To Timbuktu for a Haircut

by Rick Antonson

  The platform in Bamako was a chaos of litter and colour and shouting and bags being shifted by strange hands. Neither our delayed departure from Dakar nor the disruptions en route were unexpected. The scheduled thirty-five-hour trip had taken over ten hours more. Everyone pushed and elbowed to get off the coaches and into the crowd of greeters and hawkers.

  “You should travel with us,” Ussegnou proposed as we shunted our bags to the platform, and I knew he meant it. “Meet our family. Stay with them. Then come to Burkina.” They’d offered this a number of times as our train travel neared its end. Now, with our packs resting by our sides, this was their last offer of camaraderie.

  “It would work,” said Ebou, as his strong hand gripped mine.

  “I already offered Rick to stay at our place,” Pierre said to them in French and then in English. His kindness was as simple as theirs — an invitation for me to hitch on and meet their friends, to travel some.

  “I’d love that,” I told them sincerely. “But, you know, I’ve got to get to Timbuktu.”

  Stern hugs, last laughs, and Ebou said, “Safe passage.” They melded with the flow of people and were gone.

  When Matthew and Alec jostled through the roiling bodies, shook my hand and left, I found myself alone. My journey was suddenly a crowded remoteness. I swam by myself in the current of black people, men moving cargo and women in dresses that screamed colours as loud as the insistent hucksters.

  My appetite for disorder peaked and waned with my breathing. My first impulse was to sit down and watch it all, capture the turmoil. Crates of luggage moved on worn wheels over the concrete walkway, suitcases were inadvertently shoved in front of people, tripping them. Families bumped aside anxious passengers, and everyone hugged or yelled directions. My second impulse was to secure transport to my hotel before all the taxis disappeared. I watched from the platform, heavy backpack by my side and rucksack over my right shoulder, looking for a vehicle.

  And there, far away in the middle of the car lot, where vehicles came in dust, loaded in dust, and left in dust, was Jeniba. Around her, people dodged cars and taxis aimed at people. I hauled my backpack across the ground and said hi. She was nonplussed. This was her town, and her countrymen — my friends were gone. She did not speak English well. We verbally fenced en français.

  “Do you know the Wawa Hotel?” I asked.

  “There’s non such l’hôtel.” Jeniba turned away slightly, like she wanted to lose me. She was neither keen to help solve the problem of the hotel’s location nor interested in my plight. I wondered if my three days without a shower played into the relationship.

  I grappled with my Lonely Planet French/English book to get delivery right. “It’s near the old bridge,” I said. “Pont des Martyrs.”

  “Non.”

  I wrote the district’s French name on paper and showed it to her, offering my pen for her unwilling reply. But she was waiting for someone to meet her, and that might be what showed when her green eyes squinted in frustration. Or she maybe found dealing with me a chore. She did, however, consent to read my scrawl and rearranged the alphabet. We asked a taxi driver if he’d heard of the Wawa.

  “Non.” And he loaded a black man’s possessions into his trunk. Again, to another driver.

  “Non.” Since they didn’t know the hotel name, they didn’t want me.

  Jeniba was now into the game. Her stunning face, taffy-toned skin, and erect pose garnered attention. Everyone looked at her. I’m the only white guy, and with an orange backpack, so you’d think I’d be noticed as needing a taxi, but I’d have been missed like so much dust if I hadn’t been standing next to her.

  Thrice more Jeniba stared down a running driver, her look as compelling as a shout, and showed him the paper with “Wawa Hotel” written on it.

  “Non.”

  Doubtful.

  Tenth time lucky.

  “Oui,” and I hustled after a man with missing teeth, missing hair, and a quirky assurance that he knew the whereabouts of a hotel no one else did. I turned around to thank Jeniba, but she was walking away, her bag carried by a man her age; I guessed dad-onthe-train got ditched. A dozen men lingered on her sway.

  Basking in the front seat of the taxi was a fat lady emblazoned with clothing of reds and greens and blues, wrapped with a yellow cloth over her shoulders. Her smile ran from ear to ear as she dillybobbed her head around and talked to me in a language of hiccups and burped syllables. She was ready to go, anxious at the driver’s delay, surprised at me climbing in. Bags aplenty crowded my seat in the back of the ancient car, held together by rust. I forced my bag over hers to make room. The lady gasped at the funniness of my orange backpack.

