To Timbuktu for a Haircut

by Rick Antonson

  “I have broken my dentures,” Nema said, waking me.

  “What?”

  “I have broken my dentures,” she repeated, her diction perfect. She was reading from the Lonely Planet French/English Dictionary that she had found while rummaging through my pack.

  Even when research had taught me about Timbuktu’s relative accessibility, I nurtured the awe that others expressed about my quest. I’d said much about what had once been the rigorous challenge of reaching Timbuktu, but did not share the knowledge of how reachable it might be. I approached Timbuktu aware that I was safe, not alone, not far from medical assistance, and in no danger.

  Often we drove fifteen kilometres before encountering another vehicle. Sacks of coal and wheat were stacked by the roadside, waiting for transport. In the middle of nowhere (now there’s a trite Western phrase) there was a woman in bright yellow dress belted with an orange cloth. Her hair was couched in a pastel blue wrap. She sat with three small children beneath a tree. The country’s economic woes did not show in her contented face or in the buoyant greens and reds of her children’s clothing. Maybe they didn’t know what the foreign debt was.

  The city of Mopti has bustled for many centuries. We arrived on the outskirts of this river port after encountering the frontière, a shift in administrative regions marked by oil drums blocking the roadway. Dead tires stacked as a wall and a crossbar of defeated metal prevented passage. A guard stuck his head in the car’s window and stared past Mamadou toward my face, then rolled the rims out of our way. As Mopti began to take shape along the roadway, cattle and people crossed it at a leisurely pace and slowed our drive.

  Salt, once valued pound for pound equivalent to gold when it traded in Timbuktu hundreds of years ago, is today still assembled in slabs for transport at the market in Mopti.

  “Is there Internet?” I asked Zak.

  “Yes. Is not reliable.”

  Intrigued with this world where “remote” may soon disappear as a concept, I decided to try connecting. A two-storey mud building, the second level a false front, had a sign, making good on the first half of Zak’s answer.

  “There?” I pointed.

  “Only there,” said Zak as Mamadou pumped the brakes and we stopped in a swirl of dust. My door opened with a creak and bumped against a motorcycle’s handlebar propped on the ground. I stepped around it and walked into a shop crammed with crates and barrels and sacks and iron holders. No computer.

  “May I use the Internet?” I asked a teenager, who was cinching tight a rope knot to hold a wooden box closed. He looked at me as though I’d ordered up the moon. Zak came in behind me and sorted things out, speaking Bambara.

  Grinning in response to Zak, the shopkeeper shifted a dented container and carried away two boxes. A chair was positioned in front of a carpet that was draped over shelves. He lifted the rug to unveil a dead computer. He restrung an electrical wire from its service to the light bulb, dimming the shop further. Then he linked another cord and pressed a button, tapped the central processing unit repeatedly and spoke to Zak.

  Zak relayed it to me, “A be na sonni.”

  Eventually I was able to e-mail my two sons that I was well and happy, Mopti-style.

  After I helped restore the prized computer to its darkened storage, I stepped into the bright sun and stopped. What had I seen? I retreated into the shop and looked at the young man. He was wearing my hat! I pointed to it and he pointed to Nema outside and held it tight to his head. She’d given it to him. This was really crazy. I reached for it and he backed away, but I got a hold on the wide brim and tugged. It came with my hand, he having decided not to make a fuss while my face showed exactly the opposite. I walked into the street with the hat on my head. Nema yelled at me. “Reek. He’s my friend.”

  “Lucky man, but he’s not getting my hat,” I said.

  “Give it to him,” she said, looking mean enough that I knew it was not a joke.

  “Not a chance, Nema.”

  With her foot, she scuffed sand at my legs and made a grab for my hat. I raised both hands to hold the brim secure to my head and she jabbed me in the ribs. She left the hat, but took my pride.

  It was another kilometre to the market. Swarms of merchants and itinerant buyers converged on the garbage pile that is their harbour, home to quick barter and discarded packaging. Pirogues conveyed goods from one place to another. Even the idle looked busy. Goats and cows and dogs dragged nourishment from the piles of litter.

