MUD MOSQUES AND DUSTY STREETS
(Wandering West
Africa Part 2)
If you remember, on our last trip (Vietnam), we had arranged a hotel prior to
arriving in Hanoi.
Well, this trip, we were a bit busier, things were more hectic, whatever the
excuse, we arrived at 10:00PM in Bamako, the
capital of Mali
without a reservation. We got a taxi
which took us to one hotel that wasn’t too nice, a second that looked great,
but was full and, finally, a third that was clean enough and had a room. So, by
about 11:30PM, we were sacked out. For about $40, our room didn’t seem like
such a great deal but it was pretty typical. So far,
we haven’t gotten a lot for our money in terms of hotel rooms.
The next morning, the first order of
business was breakfast. There was a little shack around the corner from our
hotel and the guy inside had eggs piled high. We went in, ordered two omelets
and found out that you can scramble eggs by breaking them into a mason jar,
putting on the lid and shaking the jar a bit. After frying them for a few
minutes, the “egg man” as Paul called him, put the omelet on a nice baguette
and we had a great breakfast. An egg sandwich for each of us and a coffee for
Lois cost 750 CFA or about $1.50. However,
a meal in a restaurant runs about $10-$12 per person. There seem to be two
economies in Mali;
one for tourists, NGO workers and government officials and another for the
locals. Eating on the street is
extremely cheap, but any place with a roof over your head and the price goes up
exponentially.
In Bamako,
we encountered friendly reactions with smiles or bonjours here and there and a
few questions of the “How do you like Mali” variety. The women were
walking galleries of colorful, printed fabrics. Many wore matching skirts,
blouses and head wraps. However, the noise, congestion, open sewers, litter and
dust of the streets were unpleasant. One enjoyable site we visited was the National Museum. It had three major exhibits
covering Malian textiles, Dogon wood carving and archeological digs. All
exhibits were, unfortunately for Lois, happily for Paul, in French. This made
going through the museum take one third the normal time for Lois with no change
for Paul! The most enjoyable aspect of the museum was its nicely manicured
grounds, and quiet and relaxed atmosphere, a welcome relief from the city
streets. Aside from the local music scene, there is nothing to recommend Bamako. So, we moved on
to our next stop, Segou.
We found that when we asked what time
a bus leaves, we got an answer that corresponded to about a half an hour later.
The real answer seemed to be when the bus was full. When we bought our tickets
to Segou, they asked our names. An hour later (when all tickets were sold), a
bus pulled up and they started calling names off a list. As your name was
called, you boarded the bus. This took about another half hour. Finally, the
bus pulled out, only to pull into a nearby gas station to fill up for the trip!
The 144 mile (230 km) ride to Segou in a modern bus took a bit under four
hours. There were various stops along the way, including at a mosque so those
that wanted could do their mid day prayers.
Time did not seem to be of the essence.
Segou was a pleasant village, a great
contrast to Bamako.
We found three other travelers and negotiated a boat trip on the Niger River to visit a nearby village where they made
pottery and to visit Segou-Koro, the capital of the former Bambara kingdom.
This was our first experience in small West African villages. Dry and dusty were the first words that came
to mind. We attracted lots of young
children who loved to have their pictures taken and then see themselves in the
camera’s LCD (it’s doubtful there were any mirrors in the village). The pottery
village sees very little tourism, but in Segou-Koro, many children called after
us “Toubab” – white person, some “bic” and others “cadeau“ – gift or “l’argent”
- money. It got a bit tiresome, but we could usually ignore it. The villages
were all of adobe with each house having a sort of walled compound and the
walls forming narrow, maze like alleyways. There was no running water, just communal
wells and no electricity except for those that had solar panels. In the pottery village, they make pots all
week and fire them on Saturday evening. We got to see them setting up the
firing by stacking pots, then wood and leaves for fuel in a big pile in the
sand.
