Mali and out

Mali. Where to begin. Bamako has the largest number of motor bikes I have ever seen, far more scooters than cars (by at least 10 to 1; http://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2009/06/motorcyclists-mali-bamako). The bikes are all identical in size and brand: 125 cc Chinese-made Jakarta Power Z, if I recall correctly. It’s surreal to see Muslim clerics, suited businessmen, evening-dressed women and every other type, typically two to a bike, zipping in and out of traffic, on and off the sidewalk, even riding in the wrong lane if it happens to be open. An amazing sight.

Bamako looks like Accra in some ways – a few large boulevards, four lanes on each side, and a few upscale retail areas, but it also has its share of rough and rugged neighborhoods. There are open markets throughout town and numerous small shops selling many of the same goods you’d find in Kumasi.

Stalls selling fetish items are far more common than in Ghana; we were not allowed to photograph the dried monkey heads, paws and other witchcraft paraphernalia that I would rather not describe. One of the most interesting sights we saw occurred while we were walking the streets of a retail area: with the call of the Muezzin, absolutely everyone stopped dead in their tracks, turned to face Mecca, and said their daily prayers (the country is largely Muslim). People crossing the street literally stopped in place, all commerce halted, and some even got out of their cars and knelt in the street on their prayer rugs. We learned that tradition says it is best to get to a mosque to pray, second best is to kneel on a prayer rug but it’s also acceptable simply to join up with a group and recite the verse.

We stayed the first three nights in a small and pleasant hotel on the banks of the Niger, where women came to wash their clothes and their kids at all hours of the day. The best live music we found was at a restaurant called San Toro, so we went there for two of our three nights. On the first night, the solo balafon player invited me to sit in, and I gave him a pattern to play on the low notes while I jammed a solo on the upper ones; it was a blast (and I think my rock-steady 5 against 4 impressed him). Even more fun was the hour-long kora lesson I took the next day at the studio of Toumani Diabate, arguably the best kora player on the planet. Diabate doesn’t have time to mess with beginners, so my teacher was a student of one of his students, a good fit for me.

The kora has two rows of 10 strings each that extend away from the player; you pluck the strings with your thumbs and forefingers while holding the instrument with your remaining three fingers on each hand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kora_(African_lute_instrument).jpg). The strings are the same color (on the kora I used) and are very close together, and I couldn’t distinguish one from the next by looking. But when I closed my eyes and felt the distance, I got much better results. I still found it very hard to play, though, but the sound it makes is otherworldly.

The next day we continued to see the sights of Bamako, one of which was the recycling “market,” a five or so acre area that the government has set aside for metal craftsmen.

As we have noted in Ghana, absolutely nothing is wasted in the areas we’ve visited: here, every single ounce of scrap metal is converted into a useful and marketable product: used tin cans become garbage can tops, bicycle chains become metal pots; the alchemy is amazing. I particularly enjoyed the polyphony from all the metal workers pounding at different tempi and pitch and producing all manner of timbres and rhythms simultaneously.  At one point, I stopped for about 10 minutes and let my video camera record the cacophony (audio file available upon request).

We left Bamako on a one-hour flight to Mopti, which is the gateway to Dogon country (Pays Dogon). The plane was a 20-seater–smallest plane I have been in–and was piloted by a New Zealand (south island) husband and wife team, she the pilot, he the co. At one point during the flight, the husband came duck walking through the cabin (there was no way he could stand up straight) offering everyone sandwiches. I asked what was in the sandwich and he said, he didn’t know but “did not recommend we eat it.”

A funny thing happened as we were waiting at the Bamako airport for our flight. When we walked to the gate area, which also held a very large dining space, we saw about 200 US Air Force personnel having a meal. I nodded to them and asked what they were doing and got a single-word answer “exercises.” When I sat down and opened the new issue of The Africa Report magazine, the very first article was a scathing rebuke of Obama’s “African policy,” which is basically a continuation of Bush’s: pretend to be a friend, then take what you want from the place (http://www.theafricareport.com/archives2/frontlines/3290719-obama-should-rethink-us-military-expansion.html). A related article detailed how we are ostensibly in Mali training Malian troops (the program is called “Operation Flintlock”) for the “ever-present” Al Qaida threat in the north (there have been a very small number of incidents in the last few years), but that what we really want is to be at the front of the line to suck up the newly discovered oil in the region. (I buy the premise). After reading the article, I went back to the same table of guys and asked if they were part of the Flintlock op, and after a few seconds of silence, one of them said, “Ya, and how did you know that?” I told them they were the cover story of the magazine, then let it go.