  The taxi coughed smoke out of its exhaust pipe, and we had driven only thirty metres on blacktop before the driver swerved. We bounced down a dirt road for five minutes and then abruptly turned onto a goat path. The lady and the driver giggled like former lovers over every small thing, and he eventually dropped her off in a yard filled with dusty people. They seemed to find it hilarious that she was home.

  Off we went, the car’s shocks a little more absorbent without her weight. Fume-laden streets, honking vehicles, and goats accompanied us through town, over a bridge and closer to where the driver’s rapid French made me believe I was going. I realized I should have begun Alliance Française lessons a month earlier; practised my diction, done my homework even. “Parle lentement, s’il vous plaît,” I said, using my verbal safety kit: “Speak slowly, please.”

  A hand-painted sign announced the Wawa Hotel. The driver pointed to it with such emphasis that I felt he was as surprised to see it as I was. We bumbled to a stop at a doorway in an alley, and dirt sifted everywhere. A child who had watched us arrive sized up the situation and disappeared into his house.

  A high wall flanked the front of the hotel, keeping it back from the road and enclosing it within a courtyard. Two leafy trees broke up the inside space between the wall and a low deck, with several wicker chairs, which led to a lobby area. To the left of this, as I toted my bag toward it, was what looked to be a counter. Behind the counter I found a man sleeping on a desk. I woke him.

  He fumbled through scraps of paper and finally showed me a note that had my name on it. I took this to be my reservation, and when I nodded the man seemed disappointed. He said I was to be there not that day, but that week. He explained in French that there wasn’t an empty room, but there might be one later.

  “Today?” I asked.

  “No,” he said in French. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Café?” I asked, seeing chairs set up around cloth-covered tables near a kitchen. I had the traveller’s willingness to let things unfold as long as a beverage was available. I rushed for nothing.

  The clerk brought hot water and a sleeve of Nescafé. The child who’d watched the taxi arrive appeared with a basket of fresh bread. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was and quickly ate all of the bread, only then finding the butter that would have melted swiftly on the hot loaf. The child left to get another.

  “Is Mohammed here?” I asked for my Malian contact by his full name, as this was the hotel where we were to meet. Might that be today? The clerk sloughed off to rouse Mohammed. I walked past the counter and leaned against a ledge as emotional tributaries flowed together in the muddy pond of my gut: one stream each for happy, uncertain, curious, and anxious. I wanted a reliable guide and a flexible itinerary, and the coming hours should deliver all of that. Mohammed sleepwalked from the hallway, rubbing his nose and yawning, led by the night clerk.

  Face to groggy face, we sized one another up and adjusted the images we held from the tone of exchanges. All of a sudden I was wanting little, expecting less.

  Mohammed was young, touching the upside of thirty, handsome enough. He scratched sleep from his eyes; the pupils were like date pits. He misplayed his confidence by not smiling.

  “Been up all night. It’s very busy. I’m very busy. Many people come this time of year. I went by the train stat
ion last night. Thought you might be on it. Didn’t you say later in the week? Went to the airport to pick up three for a tour. I’m tired. At the station they said the train would be an hour late. I went back. That was ten hours ago. I’ve had no sleep. You’re four days early. Want coffee?”

  Belatedly we shook hands.

  He was an Arabophone, a Francophone, an Anglophone and, as an afterthought, a Malian. He spoke to those about him in several languages. I got the English. To me there was a measure of respect in his voice, as I had yet to pay.

  Mohammed slouched at the nearest of four empty tables, his feet splayed. His hands were lankier than his body. The slump took a lot of room, and his mood was like a fourth language. We talked over the itinerary. As I slurped coffee he told me what he thought I should do now that I was there. Every suggestion from me was rebuffed as to its inconvenience, “but something can be done.” There was the faint echo of a cash register ring in his voice each time he said that. It reinforced my pre-departure concerns about his easy e-mail chitchat regarding costs and his predisposition to charge more for every possibility. I should have been more scrupulous.

