Category Archives: history

The Jardin Brasilien, Daagbo, Kpasse Sacred Forest, and the Ouidah Pythons

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Written December 22, 2007, Hotel Diganga, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

More catchup–

Then, I went to the main market in Lomé to change my Ghana cedis into CFA used in Togo, Benin, and other francophone West African countries. I managed a not-so-great rate, then tried getting a taxi back to the hotel, which didn’t happen until after I got hot and tired wandering through the market. The guys at the hotel were nice to me and helped me get my bags into a taxi and on my way to the Togo-Benin border.

At each of these borders, it amazed me how the immigration officials were taking bribes to let people pass through despite minor infractions of law or policy. So many of them tried to get me to give money, but I refused. Since I carry a US passport and pay a big visa fee already, I can get away with it.

At least at this border, it was the same shared taxi who waited for us on the Benin side who had dropped us off on the Togo side. I got the ride to Ouidah, then got overcharged for a ride to the Jardin Brasilien, a delightful hotel on the beachfront.

Written December 22, 2007, Hotel Diganga, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

More catchup–

At the Jardin Brasilien, they had a swimming pool filed with sea water.

What a great place to relax from the stress of travel, with the sound of the pounding surf soothing my sleep. I showered in the room before heading over to the pool with the lifeguard came running over before I jumped in to let me know I had to shower. I explained I had already showered, but he was concerned about the sand on my feet getting into the pool. I washed off again and enjoyed a delightful swim just as an elderly fellow was getting out of the pool to go for a walk with a woman I came to find out is his wife. On the way out of the pool, I met a French fellow named Jacques and we agreed to eat dinner together that evening at 8pm. I was so exhausted from travel and a big of digestive trouble that I napped for a few hours before rousing myself for dinner.

Jacques, an older guy from the Mediterranean coast of France, was on a fascinating quest. He served his French military service 40 years ago in Benin, specifically in Parakou in the central to northern part of Benin. While serving, he went to a village where he took some pictures. One guy got upset at him for taking one of the pictures and, after resolving the conflict, Jacques promised to retunr one day to give him a copy of the picture. Jacques had returned to honor his promise after 40 years, but unfortunately the fellow had already died, so Jacques gave the pictures to his family. Jacques searched in another village nearby for a baby who had appeared in one of the old photos. When he found her, the bonded instantly. Jacques ended up asking her what he could do to help her life in the village. She answered that she was trying to set up a nice shop for food and other items, so Jacques financed the operation. He stayed for a couple of weeks, living on pounded yam (igname) every day til the place was set up. I encountered him taking a break to relax from his travel to the village. He had met Isaac (?), the chief lifeguard at the hotel, who asked Jacques if he could help him with some fishing equipment. Jacques agreed. He spent a few days getting the fishing operation set up, impressed by Isaac’s determination, persistence, and courage, for example swimming for nearly an hour after dusk to put the nets out from the shore. The first night they caught nothing, but after placing live instead of dead bait on the hooks, they caught a few man-of-ray’s, including one that delivered two babies on capture. Apparently, people do eat the rays, so Isaac was on his way to town to sell the fish, except for one Jacques and some of the other hotel guests hoped to eat themselves.

My first morning in Ouidah, I met Henri and his girlfriend Natalie who were visiting, biking around, and on vacation from their jobs in Filingué, a few hours drive outside Niamey in Niger. I talked mostly with him, since she wasn’t feeling well with something that sounded exactly like what I had. I found him quite attractive. They ended up inviting me to come visit them after New Year’s in the village, and perhaps I will. He works with cattle breeding and she works in the local radio station.

Off I went to town, on a motorcycle taxi (called taxi-moto or zemi-john) after Jacques’ encouragement to transcend my fears about that mode of transport. On the sandy road, I actually felt safe riding along at a reasonable speed with the sand to cushion any fall. It was only on the cobbled and paved roads that I got anxious.

I stopped by the residence of the main chief of Ouidah, Daagbo (see entry of December 11). He asked me to return later that day to snap photos and see the ceremony for the initiates who spent nine months in preparation. Before returning for the ceremony, I visited the local history museum, the Musée d’Histoire de Ouidah, where I met Olivier Coyotte, a Belgian playwright of Turkish origin, and Simon Kind, an attractive Québecois fellow.

