Matt's Mali Trip - Posted 12/3/2003

For those of you who were wondering what a "Kopac-like" letter was....this is it!

July 21, 2003

We taxied into the night to arrive in Bankass, a Peace Corps post 12km from Dogon Country. At night, it is difficult to ascertain what Mali will have to offer. The second to last leg of the trip to our current location took us across the Burkina Faso/ Mali border into the town of Koro. We weren't even sure when we reached this, the largest country in West Africa, for lack of any roadside notification.

Nevertheless, we got a pretty decent idea from our driver, who between Tourette-like outbursts managed to approximate the border. We had gotten off to a rocky start with the chauffeur over price negotiations and because he stopped after only about 5km because he had forgotten his papers and had to take a moto back to Bandiagara to get them. His shouts of "Anasara" ("white person") every ten seconds wasn't helping. But as is the African way, no grudge was held and pretty soon we found his outbursts to be amusing and began teaching him phrases such as "Fogetaboutit" and "Get outta here." He was an apt pupil and repeated the phrases ad nauseam for the rest of the trip.

The stars shone with a brilliance I have never seen at a latitude I've never experienced. We chatted with a border guard as he checked out visas, and downed cold apple sodas that were drawn from a petrol-run fridge before continuing onto Koro. We negotiated our guide, Ibrahim or "Pyg," and hailed a taxi for Bankass.

July 22, 2003

First stop in Dogon Country, Mali, just at the entrance of the village of Teli. We'll be hiking for six days to discover this ancient mystical culture. I am bombarded by flies as I write, lounging with Paul, Peter, Claire and Lara waiting to eat. We haven't had a solid meal for days as we've been pushing to get from Benin to Burkina Faso to Mali, but will soon have satisfaction. I looks at if we'll enjoy a bit of tea first, the Chinese Green Tea, heavily sugared, that is so popular here. It serves the same purpose as a shot of Italian cappuccino, except that it is drunk three times, at least three times daily. The first is bitter like death, the second sweet like life and the third even sweeter like love. We recline on mattress lain over cots constructed of wooden rods and play cards. The famous carved Dogon doors and windows shutters adorn this mud compound and one section of the wall sports a collection of small animals skulls embedded in the surface.

We left Bankass on the back of a donkey cart, the beast burdened by our packs and ourselves. We purchased black turbans to protect us from the sun and kola nuts to pass out to villagers before taking our leave. The kola nuts, we were told, is a good way to be both generous and respectful to the local people. We are told horror stories of tourists that throw candy to kids and then take pictures as they scramble so we try to be conscientious.

The 12km donkey cart ride to the edge of Dogon Country gave us an early idea of the land and cropping systems of this area of Mali, with millet the prominent plant sprouting from the parched earth. Paul gave riding the donkey a try while the rest of us alternately sat and walked. A mud mosque caught our eye and Peter and I stopped to take pictures. We had no idea that we hadn't seen anything yet.

Our 3km hike to Teli led us up to the escarpment for the first time. Until I was close enough to understand that the oddly unnatural looking checkerboard patterns in the cliff face were actually a matrix of housing structures, I had no comprehension of what "The Dogon people are famous for their homes built into cliff faces" truly meant. I was astounded at the reality; it was as incredible as I could have imagined. I can just peer over the wall of the compound right now and see the box-like mud houses and grain silos that pepper the base of the escarpment at whose base we rest. Later on, we'll hike up for the first time…

At around 3pm we headed up the escarpment. As we approached the base of what turned out to be an abandoned village (the Dogon for the most part have moved down off the cliffs to villages at the cliff bases), we stopped to glean some Dogon history from Ibrahim. This region was originally inhabited by Pygmies, who lived off the land and consumed the fruit from the trees of what was a lush forest. The Telem people arrived and, in cutting down most of the trees, chased the Pygmies off the land. They were powerful fetishers and sorcerers and are said to have built the houses and grain silos into the cliff faces. Around the 12th century, Muslim invaders pushed into Western Mali near what is now the capital of Bamako, waging war and forcing conversion. Several ethnic groups, including the Dogon people, preferred to flee and keep their Animist beliefs. Over the course of three centuries they made their way to what is now Dogon Country. They encountered the Telem people and, as both were Animist, reached an entente. Eventually, the Telem people moved on leaving their infrastructure to the Dogon people, while leaving places for their fetishes, which they placed high up in the cliffs. Periodically the returned to pay tribute, but eventually settled permanently in what is now Burkina Faso. It is said that whenever a storm passes over Dogon Country that it is a Telem fetisher who has returned to visit the holy spots. Unfortunately, all of the Telem people's fetishes have long since been looted.