  “After Timbuktu, we will get you on the pinasse, and send you back to Mopti,” Mohammed said, implying the efficiency of a FedEx shipment.

  “Tell me more about the boat,” I asked.

  “The pinasse on the Niger is for you and two couples, one from the U.S.,” he said, as though that was reassuring.

  I balked. “I’ve no desire to spend time in Mali with other people from North America.”

  He demurred. “Okay. We can change that. They will be at the festival. Just two of them. But okay.” The closer I got to Timbuktu, the more accessible it seemed, the less novel my doing.

  “Good, change it,” I demanded.

  “You must pay more.”

  “For what?”

  “For not having others in the pinasse.”

  “Others are fine,” I said. “Just not North Americans. I’m here to learn.”

  “You must go to Gao.”

  “Not my interest,” I said. “Maybe more days in the Dogon.”

  “Three days is enough in Dogon,” he advised, clipping the option. “You need to see Lac Faguibine in the desert.”

  I was getting to know Mohammed.

  A broken muffler burst the morning quiet, and a car clanked to a stop outside the hotel. Minutes passed before the vehicle emptied and three Malians slumbered into the courtyard. A traveller walked in their midst. He tipped a pith helmet my way and smiled wearily at Mohammed.

  Mohammed said to me, “That’s Dennis. I arranged his trip. Talk to him. He will tell you I’m good.”

  Dennis’s Japanese heritage showed in his eyes, skin colour, and round face. He had just returned to Bamako after a month in Mali. He was content and self-assured, though cautious toward Mohammed. He held a day pack in a lazy grip, his stocky body giving no sign of deprivation. We shook hands, his clasp firm. He was keen on going home but willing to share a few lessons with me before he went.

  While one of the helpers hauled his bag to a room, he relaxed in a wicker chair in the lobby. I joined him there, flattened my cushion, and started my questions.

  “Yes, I was in Timbuktu,” he replied to my first. “You must go.”

  “I will. I am,” I said, disheartened. My quest was intended to be singular, and so far I’d been pleased that the others I’d met had not ventured there. Dennis had just dashed part of my hopes. Yet I was equally encouraged by this fresh source of knowledge and asked more.

  “The Dogon, yes,” he replied. “The Niger? Of course.”

  This man has taken my trip.

  Mohammed ducked around the corner, looking for me. His chin pushed his lower lip to a concerned pucker, as though he figured my talking with Dennis might not be a good idea after all. We had negotiations to finalize, and Mohammed was anxious. Dennis rose to find his room. I walked to the hotel’s reception area and rested against the counter, my back to the wall, and faced an overconfident Mohammed, his mouth that of a jackal; a twitch, a pounce.

  “Fuel is extra,” said Mohammed.

  “Extra?” I looked at Dennis, who was only a few metres away, within hearing. He shrugged, as I learned all do upon leaving Mali.

  “I wanted to meet you to explain these things,” said Mohammed.

  “Explain away,” I encouraged.

  “I wanted to tell you when you got here.”

  “I’m here.”

  Mohammed was practised. I would not throw him off. Guidebook warnings about fuel surprises notwithstanding, I thought it would have been proper to note this in one of his e-mail responses to my questions about cost components. Not wanting to care, I asked, “How much?”

  “Seven hundred and thirty.”

  I cared. “U.S.?” I asked hopefully.

  “Euro.”

  “Quite a jump in travel costs,” I posed.

  “We always charge fuel extra because we don’t know the itinerary and it’s expensive.” He didn’t even cringe. Humility was foreign to him. I wanted to get started on the road later that day or first thing the next morning. No fuel, no vehicle. No vehicle …

  With Mohammed there was always more. We bartered about what was included, what was not. Dennis, sage after a month of this, told me later that he had encountered several “extras” and simply paid in order to move along.

  Mohammed said he could arrange a camel for riding in the desert, at my “addition,” which I thought was fair. He had both hands in his trouser pockets, yet I felt them in mine. He outlined a routing, obviously profitable for him because others were involved, which reduced his costs while not reducing mine. I eliminated many of the guided days he proposed, deleted hotel stays and dickered on vehicles.

