While celebrating the gains of queer people, such as the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages, I feel it’s important to remember that you can still be arrested for your sexual orientation in 75 countries and punished by death in 10 countries around the world.
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.
November 21, 2007, Main ‘garage’ at Nema, Mauritania
Yesterday morning, I took my leave of Oualata after a fine tour of the city and its painted houses, as well as a visit to the old Arabic manuscript library and museum of the ancient city. Although the conveniences and the transport are very basic in Oualata, the town is charming and tranquil. I’d put it on my return visit list for one day in the future.
Before a special meal of flour cakes with vegetables, I wrote out the hotel tariff in three languages for Mr. Moulay of the Hotel de l’Amitié. In the morning, the truck came a bit early to pick me up, just as I was on the shitter, so I had to hurry to splash my butt with water, and grab my bags to throw them on the truck while it went off to pick up other passengers. Then, I ate a peaceful breakfast of bread and jam with Nescafe and three pourings of tea. The bread in Mauritania is delicious and seems to be one really good tradition the French left behind.
Aniticipating another disastrous ride, I had purchased a seat in the cab up front of the truck a couple of days in advance, so the ride was much better, albeit still quite bumpy and arduous.
We saw traditional cone-on-cylinder construction along the route.
By the time I arrived in Nema, no trucks were leaving for Nara until the following day. By coincidence, a Peace Corps volunteer named Sarah walked by the truck just as I unloaded my bags onto the dusty street. She was the same person I’d seen just as I was departing Nema on a truck to Oualata, so she and I seem somehow to be in synchronicity (for more, see Sarah’s blog). She took me over to her new home which she was just fixing up with new tapis, a thin mat, and matelots, a mattress for lounging and sleeping. Since her place wasn’t completely set up yet, she brought me to Peace Corps volunteer Heather’s place to relax for the afternoon and spend the night. Heather and I chatted about some of the challenges she faces as a teacher in Nema. I also met a fellow named David. He and I discussed a variety of topics, such as health, writing, and his concerns about the Peace Corps. We visited the compound of a wealthy Mauritanian family where Sarah had been living and I discussed the symbolism of the Oualata house designs with a friendly Mauritanian gentleman. He mentioned that a cemetery near Oualata has grave markers of a similar design. I’ll have to do more research.
Then David took me to a compound of some oil exploration guys who were getting ready to leave Mauritania after around six months of work. They left me use their satellite Internet connection to post a brief entry to my blog, the first in ten days, and to read 2000 of the 3000 emails I had received during that time. They had sent a plane to search for a missing guy on a motorcycle, presumed lost or dead in the desert. Eventually, the guy texted from Timbuktu after worrying his motorcycle buddy sick.
Back at Heather’s place, I helped prepare a meal of eggs and hash browns with a cucumber salad dressed with a mix of mayo, pepper, honey, and limes. I contributed some mango juice and two melons to the meal. I read and critiqued one of David’s stories, then read aloud some of the first part of my novel to an appreciative audience of Sarah, Heather, and David, who provided some good feedback.
I slept well, took a bucket shower in the morning, and Heather walked me to the station to find a truck for Nara (4000 ougiya for a seat in the cab). The trucks actually go to a town called Adel Bagrou on the Mauritanian side of the border with Mali, then I’ll change to another vehicle to cross the border. It looks like I’m running at least a day behind my planned arrival in Djenné, which may cut back on my visit to Dogon country.
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.
In touring the town, Mr. Moulay told me about a special hallway where the women gathered separately from the men.
Next we visited a farming cooperative project with a water pumping station that makes it possible for local women to grow crops, sell the harvest, and reap the profit for their families. The project originally hired a fellow who advised the women on how to plant and maximize their crop yields, but that person is no longer there so the project needs another person to fill that position. I thought maybe a Peace Corps volunteer… Oualata would be a plum placement!
We visited the reservoir which serves as a watering hole for camel trains carrying salt to towns across the desert.
Sunrise at the hotel in Oualata rocks!
I enjoyed Mr. Moulay’s tour of the interior of Oualata homes. The alcoves in Oualata have a unique shape. Traditional families often have staffs mounted to use to hang objects in their homes.
Mr. Moulay showed me the door of the mayor’s house in Oualata, at an old entrance of the city. We entered the library for a look at the painted interior with those uniquely shaped alcoves and, of course, the incredible book collection.