I walked to Kpassezoume, or the Kpasse Sacred Forest, which had wonderful sculptures of the various Yoruba divinities, as well as a rare iroko tree said to be the tree King Kpassé turned himself into while fleeing enemies. One finds in the forest the works of contemporary sculptors Cyprien Tokoudagba, Theodore and Calixte Dakpogan, and Simonet Biokou. According to this quote of Dana Rush from an African Arts article of December 22, 2001:

Sometime between 1530 and 1580, Kpasse became the second king of Savi (located nine kilometers north of Ouidah) and founder of Ouidah. When he learned that two jealous enemies were plotting his demise, he alerted his two sons, telling them that although he would never die, he would disappear one day. If it should happen that he did not come out of his room before sunset, his sons were not to open the door but understand that he was already gone. After nine days they would see a specific sign from their father which, once understood, would protect them and their families for generations to come. One day these events did come to pass. Today the sign is still a secret associated with the Kpasse vodun, known only to the direct descendants of the king.

Soon after King Kpasse disappeared, his family living in Savi saw a bird they had never seen before. It led them to the Sacred Forest in Ouidah. Upon entering the sacred grounds of the forest, the bird turned into two growling panthers (male and female). The family was frightened until they heard the soothing voice of the king. He gave them an important message: if at any time they were having problems, they could come to the forest and pray to a specific iroko tree that houses his spirit. The tree was then just a little sprout next to a sacred clay pot. Today, behind the ruins of the old French administrative house in the Sacred Forest, abandoned because the spirits were “too strong” for the French, one finds active shrines, including a clay pot, next to the tree in which Kpasse’s spirit resides (interview with the current King Kpasse, July 19, 1995).

I made a wish by touching the iroko tree said to be King Kpasse and leaving an offering (last picture above).

After leaving the sacred forest, I rode a zemi to the python temple where they tried to gouge me for cash to take photos which I fortunately refused because the temple was interesting, but rather small. They had a roundhouse full of pythons who stay inside during the day then go out at night to feed on rodents. Residents of Ouidah respect the pythons and return them to the temple if found on the streets. Every 9(?) years, a ceremony takes place at the temple, the details of which the guide would not really elaborate, somewhat infuriatingly repeating the same stock response over and over while also asking if I had any more questions. You can read more and see photographs of this python temple at Xeni Jardin’s blog.

After the pythons, I walked toward Daagbo’s residence. On the way, I chatted with a few guys hanging out in a telecom shop. I took a picture of this sculpture carved from an old tree to represent the history of Ouidah.

Musée Nationale in Lomé, Togo

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December 11, 2007, Musée Nationale, Lomé, Togo

Iron and forge exhibit

Musical instruments:

A. Tambour d’aiselle of the griots (two membranes)

1. Kebyè (Kara region) for celebrations and funerals

2. Tem (Central region) and all over the country

B. Tambour “Akrema” (Central region) for funerals and messages

C. Tambour “Kamou” – made with clay pot (Kara region)

Alam, white crystal to purify water (like stone I bought in Dakar)

Divinité lagunaire with three heads, sculpted in wood, protects and punishes adepts according to their behavior, believed Guins — called “densou” (Maritime region)

Fecundity god statue “Adbamkena” (Maritime region), wood sculpture, bearded man with large phallus drooping over crossed leg, smoking twisted pipe and holding key in left hand and cleaver in right hand that seems to cleave a small head with extended tongue, seated on stool

Adept of the serpent “Da”, wood sculpture, woman seated on on stool with prominent breasts holding serpent in left hand with serpent’s head extending above her head and tail wrapping around her neck and raised right wrist, wearing two silver bracelets on right wrist and silver earrings in both pierced ears

Deceased twin statues, wood sculpture, about six inches tall, some with white cloth dress tightened with cord around neck, Éwé and Guin peoples (Maritime region)

Adept of “Voudon”, Éwé (Maritime region), two feet tall wood, holding what looks like a club with a metal piece in left hand and what looks like a double-headed candelabra with four holes in the rear and three in front in right hand (see drawing in journal) (later learned represents thunder god)

Ritual pots with cones called “Koubacou” used by Bassar (Kara region)

Some pots believed inhabited by spirits of twins and the elderly for example by the Nawdba (Kara region) and Kabyè where one type called “n’taaka”

Pots for serving beer called “pew”, Kabyè (Kara region)

Slavery exhibit as well — not that extensive

Kumasi’s Akweba Fertility Dolls and the Magic Sword

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Written on December 21, 2007, Lixborr Hotel, Benin City, Nigeria

I had to wait until I could look in the guidebook to continue catching up the story of my travels.

