Bamako to Dakar

We did not leave the Bamako hotel much but we did go for much needed pedicures, night life and live concerts, which begin around midnight, (as part of my essential research into the music of Mali and Senegal,) ...and to le marche rose et le marche artisanal. Yes, it is expensive to fly to Mali and Senegal, mainly because of the high taxes; the hotels and transportation are not cheap and good food is variably priced, but the wooden and fabric craft work you can buy here is fantastic value, especially as it is all done painstakingly by hand. We indulged. We bartered. Everyone was happy in the end. (Although we are now concerned about baggage allowances...) A highlight of the final etape was meeting Violet Diallo, a good friend of a colleague's mother. She has lived in Bamako for 3o years and was a treasure: social worker, journalist, and now music manager for the group Ngoni ba, by the sound of it!

Have finished all my books, Paul Auster, Man in the Dark, Anna Gavalda, Je l'aimais, Jean Giono's L'Homme qui Plantait des Arbres and Tinkers, the Pulitzer prize winning book, so I found another Paul Auster in a second hand bookstore to tide me over. The books have similar themes although I did not plan it this way: men at the end of their lives, love, death, and existence. All very good.

Was curious to discover what my reaction to being back in big, brash, flamboyant Dakar would be. Loved being back. I've decided that this is where I am bringing my students next June. ACI Baobab will look after them very well, as they have me so well on this trip. I am grateful to everyone at the center. We were made welcome back at the Farid hotel and set straight of to Just4U that night. A young band was playing tonight and I bought a copy of their CD. The whole place was full of teen girls who knew every word that was sung and who danced with utter pleasure and unselfconsciously.

The next day we lunched again under the enormous baobab at the Institut Francais. Then I negotiated with a cab driver to take us up the coats for three hours and back. Great decision. Saw the lighthouse atop a volcanic plug with views over Dakar, at Les Mamelles, the new mosquee, La Divinite, Ngor beach, les Almadies beach and market, Souboudienne fish market and artisan market. This is the most westerly tip of Africa and it has cliffs sweeping down to beaches and big waves, rocks and more lighthouses.

Back that night to Just4U where we are quite well known now, where a griot sang my praises (!) and where we danced salsa to the famous Orchestre Baobab with people on the tables around us. The Dakarois are such fun and so hospitable.

Sunday, up early to go down to Bandia reserve which we toured with a guide on a 4x4 for a few hours seeing antelope, oryx, giraffe, zebra, ostrich, rhinoceros, beautiful kingfishers, crocodiles, water buffalo, the cutest monkeys and more. Beautifully maintained by wonderful rangers and guides. Then back to the coast to stay at the African Queen resort, which is right on Sonoma beach. Just beautiful. Another day here tomorrow, maybe visiting the lagoon on a pinasse to see the birds, (can you imagine anything more amazing than all this??!) then back to Dakar and back...to the real world.

I have relished every minute of this trip. I've learnt so much and met so many wonderful people. I am so very grateful for the opportunity to have enjoyed all these incredible experiences. Spending a whole month with the lovely Laura has been the purest delight. She is the best traveling companion and I love her to bits. And if you've read this far, you are in my top 10! x

Djenne, and back to Bamako

If I wax too lyrical about Mali it is because the sights and experiences it offers are unique and fascinating; discovery simply fills me with joyous delight. While I know that much needs to be done in some areas, health, education, infrastructure, I have a pervasive confidence and faith in the hard-working, resilient and resourceful Malian people. There is a strong spirit of mutual respect and interdependence. While they may not have economic capital yet, they have enormous social capital: there are many ethnic groups living together peaceably and this is an enormous source of pride: Touregs, Peul, Bobo, Bambara…

 

After returning to the Amberdjele outside of Mopti for the night, we headed back south to stop at Djenne. In the Land Rover, Lamine would blast out his music. We shared the same tastes and he introduced many more Malian singers and styles to me. Music is a huge part of the experience of Mali, and most musical styles and many instruments can be traced back here. Lamine never went to school. He does not know the date of his birthday or that of his children’s’. He taught himself to read and write and is currently teaching himself English. Because of illiteracy and because of the traditional oral tradition of passing down the stories of each village, novelist Amadou Hampate Ba wrote, “Quand un vieillard meurt, c’est une bibliotheque qui brule.” When an old man dies, a library burns. The driving is good and roads are clear. Tarmacked roads link most cities since the Mali hosted the African Soccer championships in 2002.

 

Djenne is a UNESCO World heritage Site. The adobe town contains the largest mud mosque in the world. As it is made of rice and fermented mud from the river Niger, it needs restoring regularly, as does most of the town. The old town is situated on an island on the Niger and dates back to the 12^th or 13^th centuries. They had a sophisticated sewage system back in the day…and still use it today. We marvelled at the construction and admired the influences of the original inhabitants and the Moroccans on the architecture. Wandering around the markets is a fascination and Djenne’s did not disappoint: hibiscus leaves, calabashes, spices, home goods, negotiation, colour, beauty. We also visited a Peul village. The Peul are farming nomads. The women have blue tattoos around their mouths and eyes and are breathtakingly beautiful.  The fabric of their dress is much more fine and detailed than the more flamboyant Senegalese style.  

 

Unesco and other international groups are helping Mali in many ways. Desertification was felt to be a pressing issue in the north, several years ago and much aid was given to protect Tombouctou, although it is recently felt that this is more of a man made problem: man’s erosion of the top soil, tree removal for farming, etc. 

