I made it to Timbuktou.
I made it to Timbuktou and a swarm of hawkers, guides, and scoundrels met me with a big smile, my white face drawing them out, they met me like miners meet an ore of gold. I made it to Timbuktou and a guy tried to sell me a shirt that said 'I made it to Timbuktou.' I made it to Timbuktou, and the sun was hot and the wind blew sand and dust and trash. I made it to Timbuktou, I stayed a little while, and then I turned around and headed for home.
It was a bit of a disapointment. I snapped a few picturs in front of the various European explorer's houses, noted the mildly interesting architecture, some yellowed manuscripts in a museum, and then I found a guide, or rather I should say he found me, who put me in touch with his friend, who talked to his brother, and soon I was off into the desert with a camel named Ajoumar and a sly Taureg camelherder named Alhalifa.
Or at least I thought I was off into the desert. I had wanted to see the Sahara, stand on a hill and see nothing but sand and rock around me, but mile after mile the remnants of the Sahel continued. There were sand dunes for sure, little wind-ruffled hills of sand, but they stood in an ocean of dry prickly grasses and little thorn trees, goats and goat herders, and I was told to my great frustration that the real desert was a seven-day camel ride north. I had two days, so you could say I made it to the fringe of the Sahara, but the real thing I did not see.
Desert or not, the landscape around Timbuktou is interesting, low hills, light yellows and ochres, sand, and riding a camel is fun. You sit with your feet bracing against its long neck, in a v-shaped wood saddle strapped to this very tall animal's even taller hump. Riding along rhythmically from this considerable altitude, with a straight back and dressed in a turqoise Taureg gown and turban, I felt royal, like a king on my tall horse surveying a grand conquest. The illusion broke when I dismounted --rather clumsily -- and found myself completely helpless. The prickly 'kram-krams' in the grass ate into my feet and sandals, slowing my walks to a crawl as I stopped to pick them out; the heat was awful, the gown felt silly and akward, and nausea welled up from a diet of couscous-in-sick-brown-sauce with gristly goat meat.
The Taureg people, also called the Tamashek, are the main ethnic group around Timbuktou and across the southern fringe of the Sahara, from Niger to Mali and beyond. Half of them look Arabic, the other half look like other black Africans, but they all speak the same harsh-sounding language, and the men are easily identified in their long gowns and face-covering turbans. They're a tough, desert-hardy people. Traditionally nomadic, many still live in semi-permanent straw-mat huts across the desert fringe, and make their living as sheperds and traders, and now also as hawkers of tourist trinkets. In the past their grand camel caravans criss-crossed the Sahara to trade gold, salt, and slaves, and to this day caravans make long expeditions, usually to gather salt from mines near the Algerian border. Traditionally they kept slaves, and from what I gather a strict social hierarchy still exists. Slavery, or a kind of unfree indentured-servitude, is reported to still exist in some parts. The Taureg are also the least integrated ethnicity in many of these countries; a Taureg rebellion in northern Niger still simmers, and one in northern Mali was resolved just a few years ago.
Anyway, Alhalifa, who is Taureg, and Ajoumar the camel and I spent two days and nights outside Timbuktou -- one night resting in a small Tuareg encampment, the second night on a sand dune. The desert is at it's best at night, when the blinding heat of the day gives way to cool and then cold, when the stars come out and a powerful silence holds sway. It's common for the larger camel caravans to travel by night and rest by day, navigating by 'bel-haadi,' the north star, and other constellations.
On the second day we rode past sunset and into the darkness, watching the stars appear one by one and the distant glow of the city rise on a stretch of horizon to the south. We made a little campfire, shared another awful meal of couscous and goat gristle, and I slept like I was awake, with vivid dreams under a cold clear sky, 'abba-raana-bakkar' (the Milky Way, literally the way of the blood of the sacrificed goat), and bel-haadi, and a thousand other stars shining above me. I had come two thousand kilometers over four countries, one month, sickness and homesickness, in overcrowded cars, buses, and boats, met good people and bad, and here, this here was the destination, my effort, my farthest reach. I had finally arrived. Even better, I was on my way back home.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Road to Timbuktou, Part II
From mountainous Hombori I caught a five-hour pre-dawn bus to the town of Gao on the bank of the Niger. Gao, like Timbuktou, was once the center of a Sahelian empire, but now it's a miserable outpost of dreary mud-brick buildings, dusty streets, and mercenary tourist guides. After the last days of heat-exhaustion in Hombori and some days with a miserable guide in Dogon country, it marked a low point of morale. I spent two days here waiting to get out, and when I found out they had an airport I almost took an early flight home.
I decided to continue on to Timbouktou, however, but finding transport was difficult. Two locals finally 'helped' me book an overpriced passage on a transport boat docked in the harbor, which they assured me would leave the next morning. After I put down my deposit down I learned it was to leave the day following the next day, at 8am, by which time a more comfortable, cheaper, and faster passenger boat had come and gone. So, two days later, at 3pm not 8am, I left with a dozen passengers, five crew, two donkeys and a goat. I was told the journey would take two nights and a day, but, this being Africa, I knew that could mean anything.
