A wristwatch bleated its alarm, and I wondered why one would bring such technology here. There was a brief push of rain. The recorded sound of morning prayers began, scratchily, to play over a loudspeaker. I sat up in my sleeping bag on the roof. On the opposite terrace, a line of rope looped between a treetop and a post to hold the mosquito net that covered the young French couple, curled together in their sleep. Even here, in the land of the exposed breast, a French lace brassiere on the clothesline was a sexy sight.
A donkey’s braying was like a tuba clearing the air among the other instruments in the orchestra pit before the real music began. It duelled with a trombone donkey and then fell silent. The village’s women lit their home fires, and I rose to the smell of warm bread. Certainly, I was not the first to notice and appreciate it, but I felt as though I was.
Brooms in the skilled hands of women cleared the dirt floors below as I gingerly slipped down the ladder post. They swept the one tidy part of an unkempt country. The streets and public places were cleaner in the Dogon. Less trash, more pride, and a sanitation savvy lacking elsewhere in Mali.
The early morning was enlivened with village mutterings. Nature’s statement surged: all was right in this world. I crested toward the village on a teetering mud path that banked on an aging dune. Across the way was a man tending his fire. He was what Zak called “one of the olds.” The elder smiled without teeth; it was an invitation. I squatted and warmed my hands around the fire. You travel to see the stories in other people’s faces. This man’s face told me of hardship, though he grinned; it spoke of wisdom, which I interpreted as patience; it showed knowledge of the past and an acceptance of today as rather special. His smile was the day’s punctuation mark.
He picked small twigs from a pile and added them to the fire. His bony fingers tended the kindling to create more heat for me. Mali has a history you cannot quite comprehend, even as you know its facts. Seeing the desert is not understanding it; being in the Dogon explained that waking up with few possessions was not the same as being impoverished. I passed him a few kola nuts — a mild stimulant — from my pocket. His eyes smiled as he accepted them.
Four older women, carrying the morning food, paused to greet me, laugh, and shake my white hand. A man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and with a cloth-covered head walked past me and grinned. Three little boys came and sat with me in silence, whispering to one another and starring at the peculiar man.
Donkey colts played without making a sound, chickens fussed over food, and the goats grazed. Morning had broken; the orchestra was at rest.
We were not far out of Kani-Kombolé, the start of the second day of our trek. I followed Zak on the desert path.
“Zak,” I called, and he stopped. I caught up and said, “You’re a good guide.”
He smiled in his shy way. What I had said was true, and he knew it.
“You can lead from behind,” I told him.
“Why?”
Trekking in Dogon Country is often along paths worn wide by donkey carts and by traders making their way to markets, perhaps carrying firewood atop their heads for sale.
“Because I want nothing ahead of me. I need to be alone, Zak. I won’t get lost with you behind me.” He stood there solemnly as I walked away. In Canada’s north, where dogsleds once prevailed and are still used, there is a saying: “If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.” For the rest of the time Zak and I spent together, I enjoyed the advantage.
On the sub-Saharan trail, I bore the heavy pack as we had agreed. I walked with a wide stride as the way was clear and Zak had me in his view. Not unlike my work world, I get to lead so long as others have me in their sight and make sure I don’t stray.
I trudged for an hour without looking behind me. When I did, Zak and Nema were quite far back, with two boys sitting on top of a cart hauled behind a donkey, yoked with baobab rope. For once, I wanted them to catch up and pass me. Half an hour later I shifted my heavy pack and looked again. The cart was still with them, and friends of theirs had joined them. When the donkey trotted past me, I realized in a blink what had happened. They had shucked their loads onto the charette, and were walking with ease. I ran after it and shed my haversack.
