Baboons for Lunch

by James Michael Dorsey

  And so, the self-doubts began. How would these nomadic Muslims react to me, a white Western Christian entering their world? Would I be tolerated? Was this a trap? Kidnapping for ransom was and is a common occupation in that part of the world. I spent a sleepless night crossing the Atlantic thinking “What have I done?”

  My model for such a trip was the great English explorer, Sir Richard Burton, who in1853 became the first white man to enter the holy city of Mecca disguised as a wandering mendicant. It helped that he spoke 29 languages and had lived for years as an Arab before his journey. I spoke two languages, neither of which was useful in the Sahara, and was an aging white guy from L.A., but still, Sir Richard was my hero because if he had been discovered, he would have forfeited his life. I had no illusions that my own trip would be even a fraction as dangerous, but what I intended was a bit beyond the norm. It is one thing to visit Timbuktu as a tourist, and quite another to pass oneself off as a desert nomad. By any local standards, I was an infidel and there are many who consider impersonation to be a punishable offense.

  Tuaregs rarely venture into a city, so Halis created quite a stir when he met me at the Bamako airport in Mali at 2 a.m. All eyes were on him as he towered over the crowd looking like an indigo batman, standing almost seven feet tall wrapped in his tagelmoust, and he stunned everyone present, I included, by lifting me off my feet with his bear hug greeting. He was not what I expected.

  He shouldered my bag as if it were a mere wallet and threw it into the back of a gleaming new Land Rover, prompting me to ask half-jokingly where his camel was. “Second car a camel!” he roared, hitting me on the shoulder hard enough to knock me into the front seat. I relaxed a bit, realizing this man with a dagger in his sash, that I only knew from the internet and who was taking me into a trackless wasteland, had a sense of humor; not that it would make my death any more enjoyable. There was regal bearing in his step and the gold trim on his robes told me he held aristocratic status, but he seemed like a regular guy and the Donald Duck air freshener dangling from the Rover mirror was a nice human touch. We drove into the humid night enveloped by the rush of adventure and the fear, at least for me, of the unknown.

  We drove for three days to reach Timbuktu, staying in fleabag hotels where Halis would sleep on the floor with his dagger by his head, always between the door and me, and we talked long into the night. He told me of bandits and brigands where we were going, some his enemies, others his friends, but added that I should have no care about it as even the worst of robbers were afraid of Tuaregs and would never attack one.

  His personality was magnetic. He would hold my gaze with deep-set black eyes, and unleash fascinating tirades about all manner of things from philosophy to religion, never seeking the upper hand and always listening to my rebuttals while not judging me. His personal brand of Islam was a conglomerate of archaic Judaism and desert superstition filtered through the beard of Allah. I labeled him a closet liberal.

  Storytelling, oral histories, and debates are the heritage and pastime of nomadic peoples, and Halis, by both tradition and disposition, was passionate when engaged in any of them. He talked as much with his hands as words, sometimes moving about to act out a scene and he contorted his face into a new character each time one entered the story. He held me so spellbound at these times; I could fancy him on a stage in front of hundreds of rapt listeners like a turbaned Tony Robbins.

  He was worldly in the ways of one who has gained knowledge by reading rather than experience and was at times naïve as a child because of his physical isolation, and yet he made me realize the equality of our lives. When he spoke, he was quick to reach out and touch me in that way so misunderstood by men in the West, but common in the Middle East, a touch that only cemented our friendship, and I never doubted for a moment that should the occasion arise, he would die in my defense. But, would I have the same courage for someone I had just met?

  We lived on spaghetti as we drove, that international pasta that is ubiquitous the world over, and we drank beer in restaurants at night. Halis kept his can on the ground and only took quick sips when no one could see him lift his face veil. There was an edge to our conversations; the give and take of small talk was strained as we danced around each other searching for common ground. His hubris aside, there was a natural barrier between our worlds that I needed to overcome. I had to remember how far out of our comfort zones we both were and realized that to this man I was like a visitor from Mars, but the burden was mine as I had sought him out. He had stuck his own neck out at least as far as I had because there were many among his people not so tolerant of outside visitors or those who welcome them. As we reached Timbuktu, and looked out at the low flat sameness of the southern Sahel, he let out a long sigh and I sensed him physically deflating for the first time. He was home, and I acknowledged the effort he had made to bring me there.

  For three days he had told me of customs, ceremonies, dos and don’ts and I felt awash in desert culture. He dressed me in his own robes, assuring me of the acceptance of his clan, and when we made our way to the remuda (corral) the merchants of this low brown city of mud came out to bow and murmur “Tuaregs,” at our passing, some offering us dried fruits, and all of it giving me a glimpse of the respect the blue men command there in the southern terminus of their domain.

  We mounted our camels, hung with pigskin water bags and woven mats, and if his clansmen took notice of this infidel, it was not evident. Blowing sand from the harmattan, the constant, hot, desert wind, erased boundaries between land and sky and turned us into silhouettes as we rode into the empty quarter where time halted centuries ago. That afternoon, in a roaring wind, he started a fire with flint and steel, roasted a chicken with feathers still intact and added a can of tuna for our meal. I spent that first night in the desert wrapped in my robes in the sand, feeling as though I had jumped off a cliff and was just starting to fall but I would be nowhere else.