The 60 foot-long motor boat was made of wide wooden planks and a rounded, straw-mat roof supported by saplings and tree branches. It wasn't designed for comfort, or really for any type of quality. The main job of one of the crewmen was to scoop water out the boat, water which continually seeped in from dozens of tiny holes. The holes were 'fixed' by pushing cotton rags into them with a special tool. Getting from one end of the boat to the other was an obstacle course over wooden beams, cargo, people, a cooking area, and the motors themselves; alternately you could trust your climbing skills and mount the outside of the boat to the roof, then walk along the (rounded) roof to the other side. Still, the boat stayed afloat, and I on it, and slowly but surely we made our way against the current of Niger towards Timbuktou.
How do you pass five days and five nights on an uncomfortable boat? I slept, I painted, I ate, I decoded a French spy thriller using a dictionary (CIA agent looks for two Irianian terrorists, but mostly just finds sexy women), I spent hours staring at the shoreline, watching sand dunes and river grasses and egrets and little fishing villages pass by. I thought about what I would do when I get home (I'll spend a day on the couch with the Sunday Times, a cup of real coffee and a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese, tomatoe, and a pinch of salt; after that I'm not sure). We stopped at a village one night to load over a hundred huge sacks of white flour, which left the porters covered in a fine white dust, white dust against their black skin in the moonlight, a terrific sight. We stopped to visit the family of the captain (which ended in an argument), and we stopped at other villages for smaller loads and passengers, and each night we pulled ashore for a few hours to give the pilots some rest. I slept on a wooden board next to the grumpy captain, who spat and coughed and mumbled all through the night.
The Niger River must be over a mile wide in some parts, and it's really peaceful, really beautiful. The days were hot but the evenings cool and serene, and at night the moon came out, turning towards full, so the river glittered in silver light. I eventually made friends with the other passengers and crew, I painted portraits of several of them, and when on the third day I got really sick, Umu, the mother-figure of the boat, gave me some medicine and some comforting looks of concern. The boat had begun to feel like home, especially in the central cooking area where the women kept up a good banter. But a strange kind of home. The cavernous roof, held up by rib-like supports, was shaped much like the rounded bottom and I felt like I was inside a big whale, traveling slowly on my way to nowhere. The motor kept up a constant hum, the scenery passed effortlessly, the sun rose and fell, the moon rose and fell, I lost track of time. No one could tell me how far we'd come or how far to go -- one kid spoke a halting French and he had no clue -- so I just relaxed and trusted that things would work out.
Now I'm in Timbuktou.
I decided to continue on to Timbouktou, however, but finding transport was difficult. Two locals finally 'helped' me book an overpriced passage on a transport boat docked in the harbor, which they assured me would leave the next morning. After I put down my deposit down I learned it was to leave the day following the next day, at 8am, by which time a more comfortable, cheaper, and faster passenger boat had come and gone. So, two days later, at 3pm not 8am, I left with a dozen passengers, five crew, two donkeys and a goat. I was told the journey would take two nights and a day, but, this being Africa, I knew that could mean anything.
The 60 foot-long motor boat was made of wide wooden planks and a rounded, straw-mat roof supported by saplings and tree branches. It wasn't designed for comfort, or really for any type of quality. The main job of one of the crewmen was to scoop water out the boat, water which continually seeped in from dozens of tiny holes. The holes were 'fixed' by pushing cotton rags into them with a special tool. Getting from one end of the boat to the other was an obstacle course over wooden beams, cargo, people, a cooking area, and the motors themselves; alternately you could trust your climbing skills and mount the outside of the boat to the roof, then walk along the (rounded) roof to the other side. Still, the boat stayed afloat, and I on it, and slowly but surely we made our way against the current of Niger towards Timbuktou.
How do you pass five days and five nights on an uncomfortable boat? I slept, I painted, I ate, I decoded a French spy thriller using a dictionary (CIA agent looks for two Irianian terrorists, but mostly just finds sexy women), I spent hours staring at the shoreline, watching sand dunes and river grasses and egrets and little fishing villages pass by. I thought about what I would do when I get home (I'll spend a day on the couch with the Sunday Times, a cup of real coffee and a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese, tomatoe, and a pinch of salt; after that I'm not sure). We stopped at a village one night to load over a hundred huge sacks of white flour, which left the porters covered in a fine white dust, white dust against their black skin in the moonlight, a terrific sight. We stopped to visit the family of the captain (which ended in an argument), and we stopped at other villages for smaller loads and passengers, and each night we pulled ashore for a few hours to give the pilots some rest. I slept on a wooden board next to the grumpy captain, who spat and coughed and mumbled all through the night.