We arrived in Bamako after a night in the adobe campement of Djenne Djeno with heavy hearts. We have blobbed and slept and enjoyed hot water and a/c again but yet another etape of this amazing journey is over. We did go two nights to the open-air live music venue, Savana. This is where I will be coming regularly on my sabbatical here. 

We have just learned the terrible news of the death of an Old Greenwich neighbour, a father of two girls. He was taken off life support yesterday after suffering a stroke 10 days ago while having surgery to remove a benign tumor from behind his eye. Our hearts go out to Cheryl, Brooke and Alana. Glenn Elliott R.I.P. 

Dogon country 2

The villagers knew we were coming at some point that week. When we arrived, the Hogon gave the order to beat the drums to bring all the men in from the field. We saw no men coming in at all and figured this would amount to a small affair. However, we were given notice after a potato sauce and pasta lunch that we were to go up the falaise to an opening in the brush. After a few minutes, on walked about fifteen elders in their navy blue boubous and their coned hats, with their drums. The lead was less elderly and he would direct who was to dance next. The dancers would dance up to the musicians and perform for them, not for the arbitrary audience. About 20 dancers came running down the side of the falaise from who knows where, in their costumes and wooden masks as soon as the drums started beating furiously. There is deep significance to each mask; many are of animal heads and have stories pertinent to the Dogon view of creation. Two dancers wore the twenty or so foot tall Dogon festival mask. But four were on six or seven-foot high stilts and these were stunners! All wore deep pink skirts made from strips of baobab bark. The colour represents the blood following the incest between the Jackal and the Earth. This story leads to more stories of shame and disgrace and so purpose of the Dogon’s mask and Sigi ceremonies is to purify and offer atonement. At first the dancers were all called to dance in a circle together, then, in pairs or groups each category of mask dancer would be asked to come up and perform. The dances were individual to each mask and were in time with the drumbeat. Dancers and musicians were oblivious to us watching. Dancers were utterly intent on pleasing the leaders and the leaders were clearly assessing each dancer very seriously. The beat was fast and furious and the dancers yelped and whooped. Groups of village children sat respectfully at a distance or practiced the dances themselves to the beat. We were allowed to take pictures. This was an entrancing performance and insight that left us joyous and grateful.

 

The Dogon seem to have deep cosmological knowledge. They seemed to have known about the existence of planet Sirius B long before astronomers in the west saw it for the first time in the 70’s. They celebrate the closeness of the planet to earth in a huge ceremony, the Sigi, every 6o years. Next Sigi will be 2027.  I’m going, inch’ Allah.   

 

However, for now we were off to Songho for more. This is a village set between the falaise and two other huge rocky outcrops; it is particularly pretty for its many granaries. However, the reason to visit is to see the cave decorated in paintings where boys around 10 are ritually circumcised every three years. No anaesthetic, and after they have to run a race. This is not illegal. Excision is, although it still goes on underground.

 

We also drove to the southwestern point of the plateau to hike in the beautiful scenery from the plateau down to the wide open plain to see Tellem cave dwellings and a weekly Dogon market.  The cave dwellings are about 10,000 years old and have been restored by the Dogon over the years that are now getting financial aid to do this from other donors. They are not inhabited now. We climbed up the falaise to walk along them, walking on old adobe roofs that we hoped would not cave in on us, and seeing bats and storks above us in the rock wall, as well as many quite scary drawings on walls around a Hogon house. Just when you think you’ll never see anything like this again in your life, another sight or experience is presented to you that is nothing short of spectacular. That is Mali. Yet again, we were gasping, speechless. We are the only Toubabs in the area and it seems we have the whole of Mali to ourselves. When we do bump into another group of Toubabs being shown around by a guide, it is unpleasant to get that reflection of yourself as just another tourist. It is a shock to our egoism that we are the first explorers to discover all this, to penetrate the mysteries of animism and the lifestyle of the wonderful people of Mali. The high season is December to February when the wind roars and it is dry and dusty.  It is very hot up to and including June. I would recommend that now, during the rainy season in July-September is the best time to come to Mali; there are few tourists and roads and villages are empty and after the rains it is cool. In between the rains, it is still cooler than the crazy temperatures New York is having at the moment.

Back to Bandiagara to stay at the  Hotel la Falaise for capitaine in the courtyard under the hibiscus trees and with two annoying parrots who spoke French, English and Dogon! This was the end of our Dogon days and we were heavy hearted. 

Dogon Country

The Dogon live on a 200 kilometre long plateau that is about 300 metres high, on average. They lived in the caves on the falaise, or cliff, in the past but now that there are no more marauding attackers, they live and farm on the vast plateau itself and on the plain below that expends as far as the eye can see down to and beyond the border with Burkina Faso; about 4000 sq. km. in all. The original inhabitants of this breathtakingly beautiful area were the Tellem, pygmy troglodytes who settled here about 10,00o years ago. They moved south eventually, though it is unclear why. The Dogon arrived before they left but seemed to live peaceably enough with the Tellem, farming the land on the plain and later moving into the Tellem dwellings on the cliff. Tribal warfare existed until the French came and calmed things down bringing peaceful coexistence to the area. The Dogon are essentially animists. Some have embraced Islam and Christianity but they hold on to many of their former customs, rituals and beliefs for the most part. There are many (disturbing) stories of snakes and twins and sacrifice, creation, circumcision and excision.

