Kafountine, Senegal

One of the Dutch girls invited us to join her and her boyfriend to drive to Kafountine on the Senegal coast. Wendy was able to get a 4x4 from a man who worked for the organisation that organised her internship in The Gambia. We had to get a new battery put into the vehicle before we left as the one in it kept losing its charge.

The road was pretty good on the Senegal side and everything looked greener than in Gambia with a lot more vegetation. The road to the coastal town of Kafountine had so many bits of ashphalt missing that it was easier to drive on the sandy shoulders. Although taxis pay tolls the money doesn't seem to go back to repairs and maintenance.

Kafountine is in the Casamance region and is inhabited by the Diolla people. They have a reputation for not wanting to be ruled by outsiders and rejected slavery, the French colonial administrators and more recently a pro-independence movement. There have been clashes with the authorities in Dakar and in the late 1900's there were more than five hundred deaths. Various government travel advisory sites warn against visiting the area as there is occasionally some banditry. We have met several people who have been to Casamance recently and so felt reasonably comfortable about travelling here.

We stayed at a reasonably new lodge about 300 metres from the beach and set in a lovely garden with vines growing over the huge mango and palm trees. The owner's son, Abdulie, told us that a German guy helped them set up the lodge. He managed to convince fifteen Dutch people to invest 2,ooo Euros each in the place. They then had three years to spend three weeks a year at the lodge and not pay for accommodation. This has enabled them to build two blocks with four double rooms and extend the restaurant. Everything was well set out and the facilities all worked. The mattresses were especially imported from Europe to ensure the guests had a good sleep.

One evening Abdulie got dressed up in his new clothes and played the djembe for us while we ate our dinner. He plays in a group and likes to get as much practice in as he can. He studies Marketing in a school in The Gambia so speaks very good English.

We walked down the beach to the fshing village where we saw the boats coming in and the beach alive with indusry as the townsfolk processed the fish on the sand as it came out of the bins.

Strong guys waded to the wooden pirogues and carried plastic bins full of fish on their head. Some took it to a sorting area where it was sorted to go in sacks of ice and onto trucks headed for Dakar. Other guys ran up the beach to local sorters. The faster they can empty their bins the more money they can make.

The whole family is involved in dealing with the catch. The women cut up huge sea snails which they dry to make flavourings. Some of the fish is bled as soon as it hits the sand from the bins and then the waste is dumped into the tide.

Behind the high tide mark are racks where the fish is dried and covered grills where it is smoked. There are stacks of logs drying for firewood and processions of donkey carts delivering more wood. Senegal suffers from overfishing and the trees taken for fish smoking have contributed to deforestation. As well as the estimated fifteen thousand pirogues working the seven hundred kilometres of coastline, there are also Asian and European fish companies taking fish in these waters.

Amongst the buzz of fish sorting are the hawkers; they try to sell thermoses, cellphones, torches, and all sorts of other goods. It's amazing that they think the frantic workers have time to buy anything from them. Even the 'African tea' sellers light up their charcoal fires to brew the Chinese green tea to sell. Not far from the fish sorters were the boat mechanic squatting on the black oily sand repairing outboard motors. Everything is happening in a short stretch along the beach.

When the land is cleared of the trees for firewood, it is then turned into peanut farms as this is a major industry in Senegal. The industry is run by the marabouts, Muslim religious leaders. The children that they school in their Quranic schools are employed in the fields as workers. At present the land is being prepared for peanuts which they will plant during the rainy season.

We were most surprised to see Wendy and the 4x4 up to its axles in sand. They had driven to Kafountine from the coastal town of Abene and took the beach route rather than the road. Luckily the military were happy to lend a hand get her out as well as lots of strong locals. The soldier in the photo didn't even take off his rifle while pushing.

Some of the village houses were so colourful with bougainvillea.

We enjoyed watching the dozens of birds in the garden when we weren't watching the fishers, walking on the beach , reading, or walking in the town.

The trip from Kafountine to Ziguinchor was so different from the one to the coast. We waited the customary half an hour for a sept-place to fill up with locals. The most annoying thing with the public transport is the negotiating for the price of our backpacks. Usually they go in the boot and the locals often have a lot more luggage than us but we always have to pay more. We buy our sept-place tickets from an office and here in Senegal it has the seat number that you are sitting in. The best seat is beside the driver and not shared with anyone else. The middle seats take three people but tip forward to let the people in the back bench seat in and out, so it is a hassle if people only travel short stops. The back bench seat is usually unpadded and only about 30 centimetres wide. It sits up high and you have to bend your head so it doesn't hit the roof where the boot door hinges meet the window. The windows don't open for the back bench seat so you have to get the middle passengers to open their window so you can get air. There are usually no window winders so you have to get a screwdriver from the driver to open it. The locals hate the wind blowing on them so it is always a battle to get cool air.