For a couple of hundred years the Dogon hid themselves under the cliffs and managed to avoid contact with the Muslim marauders. The invaders would pass across the plateau, but since the Dogon had not yet constructed homes on the plains, they could not be seen. It was not until the early 19th century that mass conversion took place within the Dogon community. The Dogon have always been a peaceful people and had managed to avoid conflict, so the invitation of the Hogon, the Dogon spiritual leader, to the Muslims was in this spirit. He gave them permission to try to convert people peacefully.

We toured the village, climbing winding paths, peering into grain silos and ducking into old homes. We climbed higher and beheld a glorious view of the plain below as we went. The ascent led us to a natural chamber about 10 feet deep into the rock and 4 ½ feet high: the chamber of justice. One can walk easily into it, but it is necessary to stoop. This forced all parties to a dispute to sit calmly and discuss the issues at hand. If anyone allowed himself to become too enraged and raised himself to shout or leave, he would hit his head. Pyg told us that a room with a low ceiling is a staple feature of all Dogon villages. A traditional leader oversaw the proceedings, and if anyone or both parties refused to accept the ruling of this chef, they would be referred to the Hogon. If anyone was so bold as to refuse the Hogon, he knew that it would mean servitude or death.

We then visited the home of the Hogon, with the image of a snake painted red, black and white. The position of Hogon as a spiritual leader is based in ritual purification. The image of the snake, called Lebe, can be seen only by the Hogon and comes every night to lick the Hogon clean, his only bath. His head is shaved every five days; He cannot have sexual relations; He is served by girls who are not yet menstruating. He comes off the cliff only once every 60 years for a huge fête. To become the Hogon, a man must be well versed in the history and secrets of the Dogon and have good luck. There are rules for both hereditary and merit-based succession.

An interesting story that we were told was about jealously among the Dogon people, something also prevalent in Benin. The Dogon are very open to strangers but distrusting of each other. They don't like seeing that others surpass them in affluence. If a member of a family is sick, visitors are not allowed. No one wants others to know that their loved one has died because if so, within five days after the death, sorcerers can use a part of the dead person's body to do black magic against the deceased's family. So, after having not announced that someone is sick and not letting anyone into the house, under the cover of night the body is taken and buried. Other community members are notified after 6 days. A lot of the things I write about jealously or black-magic or whatever may just seem like good stories told for the benefit of foreigners and tourists, but it is deadly serious.

As the sun began its descent, we took to the 4km path to Endé. We hiked to a water source to bathe and wash our clothes and then returned to our host compound for dinner. We'll do our best to jerry-rig our mosquito nets on top of one of the box-like mud huts. Unfortunately only two of us have nets so we'll do our best to squeeze. Tomorrow the adventure continues.

July 23, 2003

We were awakened this morning not by the sunrise, but by the reverie buzz of mosquitoes. Our net system was not effective, and when we squashed our unwelcome visitors we found them to have feasted well. But the night had been beautiful, and as I awaited slumber, I watched the Vega star system parallel the clothesline holding the net up above my head.

After purchasing the famous Malian "Bogolon" mud cloths, we ate a hearty breakfast and set out at 8am for the village of Begnimato. Rain clouds menaced overhead but rain never did materialize. We walked at a clip, stopping every few kilometers for a drink of water and to reapply sunscreen, or to greet passersby with a kola nut. We visited with one old man, lacking in teeth but not in personality, on our way. The last two stretches before reaching our current position took us up a decent grade over rocks that both Mother Nature and Man arranged almost perfectly. We zigzagged through lush, tropical-like surroundings, into a gully with vaunted walls on either side and rock formations that made me think of the American Southwest. As we hiked higher into a pass, the walls receded at our sides and the village of Begnimato appeared to the Northeast. We dropped off our bags and hiked immediately through the village to a waterfall where we swan and washed our dirty clothes. After lunch, we broke off for some solitary time of reading and writing, and tea was brought out to us as we did.

