To Timbuktu for a Haircut

by Rick Antonson

  “How was your midnight drive to Timbuktu?” I asked, recalling that they had been gone when I woke in Douentza.

  “Difficult,” he admitted, putting down his camera and sitting on the deck. His legs dangled. “We had to abandon two of the fourby-fours.”

  “What sort of troubles?”

  “Mechanical,” he answered. “The radiator gave. The other had a crankshaft break. We piled into the two remaining four-by-fours and got here at about the same time as if we’d stayed and slept the night in that hovel.”

  “Lucky it worked out.” I coughed.

  “Stories to tell the grandkids,” he said.

  With a wave, I left him to finish the setup and started to climb the long dune. My legs were gaining strength from all the “up the dune, down the dune” walking I’d been doing in the past two days. My voice was taking on a rasp from the late-night cold. The dusk turned to dark. The stanchions, which had provided heat during the first night, were now burned out, and fewer people sat on the large dune that swept the length of the desert-made amphitheatre. Most fans crowded for warmth and a better vantage point near the stage.

  The Malian singer Ali Farka Toure defines Mali in the world of music. In anticipation of coming here, his voice often accompanied my drives to and from work the previous fall as I tried to acclimatize myself to Malian culture. His appearance that evening had been staged early so that the documentary crew could get its film footage and make an early exit before the rest of us.

  Midway during Ali’s performance, the power failed. The stage lighting disappeared and the musical instruments faded away. The desert night went bone cold. You could not see for looking. Groans could be heard throughout the crowd. But the blackout was not to be one of the quickly fixed power outages that are common in the desert; the electrician had pulled the plug. The technicians had not been paid. It was a flawless strategy; the power of power. Malian folk hero on stage. No pay, no lights, no music. The organizers rallied and paid cash. Ali rocked.

  At two-thirty, sleepy, cold, and tired, a dozen of us were at the appointed place, the location where we’d been told to gather if we wanted a ride to Timbuktu. Two four-by-fours and our packs were where we’d left them before the evening’s performance. The drivers were asleep and our gear lay open, there for whomever the night might have brought. We roused the drivers.

  The implacable Mohammed had left Essakane earlier in the evening. Two people unknown to me tried to sort out who was to go where in the overbooked vehicles. They yelled at the drivers. Everyone fumbled in the dark. Talk was fast and urgent, but it didn’t seem to speed the organization of the trip.

  Seated beside the driver sulked an ill Goathead, who, as paid help had sat himself in the finest seat in a vehicle, while I paid full price simply to ensure transportation. It was to be for me, my guide, and my driver: that was it, Mohammed had said. Meanwhile, in the back seat I was wedged against the right-hand door, with Nema pressed next to me, the Swiss lady angled tight by her, and Zak’s slenderness crammed into the other door. In the cargo area, stuffed among the extra bags that wouldn’t fit on the roof rack, were the French girl and her two male friends. Perhaps I should have felt grateful to have avoided their predicament, but I didn’t. I felt cheated.

  Other four-by-fours attempted to leave, but few actually departed in the disorganized dark; paying passengers were slow to show up.

  We lurched into the night to find dawn. We crossed routes without ruts or tracks, in a land once called Beled-es-Sudan, “Land of the Blacks.” Our road was without light except for that provided by our own vehicle’s headlights. The other four-by-four disappeared on a different route, so we sidled on alone in a southerly direction, perhaps not without aim but certainly without confidence. We reconnected with the other vehicle in a near accident while coming over the rise of a dune. We stopped and everyone jumped out of the Land Cruisers while the drivers shouted at one another and finally determined to continue on together.

  We travelled at high speed, hurtling through deep dips and up steep dunes. One vehicle or the other frequently stalled, and often all the passengers got out and pushed beneath a sky of patchy cloud and patchier stars. After one long pause in which we were stuck in the sand, the second four-by-four departed on its own, leaving us stranded. It occurred to me that a compass would have been a good idea.