  Our second morning out, a low black line on the horizon grew into a caravan of 400 camels hauling salt from the mines in Mauritania. They were heading south to Timbuktu, and as the stench and dust they raised coated me, it also drew me into their midst. The lead drover, spooked by the sight of a Turareg charging at him, pulled an old muzzle-loading rifle from his saddle scabbard, but Halis intervened in time to keep me from getting my head blown off. I ran like a child between their long rows, running my hands over immense blocks of salt, stroking their hairy backs, searching for words to describe this new world and laughing as more than one camel tried to pee on me. Meanwhile, the drovers laughed at my insane show of emotion.

  That night by a low fire, I lay in the sand with those men under a Milky Way that arched over both horizons the same way it did over their forefathers when Christ walked the Earth. There were tales of battle and conquest, and women lost. One by one they told stories of love and hate and myths created out of needs to believe; stories that have grown with each telling, filtered through the memory and mood of each narrator, stories that add the flavor of each additional teller and could only have come from the infinite desert. When my turn came, I recited a short poem drawn from some corner of my childhood that no one understood but that was not important. They applauded and hit me on the arms because I had joined in their ceremony. I was one of them.

  Halis explained how they navigate by the shape of a dune or the feel of the wind on their skin and the smell of the air. Tuaregs read the desert the way a Polynesian sailor reads the ocean. They live by knowledge imprinted in their DNA from millenniums of wandering the wasteland. These men, hard as leather and quick to fight, also had an easy way about them most of the time, accepting me without question, simply because their unwritten code demanded hospitality and shelter be given to all pilgrims, even their enemies. All were deferential to Halis who had a natural air of leadership about him that I felt sure had transferred to me as his guest, but still I felt their respect for me as one making a sincere effort to learn about their culture.

  Our day
s were spent in the saddle, Halis leading by instinct as we rode from one camp to another where ritual always took precedence. We would make small talk with the headman, drink several glasses of sugar with some tea in it, and more than once I was offered a young lady for an evening or as a wife, whom Halis would always diplomatically decline on my behalf. The Western concept of only one wife puzzled and amused them but they never questioned it. At every camp I was just one more pilgrim.

  We slept side by side under the stars where Halis told me about his god, who greatly resembled my own, and where differences between Muslim and Christian melted into the sand. He spoke of native superstitions; how the men veil their faces to prevent evil spirits from entering the nose or mouth, and how they destroy a man’s yurt upon his death for the same purpose. He told me of great warrior leaders his family had produced and explained that the silver amulet he always wore identified his clan and acted as a passport when traveling. We spoke of family, friends, and obligations, and I discovered his great humor that came forth in the form of a laugh that resounded even in the void of the desert.

  My preconceptions fell with each dawn as we found that all of our mutual reservations held no value when confronted by honest conversation and that the only great differences between us were self-manufactured. In our time together, we rode more in silence than we talked because no words were necessary. It was also dawning on me how much of my own material-filled life was also not necessary. Our main dialogue was simply togetherness in the vast wonder that is the African desert and the solitude was not wasted as I pondered my place in the grand cosmic scheme. Halis knew that I understood what he was showing me, and that I would take all of it with me when I left. He had gifted me with a reality beyond my limited imagination and I missed nothing in the long hot days.

  Our epic ride had taken us in an immense circle of over 100 miles, through countless lives on the edge of what some call civilization, but a different person arrived back in Timbuktu centuries later than the one who had left it.

  After a day in the great library that once rivaled that of Alexandria Egypt, Halis presented me with a silver medallion similar to his own, a medallion that only a Tuareg may wear with impunity. Mine announced to the world that I was from his clan and thus family, no matter where I might be.

  He drove me to the airport and would not hug me or say goodbye, as that could bring bad luck. He simply hit me hard on the arm, turned and walked out of the terminal.

  As my plane rose into the brown haze of the Malian sky, I watched a large silhouette of a man on the only camel in a car-filled parking lot waving goodbye.

  Since that time a faction of Al Qaeda has blown up almost 300 sacred Sufi shrines in Timbuktu. They then turned their illogical wrath on the library, a center of learning that was for centuries one of the finest book depositories in the world. Through friends, I have learned that thousands of manuscripts and ancient parchments from that institution have been safely smuggled out under the robes of refugees, and one now resides in my library, awaiting the day it might return to its home. Currently a tentative peace hovers over the country under the temporary protection of the French Military.

  My last contact with Halis was an e-mail from a refugee camp in Burkina Faso. He told me he was on his way to America.

  I have not heard from him since.

  Markus

  Walking with Markus

  The view from my tent is a panorama of the Great Rift Valley, the immense rock wall in the distance rising slowly from the highlands of Manyara, and creeping northward to terminate in the massive caldera of Ngorogoro Crater.

  The weight of history on this land is a physical presence. Evidence of earliest man keeps revealing itself to archeologists, each find pushing back the count of years that my own ancestors have tread where I now stand. I am less than 30 miles from the last nomadic clans of the Hadzabe, East Africa’s Stone Age bushmen, and one of three distinct genetic groups from which all of mankind is descended. The valley before me is literally the cradle of humanity.