After the repose, we hiked a few kilometers to the village of Indélou, a village of stone on stone. Perched on an embankment, huge boulders laid the foundation for patchwork stone and mud houses. We visited the two kinds of homes in the village, those for the extended family and those for the immediate family. If a man has sons, the wives of his sons must work at his house for four days out of a five-day week. The sons must work the family fields for four days as well. On the fifth day, the immediate family can work out of its own house, work its own fields and go to market.

A recurring theme, as I have found throughout West Africa, is that of purity. As for many cultures, there are strict rules in Indélou about menstruating women. During their menses, women seclude themselves in a designated round structure, the exteriors decorated with images of Lebe, the snake. What was more notable was a type of impurity for men as well as women: if a man eats the meat of an animal that was used for a sacrifice he is impure and remains so until his death. Worse still, a male member of each future generation will also be impure. The role of these men is to fetch wood for impure women so that they can cook. Once he is impure, a man can eat whatever animal meat he desires. This and other stories of dictums set by god for sacrifice and purity always remind me of the Old Testament.

Another story passed on by our guide was, for me, a good example of how culture is dynamic over time; it is not only with outside influence that practices evolve and change. At some point in the history of the Dogon people, blacksmiths were made to be outcasts. They became a sort of lower caste. It is a hereditary job, so if a father is a blacksmith then so are his sons. They are slaves to the Dogon, but still occupy an essential role: one such example is that it is only a blacksmith that can circulate in the village to present kola nuts to invite people to a wedding. The problem for the Dogon people was their tradition of giving alms of 10% to poor and lower castes; the Dogon greatly outnumber blacksmiths. As a result, blacksmiths became very rich very quickly, and would use their wealth to take as brides all of the most beautiful Dogon women. So the Dogon went to their fetishes and asked that blacksmiths not be allowed to marry Dogon women, and so it came to be. After stopping to take some gorgeous panoramic shots, we returned to Begnimato before dark.

July 24, 2003

After another night where comfort and sleep evaded us, we woke at 6:30am and commenced a 4km hike to the village of Konsogo. We walked past field workers and up terraces set up to stem the flow of rain waters. The village simply appeared out of overgrown millet plants. "The secrets of the Dogon are found in a calabash of millet beer," Pyg told us. Despite his sobriety he continued to pass on stories of his people. We learned of their God, Amma, who created a jinn, Nomo, the god of water, who is responsible for the creation of grains. He is found in all things water: the sky, in rivers, in rainbows. He drank water and thusly vomited. He vomited first a snake, and in the belly of the snake there were packets of millet and corn seeds. He continued to vomit for five days, blood only, which is why the Dogon week is five days long.

We walked briskly through the village and toward the edge of the cliffs, the same one we had been looking at the previous day from atop a different escarpment. Villages, dunes and a river became clear to us below. A storm began to brew and the horizon quickly turned black. Dark chocolate clouds began to rush toward us and swallow the dunes as a sharp left at the edge of the cliff took us into a tunnel. We felt like "The Goonies" as we disappeared into a wind tunnel, the dust swirling all around us. The cave opened up at the bottom on the right and we beheld the landscape being quickly swallowed by the storm. We walked at a clip down the rocks and through the ancestral village, Gimini, of our guide. Instead of stopping for shelter, our guide made the ill-advised decision to attempt a quick ascent. To no surprise, we got caught in the storm and were forced to take shelter in the nooks and crannies of the cliff face, water rushing in rivers past us, until storm ceased almost an hour later.

In the afternoon, we set out for the village of Dourou, 5km away. We could see for miles as we now trekked across the plateau. Though much more temperate in climate, hiking in the rainy season seems to be a much more treacherous affair than hiking in the dry season. We made a couple of difficult river crossing; Peter's Nalgene bottle was the only casualty of out tiptoeing across rocks at the top of small waterfalls. We had questioned Paul's logic in hiking in sandals, until we waded three times through rivers and streams.

