17. Mali: Bamaco - Haute Volta Border

Mali

When we were originally planning this trip a working slogan was “Christmas in Timbuktu.”  Fairly early on it became unlikely that we would be able to cross the Sahara on the middle route, and therefore Timbuktu became too far out of the way. Our working slogan then became “Christmas in Ouagadougou.”  Still, the name Timbuktu (or Tombouctou in French spelling) conjures images of one of the most remote places in the world.  In fact, according to one source, the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, "the most distant place imaginable"[1]. By contrast it was known to be an important center of Islamic learning for a couple of centuries, while trans Saharan convoy routes for gold, salt and slaves were particularly important.  The heyday ended when ships began circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope.

In retrospect Mali was the country in Africa where we encountered the most foreign travelers.  Perhaps this was because it was at the intersection of both a north-south route through the Sahara, and an east-west route coming from Senegal, as we had done. But also, Timbuktu, Mopti, the Dogon tribe were major tourist attractions by themselves, “only” separated from Europe by a trans Saharan trip. These places also had a reputation for “mellow travel” such as sleeping in river boats on the Niger River.  In retrospect Bamako was a fairly cosmopolitan city, especially compared to villages in Upper Volta, where we travelled next, where the act of a white male drawing water from a well was enough of a novelty to gather crowds of 100 children.

In 2012 things appear to be quite different for travelers.  Although now internet and ATM machines are probably available, the north has been taken over by Islamic militants, many of whom came back from Libya armed to the teeth[2]. I remember reading about foreign “black African” troops fighting alongside Ghadafi loyalists, I guess some of them were from Mali.  Apparently Muslim shrines have been destroyed and that mellow travel is now impossible with “strict Sharia Law”.

1930s map of French West Africa when Mali was known as French Sudan, from Wikipedia.

Bamako, Mali, Thursday,  2 December, 1982

(HELENA) I’ve decided that Dan is so precise with his planning that although we actually arrived in Mali very early on the 2nd, the officials cheated and wrote the 1st in our passports. If you will look at the schedules we sent out, we were to arrive in Mali precisely on the 1st. Remarkable!

We were quite surprised by Bamako because instead of a desert town like Nouakchott, we encountered a rather green (if dry and dusty) town with hills around it.  It really is beauti­ful with all of its tree-lined streets, even in the poorer sections. In Ziguinchor, Senegal, we had met a young couple who had passed through here, and they told us of a hostel run by nuns. The five of us trooped around town and found it without too much problem. Rather surprisingly we are quartered in a co-ed sleeping room with 12 single and one double bed. It really is ideal because we have a place to shower and wash clothes, and you meet all sorts of interesting people.  Not the least of the advantages: it is fairly cheap at $us2 a night per person plus a key deposit. Needless to say, we all had a rather “mellow” afternoon. We took things in order of importance: 1. a good cold drink; 2. a shower; 3. some good food (Dan and I were delighted to find fried plantains and small shish kabobs, reminiscent of Bolivian anticuchos, for sale on the street); and 4. finally a good night’s sleep under a good mosquito net.

                                                                                      Bamako, Mali, Friday, 3 December, 1982

(HELENA)  We got a late start, but fortunately were able to get to the bank just before the latest you can get in a transaction, 10:30. The man was even a little indignant with us for being late. He only accepted to change our check if he could put it on the same paper as one for Lars. We then went to look for the tourist office. A most confusing town! It seems that the streets go every which way and there is a lot of activity. We finally happened on SMERT (which incidentally stands for Societé Maliense de Explotation du Ressources de Tourism) the tourist office, but only by accident.  We had pretty much given up on finding it and walked into a travel agency to ask if they knew where it was. “Why, this is it!” They didn’t have a map of the city and had no information to speak of on Mali. I think their main occupation is to write letters for people who need to extend their 7-day visas, the only kind available to normal people like us.