 

People come to this area for the spectacular scenery, the history, the fascination with animist practice and beliefs, to see the wooden sculptures, the architecture of the Dogon dwellings and the mask dances. It is the architecture that is immediately charming and appealing, particularly the granaries. These are a feature of the Malian landscape that have their origin here with the Tellem and the Dogon.  They are storage houses made of mud and rice that have what might look like witch hat, pointy thatched roofs. They have one small wooden door and inside is kept grain, jewels and anything of value. Each husband and each wife has a granary. I have hundreds of pictures of granaries.

 

What is of most interest to me is how these hardy, beautiful people live: they are farmers and have nothing but a sort of inverted shovel, maybe a zebu, a horse or a donkey and old fashioned metal plough or tiller. Whole families, including little children, work their green and fertile fields every day morning to night during this, the rainy season. They have four months to work the land and stock up for the windy, dry winter months and the hot spring months. This is subsistence farming, although each village has a market on one of the five Dogon days of the week. Days are known as Sangha market day or Tirili market day. There are 10 months of the year. The soil on the plateau clearly gets easily eroded in the rains. USAID and other groups have helped the Dogon by providing bricks, made locally, to make squares that can be filled with topsoil, to then be filled with millet and onions, mostly.  

 

The life is so appealing to one who hunkers after the pastoral idyll and getting back to the earth, but it is clearly a hard life. There is a no-nonsense and yet gracious stoicism here that you cannot but admire. I bought a bag of kola nuts in Mopti to fortify the peasants as we hiked through their villages. Apparently the kola nuts might be addictive but do give strength. They taste quite bitter; you spit them out and then get a sugar rush especially with some water. It is said that they are the original secret ingredient in Coca Cola.

 

We met an elder of one of the villages who took us on a tour. We respectfully did not go where we were not allowed to go: burial grounds, the Hogon, or chief’s house and other ritual places. The Hogon is always the elder of the village. Once Hogon, he may not wash although Lebe, the snake, may clean him. He may not have a woman with him at night. It is an unpopular role…we saw that there was one men’s meetinghouse per village. These are designed with nine poles holding up a flat, thatched roof that might by three or four feet thick. The height of the structures are maybe four feet tall, max, so that the men will not stand or fight during a meeting. We also saw that each village has a menstruation house where women were sent for five days a month while they were “impure”. We saw jujus and animal skins and bones and skulls and paintings of spirits and legendary figures on doors and walls. In Mali, you must ask and often pay a little something to take someone’s photo. I have done this a lot but have also taken many beautiful discreet photos at a distance with my telephoto lens.

 

The first night we arrived we saw our first rain. Lasted maybe an hour but filled the land with lakes of water, which rushed and gushed everywhere. It made walking the only way to get from village to village so we hiked a lot. This was hot, sweaty work some days but was cool and fresh on our first day after the rain. Some places we waded up to our thighs in water through streams and rice fields, slipping and sliding in the squelching mud below, (and hoping that there were no snakes in the rice fields as per our experiences in China, the Philippines and Thailand…) We hiked in total silence apart from bird sound and tilling, or women pounding millet with huge pestles and mortars; a daily chore for these women who never seem to stop working all day. Agricultural machinery and mass production bring with them the Food, Inc. horrors. There must be a middle way that preserves the farmers’ lifestyle and values, without destroying it. A few, more well off villages had generators with basic grinding machines, still run by the women of course. We’d meet villagers and go through the long greeting ritual and move on past baobabs, tamarind trees, the fromager, or kapok trees, karite, or shea butter trees, enormous fig trees, palms, acacia, mahogany, bean trees…past fields of every vegetable.  We’d stop at a village and have a lunch of pasta and onion sauce, just delicious. Locals might eat their ground millet ground to a paste in their communal plate, with a bright green dipping sauce in the center; this latter was baobab leaves that had been dried on the roofs of the houses and then ground and cooked.

 

I’ve backpacked and stayed with ethnic groups or tribes in Thailand, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Leh in Ladakh. But what happened in the Dogon village of Ireli almost blew these experiences away: a mask dance!    

Le Niger

Up early again for more unknown; that is to say that I knew we were going on a boat trip on the Niger for several hours from Mopti north to Konna, but I had no clear idea what to expect. This is of course part of the adventure. As absolutely nothing had disappointed so far and as everything had been a pure delight, we were already filled with gleeful anticipation. Yet again, the reality superseded even positive expectations.  We arrived at the port where al the hustle and bustle of the market had taken place last night to a serene, gracious and generous river. We boarded our pinasse and for five leisurely hours of sheer beauty past a few villages with beautiful mosques, kids splashing in the water, fishermen, zebu doing their work, the graceful, strong women carrying their wares on their heads, but mostly we luxuriated in the peace and pace as well as the grandeur and silence of the river itself, its kingfishers, pretty waders, storks, plovers, swallows, martins, noisy bulbuls, bright yellow bee-eaters, beautiful turquoise rollers….and hippos! The boat boy prepared us all fried fish and potatoes on a gas oil cooker on board. We were reluctant to arrive in Konna and almost negotiated to continue up the Niger for another few days up to Tombouctou. Lamine was waiting for us at Konna and down we went to Sangha, in Dogon country for the night.  Once south of Bandiagara we were in Dogon country.

San and Mopti

After breakfast under the frangipanis off we went to San, an animist village for what was the most incredible experience of this trip if not all trips, as we thought at this point. Every three years, the villagers replace the wooden trunks around their sacred well and rebuild the mound around it. We just happened to turn up for this and be allowed, for a small fee, to observe; again, it feels like we are the only Toubabs in Mali. The chicken had been sacrificed and its feathers wee at the head of the well. The men wee all around the top of the mound around the well, the leaders intent on advising the younger en how to lay and trim the logs. There was much shouting and drumming and sawing to the rhythm of the tm tams. It was intense, focussed work and around the well women of all ages danced and younger boys pick axed at the mound, while we two females toubabs at the rim of hr well worried that we were the real sacrifice...but, no. All was well; the final log was cut to size. Oh, wow, speechless, awesome! Everyone was so happy when the deed was done. We went in to San itself and saw its beautiful mud mosque and enjoyed Capitaine fish and salad not believing our luck. However, yet more was to come.