In Dourou we shopped for indigo cloth in fly-infested corridors, as numerous women displayed their wares before us, jostling as they went. The last leg of the day from Dourou to Nombori was the most breathtaking of the trip so far. I felt like Indiana Jones as we found our ways through hidden passages through sheer rock faces. At one point, the path took such a serious dip that we could not see it ahead of us. All we saw was a large rock that appeared to be about head-height. Like the fallacy of star proximity in constellations, reality was configured in a way that tricked our eye. As we approached, we realized that this was only the top of a spire that had its base more than a hundred feet below. We beat up our knees on the descent with our heavy packs until we arrived at the other side and saw yet another valley below us. We continued onto Nombori, and except for foray to a night market in a village 2km away where we went to taste the local millet beer, spent the remainder of the evening relaxing on top of yet another rooftop.

July 25, 2003

It was 7km to Tireli, home of Dogon dancing, which we could not afford. It was blazing hot this morning as we carried out the longest leg of out hike. In Tireli, we visited numerous family fetishes including a patriarch's house where animal sacrifices are made to ask for a good harvest. We saw where sorghum thatch mats, the sleeping mat of choice, are made. Apparently, if one sleeps on such a mat he cannot be harmed by "metal chain snakes," I believe is the correct translation. Picture the chain on your bike, except moving and with a pincer mouth. Made by blacksmiths, these snakes are sent out by one person to kill another. No medications or treatments can save a person thus bitten. When the serpent returns to its master it is offered a chicken. If it has failed in its mission it will eat the chicken; if it has succeeded it will vomit up the blood of the person it killed. My favorite part of the day was our hike to the top of the cliffs behind the village. As Peter continued on to further peaks, Paul and I watched village life unfold below us. The villagers were like ants, but the pounding of millet in several homes resounded as if they were next door. The percussive hits of three women pounding millet fell together like a rap beat. Later we bartered our possessions against masks and other paraphernalia, and Peter exchanged his Swiss Army knife for a cool mask of an old man.

July 26, 2003

Our last hike took us to the villages of Iréli and Banani. At the first stop I decided to splurge and ante up the $20 (!) cash to join a group of Italians and watch the famous Dogon dancing. The others continued on to Banani while I hiked up to the village's central meeting place. It was an area of dirt stamped out into a circle, encircles with rocks and headed with an intricately carved "justice hut", of which I have previously spoken, on one end. Three drummers and about 15 dancers made up the group. While the music and the dances were entrancing, what truly made the experience was seeing the men dance with the famous Dogon masks. Carved like square faces about the size of a human face, they are also usually adorned on top with carvings of crocodiles and other animals, women and men. The most famous mask, which unfortunately is used only for truly special occasions and so I did not see it, is a seven foot long snake, Lebe, which protrudes from the top of a mask. What makes the affair truly remarkable is that the dancers hold onto the masks with their teeth by clamping onto a wooden rod that runs horizontally inside the mask. Many of the dancers lose their teeth before the average Dogon man.

As our Dogon trip wraps up, it appears that we will not learn any more about the mystical under-pinning of the culture, more characteristic of the culture of the North, which we will not visit, than the South of Dogon Country. Thus I will have to recount only what I have read. What I understand is that the Dogon people believe that hundreds of years ago they were visited by beings from the star system of Sirius, also known as the Dog Star. Many of their drawings, including spiral drawings of galaxies, predate what they could have known at that time. But what is most fascinating is that since these early times, the Dogon have claimed that Sirius was not one star, but actually three that we only perceive as one. Until only twenty or so years ago, astronomers believed that Sirius was merely binary, containing only two stars. It was only with the newest of technologies that they spotted what is in fact a third star in the system, thus verifying a fact that nobody has any idea how the Dogon knew.

July 28, 2003

Today we visited the historic city of Djenné, located some 130km from Mopti. We piled into a bush taxi and sped along until about 4km from our destination. It was necessary to disembark from the vehicle and usher in onto a ferry to cross the river Niger.

Djenné was a fascinating throwback to the 14th and 15 centuries. It had its heyday during this time as the destination of traders, especially Moroccans, looking for gold. It is home to about 16,000 people today comprised of six ethnic groups. Our guide explained that the six groups do not inter marry, they occupy different, specified spots at the market, and form a sort of social caste system. One of the ethnic groups is the Songhai, from which the Dendi people of my town in Benin descended; Peter and I were able to communicate with scattered words and phrases that the two groups still share in common.