We decided to make the major purchase of a shopping bag because so far we’ve been using weak plastic bags for our all-important food bags. We then went to the fruit stalls and, lo and behold, there were the mangos I’ve been longing for ever since we crossed into Senegal and started seeing the countless mango groves through the parts of Senegal, Gambia, and Mali that we have seen. Yum! There was the biggest variety of fruit that we have seen on this trip--pineapples, tangerines, oranges, papayas (beautiful big ones), bananas. On our way back to the hostel we bought more fried bananas for our lunch. We’re really eating right here--yogurt, fried bananas, fruit, bananas mixed with peanut butter. Kind of nice not to depend on bread to fill us up.

In the afternoon we tried to get a little caught up in the journal and toward late after­noon Dan and I walked toward the place we were told the Gare routier (where you catch taxis and mini-cars) could be found. By good fortune it brought us to the bridge (more than 1 km. in length) across the Niger River. Beautiful! The river was all shrouded in smoke-dust and had a lot of green, hand-irrigated islands. In fact it was so beautiful that Dan dared to take out the camera (remember, in Mali you must have a 5,000 Mali franc permit to take pictures) and get a few shots. Alas, just as on the trip to Nouakchott, the winder would not work. We’re really out of luck on the camera equipment!

Bridge over the River Niger.  Last one before our camera stopped working

Needless to say, we did not make it to the Gare Routier because it was 5 km. beyond the bridge. On the way home Dan decided he had finally gotten oriented north/south for Bamako.

Bamako, Mali, Saturday, 4 December, 1982

(HELENA) Yesterday I forgot to mention that since Dan’s “new” Banjul glasses had broken and since his athletic glasses are rather difficult to wear, he decided to look for another optician.  We found one and luckily they had his measurement in stock. Once again his choice of frames was pretty limited, but the place seemed a lot more reliable than the one in Banjul. The man took the measurements from Dan’s athletic glasses and then tried without success to get the measurement off of the Banjul pair. Impossible!

So, as of today Dan is the owner of a new pair of glasses, and we are both determined that nothing will happen to them. We got a very official receipt in the hope that our travel insurance might cover it. They even charged us extra for timbres (official stamps).

The rest of the day we spent trying to write letters, a rather difficult task when there are so many interesting people around. We particularly like Marcel Lambert, a Belgian phy­sicist who came to Africa for 2 weeks.  It looks as though he won’t make his trip to Mopti and Timbuktu because he has to get back to Dakar a week from now.  He had the bad luck to be on the derailed train and to get sick here.  We’ve also talked to Claudio, a 20-year-old Mexican traveling by himself and another Belgian, Roger. Russell is a Peace Corps volunteer we had already met in Dakar, an unusually idealistic person. There is also an Italian woman here doing some kind of research in traditional medicine.  We are also sharing the room with a French couple and two German men with whom we didn’t talk so much.  Add to that our two Swedes, our very own pseudo-Irishwoman, and two pseudo U.S. citizens, and the result is constant interesting conversation that does not allow for concentration.

Speaking of “our” Swedes, we learned that their travel to these parts is actually their Plan B.  They originally travelled to Dakar with the idea of offering to help crew sailboats/yachts making the transatlantic crossing to the Caribbean. They were willing to volunteer their work.  However, when they arrived in Dakar they found that there were already two separate pairs of Swedish young women also offering the same deal.  They reckoned that as long as the four women were available they would not have much of a chance themselves, so might as well travel for a while.

Bamako, Sunday, December 5, 1982

(DAN) Helena and I were up before 07:00, washed our clothes, put on our boots and struck out the alleged 7 km., to the Gare Routier. As has been our custom, we walked out to the desired location, found the way poor people get back to the center of town, and where that transport ends is where we go to get transportation out to the desired place (rather than walk the 7 km. with packs).   Across the bridge is a sprawling new extension of the city, likely built since the French left. The one thing that sticks in my mind is the mounds of watermelons piled at nearly every intersection on the main drag. They were selling at $us 1 for a 30-40 lb. unit.  The gare itself is a very large square bordered with shops and consists of various pre-arranged spots that are the Sicasso Gare, the Mopti Gare, etc.  Once we located our gare, we took a “bush taxi” back into town for $0.15 apiece; there is usually a better way to do things.  The gare for the taxi out to the Gare turned out to be right up the street from our friend, SMERT.