We arrived in Mopti which is the cross roads of the fish trade. If you look at a map you will see that Mopti is directly north of Ouagadougu and Burkina Faso and the coast further south, and all points in Mali to where the seafood is transported. It is as if we have landed in another magical universe of beautiful people and products. The banks of the Niger are CROWDED with hard-working people busy catching fish, selling fish, trading their wares and they don't seem at all to mind us tasting, questioning, wandering around in awe at the sight.: spices and dried and fresh fish galore, slabs of salt, calabasses, the big dried gourds used for serving food, men recycling huge, blue metal oil cans into nails to make pinasses or boats. A teaming, purposeful, beautiful tableau on the banks of the Niger. All followed by a pinasse trip across the river to an island opposite in the sunset to learn more about their nomadic lifestyle: go where the fish is;

And on the Hotel Amberjelé, hotel de charme, just outside of Mopti for organic French food in a setting modelled on Dogon style.

Ségou

Wednesday we set off early for Ségou, past red earth and green, green, green lushness, towards the north east, passing karité or shea fruit trees. We stopped at a village where the women picked the karité fruit, boiled it, then removed the outer part to pound the inner part to pulp… to shea butter. Each village we visit, we give little gifts, money for photos, etc. We went through villages called names like Binguebougou. Mostly trucks and buses were on the road. There are hardly any Toubabs, (Toubab! Toubabou! Babou! Cadeau!) white people, in Mali in this season. They mostly come when all the great festivals take place and it’s dry and cooler: December, January, February, for the Festival of the Desert that I am determined to participate in for three days some year that made Tinawaren and other Tuareg groups famous, the Dogon festival, and so on. I have to say though, that having experienced the Mistral, the dry, dusty, windiness of the high tourist season does not appeal to me as much as this season when we seem to be alone, everywhere in this verdant idyll.
Our second stop was Old Ségou, or Sékuro village, where we were introduced to the chief of this ancient dynasty on the Niger. After chatting with him about his responsibilities we were given a tour by an initié who showed us the adobe or mud, straw and sand structures. The mosques and tombs of former chiefs are beautifully maintained every year and are deep red. The women are busy everywhere and especially on the life-giving Niger, under the baobab trees. Children followed us everywhere and we gave them the karité fruit we had bought in the shea butter village, which they gobbled up on the spot, wanting more. Here on the Niger were pirogues or pinasses, the colourful local boats, shipping animal feed, twigs, acacia gum, and fishermen making nets, women washing, children swimming, ostensibly the pastoral, village idyll. This is a clean, caring village community, hard-working, especially the women; a lovely, dignified people who have completely missed the Industrial Revolution, its benefits, yes, but also the greed, the pollution, the break up of the extended family, the urbanisation – they have worked on the land and the water all this time and have been very resourceful and creative… I sense a big future for Malians, especially if they can get some of the profit from the oil excavations in the north for themselves.
New Ségou is a delight: quiet, red earth, un-named streets, scrupulously clean, and around our hotel, L’Auberge, best in town, are many merchants selling really beautiful arts and crafts, and in the hotel is a pool surrounded by Frangipani trees I haven’t seen since Hong Kong. In the evening, we walked to a pottery and saw all the colonial buildings and their Sudanese style architecture. We observed that every inch of arable land was planted with millet, sorghum, corn, beans, and so on.
We then drove to a fascinating but less salubrious destination in a poor, Christian part of town where women make millet beer. First the millet seeds are piled in big containers that have a central water hole from where water is moved and poured over the millet for two days non stop, but the millet never sits in water. Once germinated, the seedlings are boiled then dried, then ground …then mixed with water and yeast and heated, fermented an bottled. The women did all the work; the men sat around, the children were dirty, the dogs had suppurating wounds that flies crowded and the generally fly-ridden space killed our curiosity quite quickly. A sorry, sad picture that is heart breaking, but of all the behind-the-scene scenes that we have been introduced to by our wonderful guide, it is the only one of this kind.

Back to a delightful dinner under the frangipanis with the best travelling companion one could wish for. Laura is the most lovable, intelligent, wonderful companion. We can be silent together or have the most satisfying conversations about anything and everything. She offers amazing insights into the Palestine-Israeli conflict and has taught me so much about life in the region. She has been learning to recite the Quoran with Lamine for the intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic pleasure of it and engaged the Lebanese owner of L’Auberge in a long conversation in Arabic.