“Once ago,” Zak said, “Tellem pygmies settled here.” He called these eleventh-century migrants “nomads who found permanent home.” They feared the animals that inhabited the plentiful woods that once stabilized the soil and held off the sands. Their defence was to carve caves into crevices high up the cliffs on the escarpment’s side. It was heavy work to climb over boulders and pull oneself up the cliff to these dwellings. Because of the shortness of the Tellem people (Zak had earlier asked if I knew the term “pygmies”), they needed ropes, wooden ladders, and each other’s help to construct, as well as reach, these homes.
Then, in the fourteenth century the Dogon people arrived, refugees from elsewhere. The first to arrive were farmers, who hunted aggressively to rid the land of predators. The forests, which were once filled with wildlife, were cut for agriculture and firewood by the Dogon and, in time, the Gondo Plain emerged. It now borders the escarpment for its entire length. Villagers no longer feared jackal or hyena attacks, and did not require refuge from predators. They made new homes lower on the land and left the caves, now remote and impractical, except for storage. Most of the Tellem are gone.
Ridding the country of forests, with their ability to store water and sustain an ecosystem, these farmers hastened desertification. The soil eroded without vegetation or roots to hold it fast. Now, with rearguard thinking, trees are being replanted to drive back the desert. There are tens of thousands of them, a gift to Mali from China.
We walked the difficult sentier, Zak’s French term for tracks, from the village. Then we climbed over the large rocks to visit Old Teli, well above the present village, and found the hill homes vacant and abandoned. Treasures lay scattered on the ground, not yet scavenged by travellers. A sack rested in a wedge of wood, its tired straps holding a large tin with the faded number “1904” showing through the dust. Upon scrutiny, it was a drum, its leather cracked with age.
I had come to value little things — a firm footing on a sandy walk, washing my mouth with warm water to ease a dry throat, French spoken as a break from Bambara, three branches of shade, even a slight waft of wind, a cool Coca-Cola that I measured in gulp, sip — gulp, sip, sip, sip — and then the last mouthfuls in two glorious swallows.
Tellem villages were built precariously on cliffsides for protection from the wild animals in what were once nearby forests, now disappeared. The deserted remnants of these homes are today accessible with a guide — and exertion.
The joy of the walk with the heavy pack was singular. The path was cushioned by worn grains of sand, too slippery for a foothold, and the steps were difficult. Previous walkers had found this too, and their search for a new path had eroded the berms, packed them down, and left a firmer new trail.
A well and a youngster pulling water came into view. I came near and he smiled. I grabbed the rope between his hands and alternated with his pulls as we drew the heavy rubber sack of water together. I steadied a funnel and the boy filled a plastic container. What water was left in the sack he let me use to wash my face. He laughed at me and I lowered the sack ten metres back down the well, where it sank and filled with water again. Hands over hands, we pulled it up again. I poured some over my head and then handed the sack to him. He filled a trough for the animals, admittedly a more worthy use of the water. I recalled the comment of a friend from Japan, who once told me that in small villages in that country, there is a saying: “When you take a drink of water, stop to thank those who dug the well.”
I was far ahead of Zak and knew this not to be particularly good. I trusted that I was on the right path but several options opened before me, each heading in a different direction. No one was in sight. I chose the only tree in view and dropped my pack, eased myself to the ground with it as a prop, and waited patiently for Zak and Nema to catc
h up.
We never walked at midday. In the early afternoon we found shelter in a small village and dodged the sun. This day we arrived at Endé, with its loose assembly of homes. Immediately a young man brought Nema a live chicken. She held it, scowled by way of negotiating the price, pulled at its wings, and passed it back to the boy. Dejected, he pushed it her way, advancing its qualities in a language I did not know but in a style I recognized. Over to him, back again to her. The chicken squawked its own views in the debate, presumably seeking a reprieve.
We sat down and I asked for a cola. Nema, heading for the cooking area with the chicken she’d purchased, quickly added a d’jina,jus de pomme. Thus I learned to run a tab for our threesome whenever we stopped.