  Our driver, worried that driving too slow might sink our fourby-four, raced whenever a semi-hard surface appeared, skirted less sure ground, and skidded on bends. We careened around corners when he reconsidered the direction in mid-turn. Not surprisingly, sleep did not come easily to the passengers, but our slunk heads indicated our attempt. Suddenly, a swift yank left and slammed brakes brought my side of the vehicle unimaginably close to the ground. Only the balancing weight of other passengers prevented a teetering crash.

  Finally, and against all reason, we arrived in Timbuktu. As we stepped out of the vehicle in the dawn, one passenger started to cry with relief. Another comforted her and cursed the forced night drive in frightening circumstances. “It is dangerous enough in the daytime,” he said. “Why the hell a rushed drive in the middle of the night? Now we need to pay for a morning’s hotel room.”

  I was too exhausted to join their conversation.

  Zak sighed, “I not think we’d live. Honest. Seem we have terrible accident. Many times almost hit road.”

  SIX

  The Forbidden City

  IT SURPRISED ME HOW REACHABLE TIMBUKTU was. I’d been willing to put up with sporadic travel and delays, to accept cramped and stuffy spaces, to be hot to the point of suffocation, to adjust to communication gaffes, to accept “price surprises,” and even to eat sand. None of this was easy for anyone. Nevertheless, “the Forbidden City” was, after all, accessible.

  I early awoke on top of the bed, still wearing my clothes. This was exactly where I’d crashed two hours earlier. No one else would be awake yet. I owned the day. I stepped out of my room and into the hallway. Zak was already up.

  “Mohammed wants to meet you,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He sent me.”

  “Here?”

  “No, at the Bouctou Hotel.”

  “When?”

  “Now,” sighed Zak.

  “Is there a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “A driver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gas?”

  “Rick. Let’s go.”

  I had taken a day — one day only — in the middle of my life and set it aside for Timbuktu. This was that day and its evening and the night.

  The Bouctou Hotel, low and unassuming as a sand dune, seemed to attract litter into piles wherever people sat or squatted. An irascible Mohammed, determined to remain aloof from the scattered groups around him, leaned alone against a tree, where my Land Cruiser stopped just short of his scowl.

  “Rick!” he shouted at my open window, commanding the scene and muting the hubbub of conversation. I shoved the vehicle’s door open and swung my feet to the ground. I was a titch taller than him; his eyes were darker. He held the advantage. “The boat must leave today at three,” he smiled.

  “Nope.” I said this quickly, and noticed that the bystanders gasped that someone would dare disagree with this forceful Arab. The air quickened.

  “It would be good,” he continued with self-serving selfassurance. “You have lots of time in Timbuktu. Then the pinasse can leave.”

  In the ensuing silence, he knew that I knew that this change was necessary to make a related itinerary work for him. The River Niger could wait. I said nothing. People looked away. Zak scraped the sand with the heel of his sandal. Then, all eyes turned toward Mohammed.

  Finally.

  “Rick?” It was sharp, the way he flung it.

  “It’s not going to happen, Mohammed.” I breathed for the crowd. “The boat leaves tomorrow.”

  Tagged with labels such as “The Town of 333 Saints,” Timbuktu no longer receives accolades. T
hose who call it home do not share the foreigner’s fascination. The city’s mystique is powerful only until you arrive. I’d like to pretend it’s different, but it isn’t.

  Nothing prepares the naive visitor for the absence of intrigue quite like the question Malians consistently ask when they find out that one is travelling to Timbuktu: “Why?”

  UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites grew in 1988 with the designation of Timbuktu and the specific inclusion of its three mosques, of which the Djinguereber Mosque, built in 1325, is the most prominent. Its reputation rests on its history and its current state of disrepair, as well as for its periodic acceptance of visitors. The Sankoré Mosque, part of a school, attended by 25,000 university students at its peak in the sixteenth century, is also notable. Its colonnades and courtyard were rebuilt in 1582, though it was first constructed a century earlier, and the mosque is cited as “unique earthen architecture.” The Sidi Yahia Mosque, which takes its name from one of Timbuktu’s saints, is in the best condition of the three, but non-Muslims are denied entry. All three mosques, however, are crumbling away. In Timbuktu, the restoration of monuments is a continuous process, and the drift of earth among them relentless. Timbuktu, once the “Pearl of Africa,” also has the dubious distinction of being on the United Nations’ List of World Heritage Sites in Danger.