The Niger River must be over a mile wide in some parts, and it's really peaceful, really beautiful. The days were hot but the evenings cool and serene, and at night the moon came out, turning towards full, so the river glittered in silver light. I eventually made friends with the other passengers and crew, I painted portraits of several of them, and when on the third day I got really sick, Umu, the mother-figure of the boat, gave me some medicine and some comforting looks of concern. The boat had begun to feel like home, especially in the central cooking area where the women kept up a good banter. But a strange kind of home. The cavernous roof, held up by rib-like supports, was shaped much like the rounded bottom and I felt like I was inside a big whale, traveling slowly on my way to nowhere. The motor kept up a constant hum, the scenery passed effortlessly, the sun rose and fell, the moon rose and fell, I lost track of time. No one could tell me how far we'd come or how far to go -- one kid spoke a halting French and he had no clue -- so I just relaxed and trusted that things would work out.
Now I'm in Timbuktou.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Road to Timbuktou, Part I
I wrote last from Sevare, just outside of the Dogon Counrtry of south-central Mali. To elaborate a little, the Dogon live along a big, flat-topped cliff that marks a welcome rise from hundreds of miles of flatlands to the south. Traditionally they lived in mud-brick and stone houses built right into the face of the cliff, which you can still see, not unlike some Native American dwellings in New Mexico and Arizona. They still bury some of their dead in fissures high up on the cliffs, little cracks in the rock that they reach with rope made from baobab trees. Today most Dogon live near their fields of millet on the plains below and on top of the cliff, or in nearby towns, and although many still practice their traditional religion, others are Christian or Muslim. I visited Dogon Country with a native guide, who drank bags of pre-mixed gin and tonic as we walked, and who hung out with his raucous African buddies at night, so what is considered one of west Africa's most extraordinary places became in fact a bit tediuous. But the trip continued, thankfully alone.
In Sevare, a tranport link at the edge of Dogon Country, I had the choice of a day's direct ride to Timbuktou, or taking the long way to Timbuktou.
In centuries past, Timbuktou marked the end of the trans-Saharan caravans that linked Europe, the Arab lands, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It grew on the riches of the caravans -- slaves and gold going north, salt and other goods coming south -- and was the capital of an empire when Europe was a mess of sqwabbling, pest-addled kingdoms. For the Muslim world, it was a center of scholarship in astronomy, religion, medicine, and other fields before a series of armies ran it into the ground. Trade with Europe eventually dwindled as European ships brought trade goods to Africa's coast, circumventing the caravans, and Timbuktoo fell into decline, retaining only a whisper of its former glory. Dozens of Europeans tried to reach it over the centuries, but the first ones didn't arrive until the 1820s. Today you can fly here, or take a day's ride from Sevare as I might have, but the place retains its allure and I didn't want to spoil the fun by getting here the easy way.
So, from Sevare I took a bus east to a town called Hombori, and spent four days there and in the nearby village of Daari. This is a mountainous part of Mali that looks a lot like New Mexico, with an arid landscape and huge mesas rising out of flatlands. I hiked to the near-top of the 'Cle de Hombori,' picking thorns out of my flip-flops along the way, and watched hawks and eagles flying below me and a spectacular view of Tondo Hombori, Mali's highest peak at 1155 meters, and a vast plain that dissolved into dust-laden air. I spent another day climbing around the 'Main de Fatima,' a formation of five giant rock spires farther down the road, but I got caught hiking in the mid-day sun, and despite plenty of water and sunscreen I got completely slammed by the heat. I spent the rest of that day in my hut praying for evening and the coolness that comes with it, sucking down water and craving salt. I have some watercolors from this landscape that I hope to use as studies for a painting of a vast, silent landscape, starting with thorns and brambles and yellow grasses and continuing with little dots of paint into infinity.
At the base of the 'Main de Fatima' is the Fulani village of Daari. Traditionally semi-nomadic goat and cattle-herders, the Fulani live across Sahelian West-Africa, and often look different from other Africans: thinner, somewhat lighter-skinned, the women often with hair braided in long strands across their heads. Of the many overlapping ethnic groups in west Africa, I somehow like the Fulani the most. My friend in Benin was Fulani, and I stayed with his Fulani family in Niger, and the town of Dori where I stayed with a Peace Corps volunteer is mostly Fulani. The village of Daari, however, was one of the most miserable I've seen, and the villagers, being used to tourists, ran up to me demanding gifts and showing me hideous infections and deformities.
As in many other villages, the women of Daari used a small, seasonal water hole for washing, bathing, and drinking and cooking, and this water was the most putrid, foul-smelling, nasty water you could imagine. It was shared by their animals, cow droppings everywhere, and I saw a kid going to the bathroom on the shoreline, but I don't think they've made the connection between water quality and illness. It's ironic, because generally people really care about hygiene, they wash a lot, wash their clothes a lot, wash their hands and feet before praying, and use only their right 'clean' hand to greet people.
In Africa, people really do get sick more often, children die in infancy, adults die younger, accidents happen, and there's no welfare, no health insurance, no protection from the uncontrollable forces of nature and man, only the comfort of family and religion. In the cities, there are sewers with enormous sections of concrete missing, so one misstep and you've either broken your leg or you're soaking in a nasty brew of urine and trash. In restaurants, the metal fans behind refridgerators often face common areas, ready to cut the fingers of anyone walking too close. Traffic is a terror, malaria comes with the rainy season...if I lived here, I would also become superstitious and religious.