In Kumasi, I somehow made it the Fosua Hotel… ah, now I remember! I astonished some of the taxi drivers at the station by simply rolling my luggage past the VanefSTC bus station gate and onto the street to the hotel. When I arrived, the lift was out of order so a couple of guys helped me cart my luggage up the six flights, well maybe it was four flights, to the plush decay of the hotel lobby. The receptionist gave me a room at the far end of the building. I settled in for a shower and to relax a bit, but kept nearly jumping out of bed each time there was a large crashing sound in the ceiling. It took awhile to figure it out, but I finally realized large birds were landing on the thin aluminum roof at twilight making loud crashing sounds as they landed. Luckily, it didn’t last all night. I snuck out of the hotel to walk over to Vic Baboo’s Cafe for dinner. I got to order some reasonable Indian food. Although there were other travelers at the Cafe, as well as some locals, I barely talked with anyone and felt a bit conspicuous eating alone. I wandered back to the hotel and crashed out early.

The next morning, I ate breakfast in the room, then headed out to try to get a taxi to the National Cultural Center complex. Eventually, I caught a cab there. I arrived in front of a building where a ceremony involving lots of women was taking place. I asked a woman out front and she sent me over to the administration building where another woman pointed me to the women-run craft center. I bought an Akweba wood carving that is a fertility charm.

Then, I walked over to the Prempeh II Museum which contains a lot of history about the Ashanti people and particularly that king, including some talking drums, the slit drum style. After the museum, I walked over to the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital where, in the courtyard near the hospital, a small museum houses a sword which has been in the ground for three centuries. According to legend, an Ashanti sorcerer drew the Golden Stool from the sky at this place. If anyone succeeds in pulling out the sword, the legend goes, the Ashanti kingdom will collapse.

Walking back from the hospital after unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a taxi, I met a nice fellow along the way who was on his day off from a job within the diamond industry.

We stopped for a drink on the way and he invited me back to his place to meet his family, but I went back to the hotel instead. I ate lunch at a restaurant one floor below the hotel, during which I conversed with a fellow from Holland(?) off to meet some friends he had met on the Internet. I was a bit worried for him, but he didn’t seem concerned.

Accra Tour of National Museum, Kwame Nkrumah Memorial, and Lighthouse

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It was a total drama getting the taxi driver to find the Millennium Guest House, located in a well-known cathedral compound, but perhaps it is a game the drivers play to try to get paid more. I am beginning to wonder, since it happened quite often.

I had to wake the security guy at the hotel to enter, since the flight had arrived quite late and my baggage search took awhile. But finally I succeeded in laying down my head to rest on the comfortable bed in the modest room furnished with a bible, a TV, and a glow-in-the-dark Jesus, as well as a much-appreciated air conditioner and a shared bath/shower.

The next morning, I visited the National Museum, a short walk from the guesthouse. The woman taking tickets at the front entrance helped me buy a SIM card even though it was Sunday. I met a Czech guy working in Belgium who was on a trip related to encouraging and financing sport events on behalf of the European Union. Michal Krejza and I finished at the museum by trying to locate the linguists’ staffs.

The museum had excellent exhibits from a variety of west African countries, as well as a section on the slave trade, but I couldn’t find the linguist staffs mentioned in the guidebook. Turns out the staffs got entombed inside a wall when one other exhibit was updated, so it wasn’t possible to see them.

I found the 13th to 19th century figures from Komaland (pictured below) especially intriguing.

Michal and I walked past banks where I tried to withdraw cash using Visa cards at ATMs without success. We made it to the Kwame Nkrumah memorial and museum which was very interesting. Nkrumah, the first president of the first colonial African country to gain its independence, was a pan-Africanist and published some rather radical books. Perhaps that is why a military coup toppled his government and sent him into exile in Guinée. He married an Egyptian woman and both of their remains are now at the memorial.

Next we walked, then taxi’ed to the lighthouse near the Fort James shanty town. Michal bargained for us to enter at half the price the little girl who met us had demanded, then an adult man led us past the ancient generator and the rusting spiral staircase to where the light once shone and will apparently shine again if a planned renovation takes place. I was terrified by the rickety ladder to the top and the minimalist railing, although the view was impressive. I descended before the guy had a chance to also ask me for more money, although he couldn’t resist once we were getting back into our taxi.