The driver of the sept-place vehicles don't deal with the passengers at all. He is allocated a set amount of money for fuel by the marabout and is paid. There is another man who is supposed to recruit passengers for the driver. Sometimes it is difficult to tell who this person is, as everyone gets in on the act as soon as they see us arrive at the gare routiere. This man earns his keep by charging you for your luggage. Of course he wants to charge us more than he charges the locals so it is always a battle to get a reasonable rate. Some try to charge as much as the fare when traditionally it is 10% of the fare. When negotiations begin there can be half a dozen men joining in and having their say and some are hoping they will get a cut if they can get us to increase the price we pay. John is very patient and after much eye rolling and foot stamping we end up paying a reasonable rate.

There were several police check points on the road and we had to get out and walk through them and show our passports. The bandits, it seems, not only target the tourists but also the locals.

Banjul, The Gambia

The Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa with 1.6 million people. 90% of the people are Muslim and there are 45% of the population under 14 years of age. 40% of boys can read or write while only 20% of girls.

We arrived in Janjangbureh (Georgetown) on a minibus. The town is on Mac Carthay Island in the Gambia river. It was founded by the British in 1823, as an administrative centre and trading hub.

We were hassled by wannabe guides as soon as we stepped out of the minibus. They want to take you on river trips and show you the slave markets or take you bird watching.

We found a campement or accommodation place just outside the dusty town. A lot of the restaurants in the town were closed as it is not the main tourist season so we ate at the campement.

In the evening two Dutch women arrived in a taxi with a driver and a guide from Banjul. Bianca was travelling with her mother Carla. Carla had a lung disease and wanted to travel to Africa.

People we had met said that Janjangbureh was a nice place but we found it hot and dusty and not nice at all so decided to move on to Banjul the next day.

There was a very good road to Soma and we were lucky enough to get a seat on a new minibus. We had planned to stop the night in Soma but it was also hot and dusty and as the trip so far had been fast we decided to continue onto the cooler weather on the coast.

The minibus we transfered to was a wreck. The back door didn't close and the red dust from the road came in and covered us all. The road was in a terrible state and when it slowed down we had people hanging off the back bumper. We stopped several times to pick up men and their bicycles. The bikes went on the roof and if someone had got off the men were able to get a seat and if not they hang off the back.

The gare routiere or transport depot was on the outskirts of the city so we got a taxi to a guesthouse in the Fajara area. The guesthouse was very nice. We met some very interesting people.

Elizabeth from Netherlands was spending time with her young Gambian boyfriend. She was late 60s or early 70s and he mid twenties. The Gambia is well known as a sex tourist destination so it is not uncommon to see older women with young men. There seems to be a season when the women come from Netherland and a season when the English women come. We did meet an English guy who told us that if an English woman marries a Gambian she must stay five years in The Gambia before they can go to the UK. It seems that the men disappear once they get to the UK and head for Europe after they arrive. We haven't found anything to verify his story.

There was a woman from Cameroon who was studying in Africa and doing her medical internship here. She had been in the guesthouse for a year and although she was based in the USA her grades were not good enough to get into a medical school there so had to do her studies in Africa. She was up early in the mornings and back late at night so we rarely saw her.

We spent some time chatting with Alfred from Belgium. He had been born in the Congo and worked in South Africa. He had a van packed full of gear sent to Banjul from Belgium and was planning on setting up a patisserie business in the main street and not far from the guesthouse. He was interesting as he didn't feel comfortable in Europe and had spent a lot of time in Africa where he felt more comfortable. His wife and some of his children were going to join him later.

There were two young Dutch girls, Fleur and Wendy, doing their practicum at a school for disabled children not far from the guesthouse. They had a room and a kitchen that they could use to cook their meals everyday.

One day a guy from Guinea, Conakry, called Mouctar, cooked up some fish and fried bananas and invited everyone in the guesthouse to eat with him. Mouctar was studying in Cairo and was doing some research in Banjul. He was studying anthropology and agriculture. One day he went to the beach with a friend and as they passed the American ambassador's residence on the way to the beach they were stopped by police. Someone had burgled the residence in the night and the officers investigating the scene stopped them to check their IDs. Their documents were back at the guesthouse so the police went there to check their passports. They saw that Mouctar had a lot of books and locked him up as he didn't have the proper student's study permit. He spent some time in jail and they took away his computer after finding some information criticising the government's policies. He still hadn't got his computer back by the time we left and had already been longer than he intended in Banjul.



