomly recur within a steady, unified rhythm. And this all underneath the call-and-response singing that is great-great-granddaddy of field hollers and the blues.

Kicking up dust in an ever-moving circle were the dancers, all in traditional masks and clothes. The mostly purple long shaggy outfits of fur and skins were secondary to the large expressive masks worn continually by the dancers. They danced and leapt about in circles and synchronized patterns seeing only through thin slats in heavy wooden masks. It was really quite well rehearsed and entertaining. And then around the corner came the two dancers on stilts! The musicians kicked off a new tune and the stilters effortlessly danced their ceremonial dance around the band, before they were joined by the dudes in the twenty-feet tall masks! Those two had a dance where they faced off and tilted their enormous masks this way and that together, while the band played on behind them.

It’s fair to remind the reader to remember the venue. Picture a warm morning of sun and blue sky atop a rocky plateau, overlooking a curvature-of-the-Earth flat valley with impossibly balanced geological wonders towering just a hundred yards away. And these performers were going for it, showing us stuff they do at weddings and funerals and special celebrations. Afterwards the dudes gave an explanation of the significance of the dances and the masks and apparel, and it was pretty cool to see, though I’ll admit I’ve dreamt of witnessing something more authentic here in Mali. I was surprised to find out later that they do the show only once every month or two, and that our tour dude Baba had routed us to be here on this day, so at least they aren’t grinding out a daily routine for the whiteys that I’m sure they would eventually tire of.

After the show we headed out for one last village as a septet. The walk saw us pass by several ‘farms’, locations where there was a spring that could be taken advantage of to constantly water the plants. We saw peppers and beans being grown by hard working people bent over their lifeblood with buckets of water irrigating land baked dry by the hot sun. We also saw the only pig we’ve seen in Mali, and I asked our guide if we could have it for dinner, unfortunately in vain.

After walking on enormous slabs of rock for a couple of hours we found ourselves in Dourou, where we lunched and said goodbye to all but two of our travel companions. When I found out that for our last night we were descending the cliff into the valley once again and walking back up in the morning, making for our first backtrekking of the journey, I was a bit disappointed. Actually, I was disappointed to the point that I felt like it was kind of stupid to have booked a fourth day…what would we see that we haven’t already walking another five kilometers and back?

Only a journey that will stay with my forever. That’s all.

The four Canadians; Heather and I, David and Martha, and our guide Hama left Dourou midafternoon and walked over ancient curved slabs of rock before coming to a crevasse in the cliff edge. We descended into the valley along the route that has served locals for time immemorial, walking along a prehistoric staircase of rocks that fell into the crevasse eons ago, a path that wound beneath giant boulders wedged in the crack above. Taking a break halfway down we watched the village herders bringing their huge herds of animals in from the sandy fields for a drink and a bath at the almost-gone-for-the-season river that borders the village of Nombori, our final stop. The view was incredible, and the crevasse we walked through was stunning. It was one of the most interesting walks of the journey. Down on the plain again, it was only a kilometer and-a-half or so and we were done for the day.

This place was the most un-hotel of the non-hotels of the Dogon trek. Please don’t get me wrong, I was extremely happy and felt lacking for nothing, I use the terms not derogatorily but for description only. Anyway, this last place was just someone’s house and little compound. There was a bathroom and a shower right next door, just down a little walkway and out the door of the compound, and there was even an extra house that nobody seemed to be using, making for an extra roof for tourists. That’s where Heather and I eventually camped, at it was our first roof with a little roof of it’s own. Plus, instead of having to scale a notched log like every other night, here we had an Escher-like 3D staircase.

Relaxing with beers our guide Hama was looking restless. He asked the four of us what we were going to do that night, and of course we said we were gonna eat dinner, have a few beers, and go to bed shortly after dark. He said he had an idea. He said if we could get 30,000 together we could buy a bunch of millet beer and some rice and have a party. He was explaining that for 6,000 each we could get half the village out playing music and dancing and having a good time, and we could even ask the French folks that he knew was staying at the campement in town if they wanted to come, and pay even less. I was initially confused by the math until it occurred to me it was the five of us that were pitching in, us four tourists and Hama, our guide and brainchild of the plan. It was really great figuring out that he was into holding the party and wanted us to help him pay for it as equal partners. Anyways, of course the four of us agreed to be in and Hama went off to talk to the other tourists.

While he was gone we heard a band playing right outside where we were staying. It turned out this was the band for the evening, and they were playing in a way that announced to all listeners that there was a dancing party tonight, to be held right here where they were playing. Hama came back and said the French were in, and gave us back 2,000 each. And right after dinner, the party started.

The musicians came in, playing tama, calabash, and bass drum, and the women started to show up, each one dressed in beautiful indigo robes, and decked out in their finest jewelry. The fifty litres of millet beer we bought was poured from yellow gasoline cans into wooden bowls which were then passed around. We four whiteys (the French showed up late) were given a bowl to share, which came with our own boy, who sat there waiting to run and have our bowl refilled whenever we would empty it, which was admirably often. The row of women grew to about twenty or twenty-five, and they weren’t shy with the millet bowls either. The musicians had theirs and the seventy or so others who crowded into our compound to join the party shared the beer and rice gladly and seemed to enjoy the music and dancing as much as we did.

Kids watered the sand floor to eliminate dust and the musicians began to play. The women stood in a semi-circle along the perimeter of what became the de facto dancefloor and sand. They had repeated phrases that they would chant together over the rhythm, and often the chants would be joined antiphonally by a single woman, who seemed to be telling a story that was agreed with by the rest of the women as they sang together in response. It was all mainly quite upbeat and lively, and continually punctuated by solo dancers. At times that seemed to surprise only us, one or two women would rush the centre of the dancefloor with short fast steps, bent over and blowing short repeated patterns on reed whistles that are constantly held between the dancer’s teeth. The musicians would instantly take up the role of playing to the rapidfire movements of the dancers, turning the western concept of dancing to the music on its head. After manically dancing the soloist(s) would make their way back to the perimeter, where soon other soloists would repeat the ritual. Sometimes a lady would be dancing her ass off and turn in such a way that you could see she had a baby strapped to her back, eyes bugging and head bobbing in the throes of infant whiplash. Occasionally a musician would throw their drum at a dancer, which was meant as a compliment, with the musicians act telling the dancer that she dances so well he is not good enough to play her movements. The soloists would invariably touch the ground between themselves and the musicians when they were finished their solos, which serves as an apology to the earth for dancing on it, a sensible gesture for an animist to make.

It was the oldest music in the world.

The millet swilled and the party raged on. The ladies laughingly got us tourists up to dance with them, and though I tried my hardest to mimic their moves I think Heather wins the prize for most natural African dancing. Eventually the town elder called for Hama, our host, and told him we had gotten their ladies too drunk and shut us down, but not before half the village had a rockin’ good time on a Friday night (or whatever day it is in their five-day week). We got an encore where the kids jumped in the circle and danced like their mothers, trying to make the whistle sound by blowing through their teeth. I had taped the entire party and had to promise the crowd that soon grew around me struggling to hear themselves dance that I would mail them a copy of the tape.

I’ve been dreaming of coming to Mali for almost twenty years, and one of the main things I wanted to do here was be a fly on the wall at a real Mali dancing and singing party, and there it was. This was not like the show this morning. Though this party was funded by (mainly) tourists, this was a real party, this was what people really did and how they really acted when they were celebrating; it was real. And I was in bliss the whole time. I went to bed with a big drunken smile on my face.