This first week or so in Mali was interesting, but it was exhausting, and it felt good to finally catch a bus and be on the move again.
In Sevare, a tranport link at the edge of Dogon Country, I had the choice of a day's direct ride to Timbuktou, or taking the long way to Timbuktou.
In centuries past, Timbuktou marked the end of the trans-Saharan caravans that linked Europe, the Arab lands, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It grew on the riches of the caravans -- slaves and gold going north, salt and other goods coming south -- and was the capital of an empire when Europe was a mess of sqwabbling, pest-addled kingdoms. For the Muslim world, it was a center of scholarship in astronomy, religion, medicine, and other fields before a series of armies ran it into the ground. Trade with Europe eventually dwindled as European ships brought trade goods to Africa's coast, circumventing the caravans, and Timbuktoo fell into decline, retaining only a whisper of its former glory. Dozens of Europeans tried to reach it over the centuries, but the first ones didn't arrive until the 1820s. Today you can fly here, or take a day's ride from Sevare as I might have, but the place retains its allure and I didn't want to spoil the fun by getting here the easy way.
So, from Sevare I took a bus east to a town called Hombori, and spent four days there and in the nearby village of Daari. This is a mountainous part of Mali that looks a lot like New Mexico, with an arid landscape and huge mesas rising out of flatlands. I hiked to the near-top of the 'Cle de Hombori,' picking thorns out of my flip-flops along the way, and watched hawks and eagles flying below me and a spectacular view of Tondo Hombori, Mali's highest peak at 1155 meters, and a vast plain that dissolved into dust-laden air. I spent another day climbing around the 'Main de Fatima,' a formation of five giant rock spires farther down the road, but I got caught hiking in the mid-day sun, and despite plenty of water and sunscreen I got completely slammed by the heat. I spent the rest of that day in my hut praying for evening and the coolness that comes with it, sucking down water and craving salt. I have some watercolors from this landscape that I hope to use as studies for a painting of a vast, silent landscape, starting with thorns and brambles and yellow grasses and continuing with little dots of paint into infinity.
At the base of the 'Main de Fatima' is the Fulani village of Daari. Traditionally semi-nomadic goat and cattle-herders, the Fulani live across Sahelian West-Africa, and often look different from other Africans: thinner, somewhat lighter-skinned, the women often with hair braided in long strands across their heads. Of the many overlapping ethnic groups in west Africa, I somehow like the Fulani the most. My friend in Benin was Fulani, and I stayed with his Fulani family in Niger, and the town of Dori where I stayed with a Peace Corps volunteer is mostly Fulani. The village of Daari, however, was one of the most miserable I've seen, and the villagers, being used to tourists, ran up to me demanding gifts and showing me hideous infections and deformities.
As in many other villages, the women of Daari used a small, seasonal water hole for washing, bathing, and drinking and cooking, and this water was the most putrid, foul-smelling, nasty water you could imagine. It was shared by their animals, cow droppings everywhere, and I saw a kid going to the bathroom on the shoreline, but I don't think they've made the connection between water quality and illness. It's ironic, because generally people really care about hygiene, they wash a lot, wash their clothes a lot, wash their hands and feet before praying, and use only their right 'clean' hand to greet people.
In Africa, people really do get sick more often, children die in infancy, adults die younger, accidents happen, and there's no welfare, no health insurance, no protection from the uncontrollable forces of nature and man, only the comfort of family and religion. In the cities, there are sewers with enormous sections of concrete missing, so one misstep and you've either broken your leg or you're soaking in a nasty brew of urine and trash. In restaurants, the metal fans behind refridgerators often face common areas, ready to cut the fingers of anyone walking too close. Traffic is a terror, malaria comes with the rainy season...if I lived here, I would also become superstitious and religious.
This first week or so in Mali was interesting, but it was exhausting, and it felt good to finally catch a bus and be on the move again.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Congratulations America!!!
'America is second to heaven'
-Ghanian street vendor in Cotonou (a few weeks ago)
Congratulations America!!! I woke up this morning on a rooftop in Begnimato, a small village on top of the Bandiagara Cliff in Dogon Country, southern Mali, to hear the good news...I couldn't believe it at first, but some guides and other travellers had listened to the radio and yes, we will have a new presdient, Obama won, it's time for a change, it's amazing!
Over the last two months, every single African I've talked to has been hopeful for Obama. They've followed the election over the radio, and they were excited that someone with African roots might make it to the top of a country they regard as the most powerful and wonderful in the world. They truly see the US as a land flowing with wealth and opportunity: even if the real thing might not live up to the fantasy, America really is a symbol of hope and liberty, and I am so glad that we now have the chance to live up to that symbol. People here love America despite the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, and despite these countries being up to 90 percent Muslim.