We were the only tourists in the guesthouse and the owners came by to say hello. The man was ill and his wife had lost interest in running the place so Alfred hopes to stay on once his patiserrie opens and manage the place with his mother-in-law. He had already worked out which of the current staff were worth retaining at the guesthouse and which ones he would like to offer a job at his patisserie. There is some construction work going on to add a third storey to the place.



The beach was deserted during the day and the only people there were the 'bumsters'. There are lots of guys in the morning and evenings running on the beach and flexing their muscles. Some are looking for women while others are selling the usual tourist wood carvings and jewelery. Some of the sellers were pretty aggressive too. The weather was a lot cooler than some of the places we have been in lately so we enjoyed the 27 degree days and did a lot of walking.

A lot of the hotels were closed along the beach but we were told that in the main tourist season they are fully booked. It was so comfortable being in an English speaking place again. We were able to find a cafe that had free Wifi and so we went there every second day to go online for the price of a soft drink and a croissant.

Basse Santa Su, The Gambia.

In Mali a sept-place takes nine passengers but in Senegal they actually take seven. That was a treat! The road to Velingara was reasonable and there were several overturned trucks abandoned on the roadsides along with a couple of burnt out fuel tankers. The cows didn't take any notice of the taxi driver's horn and took their time crossing the road and chewing their cud. Consequently, we have seen a lot more dead bloated cows, and donkeys on the edge of the edge of the road than we have seen anywhere else.

We had to get two motorbikes to take us from the gare routiere or transport stop to the place where the transport left for the Gambian border. Once again we had to sit under a thatched shelter waiting for a vehicle to fill. The place was pretty dusty and and a hot wind blew the sand over us everytime a truck or taxi came by. The vehicles that were to take us to the Gambian border reminded me of the ones we see waiting to enter the stock car race track for the end of season 'demolition derby'. They were absolute wrecks.

After three and a half hours wait in the heat and dust we finally got fifteen people to squeeze onto the back of this pick up. It had no starter motor and the petrol was stored in a reused plastic 4 litre oil pack under the bonnet. One of the drivers was not happy to have us photograph the vehicles but I reckon that if we are paying to travel in it, and risk our lives, we should at least be able to take a photo of the wreck.

The road to the border was pretty bad as the driver took a short cut rather than travel the better road that was used by the truck drivers. Neither were sealed. We sat on benches along the sides of the back and the tree branches slapped us on the back as he drove close to the trees to avoid the holes.

The pick up dropped us under a tree in no man's land where there was a group of more wrecks waiting to take us into The Gambia. There were no buildings and it was very hot and dusty. The conductor told us he had a couple of seats in the back of the sept-place for us but when we went to get in them they were taken by a pregnant women and one with a baby so we let them have the seats. There were a couple of men from Guinea who were shouting at the driver and conductor as there were not enough seats in the sept-place for the fourteen people who had crossed in the pick-up. We were not able to understand the discussions as they were in Wollof and left them to argue. There was no more room inside the vehicle and we emptied the boot and suggested we sit there but they didn't want that as they would get held up by the police. After much shouting, the Guinea guys hopped onto the roof rack with the luggage and tossed our bags down and then they drove off laughing at us and leaving us behind. We couldn't believe it!

We walked the kilometre to the border control office and the vehicle was still there being processed. One of the immigration officers asked me how I was was and I told him I was hot and angry. I explained to him what had happened and he reassured me that the vehicle would take us into Basse Santa Su. This border had been closed because of the transport problems and we were an example of what had been happening that caused it to close. After more discussions I was curled up in the boot and John was put with four others on the roof rack to got the thirty six kilometres to Basse.

As we walked around Basse looking for some accommodation we bumped into a guy called Jutta. He helped us find a guest house in the main street. It also turned out he worked for police intelligence and worked at the border. When we told him about our crossing he said they were still having meetings about what to do about the transport situation at the border. It seemed easy for us to solve. If a vehicle from Senegal takes fourteen people to the border a vehicle on the other side should also take that number. There were certainly vehicles of that capacity at no man's land.

The guesthouse was pretty run down but the young man running it for his family was very nice. He insisted we call him Rooney after his favourite football player. The electricity to the town is supplied by a diesel generator and at night it is turned off and the fan in the room would be useless. He suggested we take our mattress on the verandah overlooking the street where it would be cooler. We set up our mosquito net and enjoyed the cool breeze coming through the lattice blocks on the verandah.

