To Timbuktu for a Haircut
Page 1
Praise for the
First Edition Of To
Timbuktu for a Haircut
“In the magical-travel-names department, Timbuktu undoubtedly holds the trump card — Marrakesh, Kathmandu, or Zanzibar are mere runners-up — but Rick Antonson’s trek to the fabled desert city proves that dreamtime destinations are found in our minds just as much as on our maps.”
— Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet and author of
Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil
“To Timbuktu for a Haircut is a great read — a little bit of Bill Bryson, a little bit of Michael Palin, and quite a lot of Bob Hope on the road to Timbuktu.”
— Professor Geoffrey Lipman, former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization
“There are three kinds of people. The people who make things happen, the people who watch what happens, and then there are the people who wonder what happened. With this book, Rick Antonson has made things happen in West Africa on a remarkable journey to and through a part of the world most of us may never experience. Great characters, great stories, and truly great adventures. Not to mention … a great read.”
— Peter Greenberg, former travel editor, NBC’s Today,
current travel editor, CBS News
“The remarkable combination of Rick Antonson exploring the ancient mysteries of Timbuktu matched with the rich culture of Mali that he captures so well … makes a page-turner from start to finish. Rick’s underlying story confirms my own experience in that amazing land.”
— Jerry W. Bird, editor, Africa Travel Magazine
“I thoroughly enjoyed reading To Timbuktu for a Haircut from cover to cover and had difficulty putting it down. It is truly an engaging book. Rick Antonson indeed captures the essence and intricacies of Malian culture, as well as the flavour of what it is like to travel through West Africa ‘roughing it.’”
— Professor Musa Balde, CEO, Timbuktu
Educational Foundation
“Anyone planning a trip to Africa should put Antonson’s book on their packing list right after malaria tablets.”
— National Post
To Timbuktu for a Haircut
Timbuktu is thought of as the most remote place in the world. This historically rich city, today in the country of Mali, houses 700,000 ancient manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries. The author traveled in Senegal and Mali.
To Timbuktu for a Haircut
A JOURNEY THROUGH WEST AFRICA
RICK ANTONSON
Foreword by Professor Geoffrey Lipman
Skyhorse Publishing
Copyright © 2013 by Rick Antonson
TO TIMBUKTU FOR A HAIRCUT first edition published in English by Dundurn Press Limited, 2008. This edition published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., in arrangement with Dundurn Press Limited.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
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Front cover photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-62087-567-4
Printed in the United States of America.
Contents
Foreword by Professor Geoffrey Lipman
Preface
Introduction — Touch a Map of the World
One — Scarcely Visited Places
Two — The Origin of Myths
Three — The Quest for Timbuktu
Four — From Here to Timbuktu
Five — Among the Tuareg
Six — The Forbidden City
Seven — The Strong Brown God
Eight — African Lanterns
Nine — A Good Night for West Africa
Epilogue — A Gentle Harshness
Afterword — Now is the Needed Time
Chronology
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Sources and Recommended Reading
Illustration and Photography Credits
A Plea to Preserve the Past
Index
To Brent and Sean — two sons, two travellers, two friends — who believe in my every journey, even those in the wrong direction. And to Zak, my Dogon guide and Mali friend. May the three of you meet one day over the long pours of a Tuareg tea.
Part of the author’s royalties from To Timbuktu For A Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa will go toward preservation of the endangered Timbuktu manuscripts.
About this 1830 engraving, taken from René Caillié’s Travels Through Central Africa to Timbuctoo, the French explorer wrote: “Two enormous heaps on the outside of the town appeared to me to be also collections of dirt or rubbish. Many a time I ascended to the tops of these hills to obtain a complete view of the town and to make my sketch.”
Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.
— Miriam Beard
Foreword
TO TIMBUKTU FOR A HAIRCUT IS A GREAT READ — a little bit of Bill Bryson, a little bit of Michael Palin, and quite a lot of Bob Hope on the road to Timbuktu. It has adventure — in the form of a journey into the unknown. It has knowledge — a wealth of information about the geography, history, and sociology of a fascinating land, its people, and their culture. It has discovery — of a hidden treasure trove of ancient manuscripts that tell of a civilization long forgotten that, in its day, rivalled modern-day mega-states. And it has romance — the love of a man for his quest, his encounters, his profession, his family, and for the essence of life itself. Once started, you simply don’t want to come to the end.
The story is compelling. And it’s told with passion, with self-deprecating humour, and with a strong sense of respect for the seemingly barren land where daily life is a constant reminder, to the rest of us, of the importance of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and of our global commitment to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Rick Antonson’s personal odyssey is peppered with commentary on issues that are geopolitically relevant, and his insights as an industry professional into those issues’ links with travel are right on the mark.