What’s especially interesting is that Libya is the single largest benefactor of Mali. There’s evidence of this everywhere, with many new roads, buildings and bridges bearing the label “MaLibya.” One striking example is the enormous new multi-million dollar government ministry complex Libya is building in the center of Bamako. In return, Libya has just been granted control of 250,000 acres of the richest rice-producing land in Mali and will reap the profits from sales in that area (http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=785:libyan-land-grab-of-malis-rice-producing-land&catid=23:agrarian-reform&Itemid=36 – granted, they are providing the capital to modernize production). The Chinese have been hired to do the modernizing (Libya + China = trouble, if you ask me). Libya also has a near-monopoly on the sale of gas for cars (Oilibya) in Mali. Coincidentally, the US and Libyan embassies are directly across the street from one another in Bamako; I haven’t decided which is more ostentatious.

We landed in Mopti after an uneventful flight and when we hit the tarmac, it felt like someone had turned on a universe-sized sunlamp; the temperature was 106 F. Our guide was waiting for us and we took off in a very nice Land Cruiser with a/c blasting. Our first stop in Mopti was a visit to a woman who wears the traditional (Bambara) solid gold earrings – each year of her marriage, her husband gives her more gold that gets incorporated into the same pair of earrings.

Next we drove down to the river – Mopti, like Venice, basically sits in a lagoon – where we boarded our pinasse (a pirogue with a motor) for a totally relaxing two-hour ride at sunset.

Following a few drinks and dinner, we returned to our hotel, the Ambedjele, for the night. The hotel resembled a Dogon village (http://www.ambedjelehotel.com/eng/habitaciones.htm) and was as remote as we had hoped.

Our second day brought us to Bandiagara, which is in Dogon country. The first stop was at a Dogon village where we hiked up a tall hill to visit a centuries-old circumcision site. Every few years, all boys of a certain age (around 10-12) climb the hill to be circumcised on the same rock by the village priest. Following the ceremony, the boys, along with the village men, remain for a few days to sing and play on calabashes that are stored in the entrance to a sacred cave.

Wall paintings on and around the cave depict events in Dogon history.  After several days, the newly circumcised boys are taken to the foot of the hill and must race back up - the winner is rewarded by having the pick of the village girls for his future wife (the marriage will take place a few years later). The runner-up receives two cows.




We next traveled through the Sahel on a road only our Dogon guide could see, climbing treacherous cliffs over rocks and into ravines on a journey we would not recommend anyone embark upon lightly. The heat when we took ‘bush breaks’ (women to the right of the jeep and men to the left) was so intense it took your breathe away. We were warned not to go too far into the bush for fear of scorpions, vipers, cobras, and other malcontents, a real concern in this part of the world.

That afternoon was among the most unusual imaginable. There is no way to describe Dogon country even in pictures. The place looks like it must have looked 1,000 years ago – few villages have electricity (except for one where we discovered a solar panel supplying power to a radio), and the granaries and living quarters are all made of mud and must be refurbished every year.

(Interestingly, the French, who colonized Mali, never took the trouble to venture as far as Dogon Country, so none of the locals speak French nor is there any French influence to speak of.)

The highlight of the whole day was the masked dance that was performed for us in the village of Tellem, a truly amazing 30-minute experience.

Along with our two guides, Sue and I first meet with the Tellem chief to honor him with the required ritual kola nuts (some cash was also exchanged out of our sight). We then followed this 80-year-old man with his walking stick up through a serpentine path between mud huts to the highest point of the village. Puffing and gasping, we reached the top in intense heat, yet the chief seemed unaffected by the climb. As we did the climb, we picked up village children at every turn, and by the time we reached the sacred tree and dance circle, nearly the entire village had joined us. We collapsed in the shade of a wall to await the drum call that announced the start of the dance we were to witness. It was all quite surreal and we began to question whether we had been transported to some alternate universe.