Next to the library was a museum of traditional objects of Oualata.
Written on November 18, 2007, Hotel de l’Amitié, Oualata, Mauritania
I slept on a mattress in the hotel courtyard under the crescent moon and the stars. The sounds are mostly the bleating of cattle and the chirping of birds with occasional human songs or chants as well. This magical place has already made its way into my novel. Aside from a few details, like plastic bottles, one has the impression of living centuries ago.
The walls of the hotel are a lush red-brown clay which contrasts spectacularly with the light sand of the hotel compound floor. Artisans here etch designs into the walls and paint them, yet each year the rains wash some of their work away, so each year they repair and renovate their dwellings and so continues the cycle of the seasons here in Oualata.
I was so stressed and exhausted, I took one day completely off yesterday, except for my writing. I might as well have done so, because it was Saturday and today is Sunday, so the only site I can see today is the old city. The library and the painted houses are open tomorrow and Mr. Moulay will give me a tour of the houses so I can see their painted interiors.
Yesterday, the woman who I assume is Mr. Moulay’s wife showed me how one of her boys has a bad burn from boiling tea water on his arm. I gave her some medicines to try to help him heal more quickly and to relieve the pain. Apparently, he slept much better last night than he has for the last eight nights, so we are all happier today.
Mr. Moulay just told me that some Americans are arriving today from Nema, which may mean that Brooke, one of the Peace Corps volunteers from Ayoun and perhaps some others are on the way here.
The truck guys from Koumbi Salah, Baba and Sidi, were off having tea while I spoke for awhile with Hassan, then he sent me off with them after they had already picked up some passengers along the way. Baba got the owner guy to translate that he too wanted a cadeau. I asked if I had already paid for the ride and they agreed I had. The first third of the ride to Timbedra, Sidi the navigator wanted to get in on the act and kept nagging me for a gift. I kept telling him to talk with Hassan if he had any problem. But he just wouldn’t stop after dozens of times, so I just put my fingers in my ears and sulked for awhile. Only that seemed to work. I felt actually quite hurt because I had through we were becoming friends, or at least buddies. I sat without speaking and pondered the situation — the needs some people have or feel they have, the stereotype of the rich foreigner, what it means to give, to ask, and to demand, and how to set limits to make my voyage even possible. I nearly cried.
Finally, we arrived in Timbedra. I gave Baba Ahmed, the driver, and Sidi Mohammed, the navigator, each a small packet of tea as a gift, then we said our goodbyes. The meditation on this experience brought me to a place where I could thank the rip-off artist who brought me to Aoudaghost for helping me to learn a lesson.
In Timbedra, I hitched a quick ride to the garage for Nema. I waited awhile for a vehicle that didn’t look like it was leaving anytime soon, since they drive wanted a total of nine passengers. After two other passengers had paid, and I had wisely withheld paying, another driver offered to take me for 3000 ougiya instead of the first car’s price of 1000 ougiya, but with the advantage of having no other passengers, and more importantly of leaving right away. We did actually leave fairly soon thereafter, following an argument between all the drivers at the garage and a threat to call the police. Of course, the driver I went with packed the back seat with passengers, but at least didn’t try to push any more into the front seat with me. We got underway, and the driver, a Malian from Bamako who already had four kids by two Mauritanian wives, grilled me about how to get to America to make lots of money. I explained the usual four ways I know of and discussed at length with him why it would be difficult for him to marry an American woman.
We arrived at Nema and I dragged my bags through the sandy market streets to the “permanent garage” for Oualata. For some reason, the driver wouldn’t sell me the more expensive seat in the front of the vehicle. While sitting on the sidewalk waiting, I say “es salaam aleykum” to virtually everyone who passes by and chat with whomever seems interested or interesting. Most of the conversations are in halting French or minimalist Hassinaya/Arabic about where I am from, where I am going, and what is my name. I tried to telephone the Peace Corps volunteers here that the Ayoun volunteers had mentioned, but it was impossible to find a phone, and I didn’t have a Mauritanian “puce” or SIM card for my travel cellphone.