Bamako

Alors, je me trouvais amoureuse de Sénégal...mais puis j'ai découvert le Mali...MALI!
Sénégal had me spellbound and captivated, oh, but Mali. Everyone should come here. It's been a while since I've had access and time to write but will do my best to describe the incredible images and experiences swirling in my mind, now I can pause to process, making me smile widely and with delight and awe and disbelief.
Arrived in Bamako after a short hop from Dakar to be spirited through customs etc, by Ousmane from Continent Tours, with whom I have liaised for a year now, to meet Mousa, who was to be our guide for the next eight days, and Lamine our driver. It felt right away that we were in good hands.
I had no clear idea what to expect in Mali; Sénégal is sandy and has little vegetation, even though it is on the coast, so I was expecting land- locked Mali, that is blown by the Harmattan, and poorer, to be sandy and dusty, too; it is just next door after all. But, no! Mali is GREEN! LUCIOUSLY VERDANT! The rains had already come in and the whole country is lush with vegetation. Two rivers flood through the country abundantly at the moment, the Sénégal and the amazing Niger, nourishing and enriching everything and giving the people four or so months to work the land. The rain is cooling; it is currently hotter in New York. And there are certainly more mosquitoes in New York. This is an agrarian, Sahelien country between the plains of the south and the deserts of the north where the Tuareg nomads roam. And Al Quada. The Tuareg insurrection of the 90's seems to be a trouble of the past. Plan to go up to Tombouctou on my next trip to visit the scholars' houses and works and see the desert and the magnificent Tuaregs who carry and trade in salt slabs that they carry on their camels from the mines. Interestingly, this salt is only used for animals. But I bought some at the trade center, the port in Mopti! While Mali is considerably bigger than Sénégal, both countries have between 12 and 13 million people.
We dropped our cases off at the Hotel Mirabeau and were then taken on a tour of the city. All we could keep saying was "It's so green!", especially Laura who had been in Cairo for the last seven months, but also: "It's so clean" ... Everyone seems to take responsibility and pride in every place we go, and recycling, of every single thing, is de rigueur. There is beautiful landscaping everywhere in Bamako. We went straight up for a view over the city: the life saving Niger runs through and shoots out hundreds of tributaries; it is like a delta. The soil is deep red and there are green, rocky hills all round, which was such a pleasure after the rather flat Sénégal. No high rises, but attractive houses and Sudanese architecture. Gaddaffi has funded some spectacular buildings, including a mosque, the Saudis also; and the Chinese are building a third, much needed bridge over the Niger. Moussa took us around the beautiful heritage museum where Mali is proudly exhibiting its historical artefacts and fabrics and trying to get back what has been plundered over the years. We went to see the fabric treatment: the cotton is grown and woven, pretty much by hand and then, for some special designs, the fabric is knotted or sewn tightly so that when it is immersed in dye, the tightly gathered areas remain white. Then the fabric goes to a place where men spread resin from the acacia tree over it and literally beat it with heavy wooden hammers. This protects and seals the fabric. We also saw how the dyes are made from natural products and how the black comes from Argile, mud. It is all very hard work. We also went to the laundry: the Niger, where women, who clearly do most of the hard work, are at the river washing clothes and drying them on bushes in the sun. We saw a recycling market where every piece of salvaged metal had been remodelled, all painstakingly by hand, piece by piece. We saw market full of jujus and carved Tuareg and Dogon goods and jewellery and fabric... so many amazing sights already but we hadn’t seen nothing yet!

Lac Rose; Toubab Dialow; Saint Louis

Sunday 11th Saint Louis

Friday, we set off to ACI Baobab after fond farewells to our new, extended family and promises to send photos etc. We tried to sneak the baby into our case but they rathered we took the fun but pesky three year old! At the center, we had the final class I had organized. We met Professor Seck who presented on Senegalese culture and traditions. This was the highlight of the week for me as Professor Seck was so articulate and knowledgeable. We discussed history and the influences of the different empires, of the Portuguese traders, of the colonialists and so on. He pointed out that the location of Dakar and Senegal being situated so far west has been very advantageous to the country, in terms of being accessible by many different influences. We discussed animisme, vaudou, les contes africains and many fascinating aspects of the culture, all of which he put so beautifully into context.

Then, off we went on some travels both north and south of Dakar: to le Lac Rose just to the north, then back south to la Petite Cote, specifically Toubab Dialow. The charming, soft-spoken, calm in every situation Rama, from the Baobab center, and her husband drove us in a huge air-conditioned Ford truck! Public transportation is rough: trains haven’t run for years; buses consist of Sept Places, super colourful and idiosyncratic vans that don’t leave a town till they have many more than seven passengers; all luggage, and you need to be imaginative here and picture anything from huge oil cans, goat feed, enormous plastic bags full of who knows what, is strapped to the roof, tumbling down seemingly precariously but somehow not off, during the journey.

The Lac Rose is just that, a lake that shimmers pink in the sun due to minerals in the water. Salt is harvested from here. After yabba poulet in the campement,, a delightful group of gites where I plan to bring my students next year, we toured the lake and the dunes in a special truck. Men take their pirogues, colourful longboats, into the center of the huge lake and dig up the sand and load into the boat. The women then meet them at the shore and transfer the salt, now wet and grey, into mounds to dry and bleach in the sun around the lake. Hot, hard work. Incredibly, the shores around the salty lake had fields of parsley, basil, millet. Agriculture seems all to be done with a horse and cart. The truck driver then let down the tyres and off we went dune surfing along and on the longest imaginable beach where we bathed our toes and wanted to stay forever. This is not called the grande cote for nothing. There isn’t much grander, untouched and beautiful.

