Mali: there and back again

A week ago, I returned from the most epic spring break of my life. Over 10 days, I saw and experienced a LOT. My knowledge of what it means to live in Africa deepened ten-fold. I saw miles and miles of landscape and met people from different countries, cultures, language groups, and walks of life. As I discussed with some of my friends on the trip, I’m not sure I would do it again, but I am nevertheless very glad that I did it.

Our trip started out on a bus from Dakar early on a Friday morning. We left Dakar and started heading east. Mali borders Senegal to the east, and our first destination was Bamako, the capital (look at a map. It’ll help a lot).

I was prepared for a long journey, but honestly, not for quite that long a journey. We didn’t make it to Bamako until Sunday afternoon. In Bamako, we got on yet another bus to get to Bandiagara, a little town in Dogon country (area of Mali where the Dogon people live), for our hiking trip. The entire trip to Dogon country took us 3 full days.

The trip to Bamako was only supposed to take until Saturday night, but because much of the main road going through Senegal would be more aptly named “a dirt path covered in giant rocks and holes,” the bus broke down in a random town near the end of the day on Friday, and we were stranded for 17 hours. We had stopped in the town for what we thought was just a regular rest stop to grab some dinner, but then we looked at the bus and saw that one of the wheels had been taken off. We decided we’d probably be sticking around for a little while. (Although this break-down was the longest, there were a number of other unannounced tire changes during the trip. By the end, we were singing a song to the tune of “Wheels on the bus”: “the wheels on the bus go off and on, off and on, off and on…”)

On the bus that day, a few of us made friends with two guys from the Gambia, a little country that sticks in to the middle of Senegal.

The Gambia has the same ethnic groups as Senegal does and they speak Wolof just like here, but since it was an English colony, they speak English instead of French. The two Gambians, Paco and Alioune, were on their way from Gambia to Libya by bus, via Senegal, Mali and Niger. (check a map again. Libya is far.) One of them has a brother in Libya, and they were moving there to find work and start a new life. They had said goodbye to their families that morning, and they didn’t know when they would see them again. They were going because life is hard in the Gambia, and maybe they could find something better somewhere else. That’s what I’ve heard from a lot of Senegalese people too—everyone wants to get out. Everyone’s dream is to eventually make it to Europe or the US. It’s sad. I’ve heard some visiting professors in my classes say that they think that especially now, the true opportunities lie here in the undeveloped countries, because there’s so much room for growth and creativity. But the majority of Africans I’ve met think otherwise.

I have never been treated so well by strangers as I have by the two Gambians. Another thing I didn’t mention is that the bus, and every bus I got on during the trip, was extremely overcrowded. That’s how they do things here—cram as many people and things on a vehicle as possible. Every seat was taken, and then there were people sitting in the aisle on buckets, sacks of rice or gas containers, or standing. Paco and Alioune were sitting or standing in the aisle almost the entire way to Bamako. But instead of complaining, they did everything they could to make sure we were comfortable. Paco explained to me that this is what you do in West Africa. They talked about how difficult life is in Africa, but that you just have to endure, and accept what comes. They talked about their culture of respect for women and of teranga; hospitality and taking care of the stranger.

And that’s just what they did for us. Whenever we stopped in a town, they would make sure we found everything we needed. They would translate Wolof for us, ask around when we needed something and explain when we didn’t know what was going on. During the night of our 17-hour stop, they stayed with us and found us some places to rest for a while. They even started chatting with a guy they met, also named Alioune, who eventually offered us all some floor space in his house for the night. (As Alioune 1 later explained, Alioune 2 had approached the Gambians instead of us girls because he thought we were “with” them and didn’t dare bother us. We were a bunch of young white girls stranded in a Senegalese town at night with nowhere to sleep but a broken-down bus, but we felt completely protected.) We were very close to taking Alioune 2 up on his offer (no, in the US it might not be smart to sleep in a stranger’s house, but in Africa, things are different. Teranga means that when someone is stranded, you offer them a place to stay because you would hope they would do the same for you), but the bus drivers told us to stay close because the bus would be ready to go at any minute, so we unfortunately had to turn the offer down. Around 3 am, it was announced that the bus was fixed, so everyone somehow got the message to get back on. We drove for about 60 seconds. Then there was a loud crash and the entire bus tilted to the right—apparently, the wheel had not really been fixed.

After that, it was too late to find a house to sleep in, so a friend and I spent a couple of hours trying to catch some sleep on a mat on the ground on the edge of the road, and later, on the hot bus.

Some other memories from our 17-hour stop:

-My long conversation with Alioune 2 at some point that night, in Spanish. Go figure. He lived in Spain for 3 years, and apparently, spoke 10 languages. He listed them for me but I forget.

-The kids that we bought a bottle of soda for. I have never seen a more elated bunch of children in my life.

-Our breakfast in the morning that we spread out on a mat at the non-functioning train station in the town.

-Walking through the market and being stared at by everyone. They were definitely not used to white people passing through.

Late the next morning the bus finally got going. Everyone was nervous, but the wheel held. The rest of the trip was an ongoing adventure:

-Picking up even more people at some point the next night, making the bus so full I could barely move.

-Being hotter and dirtier and sweatier than I have ever been in my entire life. (The amount of dirt on our feet was scary. I have never seen such dirty feet, ever.)

-Making it to the Malian border Saturday night only to find out that the border control was “closed,” and that we’d have to sleep there and wait till the next morning. But an hour later, being told to get back on the bus, that they would take us if everyone paid 1000 CFA ($2), which, mysteriously, only the toubabs ended up paying.

-The dust storm that happened somewhere on the bus ride in Mali. We had to cover our faces with scarves so we could breathe. Dirt everywhere.