Jutta took us to a restaurant across town where we had fried chicken and chips. We offered to buy him a meal for his help but he was more interested in money so he could fix his Chinese made motorbike that was having oil leaks.

We rested up for a couple of nights in Basse which was pretty noisy, dusty and had temperatures in the mid forties. Speakers playing a woman singing Quranic verses blarred until midnight and then the muezzin woke us at morning prayer time.

The wind came up and we couldn't see across the street so we stayed in until it lessened. Rooney showed us where we could watch some football games at a video club. It was a huge warehouse where they had tiered seats and three TV sets so they could show more than one match at a time.

Basse sits along a river and we watched the barge take people, trucks and animals across to the farms on the other side.

We met a man who was taking photos of the river and he explained that he was a water engineer and was looking at the feasibility of building a dam for electricity and providing a bridge. He was taking the findings back to the Italian company he worked for. He was originally from Basse but now works in Angola.

We later met a man who worked for a medical research company and he told us it was run by a New Zealand man. This man was also from Basse and had left in 1989. He found his town was much poorer now than when he left it as a youngster.

We gave some bread to a mentally ill man who was begging on the street and Jutta told us that the man had been in Europe and was deported and that is what caused his illness. Rooney also pointed out another mentally ill man and said that he too had been in Europe and came back sick. We have heard this explanation a couple of times and are not sure if it is like traumatic stress disorder, from the culture shock, or as a result of experimenting with drugs during their European stay.

What are these guys dreaming about as they lounge on this wrecked taxi?

Tambacounda, Senegal

Back in Bamako we settled into the friendly Catholic Mission guesthouse again. Chris bought some African instruments and got ready to return to the UK for a month or so before heading back to Africa. I caught up with the blog and had to spend two days getting a Sengalese visa. John is using his UK passport so he doesn't have to have one. We ran out of anti-malaria pills so had to get some more after checking online where we would need them. They were made in China and we hope they are genuine!

Met a couple of interesting people at the Mission, including Tibor from Hungary. We had seen him a couple of times but not chatted in depth. He used to be a customs officer in Hungary until their inclusion in the European Union when he was made redundant. He had been saving his money to buy a house, find a wife and have a family but decided to travel instead. He loves travelling so much he hasn't stopped and has visited one hundred countries.

He had just returned from a trip to Timbuctoo but only got to within 130 kms of the place when he ran out of transport options and discovered that he had malaria. He was able to get treatment for his malaria but was stuck in a small town without any food for four days. He spent most of his days boiling water and cooling it to drink. The locals offered him food but he saw they had small bowls of food that were not enough for those eating it so lived on mangoes the whole time. He looked rather yellow when we saw him and he had lost a lot of weight.

He told us stories of his childhood and about his last trip to Russia. He and four friends did a road trip and passed through a city the day before Putin arrived there. In a checkpoint they had their luggage checked and they found he had fake IDs that he had made in Bangkok. One was a journalist pass and another a student pass. As a result of this the officers thought he was a spy and put he and his three friends in prison. He described his eight days in a Russian prison and they were horrific. He wants to visit Russia again but has to wait for his five year ban to pass before he can return. He speaks Russian so it easy travel for him. He also told us about being hassled by the police in Guinea for taking a photo of an elephant statue. He had some interesting tales to tell.

We checked the status of the borders between Senegal and The Gambia and found that they had been closed due to a transport dispute and had reopened the night before we left Bamako.

We had a farewell meal with Chris at a Chinese restaurant in Bamako and enjoyed some aubergine dishes. In the morning the taxi we had organised didn't show so John flagged down a guy who took us to the bus station. We took a very hot crowded bus to Kayes and had a break down on the way. After a night in Kayes we got up early and headed for the bush taxi park outside town where we had to wait for one and a half hours for a sept-place (7 seater) Peugeot to fill up and take us the 80 kms to the border town of Diboli.

The border town was a shambles of a place on the side of the river. We found the office to check out of Mali and had to walk across the river bridge to find the Senegalese Immigration office. It turned out to be a long, hot, dusty, unsignposted walk into the middle of the town of Kidira. Once we were stamped in we had to take a taxi back near the bridge to the taxi park.



This is our Senegalese sept-place taxi. We waited three hours under a thatched roof in a dirty dusty yard for this to fill up. Finally we had five of therequired seven passengers and a man suggested we all put in some extra money to pay for the remaining two seats so we could leave before dark. Everyone agreed and we set off.