In the afternoon we worked again on our correspondence and then invited Marcel to go for a long walk.  We walked through an entirely new part of town, around to the river by dusk and then back home.  We became aware that at dusk in Bamako thousands of bats come out and dart around. Also we really thought about the river. It is 4600 kms. long but does not change more than 2000 feet in altitude over that distance.  I had noticed that there was virtually no flood plain or second bottom (maybe l km. on either side to the hills).  Then Marcel mentioned that along most of its course there is desert right up to the edges as opposed to the Nile, but that most islands are cultivated. We decided that this means that the Niger must never flood its banks, but that the islands would be fertile sediment. Marcel also turned out to be a fan of Herge and offered to send us the complete works of Tin-Tin from Belgium if we wanted them.

Back at the hotel I had an altercation with the other Belgian, Roger. He is a computer analyst who works in South Africa, and he and a group of fellow travelers got to discussing Apartheid.  He was expounding pro Apartheid views and nobody was really challenging him; for instance, that 1. Blacks “are really like children and will never grow up enough to run a country;” 2. that Blacks in South Africa are secretly in favor of Apartheid; 3.“that there would be no problems in South Africa if the U.S. had only minded its own business.”  Well.... It reminded me of what Martin and Cecily from South Africa had said about the issue when we talked in Spain:  that some of the most ardent supporters of Apartheid are recent immigrants who benefit from the job protectionism.  Marcel finally interrupted us in the vein that some people in the bunk room were trying unsuccessfully to get some sleep.  

New arrivals today in our UN dormitory were a Dutch couple, and a pair of rather “nice” Peace Corps Volunteers who had just finished three years in Niger.  The Dutch couple is driving (sigh) a white diesel Toyota Land Cruiser over Africa for the year (see comment below). The P. C. women had just made a boat trip up the Niger on a fishing boat with the father of one of them.  It was the first time he had ever been out of the U.S!

(HELENA) This afternoon  Lars, one of our Swedish friends, said he had heard that I was a good barber and asked if I would I cut his hair for him. I told him that the fact that I had cut Dan’s hair twice didn’t mean much, but that I^’d be glad to do it if he wanted to take the risk. I had him wet his hair, but when I asked him for his comb, he said he didn’t own a comb and hadn’t combed his hair in five months. Apparently he just runs his fingers through his hair and “listo.”

This evening we were sitting around talking when we heard some loud live drum music start up. Dan and I went to investigate and discovered that they had strung up lights down the street and people had gathered in a rectangle to watch. At first the drummers were “warming up,” especially neat when two of them started dueling.  They got going on an intricate rhythm that involved the two of them.   As they played, the middle of the rectangle was full of children dancing rather wildly.  We finally decided to go back to tell Maureen who was in bed not feeling well to come see. When we returned to the street, we saw that the drummers had positioned themselves in the center of one side of the rectangle. A woman sang with them over the microphone, and very dressed- up young women started coming up in front of the musicians to dance, always in a different combination. The next morning we found out from Marcel, that the singer had been calling each woman or combinations of women out, and that is how they knew who was to come out. At times another singer would join in antiphonally, Naturally, the microphone benefited only one of them.  All we could find out was that it was a party and the dance and music were typical of Mopti. I really hated to leave because it was very exciting to watch, but Dan and I had to get back to pack before people wanted the light in the sleeping room turned off.