I'm in Mali, just passed through the Dogon Country, where the flatlands end abruptly in a huge mesa, and where some people still practice their traditional religion. It was harvest season, and it seemed like entire villages were outside cutting millet, then hauling it and pounding it for storage, even the smallest little kids were out in the fields. I went with a guide, but as far as I can tell the only good a guide does in Mali is keep other guides off your back. Mali is perhaps the most-visited country in West Africa, so people see you as a cash machine, which is rather unpleasant. I painted some really bad watercolors here the last few days, plus one I like, it's a baobab tree in the evening. Niger and Burkina were much more intersting, with friendly people, or people who just left you alone.
Right now I'm in Sevare, about 200 km south of Timbuktoo.
-Ghanian street vendor in Cotonou (a few weeks ago)
Congratulations America!!! I woke up this morning on a rooftop in Begnimato, a small village on top of the Bandiagara Cliff in Dogon Country, southern Mali, to hear the good news...I couldn't believe it at first, but some guides and other travellers had listened to the radio and yes, we will have a new presdient, Obama won, it's time for a change, it's amazing!
Over the last two months, every single African I've talked to has been hopeful for Obama. They've followed the election over the radio, and they were excited that someone with African roots might make it to the top of a country they regard as the most powerful and wonderful in the world. They truly see the US as a land flowing with wealth and opportunity: even if the real thing might not live up to the fantasy, America really is a symbol of hope and liberty, and I am so glad that we now have the chance to live up to that symbol. People here love America despite the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, and despite these countries being up to 90 percent Muslim.
I'm in Mali, just passed through the Dogon Country, where the flatlands end abruptly in a huge mesa, and where some people still practice their traditional religion. It was harvest season, and it seemed like entire villages were outside cutting millet, then hauling it and pounding it for storage, even the smallest little kids were out in the fields. I went with a guide, but as far as I can tell the only good a guide does in Mali is keep other guides off your back. Mali is perhaps the most-visited country in West Africa, so people see you as a cash machine, which is rather unpleasant. I painted some really bad watercolors here the last few days, plus one I like, it's a baobab tree in the evening. Niger and Burkina were much more intersting, with friendly people, or people who just left you alone.
Right now I'm in Sevare, about 200 km south of Timbuktoo.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Burkina
I left Niamey, the capital of Niger, last Sunday morning, October 26th. I painted some decent watercolors in Niamey, and came to know my host family a little better: uncle Mahumud and I discussed travel plans in sign language and diagrams, little Habibublai taught me some Fulani by naming animals I drew for him, and I got along in a formal, cordial way with Mr. Alzouma, the patriarch of the family. They took good care of me and set me up with their relatives in Tera, down the road in the western tip of Niger, another family that was really kind to me. They had at least ten kids, I couldn't count and neither could they.
West of Niamey, across the Niger River and across to Burkina the landscape became truly fantastic. Where before it seemed bleak, here it seemed majestic, biblical even. The land is hot and flat and dry, and small fields of millet and sorghum punctuate a vast backdrop of sparse green trees and dry grass. Sheperds tend flocks of goats and gaunt, wild-looking cattle, women gather firewood, people wash in the occasional watering hole, all of them dressed in billowing robes and scarves and headwraps. When you add to this a very religious people, with names like Ibrahim (Abraham), Issaka (Isaac) and Zara (Sarah) it really seems like you're two thousand years back in time.
(I should also say that while this part of the world is almost entirely Muslim, and life comes to a halt five times a day for prayers, it's not at all like the fundamentalist Muslims you read about in the paper. I honestly feel no animosity from them.)
From Tera I went on to Dori, in Burkina Faso. The speed of travel in Africa depends almost exclusively on the quality of the road, so this 100km stretch took an entire day. I waited four hours while passengers slowly gathered, and then took off in the back of a burly Toyota 4x4 pickup. It was by far the funnest ride I've ever had in my life, and it's a real shame riding in the back of a pickup is illegal in the States. We were crammed a dozen people and a goat in the bed of the truck, another dozen on the roofrack, and heaps of sugarcane and baggage strewn about. The 'road' was in fact a series of converging and diverging sand tracks, with plenty of potholes and ridges that left us flying all over each other for the rest of the day. We stopped many times, border checks, prayers, food, unloading and loading, and by nightfall I landed in Dori.
In Dori I reconnected with a Peace Corps volunteer I had briefly met in Grand Popo. Yaneth let me crash on her couch, and it was just really great to relax for a few days, to speak English, to have a conversation with similar cultural references, to find real vegetables at the market and cook food again, to let someone else take charge. I got to know Dori a bit, we visited an orphanage where she volunteers and played with the kids, and we took a trip to nearby Bani to see a series of mud-brick mosques built in the 1970s by a latter-day Islamic prophet.
From Dori I travelled with Yaneth to Ougadougou--the capital of Burkina Faso. Ougadougou is a surprisingly sophisticated city: big buildings, restaurants, traffic lights, traffic that's merely stressful and not terrifying, a city that somehow keeps the choas of Africa at bay (we did however see a crocodile in a creek just outside of downtown). We met up with a bunch of other Peace Corps volunteers, and I spent two days forgetting I was in Africa: We went out to western restaurants, relaxed and swam in the International School's pool, read English magazines, and visited Siao, a big, biannual arts and crafts and music festival. Morale was high among this group, they were kind to make room for me , and it was definitely a high point of the trip.