The reader truly feels a part of this journey, beginning with Rick’s agonized midlife decision to spend a month without work, without BlackBerry, without family and business obligations. Next comes the germination of the big idea of chasing a childhood fantasy in “Darkest Africa” and then the bizarre travel planning with its self-imposed requirement to do it the hard way, accompanied by a pivotal local agent who makes Fagin in Oliver Twist seem like St. Jude, the patron saint of travellers. Finally, there is the truly fascinating adventure itself — travelling overland to a city that at its peak rivalled London or Venice as a trading centre.
The story flows easily and lucidly, blending local community minutiae with serious global issues such as the disparity between haves and have-nots, shown in the dull monotony of a handful of rice as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The author shows us the con
trast between today’s survival-of-the-fittest, market-based society and a railway carriage or hostel in Mali where you can leave your belongings with strangers. He reveals the awesome Sahara Desert’s creep into Timbuktu, demonstrating one of the most serious sides of climate change. And he evokes the radiant, innocent beauty of the smile on the face of a child who receives one of Rick’s seemingly endless supply of memorabilia, reminding us that children everywhere are so different in the conditions into which they are born, but are so alike in their characters, and that we owe the children of Africa a seriously better future.
We follow the adventure by train, Land Cruiser, riverboat, camel, and quite often on foot. We feel the weight of the overpacked knapsack, share the camaraderie of fellow travellers stuffed into a dank railway carriage, and experience vicariously the misery of basic sleeping, eating, and sanitary facilities. We begin, too, to understand why the word travel is believed to be a derivative of travail, the French word for work. And as we read of the early explorers, we marvel that so many kept searching for the legendary city even as they were mowed down by climate, terrain, and hostile inhabitants.
Yet we also discover how tourism really works at its basic level, where a journey can help provide jobs and export income in another country that has few other service exports — whether it’s the author travelling for leisure or the film crew who share part of his journey travelling for business. And we understand graphically what every extra dollar of tourism revenue can mean to a family that lives on less than a dollar a day in a country that is saddled with debt and disease and has few chances to compete in world markets. We see the endless pain of abject poverty that is everywhere, the horrors of AIDS as it decimates families, and the barbarity of female circumcision, which is still widely practised across the continent. And we learn about the pain of river blindness and read the fantastic story of a drug company that puts pure humanity ahead of pure profit.
We meet a cast of characters that Shakespeare would have been proud to bring to his pages: Mohammed, the travel agent from hell, who puts the trip together in a way that maximizes his profits and minimizes his client’s comfort and quality; the priceless Zak, the tour guide from heaven, who becomes a companion and a confidant and who takes the author on his own tour so that he can experience the traditional hospitality of his enchanting family; the coquettish Nema, whose hidden sensuality is a nice addition to her skill as a chef, creating palatable dishes from a handful of basic ingredients and finding ingenious ways to incorporate onions into everything despite her employer’s aversion to them; and an array of bit players who add colour to the journey at every stop.
If there is a hero in this tale, it isn’t the author or any of the characters he meets along the way. No, what is heroic here is Mali itself and the indomitable spirit of its people. A land that has seen kingdoms come and go, Mali has a history as proud and rich as any country on the planet, but it is a nation that has also been dealt an incredibly tough hand by nature. Mali is a land with some of the most evocative place names on earth — the unyielding Sahara Desert, the seemingly endless River Niger, and the mysterious Timbuktu, an ancient capital of a long-lost empire — and it is a nation that has remarkably proud people, including the famed and feared Tuareg warriors, along with their equally celebrated Berber ancestors. Chronicled in these pages are the people of Mali, whose men love football and life, whose women are tireless and possessed of enduring perseverance, and whose cheerful, loving children, above all, anxiously reach out to touch the hands and hearts of strangers.
Timbuktu turns out to be a bit of a disappointment, though, given its status as a World Heritage Site. It is a surprise to learn that for hundreds of years it was a primary marketplace on great trade routes driven by gold and, above all, salt, which, in economic terms, was the oil of its day. It is equally amazing to read about Timbuktu’s rulers, who could destabilize global commerce by dumping gold in what was then a world commercial hub in Egypt. And it is also interesting to discover that Timbuktu was once home to scholars who were the leading lights in the fabled Muslim academic community that brought us so much of our science, mathematics, and literary heritage. Most traces of this culture have disappeared, however, as time, sand, wind, shifting markets, and escalating poverty have taken their toll and will continue to do so.