We visited a Moroccan building dating back to the 14th century, constructed to keep in the wives of traders when they were off doing commerce. They were wary of the black magic of the West Africans, and so afraid to leave their vulnerable to wander about and be tempted away. So the women were locked into the second story. There are no windows, only ornate peepholes through which the women could signal to their husbands, when they would pass by, that they were safe.

The highlight of Djenné is the largest mud-constructed mosque in the world. Originally built in 1280, it was revamped in the early 1900s. Due to the nature of the materials, it must be refurbished every year to maintain its condition. I had heard a lot about the mosque and seen pictures, and it did not disappoint… Because of past corruption issues (guides and guardians were found to be colluding to extort money from tourists in exchange for visits, hardly behavior befitting to a religious institution) only Muslims can enter the mosque: one must recite verses from the Koran to gain entry. So we were forced to marvel from the outside only.

Djenné is also known for the Fulani women that wear gigantic gold earrings than hang down to their shoulders. Unfortunately, they are rarely worn because of bandits who are known to cut off the ears of the women to steal the gold. We saw one woman braving the market with her exotic fashion wear. We also noticed the black staining that most Fulani women do around their mouths. It is like a tattoo, permanent, and done with needles and ink. It shows that a woman is both beautiful and strong, probably because the process must be excruciating.

July 29, 2003

Paul and I are on the river Bani on our way to the Niger River, which will take us to our destination, Timbuktu. What was once considered the equivalent of the end of the earth will be accessed by us, we hope, in three days time. When the women and children waded into the river and up to the boat to sell us Fulani milk and fried dough balls, I knew I was in uncharted territory. We have left Claire, Lara and Peter, who will head back to Benin, behind. The next leg of the journey begins.

Our means of transport is a cargo/passenger boat bound for the markets in the Timbuktu region. It is about fifty feet in length with a solid canopy on top, constructed from bamboo rods and reeds, covered on top with a large yellow plastic tarp. It is divided into approximately ten sections, some holding luggage and markets wares, one section is the boat kitchen, and the others house people. Of course, every inch of the boat is utilized in some capacity. We're sitting on sacks of grain and cement, and so find ourselves at water level, even though the boat is about four feet deep. Our section, cordoned off from others only by a wooden plank on either side, houses eight people: four Americans and four French. Paul and I were not the only ex-pats with the idea to brave the trek to Timbuktu. All other passengers on the boat are Malian.

July 30, 2003

Day 2. It's late morning and we've been stalled on the river for a few hours; we might not move again today. Apparently, the wind is too strong and there would be a danger of tipping if we were to continue.

This morning we shoved off before sunrise. I was awakened by the return of those passengers who had slept the night on the shore. Anne & Andrew (the other two Americans), Paul and I had occupied our section of the boat while the Frenchies traipsed the plank to shore. I don't believe either nation made the better decision and suffered less on this occasion. We hung our mosquito nets from the bamboo rafters and settled uncomfortably onto the sacks of grain below us. Flat, contiguous space was in short order so the choice was between a hump, a crack, or both. It was steaming hot - I peeled off layer after mosquito protecting layer (because the ground was so uneven it was impossible to secure the nets below us and so we got eaten by mosquitoes) - people talked loudly into the night, two radios blared Tuareg music, and one poor man bailed the boat, which was consistently retaining water, for the entire night.

At around 6am I climbed onto the top of the boat; the few minutes I had alone were of the most serene I have had for a long time. The sun rose over the river, which had widened to such a degree that it had become a lake; pirogues floated in the distance; rice paddies swayed in the wind; fisherman repaired their nets and traps; I breathed deeply.

We motored along until about 8am and stopped at what appeared to be a shrinking island. There it was, housing about 100 people and only three times the size of our boat, with no other land in sight. We expected a quick start and stop. We stayed for six hours. It turns out that the wind was more of a concern than we had thought.

Finally the boatmen decided it was time to take action. Half of us were moved into a pirogue along with 15 100-kilo sacks of rice and strapped to the big boat, diminishing the weight and acting as a buoy. The only problem was that those of us in the pirogue were exposed to the blazing mid-day sun for over an hour.