I purchased a half dozen oranges for about 20 cents. We tried to eat lunch at a place closed on Sunday, as was the second place we tried, so finally we ended up at the Hotel Paloma Restaurant, where I tried palaver, a traditional dish of spinach and other vegetables and spices. It was delicious, even though I discovered a fish bone in it. We went our separate ways after a delightful discussion, including the topic of the white slave trade. I crashed at the hotel and left the next morning for the Nigerian High Commission office where I successfully applied for a visa after keeping a taxi on hir to go get photocopies. It wasn’t easy, but they accepted the application with a US$100 fee and I then left for a two-day trip to Cape Coast.

Back in Bamako, Mali….

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After Pays Dogon, I managed to get back to Bamako in reasonably good shape. I stayed a couple of nights at the marvelous Hotel Djenné, created by the former minister of tourism who had a great idea when she invited artists to decorate the place. On the bus ride there, I met a Dutch woman and her French traveling companion who was working on developing schools for young women in Mali. I met some other travelers over breakfast. O, and the first evening, I went to pick up the package I had left at Hotel Yamey and to try to visit Damien, the French guy working at his father’s restaurant, the Café du Fleuve. Unfortunately, he wasn’t around so I returned to the northern side of town to eat at the Restaurant San Toro, also owned by the former minister of tourism.

As a single person, I felt very conspicuous when I entered the restaurant, especially when they had no place for me, but after awhile of sitting and listening to a man playing the kora, I got into the spirit of the place and they eventually served me delicious juices and a vegetarian platter. I was craving good food after weeks in the “brousse” (countryside). Better nourished, and after a walk and a stop at the somewhat seedy cafe where I saw a transvestite, I returned to the hotel and slept well. I had tried to treat Samuel Sidibe and a professor friend of his to lunch, but he was busy, so I just stopped by to pick up the conference proceedings he had obtained for me. They included a griot’s account of the history of the Mali Empire, a crucial contribution to my book.

I spent the rest of the day trying to get a flight in January from Timbuktu to Bamako and managed only to confirm my place on the waiting list. That evening I again tried meeting Damien at the Cafe du Fleuve and instead ended up sharing a delicious meal with a Dutch fellow Michiel and a female friend of his, also Dutch, Lisa Winnen. They were very kind of me and my spirits revived considerably in preparation for my trip to Accra.

Dogon Country in Mali

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After a bumpy taxi ride, we arrived at the village of Telli where my guide Chicago and I spent my first night in Dogon country. He had family in the area, although the local guides treated him like a foreigner. I met three French, one Belgian, one English, and one Dutch travelers at the small hotel there. I climbed a traditional wooden Dogon ladder to sleep on the terrace (roof) of one of the banco buildings. The breeze was a refreshing respite from the heat of the day and, because only other foreigners were there, we could remove our clothes to climb into our sleeping bags.

I spent much of the night fantasizing about Damien, the cute French guy sleeping next to me (the second French guy named Damien I’ve found attractive on this trip!). I was also attracted to the Belgian guy Tim. They were traveling with two French women, Melanie and Severine. We woke to a breakfast of bread and coffee or tea. The French and the Belgian continued on their way out from Dogon country, while David and Annemarie, the English and Dutch partnership, headed the same direction as Chicago and I. The first day included a visit to the ancient Tellem and old Dogon dwellings up on the falaise, the mountainous cliffs.

We then hiked around 4km during the morning to another village and then another hike of about 7km to the village of Ennde where we spent the next night.

Much of the focus of the Dogon villages is the granaries, with separate ones for the women and the men. There are also cemeteries, ceremonial places with storage for masks, breweries, and dwellings. Dogon symbology of the sacred crocodile and the sacred tortoise are common. Dogon craftspeople carve wooden statues and doors and blacksmiths have high status still in their villages. Each village usually has a village chief and formerly had a hogon or spiritual leader. There is also usually one hunter, tasked with chasing game such as monkeys, serpents, and other animals.