But the author finds two great compensations. One is his side trip to the remote Dogon region, the most memorable part of his journey, where the rugged beauty of the countryside and the charm of its long-suffering people capture his heart and mind. In a world where nature-based and community-based ecotourism is the Holy Grail, there is surely untapped potential. The other compensation is his rediscovery of the ancient manuscripts, which tell of the great days of Timbuktu and its role as a centre of learning, trade and, of course, tourism of its day. It is a “rediscovery” because a central purpose of the journey (other than the literal and figurative haircut) was to visit the libraries and peruse documents that have been described in archaeological terms as similar in importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls. What the author finds is that the papers and records are suffering from serious neglect, are far more numerous than imagined, are far more meaningful as a record of civilizations past, and are sadly in need of urgent action to save them from destruction by the desert. True to himself, he has committed to support the international campaign to save the manuscripts, including the donation of some of his royalties from this book.
So there you have it. To Timbuktu for a Haircut is a great read, a mine of information, and a fascinating insight into travel at its most fundamental level. In this book we see how tourism can be a learning experience and how it can act as a way to break down barriers between people and between nations and allow them to understand one another better. The author puts it this way: “At its core, travel holds immense hope for a better world. Two hundred and eighteen countries call this tiny planet home: each of us is but a step or two away from a person in every one of those nations, perhaps family, a friend, or a fellow traveller. Tourism, more than any other industry, can bring people together to celebrate differences.”
But the reader is left with one nagging question: despite the glories of its past, is Mali and its hardy population, now existing in a different world characterized by extreme poverty, destined to remain that way, or is there a chance the world community can help the children have a better life? The answer that flows through every chapter of this book is that that we simply have to help.
World leaders have made great promises of change in the recent past, particularly in the case of the Rio and Johannesburg Earth Summits, the Monterrey Debt Summit, the Millennium Development Goals, the emerging Doha Development Round, and the Bali Climate Change Framework. In all this grand global design there is a massive promise to transfer funds, build infrastructure, and supply technical know-how to developing countries generally and to African nations specifically. The United Nations family, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and IMF systems, as well as the G8 and industrialized states, are committed to implement this development agenda by 2015.
If tourism were to be given a prime place in this support network, Mali and countries in the same poverty trap would have an area of proven wealth and job creation as a stepladder to sustainable development. The policymakers and bureaucrats who will be responsible for such a paradigm shift should start their research on the following pages.
Professor Geoffrey Lipman
Former Assistant Secretary-General
United Nations World Tourism Organization
Madrid, Spain
Timbuktu’s most famous landmarks are three mosques. This minaret has been often re-mudded since its creation hundreds of years ago. The mosques have been cited as “unique earthen architecture.”
Preface
IF I’D THOUGHT TO TRAVEL TO TIMBUKTU ANY later than I did, this book probably wouldn’t exist. The fabled city is once again as dangerous for foreign travelers as it was centuries ago.
In early 201
2, as the Arab Spring’s revolutions crested in North Africa, their unintended consequences tore into the landlocked nation of Mali, including the city of Timbuktu. Within the year the northeastern two-thirds of Mali, an area approximately the size of Texas, was threatened or controlled by an alliance of the nomadic Tuaregs and the upstart Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), a franchise of sorts under Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). That perilous situation would hold into 2013.
Far away, secure in my home country, I emailed my Malian friend Zak, who years earlier had been my guide to Timbuktu: “Are you safe?”
“Am safe,” he replied. “Village has fear.”
This fear had spread to Timbuktu as well. The ancient city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, despite remaining famously remote, became a daily news item on the Internet. Concerns for its future led to its being identified as “a looming disaster.” Another resident of Mali, unable to flee the recent assaults by extremists, exclaimed: “Truly we are living in misery.”
A new afterword for this Second Edition of To Timbuktu for a Haircut explains the unfolding and ongoing struggles taking place in Mali today. Though you and I can no longer travel there freely as I did not so long ago, there are ways in which we can help, and they begin with an understanding of the people and culture of Mali and why Timbuktu matters. My hope is that the story of my own travels in West Africa might bring a more human perspective to the reports of violence and political unrest coming out of that region and that one day, a journey to Timbuktu may once more be a worthy—and safe—quest.
Rick Antonson
New York, June 2013
INTRODUCTION
Touch a Map of the World
WHEN I WAS A BOY, EVERY OCCASION MY FATHER left the house was important. I and my older brother would pester him: “Where are you going, Daddy? Where? To work? To church? To the store?” And in the vernacular of the day, or perhaps with a flippancy meant to silence us, he would say what I believed to be the truth: “I’m going to Timbuktu to get my hair cut.”