  If you saw a thousand people in Mali, no two would be dressed alike. Occasionally they would look similar, but only by chance. Absent was the Western commonality of fashion, similarity of suit and skirt, slacks and jacket. It seemed true, too, of their personalities. The individuality was intense, based on the struggle for life, the indifference to community judgment, and the fact that one ate and wore what was handy. The uniformity of poverty seemed to result in an absence of the ambition to conform in dress.

  As I raised my camera for a memory shot of a pinasse that teetered under a heavy load, an ancient man yelled at me. He was robed in torn red, his brown body showing through the tears, his face covered in a stubble of blackish-grey on the cheeks that screamed. A beard hung below that. His eyes shouted the loudest.

  “Non.Non.” He was angry with me because my camera angle may have included him in the picture. At first I thought him foolish.

  He rushed forward, still bellowing at me, and our faces were very close, our eyes unblinking. I respectfully lowered my camera.

  My hand was open, motioned his way, and he reached out pre-emptively for control. He grabbed my hand to thwart picturetaking. Anger rose in his voice, and the market stilled at his shouting. His grip tightened. A bone crunched. I blinked.

  I pointed to his black hand clasped in my white. It was to him immediately funny. He laughed. Although his grasp did not loosen, his mood did. I asked if Zak could take a picture of our joined hands.

  “Oui.Oui.” The man pushed his sleeve up a java-black arm to further the contrast. He danced a jig in the sand, holding on tight, blurring the photograph and crystallizing the memory.

  Zak and Nema guided me to where they preferred lunch. We had a communal platter of chips and chicken. Sitting still, I was white prey for trinket sellers. One man appeared every ten minutes. When he asked in French if I knew the term “bargain,” I said, to Zak’s amusement, “No. Do you know Mohammed?”

  We loaded a case of bottled water into the trunk of our car and left Mopti. As we drove, people hoed rows in the fields, preparing to plant. Pushcarts were tilted to the ground, their loads secured. In their shade, men rested.

  As the sky darkened to a bronze-teal, cooking fires fuelled by millet husks lit our lonely road to Douentza.

  We pulled off into a black nothing. First, a wall, then a gate appeared. A building emerged from the darkness. There was a large courtyard, a covered patio, and dusty trees. Two old Toyota Land Cruisers braced an open fire, the only light. It was my first campement, an outpost of sorts. It was only a place to sleep, where travellers gathered.

  I hauled my bag toward the silhouette of a building. Zak switched on a solitary light bulb. He said, “Rick? Is okay?” I saw the cell-like walls with rotting paint and the lumpy mat on a little bed made of lashed branches. The closed window had protective metal flanges and the air smelled days old.

  “Perfect,” I said. I had not expected a Fairmont property. I slipped my pack to the concrete floor. Home, at least for now.

  I made the room mine. I stuffed a pillow in the case from home and unfolded my sleeping bag on the bed. I placed Sean’s gift of L’Alchemist and my baseball cap at the head of the bed. Then I found the open-air douche across the yard from my building, where it was separated from the toilet by a chest-high wall of dirt. The shower spewed cold water.

  Travel in Mali was about perseverance, long drives, and dismay at my chambers. Like forest camping, it took only a short while for any night’s lodging to become familiar.

  A yo
ung Frenchman, his Burkina wife, and his parents sat near their fire and the Land Cruisers. Kevin was lean, sanded rough by years as a guide. New to Mali, he and his wife had been married for most of his five years in Burkina Faso. His parents had flown earlier in the day from Paris to Bamako to Timbuktu, where he had met their plane and driven directly to Douentza.

  His father told me, “Many of my colleagues in Paris did not believe we were going to Timbuktu. They thought it does not exist.”

  “There’s not much to show them in Timbuktu,” said Kevin. “But now they’ve been there, and that makes a good story for them to take home.” He knew Mali well and reminded me of the dangers for travellers. “Before ’95, there were often Tuareg hijackings of four-by-fours,” he recounted. “Not now. Not much, anyway.” Kevin intended to stay in Mali to guide visitors. His knowledge of European expectations would provide refreshing competition for the locals.

  I was reading by the light of a candle when Mamadou and Zak returned from town, where they’d gone to pick up dinner, but carried nothing.