  Once rumoured to have “streets paved in gold,” the reality of Timbuktu has always been mud homes that fight the relentless assault of the Sahara Desert’s sand.

  Surviving there to this day are homes of the three earliest European explorers to reach the fabled city and live among its inhabitants. Each feared for his personal safety and was eager to return to Europe and relate his achievements. In the nearly two hundred years since then, the mud houses of Laing, Caillié, and Barth have been, as they were before the arrival of their historic guests, shelter for residents of Timbuktu. And they remain intact, despite the desert’s continued attempts to erode them.

  Scuffed by history, Mali benignly accepts its diminished status. The Malian Empire is no more, and the country vies with Bangladesh as the world’s poorest nation. Desertification is Timbuktu’s greatest threat; Mali’s nemesis, the Sahara — with 7 million square kilometres of sand — assaults every man-made structure. The Sahara gave birth to Timbuktu. Now its sands are trying to bury it with a persistence more treacherous than the heat’s.

  Endangered, too, are the rarest of writings — pieces of history-on-paper that form one of the world’s great treasures — the Timbuktu manuscripts. Many crumble at the touch of a wellmeaning hand; others wither simply because of their exposure to air. Without them, we will know immeasurably less about a glorious time for Africa, some six hundred years ago. The manuscripts provide a portrait of life, of religion and science, of law and architecture, and of a society that thrived like none other at that time. Before leaving on my journey, while researching Timbuktu’s fourteenthcentury history and its extensive libraries, I was disheartened to read about thousands of ancient manuscript pages that today lay tattered and unattended in mud homes and deserted buildings. Images of ancient books and furled pages falling apart for lack of care provided a powerful incentive for visiting Timbuktu. My newly gained awareness of their existence, and their peril, infused my journey with a worthy purpose: to find the manuscripts and find a way to help with their preservation.

  Once known as “The Eyes of the Desert,” old Timbuktu was quite the sight. In 1933, William Seabrook wrote, “It is, I believe, the only city in the whole wide world which has none of the banal blessings, or curses, of what we choose to call ‘white civilization.’” Old Timbuktu, the inner part of the city, was innocuous and compact, its walkways the now-trampled swells of desert. Few markings or signs designated its streets or paths.

  Travellers and travel books said it would be wise for a visitor to hire a local guide, if only to rid oneself of pestering youngsters. I asked Zak to come with me that morning. We walked away from the Bouctou Hotel’s drabness to a wider dirt road and along its rim into the old city, a district neglected by charm.

  The Djinguereber Mosque was an exceptional find, though it does not loom physically as it does historically. To imagine that it had once been a centre of learning, filled with fervent adherents and peopled night and day with scholars as well as those in prayer, paints a picture of a vast house of worship. But we found it was not much over twice the height of the other buildings in the neighbourhood of the Place de l’Indépendence, off the Boulevard Askia Mohammed, and that it had a modest entrance. Centuries earlier, Leo Africanus wrote, “There is a most stately temple to be seen.” In those days it must have been more impactful on its surroundings.

  Caillié had noted another reality in his journal: “I visited the great mosque on the west side of town. The walls are in bad repair, their facing being damaged by rain. Several buttresses are raised against the walls to support them. I ascended the tower, though its staircase is almost demolished.” Since 1325, when the poet and architect Es Saheli created this unique design, Timbuktu’s most important mosque has needed constant reworking and repair. Wooden support beams poke through its slanting walls, acting as stabilizers for the wall and for mudding crews. Though Mansa Musa directed its construction upon his return from Mecca, it was Saheli, brought from Egypt, who created the striking pyramid base that now defines Timbuktu, Djenné, and Mali generally in photographs. Musa also encouraged broader belief in the tenets of Islam, and building libraries and universities known as madrasas, most of them no longer in existence.