I suffered a bit due to the lack of good vegetarian food, mostly eating only couscous, rice, or noodles with sparse vegetables to accompany them, plus drinking Fanta, Sprite, or a fizzy pineapple drink and lots of bottled mineral water, sometimes supplemented with the sport mix I brought along to prevent dehydration. I lost a bit of weight and didn’t feel strong enough to hike up the more strenuous route on the way to the village of Begnetmoto, so Chicago led me up an easier valley route to the village.

He and/or the other guide tried to keep me from hanging out with David and Annemarie but I was lonely for English chatter and we had some really good conversations. Their guide even ended up telling us a strange story about three sons of an early human ancestor, Arab, black, and Toubab (or white, including Chinese and perhaps also Indian?). In the story, the father dies and the mother is worried about who will continue the family. She asks each of her sons, but the Arab son is not friendly with his brothers. She says the black son is doomed to endless toil and the Toubab son seems to get off easy. After thinking about it all night, I discussed the story with the guide again the next morning and told him I didn’t like the story or its implications. It reminded me a bit of the story of the lost Israeli tribe of Ham. He and I agreed that black Africans shouldn’t subordinate themselves to other people and that European and American colonial policies had to end and Africans have to take control of the resources of their own countries.

After the 2km hike out of Dogon country, we met the same taxi that had dropped us off a few days before in another location. He played some music by Tikken Jah Fakoly (pronounced “Chicken”), a Malian reggae performer, that made me cry, a song called “Ils ont partagé le monde” (“They have divided up the world”) about how the U.S. and Britain have taken and divided up the spoils of everything in the world.

After some worries on my part about whether Chicago was going to press me for more cash, I was glad that he didn’t seem worried about it and I even gave him a bit of a tip once we arrived in Sevaré. He helped me check in to the hotel there, then went on his way to Timbuktu, where we will perhaps meet again later on.

The Motel de Sevaré was basic, but felt like heaven with hot water showers! I left early the next morning, November 27, on the bus to Bamako.

Jamming to Jenne

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Written on November 27, 2007, Sevaré Motel, Sevaré near Mopti, Mali

The rest of the trip from Mauritania down to Djenné in Mali on November 22 and 23 was quite difficult. The first stage from Nema to Adel Bagrou wasn’t a very good road, although not as bad as the road from Nema to Oualata. At Adel Bagrou, I switched to another vehicle and we crossed the border at night. I was careful to make sure the Mauritanian border control stamped my passport on departure and the Malian border control stamped it on my second entry to Mali.

Arriving at night at Nara, some guys sitting near the garage got a local guy who works at the radio station in town to come by and show me a room he rents out. The room was filthy and had no running water. I took it anyway because I knew I’d be leaving the next morning. I went back to the street to have a kind of scrambled eggs made on a little gas stove while I sat drinking an apple juice on a wooden bench near the marketplace.

After a rough night and a tough morning, I had a great experience here in Nara. The rough night was because I stayed in a filthy room with no running water and didn’t adjust my mosquito net properly until after the muezzin calls in the morning. The tough morning was after I checked out of the hotel thinking I would be able to get on a truck for Selegou at 9:30am and make it to Niono by this evening and Djenné by tomorrow. Now, it looks like the truck won’t leave until 2:30pm or later. The truck driver named Lasana has a father, a retired teacher, who took pity on me and invited me to the family compound where about 40 people live. Such wonderful hospitality was a great antidote to the travails of travel. I even learned that they are Sonninké people descended from those of the Wagadu empire. Lasana has a twin brother named Fusiné. Here are some more details…

I broke out the mosquito net to crash out early. I didn’t get it adjusted properly until early the next morning. I soon remembered that it doesn’t do much good unless the net is always a bit away from one’s body; otherwise, the damn mosquitoes can sting you through the net! Later that morning, I tried for a vehicle all the way to Niono, but could only find one that would go to Sokolo. I asked when the vehicle would leave and the head of the driver’s syndicate told me it would leave in about an hour and a half at 9:30am. So, I told him I’d go back and bring my bags over. On the way back to the hotel, I tried to change my Mauritanian ougiyas at a reasonable rate with several different moneychangers. The best rate I could find was 16,667 CFA for my 9,000 ougiyas, when the amount should have been around 18,000 CFA. O well. Next, I bought some drinks, then checked out of the hotel and dragged my bags over to the first vehicle destined for Sokolo. I waited around for quite awhile, buying a coffee and a couple loaves of bread, then found out that the vehicle wouldn’t leave until at least 2:30pm. Fortunately, the father of one of the syndicate driver’s saw me chatting with a former colleague of his, both of them retired teachers, and decided to invite me back to his place for lunch. His son the driver brought me over. I had to explain before going about my vegetarianism, but the family seemed quite accommodating about it. I enjoyed visiting the family compound where about 40 people live. I got to eat couscous with milk and sugar, instead of the couscous with meat and sauce that everyone else ate. We talked a bit and he mentioned that the family is Sonninké and that they are descendants of the residents of the empire of Wagadu. After lunch, the son walked me back to the family’s rice and flour shop to wait until the vehicle would be ready. We drank tea and chatted a lot.