Then, we headed back south of Dakar, going through Thies, to la petite cote: a series of bays and beaches, fishing villages, mangroves…to Toubab Dialow. (Toubab is the equivalent of Gweilo.) The villages along the cote and this one too, were clearly poorer than the city. Our auberge here was Senegalese style and reminded me of a resort in Bali: thatched, elegant open air spaces for dining, resting, viewing the sea; a little terracotta open air auditorium where locals taught us to play the rhythmic ton tons drums, that you hear lads jamming on everywhere, and a Senegalese dance. Hundreds of the most amazing black and yellow birds were going through a crazy ritual in the trees around their hanging nests, flapping their wings very fast and chirping furiously, all together! Spectacular! Bougainvillea grows everywhere in Senegal, as do Flames of the Forest and many other beautiful tropical trees. Fried fish for dinner and off to sleep in our room overlooking the village and sea, with just a fan until the electricity went out. No water in the tank in the morning until it had been refilled. We swam on the beach and had a lesson in batik the next morning. We are very proud of our creations. Lunch of fish again: can’t get enough of this fresh, delicious food served with tiny cubes of carrot, hot pepper and other vegetables in a vinaigrette sauce, or maybe a lemon and piment butter…trop delicieux! There are cats everywhere in Senegal! Everywhere! Survivors. But today I espied a baby hedgehog, tout petit! Near our batik dyeing vats.

Friday afternoon we set off back to the north in our big truck, to Saint Louis. The journey of four hours or so gave us a good glimpse of the land, much of which appeared to be cultivated by individual with horse and cart. Millet, groundnut, main export, and maize. Where the land wasn’t cultivated we saw the Tragedy of the Commons: wastelands where there was no ownership, full of the ubiquitous plastic bag, which sometimes seemed to grow in trees. Then there were the swathes of red earth populated by the mighty baobab growing as far as the eye could see. What a magnificent tree! Even the baby trees were about 80-100 years old. Griots used to be buried in the baobab until the government banned this practice on sanitary grounds. It produces a pendulous yellow fruit and flower from which locals make pain de singe, monkey bread, used in couscous or for a chalky, bittersweet drink. It is mango season! In every village a riot of color hits you as the beautiful women in their bright pagnes line the road with their stalls piled high with the beautiful mango: enormous, pink, orange, yellow, red and green. We stopped to buy a barrel load for peanuts; which we also bought by the side of the road. What more do you need?!

Arriving in Saint Louis, we said farewell for now to Rama and her brilliant driver of a husband. This ends my episode, for the most part, with ACI Baobab. We are now enjoying an unscheduled few days here in the former colonial capital up by the border with Mauritania, which we can see from the tip of Saint Louis island, where we are staying at l’Hotel de la Poste. Saint Louis reminds me of Tavira, in Portugal, for its location on the river and the old colonial buildings, or Macau when it was a sleepy place, a place to escape the pace of Hong Kong, before the big casinos arrived. The island, which might take you a leisurely 30-45 minutes to walk from north to south, and five or ten minutes east to west, is full of either crumbling or beautifully restored colonial era buildings. People approach you, as in Dakar, mais c’est cool, relaxe; peaceful, slow. There is a bridge that connects to what they call le continent, the mainland, of which I am sure David would disapprove. It is very low and currently only taking one-way traffic as it is being repaired. Infrastructure is variable. Sidewalks can be sand or broken up concrete or tile, or blocked with cars that necessitate walking in the road.

There s a most wonderful French bakery selling beignets, buttery croissants and the best coffee, with croque madames, macaroons, etc where we gorge on sweet things for breakfast, something we haven’t done all week and didn’t realise we’d missed. We wandered around the island looking at the ceremonies of hundreds of beautifully dressed people here and there or the wares in the shops or the tree lined allees where goats and cats and turkeys and lizards lazed. The river is lined with colourful pirogues. Saint Louis regrets the moving of the capital, and the funding, to Dakar, but this is a charming place, albeit clearly poorer, again, than the capital. Saturday night we dined at the northern tip of the island at a Vietnamese restaurant on calamar and crevettes in delectable chopped sauces of basil, piment, carrot and other vegetables and spices, all the while serenaded by a couple of muezzins who sounded quite hysterical in their jubilant, frenzied singing last night. In the evenings there might be brown outs and the island is pitch dark, but we are assured and have to learn that we very safe here. The odd passing taxi might stop and you can negotiate your price, or happily adhere to Responsible Tourism and pay over the local rate without haggling. Windscreens might be plastic or cracked, doors and windows might not open or close and the driver might stop to pick up other rides en route to your destination.

Sunday morning, this morning, we went with a guide from the syndicat d’initiative to la Langue du Barbarie, a very long spit of sand which runs along the west or Atlantic side of the river from Saint Louis island. This is one of the first stops for birds migrating south across the dessert so it is full of flocks of all sorts of familiar and unfamiliar birds, waders, pelicans, cormorants of beautiful colors,…and a beautiful beach where we watched fishing pirogues and hundreds of crabs, and where Laura saw baby hammer head sharks and a sting ray.

A lazy afternoon blogging, nibbling and reading and tonight le restaurant la Louisiane for capitaine grilled fish, after connecting with Clare, young Brit, from Projects Abroad in the colonial style, stuffed animal bar of the Hotel de la Poste during the match Pays Bas v. Spain… She very enthusiastically told me all about PA and what sort of program they could provide for my students. They would be volunteers working with the talibes, boys given by their families to be educated by their marabouts or spiritual leaders, but who are mostly abused in many ways. PA provides a wonderful shelter for them. I am going to see the center tomorrow morning in Sor, over the bridge from the mainland. My students would work with the talibes, learn French and Wolof, go into the desert and Dakar and Goree at the end. (Quite tough but now, having visited the center I think my students would be dedicated volunteers.) I talked with Clare a little about my students and how I ask them at the beginning of my course on French West Africa to brainstorm words that come to mind when they conjure up the words L’Afrique…I get corruption, AIDS, drought, deforestation, poverty, war, desertification, etc, etc: mostly negative responses. Clare pointed out the many ways the West has lost its way and gone wrong; the obvious value of the extended family, the way western children seem so out of control and Senegalese kids so respectful and well-disciplined, the difficulty explaining to a Senegalese how it is so much more expensive for us in the West to buy organic when they will just chop the head off that chicken in the yard, how kids in the West always need the latest toy, phone, lap top and don’t appreciate the sheer joy of the Senegalese kid happy as Larry splashing about in a puddle.