  “I don’t need the adventure of a four-by-four on paved roads, Mohammed. I’ve got a Jeep at home.”

  He relented with a cheaper vehicle for several days. “But you’ll need a Land Cruiser north of Douentza or you’ll never make it to Timbuktu.”

  Bamako had one bank machine, at the Banque Internationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie au Mali, and we headed there to square the deal with cash. At BICIM there were only two customers ahead of me and we were soon finished, CFAs in my clenched hand. Mohammed’s palm opened.

  “You should take out more money,” Mohammed said. His shiny face was both serious and smiling, a perilous business combination.

  “I’ve got what I need,” I replied sternly.

  Mohammed talked and I was not listening as we walked the streets to find our car. We’d driven ten minutes into town and were on a bed of dust kicked high by cattle and mopeds. A driver pushed his horn to move people into storefronts stacked with rice sacks, welding supplies, fruits, and bicycle rims.

  Back at the hotel, I poured coffee for each of us as Mohammed and I argued about my itinerary. We sorted costs by vehicle, by day, by guide — he repeated that “Gao is a must” for my trip and again I said, “No.”

  “I think eight or ten days hiking the Dogon will suit me fine,” I told him, becoming more specific, perhaps because he disagreed. We quarrelled about this until I said, “Mohammed, it’s my trip not yours.” But the Dogon was left unresolved. Another key decision was whether to go to the festival, something Mohammed encouraged, and I wavered from my initial interest. It meant a more hurried routing to Timbuktu, about which I was not keen, but in exchange there would be the rare experience of participating in the Tuareg festivities.

  Mohammed then said, “Each night, the hotel is seventy-five Euro.”

  “Is every hotel equal?” I asked.

  “All are good hotels,” he told me. “Especially this is important to arrange now for in Ségou, Douentza, and Timbuktu.” Without having comparisons, I accepted his estimate. It was a mistake.

  Irritatingly, he once more urged Gao, and I finally realized he had others making that trip, so my joining-in would offer a better profit margin. “I’m not going to Gao,” I said, feeling silly th
at the decision was driven more by my desire for independence than by the attractiveness of the destination.

  He sparred with me. “You don’t know what you need. I do,” he insisted.

  “My money, my risk. I’ll decide on the Dogon, and let you know,” I said, and stood up as though to leave, then remembered it was his country, his vehicle, his contacts, and my need. I sat down and said, “Look Mohammed, let’s sort this out and I’ll be on my way.”

  Mohammed said that I must pay him in advance for all the accommodation, as he needed to secure the hotels. I tallied. He balked. He tallied. I balked. We shook hands — a dated gesture of trust. I said, “If I route this way, I can shift my air departure from Bamako back a day to make better my tight connection home through Dakar. That I like.”

  There was a faint smell to the deal with Mohammed. It was costing more than I was comfortable with, in circumstances that were slipping beyond my control. The goal of Timbuktu could not elude me. He took me for a slightly obsessed Western tourist masquerading as an independent traveller.

  It was time to pay Mohammed using U.S. dollars and Euro bills from my money belt and the seffe cash I’d just withdrawn. He wanted the entire payment in seffe, and I felt I was in a set-up. The conversion of foreign currency at his own bank would take two days to process and provide a splinter less in the exchange rate. Mohammed yanked a cell phone from the desk clerk’s hand and dialed nimbly. He barked quickly into the phone, then seemed caught off-guard by whomever he spoke with, and slowed down, nodding as he spoke in Bambara. Then he smiled, turned the phone off, and tossed it in the air to the clerk.

  Fifteen minutes later a fat man arrived, a motorcycle clenched between his flabby thighs. His belly rested on the handlebars. The money-changer waddled our way, his pants low with pouches sewn onto the leggings. They bulged. A white shirt floated around him. Sitting on a chair that groaned, he opened a wallet that was fist-thick with seffe and U.S. dollars. From his purse he pulled a clump of Euros. He sulked at the negotiated rate when Mohammed announced it, shuffled his bills, and paid me with a feigned reluctance. In mock defeat, he buried his greedy chin in his shirt collar.