Finally, the truck was ready to go around 4:30pm or later, and we left. I’m glad I got to visit the family.

The unfortunate result however was that I got stuck overnighting at the syndicat in Sokolo, a mostly outdoor place right next to the dirt yard where the vehicles gather to take on or drop off passengers (see last pic above). In the syndicat, people were sleeping on mats. At first I was a bit afraid, but there was a guardian (shown in the pic) there who kept and eye out for everyone and their stuff.

Early the next morning, I got on a vehicle to Niono where I ate lunch and bought a bottle of mineral water.

Then, I headed on in another vehicle to Massina.

At Massina, I encountered the River Niger in full force, including fish and large boats in the small but bustling river port.

I paid 2000 CFA to cross the Niger River in a pirogue that was taking on water. I’m sure I would have paid much less had I waited a few minutes more to cross on the usual passenger boat, constructed by strapped two pirogues together.

When I reached the sand beach on the other side of the river, there was no public transport in site. A kind truck driver offered me a ride to the villages of Souléi then Say.

In Say, guys sitting by the road greeted me with tasty watermelon. Walking over to the other side of town with a local guy’s help for my large bag, I chatted with the town’s mayor for quite awhile while reclining in wood slat chairs and drinking tea. A car came by around 9pm and took me on to a small town that was called Matabou (I think).When I arrived in that town, the vehicle I arrived in had problems and the only other vehicle that wasn’t a motorcycle was sitting unoccupied right next to it. So, I almost decided to crash for night, but I remembered I had told Chicago, my prospective guide, that we should go that day. Finally, with the assistance of a guy who worked the telephone call box and a clothing stylist in town, I managed to reach Chicago on the phone and he negotiated to send a taxi to me, also rough going. He showed up in the taxi, which ended up costing me a whopping $80+. I checked in to the Campement de Djenné hotel around 1:30am and didn’t get to sleep until after I completed a shower around 3am. Chicago and I had agreed to meet each other at 10:30am.

I actually managed to wake up on time despite incredible fatigue from the journey. Over breakfast, I realized I had done something stupid. Chicago had quoted me a price by email for a trip to the Dogon country. I mistakenly thought he had quoted around US$50 per day when it was actually US$500 per day. That explained why he showed up in Djenné three days before our scheduled departure date. Over breakfast at Ali Babu’s place nearby, I told him that I had made a big mistake and apologized. I said there was no way I could afford to pay anything like what he was seeking and offered to compensate him for his trip from Timbuktu instead. He tried proposing some other pricing which was still way too high for me. Finally, he asked what I could afford. I told him around US$50 per day. He obviously really wanted to make the trip work, and of course had offered a highly inflated initial price, so we actually managed to come to an agreement that worked for both of us.

That day, I saw the old mosque at Jenné and a tour of that old city.

Next, we went to the museum at the even older town of Jenne-Jeno.

I managed a visit to the site of the archaeological dig that McIntosh had directed at Jenne-Jano as well. Chicago was kind enough to return on foot to arrange our transport on to the Dogon country while I got a ride with a museum attendant and archaeologist to the ancient city on the back of his motorcycle. As a student, he had participated in the excavation of the site and planned to participate again when McIntosh returns next year. The site seemed possibly as large as Koumbi Salah and had lots of pottery shards and iron ore castoffs.

In one spot, a stream had eroded the earth surrounding a vase buried under the sand, so you could see one whole side of the vase while it was still fully buried on the other side (picture just above). The ceramic vases were apparently used for a variety of purposes, such as for food storage. When used to hide treasure, vases were layered inside one another. Funerary vases (including those in the last few pictures from the museum above) had a hole intentionally poked in the bottom of the vase so it was clear the vase wasn’t used for a ‘practical’ purpose. I was struck by the thought of the discovery at Jenne of the seemingly Indian-style statue I had seen at the Musée Nationale du Mali in Bamako.