A little wander around town this afternoon, dinner at la Louisiane and tomorrow morning, taxi back to Dakar, (no a/c.) A night at the Hotel Farid again and off on an 8am flight Tuesday to Bamako where we will stay Tuesday 13^th in l’Hotel Mirabeau and tour Bamako l’apres-midi. Wednesday Segou, former capital of the Bambara kingdom, Sudanese style architecture, Thursday, Mopti, market, mosque and sunset sail on Niger river. Friday, Kona by boat for about 7 hours on the river, then on to the ultimate: Dogon country! We hike here Saturday and see a mask dance, we hope. Sunday back to Mopti and Monday Djenne for the Unesco protected mosque, one of the largest mud-brick structures in the world. Tuesday July 20^th back to Bamako for three nights to chill in a nice hotel. Not sure how much internet time we are going to get over this period. Wi-fi pretty good everywhere so far. Just love my Blackberry keeping me connected, though! Keep on writing to me! A bientot!

Dakar 3 Studies at ACI Baobab

Saturday evening. Hotel de la Poste, St Louis.

Sitting, supping a beer, watching the Uruguay - Germany game, (Allez! Uruguay!) And finally a minute and the opportunity to get online.

Last Tuesday, then, Professor Youssepha Diop had talked about the role of women in Senegal. Fascinating insights and discussion. The traditional role, the perfect wife, polygamy, excision, etc. The professor then showed us around Dakar to demonstrate its social, architectural and commercial transitions over the years. We started in the sprawling Sandaga market through whose encumbered streets cars and taxis tried to navigate. You name it, you can buy it here! The labyrinthine, laden, internal parts of the market reminded me of the Walled City or even Stanley market in Hong Kong before they disappeared; in the same way Sandaga will one day. Already commercial centres were being built adjacent to the stalls to encourage a move by the merchants. Better for traffic flow and so on, but better for ambiance?  One is persuaded to buy at every step and Yousepha advised us that a final price of 1/3 the asking price was appropriate. Glad I have my tough negotiator with me, in the form of Laura!

On to embassies, palaces and the IFAN museum which is full of masks, information about rituals and recreations of villages from all over Africa; the most impressive of course being the Dogon who we will see next week!!

Back at the Baobab centre that evening I met Gary Engleberg, Director, who gave me more information on how ACI could help me put together a language/service trip together for my students next June.  The programs are truly personalized and global in their outlook. We talked about connecting with a lycee in Dakar.

Off to Copacabana round the corner from ACI for a beer and the match. The usual Teranga here: an irresistible, delectable dish of either mussels or fried fish is offered on the house with your (very cheap) beer.  Then home to a smaller family gathering at dinner tonight; the men are rarely around.  Spicy peas and juicy lamb eaten from the communal dish with a piece of baguette.  As there will be a big ceremony in Touba, spiritual center just inland, at the end of the week for one of the marabouts, spiritual leaders, the women and a visiting son set to, to peel and grind vats of ginger, oranges, beans, making juices, sauces and pastes till gone midnight.

Breakfast is always good: coffee, baguette and confiture. At 7 or 8 in the morning, after morning prayers that are initiated by the muezzin at 5am, an army of young girls and women appear in the courtyard to wash dishes, wash clothes, iron clothes, (with the form of iron that you fill with hot coals,) clean and scrub, The Senegalese are scrupulously clean and well presented, always, at all times and everywhere. They are all impeccable, (never sweaty with hair stuck to their heads, like me sometimes!) and very beautiful in the way they hold themselves and in their colourful pagnes and boubous.  

Wednesday, professor Lamine Kane described Education in Senegal: again, fascinating insights into the griot tradition and the colonial education, which still pretty much exists today in spite of many reforms. There have been many strikes over the years among teachers’ unions, even during the new Wade era. We then visited a Middle School and were very impressed, as usual, by how well disciplined and respectful children are here. I talked and established contacts with many teachers who do so much with so little. We then visited the Cheikh Diop University and visited the library building full of students swotting for final exams. The building is splendid although could use some maintenance and some improved resources.

After another delicious grilled fish at Baobab, off we went with Samba to HLM market to buy pagnes and boubous and headscarves for our visit to La Grande Mosquee where we climbed a minaret for marvelous views over Dakar.

We then returned to our last night en famille where the preparations for tomorrow’s family trip to Touba continued, with the cutting of pastry and the frying of hundreds of beignets in a huge, portable gas fryer that was set up in the courtyard...which of course we got to taste! 

Dakar 2 Our Family

Saturday night, we dined again on the most excellent seafood at Just4U: fillet of fish and enormous gambas in a blend of spices that are not so unfamiliar but which make up a whole new taste. Tonight, Cheikh Lo performed with his band of tambour, sax, guitar and electric piano players. His voice was a marvel that had me spellbound, as was his rhythm on his tambours. His range helped overcome the effect of his bizarreness!