Written on November 18, 2007, Hotel de l’Amitié, Oualata, Mauritania
The truck ride from Nema to Oualata was the most trying ride I’ve ever had, and I’ve been in some pretty horrible rides. I tried to reserve a place in the cab, but the truck owner said he wouldn’t be able to tell me if that was possible until 3pm. I had arrived at the “garage” around 11:30am. When some other passengers came along and he no doubt sold the cab seats to them, he glanced at me smiling. Somehow I knew he hated my guts, although I had never done anything to him. The problem continued with the owner of the truck not ensuring the truck bed was clean. Some animal, probably a goat, had pissed on the fiber netting and the driver hadn’t washed the netting or the truck bed since. The owner managed to pack my bag where the pissy portion of the netting was. When I protested, he face broke into a wide smile. I sarcastically laughed back and him and he back at me. I handed him 1000 ougiya and told him that’s all the seat he gave me was worth. He looked worried for a second, then greedily demanded the other 1000 ougiya for the price of the ride. My plan, after being relegated to the truck bed, was to position my bag so I could rest my back in relative comfort against it while riding. That plan was foiled because I couldn’t stand to sit down in the pissy netting. I was already immersed in the stink of it within five minutes after getting on the truck. The terrain was at times comparable to some of the worst bumpy and sandy desert roads I encountered in out-back Sudan. But what made the ride absolutely miserable was the way the truck owner packed myself and the other passengers in the bed of the truck along with a continually protesting goat and all our baggage. While some passengers admittedly rode in relative comfort up front, that is, squished in the seats of the large cab of the truck, the rest of us squatted, perched, and squirmed as the truck bumped and swerved for hours. At the last moment on the way out of town, I saw a toubab, a white woman, wandering the streets of Nema who I would coincidentally meet again later on. The route to Oualata seemed never to end, winding and twisting, at times backtracking for the correct route. Once we spotted a town and my spirits lifted only to have my hopes crushed by finding out it was another town and we still had a long ride to come. Every cloud has its silver lining and this trip was no exception. The sunset was exquisite. When we stopped for evening prayers, one fellow taught me how to put on a turban properly and we reshuffled ourselves in the truck bed. For about twenty minutes, I was actually comfortable — that is, until we picked up another passenger along the way, a handsome young fellow with deep brown doe eyes, startled by my appearance, but sitting basically in my lap with my legs spread wide and squished down below everyone else’s body parts. By the time we arrived in Oualata, I worried my legs and neck had received serious damage. After proceeding under a crazy welcoming town arch, the truck stopped at a police outpost. I tried explaining the name of the hotel where I wanted to go, but no one understood until I tried saying the name of the hotel’s owner and suddenly they figured out where I wanted to go. The “streets” were dark except for electric street lamps located at seemingly random spots around the town. The police officer took my passport to a little mud-brick building where he slept, ate, and conducted his duties. He insisted on copying my name and passport number, although he couldn’t spell in English or French. Eventually, he wrote my name in Arabic, even though I offered to write it several times myself for him. Meanwhile the passengers on the truck were getting restless and, preparing to abandon me there, the driver brought my bags to me. I groaned and the police officer said it was OK to leave, so I started dragging my bags back to the truck just as it was preparing to go. I yelled “Merde” (“Shit”) loudly. The truck waited for me to get my bags back on board, then started to leave without me having a chance to crawl back on so I had to thwack the side of the truck until the driver stopped, then clambered on board completely and utterly exhausted and nearly hysterical with stress. The driver dropped everyone else but me off first, and I even helped him unload several heavy sacks of grains and vegetables. Finally, the truck arrived at the hotel and Mr. Ahmed Moulay came out front to greet me. My final moment of high stress ended when he answered that there was indeed room at the inn, so I grabbed my large bag and he my small one, waved a quick goodbye to the driver, and entered the hotel compound.
A few more shots of Koumbi Salah to wrap up.
I had just over an hour to tour the site of the ancient city of Koumbi Salah. I left my orange bag sitting in the ruins to mark the place where we would meet.
It’s amazing how important the locals like Hassan feel it is to show me the “mosque” at each ancient village, even though I’m pretty sure the Wagadu kingdom wasn’t an Islamic kingdom. The site is vast and I wandered around imagining what it must have been like to ride a horse or walk through the city. I saw what looked like the remains of houses and many pottery shards, although no where near as many as at Aoudaghost. Both sites look like they could use a lot more excavation than what has already happened there so far.