Fortunately, I was able to set my video camera on a tripod then use the Nikon in my other hand, so I got a lot of great material. I’m extremely pleased that the Museum for African Art, soon to open on Fifth Avenue in NYC, has asked to use some of our video and stills in their upcoming (Fall, 2011) Dogon exhibit.

Our next stop was in Djenne, where the ancient mosque is the largest all-mud structure in the world.

 The mosque is in active use, and its refurbishing each year is a huge event. We bought a few Fulani mud clothes in the local market, but were totally unprepared for what we were to find a few miles from town: the Ndomo cloth factory makes some of the most beautiful textiles I’ve ever seen, and if we hadn’t both been delirious from food poisoning at the time (more on that below), we might not have grossly overestimated the cost of same and bought far more than we did (maybe next trip!).

Djenne is also one of the best spots for encountering many of Mali’s various ethnic groups, including the Fulani, Bambara, Songhai, and even the Tuareg, who travel a great distance (from the north) to trade at this important center. It’s a fascinating mix that is clearly represented by the clothes, cloths, food and more.

We were supposed to spend our final night in Segou, the ancient capital of Mali, but during the night in Djenne I started to get some pretty severe shakes. Here we were in the middle of the desert and I was dying for more blankets – there were none in the room, so Sue had to cover me with all the bath towels she could find (and she wasn’t feeling too well, either). Our biggest fear was that I was having a recurrence of malaria – we were many hours from the nearest clinic and there wasn’t going to be much we could do about that.

Before we went to sleep, Sue put a towel under the door to block out the light – there was about a six inch gap. In the morning as we were getting ready to leave, she removed the towel, and two seconds later, a very large scorpion walked right in under the door and headed for our suitcases. I didn’t have the heart to squash the thing so managed to fling it out the door with one of the towels – wish I had gotten a picture!

Because we didn’t break up the trip by stopping in Segou as planned, we had a seven-hour ride back to Bamako. But the drive was fine (no doubt the three doses of cipro helped) and mostly uneventful. Along the way, our driver stopped to buy some grilled meat. The meat was delivered in a small plastic bag and I still can’t believe that when offered, Sue reached her hand into the bag, grabbed a handful, and ate it down… it was impressive (and she didn’t get sick!).

We upgraded to a four-star hotel in the middle of town for our last night in Mali and had a super relaxing and quiet night. The flight back to Accra made only one stop (in Cote D’Ivoire) as opposed to the two on the flight out. After an overnight in Accra, we flew back to Kumasi where we spent the last few days meeting with friends, settling our accounts and packing our stuff. (I won’t tell the story about trying to cash Sue’s last paycheck at our bank, waiting in line for 60 minutes, then being told that “the money has finished!”)

I had mentioned to the matron at the children’s home before I left that I would only have two more visits after our return, but on the final day when I said this was it, she seemed totally surprised. She apparently hadn’t told any of the kids I was even leaving and the goodbyes were mighty sad. Some of the younger kids, with whom I had grown most connected, really did seem to be almost in shock – overall, it was the saddest departure I have experienced.

Back in March, I had ordered 12 kpanlogo (“palogo”) drums from the drum workshop at KNUST for my department at Northeastern and after watching them evolve from tree trunks to beautiful instruments over several months, I was excited to learn that they were ready for pickup just two days before our departure. We loaded the 12 drums (plus one that had been made as a gift to me and Sue) into the back of the small pickup truck that was taking us to Accra for our flight home, and set out on our final Ghanaian journey. During the five-hour ride, we were hit with an enormous storm, but the drums were intact when we arrived at the airport, where we had an incredible time watching the customs brokers, and the guys who put us on to the customs brokers, and the friend of those guys (ad infinitum) wheel, deal and haggle our stuff onto a Delta cargo plane – fast forward, the 13 drums (along with the 13 unique and custom-made Kente bags that we had made for them) are all happily sitting in my office in Boston.

July, 2010
Our trip is over but for Africa, it’s just beginning: this year is the 50th anniversary of independence of no fewer than 17 different countries. Suffice it to say, but there is quite a ways to go. If the West can find a way to consider additional help – and not just more NGOs doing more temporary projects, and the microfinance/microeconomy can reach many millions of additional people, than perhaps there is a chance that the people of the continent can enjoy the healthy and prosperous life they deserve. We can only wish them the best of luck.

--DHM