  The bomas of 300,000 Maasai surround me, filling the Manyara Valley like so many brown mushrooms, and early morning cooking fires layer the valley with a low flat mist pushed down by the lingering cool night air. These are the places that call me, places that lighten a traveler’s heart and fill the soul.

  A figure walks slowly uphill through the mist, robes billowing wraithlike in the morning chill. It is a Maasai from one of the bomas I drove past late last night. He is alone. This is the time of morning when the boys and young men escort the village cattle out to graze, so I assume by his being here that he is above such menial labors. As he draws near I see that his shuka is a deep magenta and he carries an ebony walking stick that identifies him as an elder, a title of respect rather than age. He walks with the grace of one used to authority. His pace is slow and steady, pole-pole, as they say here. He stops just downwind from my tent and with a broad smile addresses me in Swahili, the lingua franca of east Africa. “Jambo Papa,” he says, referring to my white hair. In Africa, I am almost always older than the most ancient man in the village and in this land, age commands respect as it does nowhere else. Papa is a common greeting here for an elder of any race. “I welcome you,” he adds in heavily accented English.

  I share my morning coffee with him as he squats in front of my tent, in that local way my knees no longer allow me to do. His name is Markus and he emphasizes that it is spelled with a K. It is common in Africa for tribal people to adopt a Western name to eliminate their own from being butchered by English-speaking visitors.

  Markus smiles broadly at me over our coffee, showing off the gap where his front tooth has been removed to allow the insertion of small food particles, an aging custom from when lockjaw once decimated his people.

  After our coffee, Markus stands and begins to walk slowly up the hill behind my camp; a simple gesture is enough to beckon me. I follow him silently. Above the morning clouds, we reach a flatland full of thorny acacia trees and Markus disappears into a thicket. The interior is a much-used campsite and we sit on a fallen tree trunk to examine the bony remnants of previous hunts. The trunk is notched to show the number of days the Moran (newly initiated warriors) have spent here. It is where they come to eat meat privately, no women allowed, in a sort of testosterone-fueled man-cave in the forest, and it is an honor that Markus has revealed it to me. His pantomime of a hunt soon has me laughing out loud and he lifts his shuka to proudly reveal all the scars that come with being a Maasai warrior.

  We continue our walk up the hill. Markus pads silently in his rubber sandals made from old truck tires, the Maasai equivalent of Crocs, until we stand on a steep slope, our necks craning backwards to take in the towering immensity of the largest Baobab tree I have ever seen; its spreading boughs most likely home to hundreds of varied creatures. Numerous small branches have been hammered into the side of the Baobab in an alternating pattern and Markus uses them to begin climbing. Twenty feet above me, he points out a large beehive I would not have noticed without him. Sitting on a massive branch, he tells me how the Maasai trail a small black-and-white bird called a honeyguide that brings them to such trees where they make a torch to smoke the bees out in order to steal the honey, a rare delicacy in these parts.

  As we retreat back down the hill, Markus points out a dozen different plants and bushes that provide the Maasai with medicine, meticulously explaining how each is harvested and utilized. He shows me old wounds the plants have healed. There is a grace to his movements, a flow that expresses harmony with his surroundings. The Maasai believe that ancestors watch over them as part of the land and Markus seems an organic part of the whole.

  We have walked for over three hours and when we are almost back at my tent he stops and just stands silent, taking in the view. He is smiling, but then he has been smiling all day. I stand next to him and whisper, “Enkai,” referring to the Maasai equivalent of a deity that is beyond the comprehension of most Western city dwellers. Enkai enc
ompasses all of nature if I have listened correctly, but a more detailed explanation of the meaning is beyond my abilities and probably beyond understanding by anyone not born a Maasai. “Yes, Enkai,” he quietly says with great satisfaction. We stand shoulder to shoulder as the sun disappears behind the great rift wall and I have never known a more intense moment of peace.

  Arriving at my tent, I invite him to sit with me for coffee once more but he politely refuses. I extend my hand for a farewell shake and he reaches inside his robe to produce a small gourd, meticulously decorated with beadwork, a hallmark of Maasai culture. The gourd is half the size of a tennis ball and has a cork stopper in the top hole. It is a snuff carrier, one of the only true vices of Maasai men, who seem addicted to it. It is the sort of gift only given to a friend. He places it in my palm and closes my fingers around it. With that he turns to walk back down the hill, disappearing into the mist as mysteriously as he first appeared.

  I never asked him why he stopped to see me or why he spent the better part of the day sharing esoteric knowledge with me. Perhaps he was simply curious about this lone traveler in his land, when my kind usually arrives in large groups of safari vehicles with cameras clicking. Perhaps he sensed that I was different and would understand in a way that most visitors never can. I like to think that I do.

  If I have learned one important lesson from my travels across Africa, it is that tribal people occupy a separate reality than I do. For them there is no distinction between the material and spiritual worlds, and they move between them with alacrity. Markus gifted me with a taste of both worlds and that is the kind of gift all travelers pray for.