During a nap in a shady spot on a cushioned mat in the sand I was awakened by the clatter of plates. The temperature was well over a hundred degrees, a heat that evaporated energy from anyone who moved. Yet a pot, the plates, and a fork were strewn on a nearby table. A listless Nema had transformed a can of vegetables into a feast. It was easier to carry food in your stomach than on your back. Peppers and tomatoes contrasted brightly with the sleepy green of the peas. Nema lifted two pieces of boiled chicken from the pot and laid them on top the bed of off-white rice, flicking her fingers to loosen the food. The peas held suspiciously close together.
Zak, quickly into his, mulled over the first mouthful.
I offered the critique, “This is an old chicken.”
Shaking his head, Zak observed, “It’s just chicken that had to walk for its food.”
Zak was constantly greeting people. Those who walked past me with merely a nod engaged in a detailed exchange with him. It held the lilt of friendship, that I could tell, but the words at first had no meaning to me, almost as though their cadence sent the message, not their literal meaning.
“Aga po,” they said to him in greeting.
“Po,” Zak replied. This much I could pronounce, and did say, Po being fairly easy on my non-linguistic tongue.
Then the banter became warm, never token. I must have heard it a hundred times in those days. It was Dogon, a language like no other. When I was breathless on a mountain path or wanting to be silent while trudging along a market trail, Zak would be involved in this exchange.
“Aga po.”
“Po.”
“Seyoma?” they asked.
“Séo,” Zak responded, pronouncing it seyo.
“Gineh Seyom?”
“Séo.”
“Deh Seyom?”
“Séo.”
“Na Seyom?”
“Séo.”
“Ulumo Seyom?”
“Awa, Popo.”
And with this final assurance that “Everything’s really okay, thank you,” the whole exchange was repeated anew, in reverse. Zak, the one who was all answers in the first go, now asked each question in return. There was no short version.
“Hello, how is your work?” Zak asked.
“Fine,” was the response.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“How’s the family?”
“Fine.”
“How is your father?”
“Fine.”
“How is your mother?”
“Fine.”
“How are the children?”
“Everything is really okay, thank you.”
I relished the “Séo” part of this as a gentle exclamation of reassurance. It was never tedious, never abridged. Often this appeared to be the case with strangers, but it was not. Each knew of the other’s family, and sometimes the greeting began with a man as we approached his home on the hillside or with a woman toiling in the field. It would finish fifteen metres later, as our trail wound almost out of earshot.
Dusk settled quickly as we made our way up a ravine of steep rocks on a difficult path toward a towering landmark. It was not a trekkers’ path; it was the villagers’. They walked here on the way to sell onions or buy coloured cloth, to bring animals for slaughter and tillers to their fields.
A man of Zak’s age, his friend, greeted us. Escarpment hospitality dictated that he take my pack and that Zak carry my smaller one. We were in a narrowing box canyon. Two little girls, five years old at most, descended toward us, balancing wide pans of food on their heads. One swivelled to go around me on the tight trail. Her cargo swirled loose and fell over the edge of the container. It all teetered and tumbled to the ground. She did not cry; she bent down and scooped, trying to quickly refill the pan. I shifted to be out of her way and then crouched to help pick the grain from the sand and replenish her load. She did not grouse or seethe. We sifted together and completed the task, and suddenly she and her embarrassment disappeared down the gulch.
The twilight was about to take Zak and Nema from my sight.
The rocky path opened to a long field, well irrigated and green with rice and grass. Zak had stopped to ensure that I was following the thousand rock steps, and then disappeared around a corner once he saw me. All I could see was the fertile field stretched in a bend that entered the rocky hillside, where it stopped and the trail climbed back into the mountain’s open rocks, a gorgeous view. The sky darkened, and while my way was easier without a pack, I realized I was separated from both my flashlights.
It was an enjoyable struggle to climb the steepness into the noise I heard above. Zak was there when I pulled myself up by ancient handholds in the rock. Candles greeted me. The village of Begnimato topped the climb, a settlement where we would find food, a rooftop of mud for my bed, and a welcome douche of water to wash away the day’s sweat, one cup at a time.