-Around 4 am Sunday morning, lying on mats on the ground for a few hours in a random bus station in Mali when we were switching buses, since ours kept breaking down.

-Some of the Malian women on the bus giving us Malian names.

-And then, the last bus ride from Bamako to Bandiagara, which will go down in my personal history as The Worst Bus Ride Ever. I had thought the previous 55 hours were bad, but they were really nothing compared to the last 14 hours of the trip, which happened on Sunday night. First of all, it was hot in Mali, and when we got on the bus, we realized that the windows didn’t open at all. Air conditioning, was, of course, unheard of. It felt like well over 100 degrees in there. On top of that, two excellent women had stolen the two seats my friend Kate and I had saved, so, after some useless arguing, we were shafted to the only two seats left, close to the back of the bus, right above the engine. That meant that the floor and entire area was unbearably hot; and because there was no ventilation, we were breathing in the engine’s fumes.

I was also exhausted—I had gotten only minimal sleep on our trip thus far. But I couldn’t really sleep. I had barely any room, and was too hot, and sometimes felt like I could barely breathe. So instead of sleeping, I started…hallucinating. The bus was extremely crowded; people and luggage and sacks of rice filling the aisle, and even a few people standing on the stairs by the back door, right in front of our seats. Even now, I’m not sure how much of it happened and how much I imagined, but I kept feeling things brushing against my feet and legs and hands and the back of my neck in the dark. I know some of it happened—there were people all around, including some little kids behind me. But I’m not sure about all of it, because I know I was hallucinating in other ways. One of the main ethnic languages in Mali is called Bambara, and everyone around me was speaking it. But 5 or 10 times as I was drifting into half-consciousness, everyone started speaking English, and I could understand them perfectly. I would jerk awake and realize they were really speaking Bambara and that I could understand absolutely nothing. But then I would slowly drift back into it. I also had some imaginary conversations with some of my friends who were sitting towards the front of the bus—and then I would jerk awake and realize they were still sitting up there, that no one was talking to me.

At one point, I looked over and saw that Kate was asleep, and I had the sudden thought, what if she’s dead? (I checked. She was fine). That might have been part of the reason I never fell asleep—I was too scared to. We were breathing in some pretty strong fumes. The next day, we found out that the thought ‘I hope we don’t die,’ had crossed both of our minds. Neither of us had mentioned it to the other during the trip.

During the bus’s first pit stop sometime that night, Kate suggested that we sleep out in the field and hitchhike to Bandiagara the next morning. My first reaction was, she’s crazy. But then the thought of getting back on the stifling, asphyxiating bus made me stop and seriously consider the suggestion.

But we didn’t. We got back on the bus, and somehow, made it to Mopti, a town near Bandiagara, and then took a bush taxi (which, in addition to our backpacks, had 20 live goats tied to the roof. no big deal.) to Bandiagara.

So, that was our epic journey. It was crazy, and incredible, and hard. But I’m glad I did it. I met some amazing people, and had some amazing experiences, and saw a lot of Africa- the landscape, the towns and villages, the people.

We found our way, with some help, to a beautiful, $6 hostel in Bandiagara overlooking a river, and spent the day resting and getting clean (I have never appreciated a cold shower so much in my life). The next day, we set off for our hiking trip in Dogon country, with Baba, our guide. We spent 3 days there hiking from village to village. The landscape in Dogon country was absolutely beautiful. Think Lion King, but with goats and cattle instead of lions and hyenas. Some of the villages were up in a rocky plateau, and some were down on the plains below. The villages were actually a strange experience—a lot more touristy than I expected. People would try to sell us things a lot, and little kids would run up and demand presents. Often, the children would walk with us and hold our hands, and occasionally some women who let us try pounding millet with them, but other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot of interaction with the people—the tourist area was always sort of closed off from the rest of the village. But after our journey, that was ok. I think we kind of needed a break.

The first night, our sleeping accommodations were mattresses on a roof. If you’ve never slept on a roof under a full moon and bright stars (and a mosquito net), in a little village on the edge of a vast plain with sandstone cliffs rising up to one side, you’re missing out.

Another highlight of Dogon country was climbing up in the cliffs to explore the village ruins that were supposedly inhabited by pygmies in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, back when the plain was a forest and wild animals roamed. Being up there felt unreal.

At the end of the week, we took a car, for just little more than the bus would have cost, back to Bamako (it took 9 hours instead of 14, and felt like nothing) and spent 2 nights there in the Maison des Jeunes, a huge but mostly empty youth hostel where we got lots of mosquito bites (some of my friends got bedbugs too, something I thankfully escaped). Our day exploring Bamako was kind of stressful—it’s a beautiful city, but hotter, dustier and more polluted than Dakar, and it seemed like people were more aggressive, and less used to foreigners. Fewer people spoke French, and when we were exploring the market, people would quote outrageous prices, refuse to lower them, and then get angry when we didn’t buy anything. We couldn’t figure it out.

Then, we flew back from Bamako to Dakar, and it took less than 2 hours as opposed to 55. That was a really strange experience. After our bus trip, it also felt weird to have flight attendants take care of us, and to be served a meal, and get a great dessert and real coffee, both things that we don’t get often even in Dakar. When we arrived in the Dakar airport, we were incredibly excited to be back “home,” in a city we have figured out, with a language we’re vaguely familiar with (let’s just say my Wolof is, if only slightly, better than my Bambara), and with the ocean, and a breeze, and clearer air. It was great. It is great.

It’s now past the halfway point of the semester, and I’ve found that since spring break, I’ve started missing certain things from home a little more, but at the same time, that I feel a lot more confident with life in Dakar. My friends here feel the same way. It’s also strange to think how quickly the past 2 months have gone by, and how quickly the next 2 probably will.