At the end of the day, two hours ahead of schedule, our anchor was thrown. The boat was left parked in the middle of the river and the plank only reached halfway to shore. The sacks of grain had been so poorly reorganized that we decided to try our luck on the shore. We piled our belongings on top of our heads and waded out to the shore through the thigh-deep water. I've hung my mosquito net on a thorn tree a good distance from the boat and am writing from underneath. Outside the net, mosquitoes buzz like lost kittens mewing for their mothers. I almost felt like I should take pity and let them in.

July 31, 2003

Paul and I woke up before sunrise sore, but not as sore as the previous night. I gathered my things and made for the soft glowing light of the boat in the distance. Half asleep, I waded through the water and stumbled up the plank.

Paul put it best when he said "it's almost as if we haven't showered for three days." A little earlier I tried to clean off some of the grease off my feet in the river but with little success. My hands are the only parts of my body that are intermittingly clean. Our boat starts, stops and starts again. More than once, falling in and out of sleep, I see a boat passing by and think that we are in fact moving, when in reality we are dead in the water. I haven't changed clothes since we began. What's the point? As we stop, people descend and with them go sacks of grains and baggage. Our level in the boat has fallen about 3 feet and we're now sitting on sacks of cement. It's 4 o'clock, and a man next to me has laid out a mat and is praying. We're told that we'll have to wait until tomorrow for Timbuktu.

August 3, 2003

We're about 10km to the north of Timbuktu in the Sahel desert. Andy, Annie, Paul and I are nestled under our Tuareg tent, usually made of camel skin but in this case of burlap, tied with rope to large branches dug into the sand. The swirling winds are relentless and reading, writing and eating have been difficult. This is only a sand storm; it is the intense heat that keeps us under the tent except for all but four hours during the day. I guess it is the desert, after all. Last night we slept out under the stars another 10km or so further into the desert. The four of us hung out and listened to stories of the Turaeg rebellion from our guide, Maktar. The air was still. But just as Maktar's helper, Mohammed, finished preparing our dinner, the winds picked up again and tainted our macaroni. We tried in vain to cover up the bowl as we ate - every bite contained unwanted roughage.

Before settling down to sleep, Annie, Andrew and I chatted into the night; Paul was out of commission with some stomach action. We crouched, eyes half closed, heads half-covered with our turbans. Our beds were mats laid out on the sand and our pillows the turbans that we wrapped around our heads to keep out the sand. I actually slept quite well.

In the morning, we shook off the sand, ate a breakfast of dates and headed off to the dunes no more than a few hundred meters away. I was amazed by the constant changing nature of the desert. A mild sand storm can change the face of the desert, moving dunes and erasing any signs of a caravan. We watched the sand wax and wane, racing across the arid surface. We joked about the possibilities of getting lost in the desert, wandering without any water until our demise. This may sound a bit morbid, but it must be noted than we were still so close to Timbuktu that the lights of the city shone on the horizon. It would have taken effort to get lost.

What little movement we have achieved in the desert has been by camel. They are awkward, funny creatures and I am almost certain they gave voice to Chewy Chewbacca. Our camels are tied together in a caravan and moan every time we take a turn. The have one hump and we seat ourselves in leather saddles bound to their backs. Tonight they will lead us to a Tuareg camp, but for now we must brave the mid-day heat. I'm peering out of the tent and certain images strike me: mercury colored ants, a young girl in indigo, camel teeth chewing their cud, thorn bushes and trees, big black beetles that seem determined to crawl into our tent and sand blowing onto my journal as I write…

Being out here in the Sahel desert, the final destination of our trip has thus been attained. It was three days ago that we climbed out of the boat, exhausted of another night of non-sleep, and collapsed into a beat-up old 4x4 that took us the last leg of the trip to Timbuktu. This archetypal end of the earth is often a disappointment to travelers, but I think then that most travelers are spoiled. I mean, come on, you're in Timbuktu! We were excited to arrive, and found the town to have some character. Though a shell of its former self, it is rich in history and culture. Tuaregs, Bela, Fula and other ethnic groups populate its streets. Most buildings are of mud and clay and representative of early Moroccan architecture. I took a guided tour and visited famous mosques and the homes of former explorers, the first to arrive in Timbuktu. One mosque used to be the world's largest center for Islamic learning in the world, boasting 25,000 students when the town had 100,000 people. Today the whole town is about 25,000.