  Non-Muslims are generally not invited into mosques, so when the opportunity arose to enter this one, we took it. The caretaker waited inside the house of prayer, his mood as solemn as the dusty light.

  Quiet. The caretaker gestured to me to shed my leather thongs. Streams of sunlight were the only other intruders as he showed Zak and me along the passage where prayers were uttered. He indicated privacy hollows, fortified by wood and carved mud, where worshippers made penance.

  Timbuktu’s Great Mosque, Djinguereber, is recognized as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.

  We entered three inner courts. Rows of pillars, twenty-five in all, stood in an east-to-west alignment. Zak whispered the translation as we walked. “Islam too has pillars. Five. Primary belief, ‘Is no god but Allah,’ and Mohammed his prophet.”

  “Second, Muslims face Mecca and pray. Must at daybreak, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset. Again nightfall.”

  “And they give alms,” I added, happy to contribute.

  Walking within the mosque, with no one else about, the austere expanse made it seem less a place of worship and more a magic hall where, when I stopped and let Zak drift on, I could imagine a throng of prayer-makers, hear the shout of calm from the Imam and, in my own way, feel compelled to kneel and give thanks.

  “Another, Ramadan,” Zak said, no longer repeating the caretaker’s words, and only then noticing me pondering prayer behind him. But I’d heard, and nodded, so he continued. “Commemorates first revelation to Mohammed. Muslims fast. One month. Dawn to dusk.”

  “And Mecca,”I added, to complete the fifth pillar of their faith.

  “Yes,” Zak said. “Every Muslim. Pilgrimage. If they afford. If healthy.”

  Religion has long been a travel motivator: the seeing of sites, the paying of tributes, homage given to deities or a pilgrimage. Faith led to travel as surely as a current carries water. If you are fortunate, you travel with two religions: your own and that of your host, from whom you learn. Many people travel to learn the rituals of other religions rather than to comprehend the beliefs underlying these rituals.

  “Zak,” I asked, “do you believe in God?”

  “Yes,” he said. He did not elaborate.

  The caretaker left us alone, and we ascended the mosque’s stairs to the roof. The architect Es Saheli had invented the mud brick, a revolutionary technique in a land where previously mud and weeds were slapped on wood frames. The stability of this brick, augmented by upgrades
over the centuries, accounted for the sturdiness of the stairs. Caillié too had climbed those stairs, two centuries ago.

  Throughout old Timbuktu, narrow, shallow ditches line the centre of every street. We strolled with one eye to the ground and noticed the locals stepping carefully to avoid dipping a foot into those sewers. It meant we were not able to fully appreciate the buildings that bordered the walkways.

  Leo Africanus’s memories of Timbuktu inspired centuries of envy. “Here are many shops of artificers and merchants, and especially of such as weave linen and cotton cloth.” We did not find that splendour; rather, we witnessed the eking out of a life.

  I asked Zak, “What does everyone do here?”

  “They sell.” It was true. Everyone sold. I wanted the guy who sold haircuts.

  But the shops were not defined. Nothing said, “Come in …” Nothing on the streets recognized the visitor or the need for rest, or refreshment. Residents set a pot of still-cooking food on the bunting of their homes, or used a table to promote their wares: fried fish, individual cigarettes, old tools. Bread was stacked three loaves high and four deep on a rickety chair in front of the flat-sided mud house where it was baked. I bought one and handed half to Zak.

  Children played tag, the world’s most affordable game. Centuries have transformed the personality of Timbuktu and her people. Africanus noted, “The inhabitants are people of a gentle and cheerful disposition.” He continued with something I’d not noticed, that they “spend a great part of the night in singing and dancing.” Those were the days, my friend ...

  The sun dictated that we hide. Zak and I dawdled over fried chicken, smoked tomatoes, and what tasted like sawdust at the Poulet d’Or. Sheltered from the midday heat, we snoozed a little in our straight-back chairs. My thoughts drifted to the morning’s conversation with Mohammed, in which I’d challenged him. He was unkind, arrogant. “Police, your embassy, these people can do nothing to me.” I did not agree, but it was his country. I asked him, “What if a traveller wrote about you? It might not be favourable.”