  “Dinner?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’ll go now.”

  “Now? You just got back.”

  “Is close,” Zak said.

  “Let me go with you.” We walked from the dark into the dark.

  It was pitch dark outside the encampment; it was black as Zak. Across the road and down a hundred metres was a light and loud talking, but we walked the other way. A small flame glowed as we approached some chopping noises coming from a hut. A man was bending over the glow, cooking.

  “Cow,” Zak said. They’d bought meat in the village and left it with the roadside cook when they’d returned.

  “Let it cook longer,” I urged.

  The man chopped and sorted the meat toward a meal. We wrapped it in slimy paper already greasy from use and thanked the cook.

  At the encampment, we pulled chairs around a small table not far from Kevin’s fire. Zak smiled as I carved part of the tough meat with the saw blade of my multi-pronged Leatherman. He picked the silver housing off the table, closed the greasy blade and opened the screwdriver attachment, laughing at the gizmo. He pried open six tools at once, nicking his finger with a sharp piece. He grinned widely. “Is great, Rick.”

  “Yup,” I said. “Best thing since sliced bread.”

  He looked at me quizzically. “Sliced?”

  Perhaps I should have said, “The best thing since pointed sticks.”

  Five feet from my coveted solitude, three villagers moved five tables from around the courtyard and into a group and found lanterns to place on them. A dozen glasses appeared. Kevin’s family turned their chairs to face away.

  Four trucks shuddered to a stop outside the gate, and in walked two men. One carried a television camera on his shoulder.

  “Where’s the liar who said we could drive from Bamako to Timbuktu in one day?” he snarled.

  “At the bank,” the other smirked.

  I listened as the two mates sorted out a trip gone amiss. It was a BBC film crew, festival-bound on a documentary assignment. As their caravan of four-wheel drives invaded my peaceful setting, I could feel their exasperation. They looked at me and, with a bonjour and bonsoir on my part, presumed me French. Being British, they ignored me.

  “No one showed on time,” said the cameraman, setting it down.

  “And the fuel was a surcharge,” the short bloke added, whining, “can you believe it?”

  They were colleagues travelling in separate vehicles, catching up on their complaining. A third sulked into the conversation. “God, I’d love a beer.”

  “There is no beer. I’ve already asked,” said the disgruntled cameraman.

  “It’s been sixteen bloody hours. I’m exhausted,” the first man moaned. His chums agreed.

  Their dozen travelling companions assembled around the tables in hope of food and drink. Among them was an elegant woman of African descent and European bearing. Soon the patio became a setting for their documentary. A candle glowed on the woman’s face as the camera ran. Now clearly a broadcaster, she had an upper-class accent and practised her lines for the London audience, speaking into the microphone.

  “We started at six-thirty this morning,” she began, her face tired, “and didn’t dawdle. It’s now ten o’clock at night and we’re still nowhere-fucking-near Timbuktu.”

  On the third take she added, “And there’s no room at this hotel.”

  I eased over to the director and suggested that the word “hotel” was stretching the concept some. They reshot the scene with, “And there’s no room in this village.”

  In Mali, food was always ready. Fires were constant, and parts of animals were moved closer to the flame or farther away depending on the traffic and the time of day. Locals set dishes of rice and quick chicken on the BBCers table.

  “There is beer,” announced the campement’s man through an interpreter, “But it is warm.”

  “Warm? Hell, we’re British,” said a lanky fellow. “Crisis over.”

  I overheard them talk of plans to keep driving that night. “We’re still a long way from Timbuktu,” said the cameraman.

  I was in and out of their conversations, and it was nothing for me to say, “In both of our countries, laws protect against tired drivers on the roads, even those who haven’t gone sixteen hours, like yours.”

  “Bloody right,” nodded the cameraman. “And none of us are keen for more road, except to get there.”

  Another, looking around at the ground they’d be sleeping on, said, “If it’s six hours away, we can make that. Better than staying here.” I offered my room to the elegant broadcaster, saying I could sleep outside. She thanked me but also wanted to be gone.

  I knew it was none of my business, but I suggested they talk with the French guide who knew the route and they agreed.