Ed:  Here I shall insert the note which Maureen included with the diary installment:

                                                                       Sunday, December 5, 1982, Bamako, Mali

(MAUREEN) “Tomorrow Dan and Helena leave for Haute Volta and I for Mopti. We have traveled together from Guelmine, Morocco, a distance of over 3000 kilometres and share countless memories of Morocco, Spain, Canary Islands, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia and Mali. I feel especially in­debted to them for their generous invitation to me of joining them when my traveling compan­ion had to turn back. They made my trip to Africa possible. They have also made it very special.

Many wonderful qualities are shared by Dan and Helena, but I will most remember their cheerfulness and unselfishness. I will always treasure the memory of the ride from Nouadhibou to Choum on the iron ore train. I was absolutely miserable --cold, uncomfortable, anxious, and lonely-- and enveloped myself in my sleeping bag on the floor of the train in an attempt to escape from it all.  Eventually I emerged to see two brave figures huddled together, clad in foul-weather gear with bandido-style bandanas over their faces, cheerfully singing Bolivian folk songs in the desert night. Suddenly, nothing seemed so bad, and my misery seemed very self-indulgent.

We have shared many stories of our families during our travels, and I hope one day to meet the rest of the Robisons (and Grandmother Carttar) who are, by all accounts, very special people.

P. S. Before we part, I hope to be able to teach Dan how to flare his nostrils --most effective for dealing with border guards, police, bureaucrats, etc.”

Our route across Mali and Haute Volta (now Burkina Faso). Yellow denotes train travel and pink denotes road travel. (Map from Wikipedia)

  

Bamako-Sikasso, Mali, Monday, December 6, 1982

(DAN)  We were out by 07:15, but Maureen and Mary Kay (PCV Niger) accompanied us part way for cups of coffee. It was a hard “Good-bye” to say; Maureen had been traveling with us since November 2nd, and since then we have been in pretty close quarters. We did not always see eye to eye politically, but she was an excellent traveling companion, philosophical about “bathrooms”, long waits, and hunger. She will go to Niamey, Niger, and fly from there to Kenya where she will meet her father for Christmas.

The Harmatan or north wind was blowing and the weather had turned very cool, so cool that when we got to the Gare, we went ahead and paid an extra 500 francs to go in the waiting Peugeot station wagon rather than wait for a pick-up. The trip was fast and comfortable over a paved road. We only had six checks along the way, four of them in or around Bougouni, possibly because it is on the main road to Guinea and only 100 km. from the border. The vegetation-climate got more humid until Bougouni, and then stayed the same to Sikasso. It is still very thick, dry grassland with common trees.

The previous map in greater detail

Once we got to Sikasso we had the taxi drop us off at the Catholic Mission so that one of us could set out to find the vague contacts we had here of some Mennonite linguists who might be spending some time in town, and we should check at the “government offices” to find out if they were around. It was 14:30, and the offices had long since closed for the day, so I went in search of the Mission Protestant. When I did find it, it was not Mennonite but Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA). From there I was taken out of town where a McKinney family lived.  They had not heard of the first contacts, however they offered us lodging for the night if we did not find the contacts.

I went back into town and looked some more but found no leads. It was getting late, so I picked up Helena and we walked out to the McKinneys’. We spent a very pleasant evening and night with them. James was a missionary kid from Mali whose father was a CMA missionary to the famous Dogon tribe (animists) near Mopti that everyone insists is a “must” to see.  James made an interesting point about the Dogons. His father who went out in 1923 was followed closely by a French anthropologist named Greole (sp) who has since become very famous “and is considered a saint at the Sorbonne”.  James said that Greole then brought a whole procession of anthropologists and later many tourists who all bought and commercialized the art work to a point that now many of the people live from the tourist trade.  James had watched while growing up and thought that the incursion of the anthropologists and tourists had been much more effective in destroying traditional ways than the missionaries. We knew independently that the Dogon and Bandiagara were THE places for tourists, especially the intellectual type, to go in Mali.

When they came out, first they had a year of nothing but French studies in France, and now the McKinneys are in their second of two years of doing nothing, officially, but learning a local language, Bambara, the major language in Mali. In that time they try to pick up as many of the traditional proverbs, wisdom, etc. as possible. They take that which is applicable to Christianity and then emphasize what Christianity has to offer in ad­dition. 