This morning I left for Ouahigouya, a depressing border town on the way to Mali.
West of Niamey, across the Niger River and across to Burkina the landscape became truly fantastic. Where before it seemed bleak, here it seemed majestic, biblical even. The land is hot and flat and dry, and small fields of millet and sorghum punctuate a vast backdrop of sparse green trees and dry grass. Sheperds tend flocks of goats and gaunt, wild-looking cattle, women gather firewood, people wash in the occasional watering hole, all of them dressed in billowing robes and scarves and headwraps. When you add to this a very religious people, with names like Ibrahim (Abraham), Issaka (Isaac) and Zara (Sarah) it really seems like you're two thousand years back in time.
(I should also say that while this part of the world is almost entirely Muslim, and life comes to a halt five times a day for prayers, it's not at all like the fundamentalist Muslims you read about in the paper. I honestly feel no animosity from them.)
From Tera I went on to Dori, in Burkina Faso. The speed of travel in Africa depends almost exclusively on the quality of the road, so this 100km stretch took an entire day. I waited four hours while passengers slowly gathered, and then took off in the back of a burly Toyota 4x4 pickup. It was by far the funnest ride I've ever had in my life, and it's a real shame riding in the back of a pickup is illegal in the States. We were crammed a dozen people and a goat in the bed of the truck, another dozen on the roofrack, and heaps of sugarcane and baggage strewn about. The 'road' was in fact a series of converging and diverging sand tracks, with plenty of potholes and ridges that left us flying all over each other for the rest of the day. We stopped many times, border checks, prayers, food, unloading and loading, and by nightfall I landed in Dori.
In Dori I reconnected with a Peace Corps volunteer I had briefly met in Grand Popo. Yaneth let me crash on her couch, and it was just really great to relax for a few days, to speak English, to have a conversation with similar cultural references, to find real vegetables at the market and cook food again, to let someone else take charge. I got to know Dori a bit, we visited an orphanage where she volunteers and played with the kids, and we took a trip to nearby Bani to see a series of mud-brick mosques built in the 1970s by a latter-day Islamic prophet.
From Dori I travelled with Yaneth to Ougadougou--the capital of Burkina Faso. Ougadougou is a surprisingly sophisticated city: big buildings, restaurants, traffic lights, traffic that's merely stressful and not terrifying, a city that somehow keeps the choas of Africa at bay (we did however see a crocodile in a creek just outside of downtown). We met up with a bunch of other Peace Corps volunteers, and I spent two days forgetting I was in Africa: We went out to western restaurants, relaxed and swam in the International School's pool, read English magazines, and visited Siao, a big, biannual arts and crafts and music festival. Morale was high among this group, they were kind to make room for me , and it was definitely a high point of the trip.
This morning I left for Ouahigouya, a depressing border town on the way to Mali.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sahel
I left Cotonou early Tuesday morning, October 21, for the long busride to Kandi in the north of Benin. It was a rare, comfortable, western-style bus, playing pop music and WWF wrestling as we passed endless miles of flat African countryside. The landscape changed slowly from the greener coast to a drier soil, less underbrush and more grass, people in longer, billowing clothing, more mosques. I was nervous, hoping each stop was not mine and glad for the comfort and safety of the moving road.
I stayed in Kandi one night, made a bad watercolor from the rooftop of my sweltering hotel room, walked around Wednesday morning along wide dusty streets, stopped in a cafe and made a watercolor of one of the guys there, amused crowds gathering around me.
From Kandi a short 'bush taxi' ride to the village of Alfa Kouara, on the edge of the large 'Parque National du W.'
Bush taxis are the main transport linking smaller villages in West Africa, and they're a chaotic, cramped, unbelievable way to travel. The taxis, either station wagons or old peugot's, are banged-up, creaking, moving wrecks, complete with cracked windshields and missing mirrors. On the inside they invariably smell like gasoline, but to beat the headache and roll the windows down you have to first ask the driver to pass the handcranck, and forget about seatbelts, locking doors, working speedometers, or other luxuries. They don't leave until fully loaded, which means four people plus kids in each row, and three, sometimes even four, in the front (that makes eleven and sometimes twelve adults plus kids in a station wagon). I once sat in a taxi where the driver shifted gears between a passenger's legs. The luggage is strapped to the roof -- huge bags of grain and miscellaneous pots and baggage, often taller than the car itself, laboriously loaded and unloaded at each stop, which means every ten or fifteen minutes. At the larger taxi stations, and sometimes the smaller stops, inevitable arguments about who-knows-what...the roads aren't too good either, paved but little wider than a suburban street in the States, sometimes more potholes than smooth surface.
The park entrance at Alfa Kouara was officially closed for the rainy season, but I got a ride in on a motorcycle anyway, really fun, and beatiful, colorful, long-tailed birds, a troop of monkeys, but none of the big mammals. Ate a meal of paté with the park rangers at night under a thousand stars, and shared a nasty mix of pastisse and syrup, their preferred drink at a nearby 'bar'(I declined to sniff the tobacco powder mixed with 'medicaments').
