Category Archives: Africa

Whirlwind Ride and Flights Across the Continent

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I knew going in to the Festival in the Desert that I was doing something crazy. I traveled all the way from Nigeria back to a desert outpost outside Timbuktu in Northern Mali so I could participate in this Tuareg music festival. The whole drama of waiting for a Niger visa in Abuja, Nigeria, put me off a bit and I ended up on this crazy series of flights back to Bamako, then paid a painful chunk of cash for a supposedly comfy and dependable 4×4 ride to Timbuktu and back to Bamako, missing the final day of the music festival so that I could return in time to catch a flight from Bamako. Instead, the 4×4 had engine trouble and I ended up having to rent a vehicle with only a few hours to go before my flight left the airport.

The flight from Bamako, Mali, to Accra, Ghana, was the first in an incredible arc of flights planned across the continent, traveling then on to Johannesburg, South Africa, and finally to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. After a lot of travel aggravation with South African Airways, I ended up instead skipping the Congo portion of the trip and heading on after a fourteen hour harangue in the Johannesburg airport to Harare in Zimbabwe.

Griot Convergence in Timbuktu

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January 12, 2008, Hotel Boctou, Timbuktu, Mali

Boubakar Touré, the owner of the Hotel Boctou, told me that there had been a conference in December 2007 on griots at the hotel here in Timbuktu. He mentioned that a fellow named Paul Raukin has been gathering stories in Timbuktu aided by a guide named Azima. He also mentioned Madame Touré Zalia-Maïga, at the University of Arizona at Tempe. And a fellow named Salem Ould el Hajh (tel. 9407926) has English translations of the transcripts of the griots who spoke in Songhaï (or Songhui or ???) and Tamchek languages at the conference.

Travelers Joshua and Heather Tallis, who I met on the route from Essakane to Timbuktu, recommended reading the books entitled Salt and Cod, as well as a book called Timbuktu by Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle.

Festival in the Desert, Essakane, Mali

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The eighth annual Festival in the Desert (Festival au Desert) took place in Essakane, Mali, on January 10-12, 2008. I made it late the first day, stayed the second day, and had to leave really really early the morning of the last day. So, I missed my most anticipated musician playing at the festival: Tiken Jah Fakoly. I got to experience lots of really good music though.

One apparently traditional event at the festival is camel racing. At the same time, with a bunch of jostling in the crowd, a ceremony of women took place, perhaps a form of “dressage” to show off their finery for potential spouses.

A Day in Timbuktu: Ahmed Baba Institute and Another Manuscript Library

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The Institut des Hautes Etudes et de Recherches Islamiques – Ahmed Baba (IHERI-AB), formerly the Centre de Documentation et de Recherches Ahmed Baba (CEDRAB), commonly known in English as the Ahmed Baba Institute, houses an excellent collection of historical manuscripts in Timbuktu.

We walked through Timbuktu from one manuscript library to another.

The other library also had amazing historical manuscripts.

Nigeria Behind, Bamako Today, Timbuktu Ahead

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I left Lagos the day before yesterday. I was supposed to go on a flight to Bamako on Cameroon Air, but it got hijacked to Ouagadougou by some Cameroon national sports team. So, instead I took a flight to Abidjan, spent another night in the transit hotel at the airport.

Then I begged for the promotional rate on an Air Senegal flight to Bamako this evening.

Now, I’m back in Bamako, mosquito territory. Luckily I’ve still been popping the malarone. This time, I snapped some pictures of the beautiful Hotel Djenne.

I managed to dine on another delicious vegetarian meal at the amazing Restaurant San Toro accompanied by an almost hypnotic kora duet.

Tomorrow morning, I will scout a way to Timbuktu for the Festival in the Desert.

Twisted Fingers and Banged Thumbs in Abuja

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January 3, 2008, Embassy of Niger, Abuja, Nigeria

The guy arrived after I waited three hours for him (see January 2 entry). He looked at my passport and told me the DRC Chancery in Abuja usually only handles U.S. Citizens who have a multiple-entry instead of a single-entry visa to Nigeria. I explained that I couldn’t return to Nigeria, so didn’t need a multiple-entry visa, that I would enter Congo from another country entirely. He told me to wait while he supposedly called someone who apparently told him it would take a week to obtain the visa. So, rather than showing my anger, I just thanked him and said it was too bad I probably wouldn’t be able to do my research in the DRC. Then, I left. They had told me it would be easy to find a taxi, but I didn’t see any. I tried calling Folly – who I had already paid 300 Naira for taxi’ing me around and waiting a couple of hours at the Chancery before sending him away – but he didn’t pick up, so I went to the end of the street and luckily found a car to bring me back to the hotel.

Over the course of the rest of the day yesterday, my anger gradually faded into a fairly deep depression. I realized that unless I got my visa for the Niger the next day, that is today, I wouldn’t be able to travel through Niger to Gao and Timbuktu in Mali in time for the Festival of the Desert. I would have to try going by plane to Bamako and, if there is still time, to go to Timbuktu, although probably not to Gao. Another possibility is just to go to Bamako to take the flight from there, or perhaps from Accra, giving me time to try again for a visa to the DRC.

Crossed Fingers and Twiddled Thumbs in Abuja

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January 2, 2008, Chancery of Democratic Republic of Congo, Abuja, Nigeria

I’m hungry, thirsty, and hot waiting more than two hours for a guy to show up here at the Chancery for the DRC here in Abuja. A couple of days ago, I picked up the visa form which is now completely filled out, accompanied by copies of my travel itinerary, bank statement, and hotel reservation. This fellow really got on my nerves by telling me to wait here for him to arrive within the hour. I was paying a taxi driver by the hour to chauffeur me around town to the Niger Embassy, where I picked up my passport because they still haven’t given me a visa after give day’s wait, to the Internet Cafe, to print out the hotel reservation, actually to a second Internet Cafe because the first one had no power and a broken generator, and finally here to camp out at the Chancery while this guy finishes some mysterious unnamed business before, the guards assure me, coming here to help process my visa application. He had asked me to get a letter from the U.S. Embassy for the visa application, so I visited the Embassy on Friday and they told me it’s closed on the last Friday of the month, and of course everyone is closed over the weekend, then on New Year’s Day. Anyway, I think the guy is here now (see January 3 entry).