As soon as the museum curator got me back onto the main road, Chicago, the taxi driver, and another passenger picked me up in the taxi and off we went to Dogon country. The first stop along the way was at a Niger River crossing. Chicago didn’t stop three teenage women from surrounding me up against the taxi to sell their wares. Finally, I got it across to them I wasn’t interested, so I got to wander around the riverside a bit while waiting for the car ferry to show up from the other side of the river.

We spotted a young hippo near the other side of the river, and when we finally made it across, the hippo lifted himself out of the water and turned around so we could see him really well. Apparently it’s not a common site because the local people were quite excited by it as well.

The taxi took us to the garage at Bandiagara where we shifted over almost immediately to a vehicle that was already full of people, including four Mali Peace Corps volunteers. So, even though two of the female Peace Corps volunteers were squished very tightly along with Chicago and myself into a back seat meant for two passengers, we made interesting conversation along the way. At Bandiagara, Chicago and I shifted into a taxi to get the rest of the way to Dogon country. Someone, perhaps a friend of Chicago’s offered me to buy some cola for the elders at the first Dogon village, but I though he meant Coca-Cola and decided I didn’t want to offer that as a gift. I later found out he meant cola nuts, which the elder Dogons love to chew. I had trouble purchasing bottles of water from the same guy because he tried to charge me a higher price for cold water than tepid water. I got annoyed and gave him the money telling him to bring me the hottest bottles of water he had. He ended up bringing some fairly cool ones for the lower price. It was lucky I got those water bottles at 500 CFA because the water bottles once at the Dogon villages went up to 1000 CFA.

Mauritanian Customs

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November 19, 2007, Hotel de l’Amitié, Oualata, Mauritania

It turns out that Brooke, one of the Peace Corps volunteers from Ayoun, as well as some other Peace Corp volunteers from Nema, did arrive here yesterday in Oualata. They caught a ride with some oil company guys, so they could only stay for about one hour after the grueling ride here and before the grueling return trip. They did eat lunch and chat with me here at the Hotel de l’Amitié. It was fun to see Brooke again and to exchange more travel tips. No one from the Nema Peace Corps group has headed south from Nema to Nara, so it will be an adventure to see if that and the ongoing journey down to Djenne are even possible.

I’ve tried to observe differences between Mauritanian customs and those we have in the United States. Mauritania is officially an Islamic state, so there is the frequent usage of religious expressions, such as Ilhamdulilah, and the amplified calls to prayer of the muezzins at local mosques. Gender roles are somewhat different as well, with men generally congregating with other men, and women with women. In a family household, the sexes mix more. However, any casual touch between a man and a woman, other than husband and wife, or perhaps between or with children, is almost always forbidden. One must pay careful attention when handing objects between persons of different genders, as when I handed Mr. Moulay’s wife the medicine for her child with the burned arm. Casual chat without extended eye contact is apparently permissible. The only exception I saw was when Mr. Moulay visited elderly female friends in the ancient city: he held out his hand in a kind of weak handshake with them. While casual physical contact, such as embraces and holding hands are somewhat common among men who are friends, I haven’t seen any clear evidence of same-sex love. Greetings can be a short “Es salaam aleykumâ” followed by “Aleykum salaam” or may extend for several minutes with a ritualized and formulaic exchange that helps cement relations. According to the Peace Corps volunteers in Ayoun who teach in local schools, corporal punishment of children, in the form of thwacking them with a rubber hose, is epidemic here and usually so frequently arbitrarily applied that it cannot serve any pedagogical purpose. Race relations are on the surface quite cordial between the lighter-skinned Berber Arab population and the darker-skinned Africans, although the Peace Corps volunteers told me that there still is some discrimination, for example in employment and marriages.

Food consists mostly of various kinds of couscous topped with a sauce of vegetables and often meat. At hotels, the staff seem quite willing to accommodate vegetarians by not including the meat, although it can be more difficult at people’s homes when they simply don’t understand why you wouldn’t want the meat. Bowls of fresh cow milk are also quite a common local treat. Toilets, outside of city hotels catering to westerners or middle eastern arabs, are generally squat toilets.

The sunrise this morning was particularly beautiful with long arches of orange stratus clouds stretching radially from the sun across the entire sky.