On Thursday a short ride from Alfa Kuoara to the border town of Malanville, lingering long enough to send some postcards, then the police check and a walk across the bridge spanning the Niger River, Africa's third longest, and into the country of Niger.
Niger is immediately different. At the bus depot at Gaya, a beautiful tall woman with a glossy, blind eye, henna-painted feet, long black headscarf, praying with a crying baby on her back. Miles and miles of even drier and bleaker countryside, now only mud huts instead of cinderblock, thatch traded for corrugated roofs. Many stops, police checks, stops for prayer, who-knows-why stops. People don't always smile back when you smile, or wave when you wave, and they don't ask for gifts unless they really really need it. People who don't speak French. Thinner people, more 'Ethiopian' features, longer wraps, solid colors mixed with the ubiquitous patterns of the coast, headscarves, muslim hats, clothing taken out of a Rafael painting. More cripples, more deformities, a man in a white headcap and his adolescent child with an impossibly small head, eyes right out to the perifery, like someone you might have seen at the circus a hundred years ago. Sweltering heat, forgot to bring enough water, cramped bus, my seat tilted seat in the aisle with luggage, people climbing over each other at each stop.
Arrived in the capital of Niamey Thursday night well after dark, was supposed to stay with relatives of Abdullay from Grand Popo but didn't dare venture into the periferies that late, found a taxi driver I trusted and a hotel. Issaka picked me up in the morning, and I found a city much calmer than I feared, wide streets, spread out city, not unnerving and polluted like Cotonou. Errands, visa for Burkina, bank, phone, tour of the city, a break at Issaka's and two watercolors, the first good ones on this trip, of him and his wife. Stronger colors, more agressively painted. His wife only spoke Hauossa, both had long tribal scars across their cheecks, I couldn't tell if she minded me there. A watercolor on the bank of the Niger, women washing clothes, across to the Harobanda district where I met Abdullay's family. Kind to offer food and shelter but little chit-chat. A maze of alleys, courtyards, mud houses, slept outside under a mosquito net, woke up predawn with a bad dream and the call for prayer, painted the crescent moon rising over the rooftops.
Planning to leave Niamey tomorrow or Monday for Burkina Faso.
I stayed in Kandi one night, made a bad watercolor from the rooftop of my sweltering hotel room, walked around Wednesday morning along wide dusty streets, stopped in a cafe and made a watercolor of one of the guys there, amused crowds gathering around me.
From Kandi a short 'bush taxi' ride to the village of Alfa Kouara, on the edge of the large 'Parque National du W.'
Bush taxis are the main transport linking smaller villages in West Africa, and they're a chaotic, cramped, unbelievable way to travel. The taxis, either station wagons or old peugot's, are banged-up, creaking, moving wrecks, complete with cracked windshields and missing mirrors. On the inside they invariably smell like gasoline, but to beat the headache and roll the windows down you have to first ask the driver to pass the handcranck, and forget about seatbelts, locking doors, working speedometers, or other luxuries. They don't leave until fully loaded, which means four people plus kids in each row, and three, sometimes even four, in the front (that makes eleven and sometimes twelve adults plus kids in a station wagon). I once sat in a taxi where the driver shifted gears between a passenger's legs. The luggage is strapped to the roof -- huge bags of grain and miscellaneous pots and baggage, often taller than the car itself, laboriously loaded and unloaded at each stop, which means every ten or fifteen minutes. At the larger taxi stations, and sometimes the smaller stops, inevitable arguments about who-knows-what...the roads aren't too good either, paved but little wider than a suburban street in the States, sometimes more potholes than smooth surface.
The park entrance at Alfa Kouara was officially closed for the rainy season, but I got a ride in on a motorcycle anyway, really fun, and beatiful, colorful, long-tailed birds, a troop of monkeys, but none of the big mammals. Ate a meal of paté with the park rangers at night under a thousand stars, and shared a nasty mix of pastisse and syrup, their preferred drink at a nearby 'bar'(I declined to sniff the tobacco powder mixed with 'medicaments').
On Thursday a short ride from Alfa Kuoara to the border town of Malanville, lingering long enough to send some postcards, then the police check and a walk across the bridge spanning the Niger River, Africa's third longest, and into the country of Niger.
Niger is immediately different. At the bus depot at Gaya, a beautiful tall woman with a glossy, blind eye, henna-painted feet, long black headscarf, praying with a crying baby on her back. Miles and miles of even drier and bleaker countryside, now only mud huts instead of cinderblock, thatch traded for corrugated roofs. Many stops, police checks, stops for prayer, who-knows-why stops. People don't always smile back when you smile, or wave when you wave, and they don't ask for gifts unless they really really need it. People who don't speak French. Thinner people, more 'Ethiopian' features, longer wraps, solid colors mixed with the ubiquitous patterns of the coast, headscarves, muslim hats, clothing taken out of a Rafael painting. More cripples, more deformities, a man in a white headcap and his adolescent child with an impossibly small head, eyes right out to the perifery, like someone you might have seen at the circus a hundred years ago. Sweltering heat, forgot to bring enough water, cramped bus, my seat tilted seat in the aisle with luggage, people climbing over each other at each stop.