We were out of the desert’s reach. It was black. After the bucket bath, I scrubbed laundry against a stone to squeeze the dirt out. By the light of an African lantern, I wiped alcohol swabs on my scrapes. Nema moved to a wooden bench to watch. She brought konjo, a warm spill of millet beer that was served in a conca shell split in half to the size of a large bowl, passing it across to me after first tilting it to her generous mouth.
Zak returned from another part of the village. “Lamb,” he said, shoving poorly wrapped meat across my table to Nema. She left to prepare it, speaking to others as she went by, shaping a dinner of rice, onion, and leaves. Zak found a bottle of cool beer and two dirty cups. The chilling had been done by a refrigerator powered by a solar panel, and I wondered why there were not more of them in Mali. I poured beer into one of the glasses for Zak and sipped from the bottle. I was learning that travel in the Dogon revolved around food and rest, interspersed with trekking.
There were two travellers talking together nearby. I mistook their speaking Dutch for German, which they corrected upon my asking. Marijke and Renate were on leave from all their usual responsibilities: boyfriends, work, and family. They were in West Africa for seven weeks, and my envy was immediate.
“Burkina Faso was our motivation,” said Marijke across her beer at a table for two.
“And we’re there in one week,” added Renate, talking to Marijke in Dutch and then asking where I’d come from. It was not important to me now to mention Timbuktu, and I mentioned only the River Niger.
“We wished for that, but we have not time,” Renate said. “It was to go to Timbuktu, but we had not the extra week.” And I wondered what it was that made one destination dear to travellers that other travellers found easy to neglect.
When I headed to bed, I flipped open my wind candle into its protective glass shield. I wanted a light for reading. The village calmed near silence; someone strummed a guitar, not with a twang, but a tremble. Another instrument joined in — a set of jingles, maybe stones in a wooden canister. Then the singing began, and I stood on the rooftop to see where it was coming from. Clustering on the dark hillside where it levelled out above the campement, a family was gathered. I watched neighbours walking there and heard a man singing as he climbed down from above, walking a trail I hoped he could see. It was impromptu and I wanted to be a part of it.
I clambered down the post’
s notches from roof to ground, flashlight in hand. My light caught Marijke and Renate coming from another home, and together we walked up a trail to the music. The villagers found chairs for us, and we were invited to sit beneath the stars, moved from the edge of participation into the circle of singers where we passed an hour surrounded by Dogon innocence.
Later, in the cold of night, we made our way back by flashlight. I’d earlier told them about sleeping on the roof. Before coming to Dogon, they’d been told of the day’s heat but not the night’s cold and had only slight blankets with which to cover themselves. Having begun by sleeping on their rooftop, the cold forced them indoors, away from the starry canopy.
I woke in the middle of the night, engulfed with new emotions. The sky was both so very far away and clingingly close. A star shot across it; another bolted and disappeared forever. The dark was dry; the wind was lovely. I returned to a comfortable sleep, realizing that you are who you are when you’re alone in the dark.
“Nema is sick,” Zak said over millet pancakes and powdered coffee, starting our morning on a serious note.
“How sick?” I asked.
“She would like your medicine,” he said.
“Only aspirin,” I offered, not feeling competent to dispense prescription drugs. We took aspirin to her, and I tilted a bottle against her lips to help her swallow two of the tablets. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead. Fever. Zak left lemonade, and, as I gave Nema a packet of chicken noodle soup, I saw my hat beside her bed. She’d taken it from me last evening, but this was not the time to retrieve it.
A night’s lodging in the Dogon is most likely on the rooftop of a mud home such as this, reached by stepping up notches cut into a narrow pole that leans against the building.
“If she doesn’t get better,” I asked, “who will be our cook?”
To Timbuktu for a Haircut Page 23