Sunday, Rama from ACI came to collect us to take us to our family's home near the mosque in Mermoz, a residential district of Dakar. The gentle, wise grandmother and matriarch, Anta Ba Diop, heads the family. The family has lived in this villa since it was built in the 70's. She has many grown children, three of whom live with her with their families and many who visit every day. Observing this extended family living begs the comparison with the western lifestyle and made me think of the last lonely days my mum had in her house before being moved to an institution, in spite of the best efforts by all. The home is a three storey villa built around a central courtyard where all family activity takes place: the six or seven boys between the ages of 1 and 16 play ball here, some watch TV, when allowed, and we al eat here. Grandma assumes her position on her mat here all day, giving counsel, chiding or praising, mostly Allah, as the need arises. All bedrooms are off the courtyard, as is the concrete pen for the family’s three sheep.

Soon after our arrival, we were invited to join everyone on a mat on the tiled courtyard floor to enjoy our first communal meal, as if it were the most normal thing in the world and we had been doing it forever. The Ba Diops are hugely hospitable. Twelve of us sat in two groups circled around two huge round dishes of rice with arachide, groundnut, sauce and meat. Most ate with their right hand but we were given spoons for our first foray…and off we went! For the evening meal, we used our hands and pieces of baguette to eat spaghetti with roast chicken and onion sautéed, again, in the most delectable spices. The family watches what we eat closely and is not satisfied with the amount of food we eat. Last night one of the fathers told me I needed fattening up, and the wives giggled that I needed a bigger butt! I have to say that the food is so delicious everywhere that these recommendations may well come to fruition by the end of this experience in Africa!

In the afternoon, between meals, we wandered around the quartier and came across a brand new Radisson Bleu, the first of its kind in Dakar. The Danes have also opened a Bleu in Bamako. The hotel is on the Corniche, the road which winds along the beaches where children, now on school vacation, were swimming and shrieking with delight. We enjoyed a good coffee and ice cream here in air conditioning. We knew our night in our little, hot room, with just a fan was going to be a bit of a challenge…and it was!

Monday morning, one of or mothers took us to our class at ACI Baobab. Africa Consultants International is an NGO that works to promote cross-cultural understanding, social justice and the health and well being of Africa’s people. We met Ismail Massaly, who in less than two hours took us through the basics of Wolof all the way to the past tense. This morning, Tuesday, we continued with another Wolof class, building and practicing. Ismael is very sweet, charming, helpful and responsive to questions. I will be teaching what I've learned in my French Africa class, next year. It is thrilling to be learning a new language and to be able to take it all “home” and use it every day with our family.

After class yesterday, we visited Goree, an isle which is accessible by a fifteen minute ferry ride from Dakar and which is charming for its crumbling ochre and terracotta colonial style buildings, its slower pace, its pretty beaches ad its artists colony, all spread with bougainvillea of every colour. Goree is not a destination to visitors for these reasons however; it houses the Maison des Esclaves from whence hundreds of West Africans were shipped to Europe and the US; where those underweight were stuffed with arachide oil, where young virgins who became impregnated by their colonial masters could gain their freedom, where anyone complaining would be incarcerated in a hole for a month, and so on. Poignant is the dark alleyway that today leads to the light, but which then led to a ship, la porte sans retour.

We are now eating bananas and mangos and waiting to set off for a lecture tour on Dakar in Transition.

Dakar 1

In my mind I'd half decided I wanted to come and live in Dakar on a sabbatical...everything I've experienced so far confirms this aspiration.  

Miraculously, everything at the airport at 5am yesterday morning went to plan: Laura and I met up for the first time in 6 months..and our luggage also arrived. Unbelievably joyous and good to see her after her semester in Cairo and her travels in Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Syria and Lebanon. She has regaled me with many stories and showed me hundreds of photos of truly wondrous places.

We found the delightful Hotel Farid by taxi after quick negotiations and slept all morning. Then began the fun: the street scene outside the hotel comprised the usual city sights and noises, but included the sound of a goat, close by, and the first glimpse of the beautiful Senegalese women in their colorful pagnes, carrying their loads atop their heads with such ease and grace; also the passing of a lute and tambour duo, who were seemingly performing as they walked along for the pleasure of it .

In two days we have been to the biggest open air market in Dakar, seen Ghana, Africa's only hope, get knocked out, Argentina get knocked out,  (currently we are watching to see how Spain fares,) eaten our first Thioff and Thieboudienne, Senegal's delicious fish dishes, been to the best outdoor music locale and viewed much art and craft.

Dining here is a DELIGHT! The food is absolutely delicious, served beautifully by Senegalese who live by Teranga: a warm hospitality and pride in their city and nation. The first day we dined at the famed Hotel Farid's restaurant, primarily Lebanese food but also the local, national dish Thieboudienne. In the evening Thioff, seafood, at the famed Just4u. Today for lunch we dined outside under the enormous baobab tree at L'Institut Francais: Gado gado and prawns. 

The weather is in the high 80's but Dakar's westerly, coastal location invites cooling breezes all day. No mozzies as yet but we have tended to take a siesta late afternoon, early evening.

We have done what we girls do best in all the crowded markets that are bursting with local goods, bright cotton clothing, arts and crafts.

The main reason I chose Senegal and Mali was to hear the music I have become obsessed with these last few years. Just4u is a lovely venue we are returning to tonight. In open air under huge straw umbrellas surrounded by hibiscus trees, the venue attracts the best performers in Senegal. The crowd will hopefully get up and demonstrate the legendary mbalax style of dance that is so exciting, initiated by Youssou N'Dour, whose club is also up the road.

Tomorrow, we are collected by Rama of ACI Baobab at 12 to be taken to our family in the Mermoz district. Love to everyone. Bonne soiree!