Arrived in the capital of Niamey Thursday night well after dark, was supposed to stay with relatives of Abdullay from Grand Popo but didn't dare venture into the periferies that late, found a taxi driver I trusted and a hotel. Issaka picked me up in the morning, and I found a city much calmer than I feared, wide streets, spread out city, not unnerving and polluted like Cotonou. Errands, visa for Burkina, bank, phone, tour of the city, a break at Issaka's and two watercolors, the first good ones on this trip, of him and his wife. Stronger colors, more agressively painted. His wife only spoke Hauossa, both had long tribal scars across their cheecks, I couldn't tell if she minded me there. A watercolor on the bank of the Niger, women washing clothes, across to the Harobanda district where I met Abdullay's family. Kind to offer food and shelter but little chit-chat. A maze of alleys, courtyards, mud houses, slept outside under a mosquito net, woke up predawn with a bad dream and the call for prayer, painted the crescent moon rising over the rooftops.
Planning to leave Niamey tomorrow or Monday for Burkina Faso.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Moving Forward
My painting residency finished and I left Villa Karo and the village of Grand Popo this morning. By the end this strange place and unlikely collection of people started to feel a little like home. There was Jaakko, the Finnish intern, with whom I travelled to Togo among other adventures; Liz, the American peace corps volunteer who brought a little good-old-USA with her; Kaisu the older Finnish painter I connected with; Boris the vegetarian carpenter who never failed to bring a smile; Marcel the raggedy, drooling speach-impaired kid who never left us alone, but who was too adorable to chase away; the family of Adrienne and Francoise and their six kids, who farmed and hunted crabs and lizards for a living and were so warm to me; Abdullaj the easy-going Fulani night guard, who cheerfully ascribed every misfortune to fate, and with whom we shared many funny, mosquito-laced conversations, Victor who guided me safely across the seedy side of Cotonou, and many many many others. It was sad to leave but I left properly, said my goodbyes, didn't leave things unresolved...I'm leaving with less baggage than I came with.
In the end I did make some paintings, although painting here never ceased to be difficult and I'll have to finish most of them in the States: A flowering, overgrown garden, a painting of Abdullay, the night guard, a painting of the sea at sunset, palms in moonlight, two portraits, and maybe a dozen small watercolors.
So I'm leaving, but I'm not going home yet. I'm single for the first time in a long time, I have no apartment, no studio, not really a city to call home, I have no shows scheduled, and it occurred to me that I have no reason to return to the States just yet (although sadly I'll miss the election). I have enough cash from my open-house show in August to keep me going another month or two, so if I want to see the Sahara Desert, if I want to ride a camel or float down the Niger River or sit on an overcrowded train for two days straight...then why not?
I'm in Cotonou tonight, and tomorrow I'll start a one-way trip across West Africa.
I'll travel alone with a small, efficiently-packed backpack and a colorful new watercolor-bag made by Florence, the energetic local seamstress. I got a faux-hawk haircut last night courtesy of Liz and Jaakko, as a kind of going-away-ritual, and it feels great and anyway no one here knows what white people's hair should look like. I've looked at maps and talked to people and made a plan, I feel good and strong and I'm ready to go.
If all goes well I'll travel through Benin to Niamey in Niger, across northern Burkina Faso, up to Mali through the Dogon country, to Timbuktoo and the edge of the Sahara, then up the Niger River to Bamako and across to Dakar, leaving Africa in early December.
I'll write again soonish.
In the end I did make some paintings, although painting here never ceased to be difficult and I'll have to finish most of them in the States: A flowering, overgrown garden, a painting of Abdullay, the night guard, a painting of the sea at sunset, palms in moonlight, two portraits, and maybe a dozen small watercolors.
So I'm leaving, but I'm not going home yet. I'm single for the first time in a long time, I have no apartment, no studio, not really a city to call home, I have no shows scheduled, and it occurred to me that I have no reason to return to the States just yet (although sadly I'll miss the election). I have enough cash from my open-house show in August to keep me going another month or two, so if I want to see the Sahara Desert, if I want to ride a camel or float down the Niger River or sit on an overcrowded train for two days straight...then why not?
I'm in Cotonou tonight, and tomorrow I'll start a one-way trip across West Africa.
I'll travel alone with a small, efficiently-packed backpack and a colorful new watercolor-bag made by Florence, the energetic local seamstress. I got a faux-hawk haircut last night courtesy of Liz and Jaakko, as a kind of going-away-ritual, and it feels great and anyway no one here knows what white people's hair should look like. I've looked at maps and talked to people and made a plan, I feel good and strong and I'm ready to go.
If all goes well I'll travel through Benin to Niamey in Niger, across northern Burkina Faso, up to Mali through the Dogon country, to Timbuktoo and the edge of the Sahara, then up the Niger River to Bamako and across to Dakar, leaving Africa in early December.
I'll write again soonish.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)