Sikasso Haute Volta border (barely) Tuesday, 7 December, 1982

(HELENA) We got up fairly early and set off for the Gare Routier with hope in our hearts. We arrived at 7:30, paid for our passages (apparently the only way to get to Orodara is to pay the fare all the way to Bobo Dioulasso) and had a delicious, hot cup of café con leche. I don’t think we’ve explained that lately our café con leches have been quite sweet because they pretty well fill a glass with hot water poured on top of a tiny, tiny teaspoon full of Nescafe with a couple of tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk from Holland added. Unless you instruct otherwise, you’ll get 4 or 5 cubes of sugar besides that_.

Right away we could see that out departure time was not exactly approaching with great speed, but we’ve been around long enough to not despair.  The hours kept passing, and at one point the guy we thought was the chef du gare said that we’d leave at 14:30, no matter what.  If there weren’t enough people to fill the bush taxi (as ever, a Peugeot 504 pick-up) we’d pay more and transfer to a taxi. Nothing momentous happened at that time except that “Miss Mali” came driving up in a taxi, flounced over with a basket of stuff, saw we weren’t ready to leave, and flounced away.  Not only were her manners high falutin’, but she was dressed in tight jeans, tee shirt, wire-rimmed glasses--you name it. About then we discovered that the few other people that were waiting with us had been waiting since the evening before.  Not very encour­aging!  By 17:00 hrs a couple of the passengers were getting pretty mad, so they went off to some kind of authority to complain. When they returned, it looked as though we were all set to go. But no, the guy in a red shirt (I’ve no idea who he was) started to take everybody’s bags off the rack and charge for them. If they couldn’t leave with a full car, they were determined to get money somehow.  That is when Dan’s training under Maureen came in handy. His nostrils flared, his hair stood on end, and he told the guy that we had ALREADY paid twice the fare we should, and we refused to pay extra for the bag.  I can’t believe the guy tried that after the bags had been sitting up there all day_.  After Dan’s outburst we sat waiting for we knew not what. It finally came out that we were awaiting the presence of Her Highness, Miss Mali.

She (Miss Mali) finally showed at about 19:00. Then the fireworks started.  When she’d come earlier, she had put her basket in the cab, but since then another woman and an older man had installed themselves there. Miss Mali and the older man started yelling at each other saying that they had the right to be there. They kept at it while we went to buy gas (as always they waited till we were all loaded up). When we returned to pick them up, they had come to a compromise; they would all sit up front.  So, while we in back had plenty of room, there were four adults in the not very spacious cab. Amazingly, at one point they had almost come to blows, and the next moment they were chatting away in the cab.

It was pretty cool traveling at night. Dan and I were lucky because we’d thought to get out our rain jackets, (thinking we’d need them for early morning travel) but the other people mainly wrapped themselves in the big pieces of cotton cloth that women use as skirts or to tie the babies on their backs.

We kept up a pretty good pace in spite of the fact that the road is the worst we’ve been on so far. It must be a mess in rainy season because there are a lot of deep gullies and ruts. After two hours (50 kms.?) we got to the border town between Mali and Haute Volta. We took our passports into a hut to get them stamped, then walked across to what we supposed was the Haute Volta side. It was all closed up, so we discovered that we were to spend the night there along with several other taxis and huge loaded trucks. The next morning we dis­covered that it was the Haute Volta customs that was closed and that we’d been stamped into Haute Volta, but not out of Mali.  We also found out that we had had to spend the night there because there is a curfew here (because of the recent coup) and that we’d have been unable to get anywhere by the appointed hour.

In spite of everyone’s urging us to sleep at a “hotel”, Dan and I installed ourselves in an open shed by the customs house. By the time we’d put down our ground cloth and our sleeping bags for a nice cozy night, everyone else had vanished for a not so cozy night.

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[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17583772

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20801094