  “Kevin, these folks are thinking of driving to Timbuktu tonight,” I said by way of introduction as we approached his fire.

  “The river crossing you might prefer to do in daylight,” he said. “It’s your decision.”

  “How wide is the river?” one asked.

  “The first one you drive through is not too far across, but the water will be up to your truck windows and probably wash in.”

  “The first one?” came the surprised response.

  “The second river is the Niger. It has a ferry. If it’s on this side, it’ll take you across. If not, you’ll have to wait till daylight.”

  “What would you do?” the cameraman asked, wiping a sweaty face that shone in the flame.

  “I’d sleep here,” said Kevin. “The bandits aren’t out in the daytime.”

  Kevin’s mother and father climbed the outside stairs of my building to where they’d sleep on the open roof. Kevin and his gorgeous wife slipped away to his tent. The BBC crew’s boisterous talk did not reflect their tiredness and almost drowned out the muffled sounds of pleasure drifting from Kevin’s tent.

  A donkey squeal woke me, a novelty that would soon wear thin. The watch that was hooked to my pack glowed 6:40. They’d all be up, packed and waiting. I hurried, despite my intention never to hurry on this journey. Stuffed my bag. Outside, Mamadou, the only one of our crew who was visible, said, “Wrick, café?”

  Where I’d tidied last night’s leftovers, garbage was strewn and the pickings bare — the work of a four-legged nocturnal cleaning crew.

  I hauled out my gear.

  “No, the four-wheel drive not ready,” Mamadou said in Bambara, then again in French, thinking it helpful as I shuffled my backpack. He motioned that I should leave it on the ground.

  “Not ready? I thought we left at seven,” I said.

  “Wait,” said a voice. It came from a weather-wrinkled traveller sitting on a wooden stool, with a steaming drink cupped in her hands. This was a woman my age, whose teeth, hair, and skin look uncared for. She was apparently a veteran of travel in that corner of the world.

  “You’re travelling on W … A … I … T,” she advised
, enunciating each letter. “West Africa International Time. Get used to it.”

  I smiled and walked her way. “You sound patient,” I suggested.

  “Now. Not at the start. I’ve been here a month and lost my impatience in the back seat of a bussé my first week in Mali. If you hurry, you’ll be the only one stressed out.”

  An hour later, Zak and Nema appeared, seemingly at odds with one another. Might it come from having shared quarters for their night’s sleep?

  The campement, Auberge Gorma, bordered a village of mud homes held close by wind and dust. When I asked Zak about our four-by-four, which had arrived at Mohammed’s direction and was sitting unloaded, he said we were waiting for another one because it was safer to travel in pairs from here to Timbuktu.

  “Where’s the second four-by-four?” I asked. Silly me.

  “A be na sonni.”

  I strolled away. It could be hours.

  I wandered through the village and sat down on the rubble of a dirt fence to scribble a note. Kids hounded me for my pen, “Le bic, le bic,” and when I gave the chipped stylo to one, there sprang a chorus for more: “Un cadeau, un cadeau.”

  Chased away by their chattering, I found an empty street. At its edge, families were eating their first meal of the day. And, at its corner, the street widened where boys played soccer with a ripped ball that collapsed when kicked. Two big boys scored twice on their smaller competitors as I approached. I sided with the underdogs. A child passed the ball to a boy in pants too long for his legs, and he kicked the dead ball my way. I got dust. One of the big fellows leaped for the ball, but my leg was longer and I trapped the leather flat to the ground. Standing on the ball, I hip-checked him away, as he had done with the smaller kids. They cheered. The ball popped round and it was all mine. I’ve a move from my grade school days, and it always works on kids. It is a step across the ball and a back-of-my-heel kick the other way. Never fails. He blocked it. I rounded, showed him my back and put my feet to work. Quickly now, a fifty-four-year-old outmatched by the speed of youth, I kicked the deflated ball in front of me only far enough to keep it round and rolling. My team yelled. I was in front of the two tall boys and moving away, the floppy ball at my feet. It was not a short field. I was winded and needed to rest, but the little kids wanted me to score. I was being chased and could not give up. I slipped my instep below the broken ball and lifted it between two rocks that marked the goal posts. Cheers.