After Segou, we headed to Djenne, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, to see its famed Monday market, mosque and
architecture. The seven hour bus ride took us through flat, dusty, dry land
with occasional trees and lots of scrub brush. Djenne, a major trading city
since its founding in the thirteenth century, is built on an island in the Niger River inland delta. At the packed Monday market we
saw everything being bought and sold; cheap Chinese goods, iron cook pots,
gourds, baskets, stacks of salted fish, chickens, goats, rice, colorful
fabrics, used and new clothing. People
arrived by foot, horse cart, moto, tuck, bicycle and bus. It was a chaotic,
dusty scene, but one we were happy to have the chance to experience.
The backdrop to the
market was Djenne’s most prominent feature: its mosque - the largest adobe
structure in the world. The wooden
sticks jutting out the sides of the mosque are used as scaffolding when it is
repaired each year after the rainy season. Mali itself is 90% Muslim, 9%
Animist and 1% Christian. Djenne is a center of Koranic study – madrassas,
drawing students from all over West Africa.
While it may be majority Muslim, it seems to be a very tolerant, mild form of
Islam practiced. We have seen Muslims drinking beer, ignoring the five times
daily call to prayer and women with bare shoulders and heads. In addition to
the mosque we saw some beautifully restored adobe buildings of Moroccan and
Tukulor design. The most interesting part of the design was that by looking at
the buildings façade, you could tell how many boys and girls they had – sort of
a family profile.
Our last day in Djenne, we joined
forces with Michele, an Italian and headed out to visit some of the surrounding
villages. Wellingare, just across the water from Djenne was a Peul village. On the way, we saw all the women from Djenne down by the river washing clothes and dishes. Wellingare was pretty basic, but we found a woman selling peanuts so we bought some and figured we now had "provisions", so we decided to do a little further exploring,
Sirimou is a Bozo (yes, there is a tribe called the Bozo) fishing
village about 4.5 miles (7km) northwest of Djenne. Our guidebook said “village
is on an island, with an imposing mosque and a very medieval appearance”. I had
a compass, Michele spoke French and off we went, asking directions along the
way. After walking about 2 miles in the midday sun, on a dirt track through
some fields, we stopped under one of the few trees for a respite from the heat.
Along came two horse carts and while the drivers didn’t know where Sirimou
was, they said they would take us (for $1) and off we went (stopping to ask for
directions along the way). We knew we were headed in the correct direction when
about fifteen minutes later we saw a village with a large mosque looming over
it. Some kids gave us a ride across the moat to the island in a little dugout
boat. We got a very warm reception in the town, walked around a bit, took a
look at the adobe mosque, which was quite impressive and then followed the
process in reverse to get back to Djenne.
From Djenne, we headed to the twin
cities of Sevare and Mopti. Mopti, a port on the Niger River,
had a Thursday market that we really enjoyed.
It was considerably less dusty and crowded than Djenne. All along the
riverbank we saw cargo boats being unloaded and loaded (overloaded!), literally tons of fish – so many that it was hard to believe any were
left in the river, salt slabs from north of
Timbuktu, a boat
making shop with attached blacksmiths forging nails, etc. In some ways it was a repeat of Djenne, but a very
different feel since it was much more spread out. We were able to amble along
without any hurry. One little girl insisted that Paul take her picture, so he obliged her. Another sight was a woman
making the largest pots of rice we had ever seen and using a spade to stir!
So, how has the trip been so far? We
read over our travelogue from East Africa and have to say that West Africa has been considerably different. We have seen a number of impressive sites,
from the adobe mosques to the markets to the Niger river, the food has been
good, but there seems to be much more poverty. Running water and electricity
are rare outside of the major towns. One of the reasons this travelogue is so
late in coming is that we have had very little down time on this trip. We have
been constantly on the go. The less pleasant aspects are the dust and the litter.
It looks as if West Africa will be buried
under discarded plastic bags in a few more years. Our next travelogue will
hopefully not be too long in coming and will cover pays Dogon (Dogon Country)
and perhaps, Timbuktu.
(Yes, we have been to Timbuktu)…
Paul
& Lois
Mopti, Mali
January 9, 2009
All content is copyright © Paul
Schneider, 2009.