The locals spend a lot of time cutting down the last remaing big trees for firewood. This for some people is the only way they can get an income as the farms they work or the animals they keep give them just enough to live on and not enough to sell.

It was 7 pm when we arrived in Tambacounda and took a taxi to a large hotel in town. The hotel had a pool, a restaurant and free Wifi. Unfortunately Blogger was unavailable for the whole time we had free Wifi! We were here for our 33rd wedding anniversary. The pool was too hot to swim in and the restaurant was charging first world prices for third world quality!

We wandered around the town looking for some places to have a cold drink and find somewhere less expensive to eat but couldn't find anything else. The streets were dusty and busy with donkey and bullock carts lugging goods around. The most popular taxis were horse and cart buggies.

Senegalese have a life expectancy of 62.3 years, a literacy rate of 39.3%, with 52% of the population living on $2 a day. 90% of Senagalese are Sufi Muslims ruled by the Mourides.

There was not much to do in Tambacounda so we had two nights in our airconditioned hotel and headed off for Velingara on The Gambia border.

Djenne, Mali

We spent an enjoyable evening in Sevare in an airconditioned hotel and met a couple of lads from Belgium. They were doing their internship and studying hotel management.

On the way to the bus station we saw big groups of dirty boys in raggy clothes. They carry blue plastic containers or huge red tomato paste tins on a cord around their shoulders. We saw similar groups of boys in Burkino Faso as well. We have since learnt that they are given by their families to a religious man called a Marabout. The Marabout teaches them the Koran. The boys look unloved and unkept. They beg for money and food for themselves and the Marabout and sometimes are beaten if they do not have anything. Some of the groups we have seen number twenty. While the girls of the same age sell plastic sachets of water, sesame seed biscuits, or mangoes, the boys beg. We haven't been able to find out what happens to the boys when they have learnt all the Marabout needs to teach them. The boys seem to range from five to about fourteen. They hang around taxi stops, bus stations and street corners.

In the morning we took a bus to the Djenne junction but on the way it broke down and we had to transfer to another bus. At the Djenne junction we had to wait for a vehicle to fill with either 5 people or 14 people so had to sit at the dusty intersection in the heat. A man gave us a wooden seat under a shelter and in no time we were surrounded by the local kids selling mangoes. Chris entertained them and had them laughing and doing all sorts of acrobatics. After a couple of hours of this the small taxi driver decided he would take us into Djenne for a set price as there didn't seem to be many people getting off the passing buses at the junction.

The first guesthouse we checked out was overpriced so we headed into the town. The place we looked at there was dark and dirty. Finally, we found a comfortable quiet place with a garden near the town centre.

Djenne has been a large organised settlement since 300 BC. By the 6th century AD the lucrative trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves had begun. Today Djenne is famous as a UNESCO World Heritage site, having the largest mud structure; the Great Mosque. It was built in 1907, and each year it takes a couple of thousand workers to repair it after the rains.

The river is low at present and there are lots of people making mud bricks from which the houses are made.

The buildings are Moroccan or Moorish style.

One of the tourist sites is the tomb of a young girl who was sacrificed because the town was thought to be evil and her death would save it from bad spirits.

There are also many Quranic schools and has a library of old manuscripts.

Along the banks of the Bani River are plots of onions and other vegetables. This is the only green area for miles. The locals come out in the evenings to water and weed their crops.

Our guide books says you will fall in love with Djenne and not want to leave. I found it hot and dusty made worse by the speeding motorbikes and donkey carts stirring up the grey dust. Maybe it is a nicer place in the wet season but I couldn't find anything endearing about it. We were constantly approached by people wanting to sell jewelery or take us to their aunts store where we could buy Bologan cloth. This is cotton cloth dyed with different colours of mud.

We had to catch a ferry to get in and out of the town and it has a stall selling jewelery set up on the deck.

The sheep sit on little islands of green grass in the river, while hundreds of cattle struggle on the surrounding farms looking for food. Some of the nomadic Fulani tribe drove thousands of cattle from place to place looking for feed.

I didn't enjoy Djenne at all as it was so hot, dusty and the touts were too aggressive. I was probably quite tired after the Dogon walk and probably needed time to rest up.

To get out of town we rang the taxi driver who brought us in and then had to flag down a passing bus at the junction when they went passed at 8am. The bus was hot and stuffy with no opening windows and we headed back to Bamako. Everytime we stopped the Marabout begging boys would stand at the two exit doors singing proverbs from the Koran. Some singers were good while others were atrocious as they tried to attract the passengers attention and donation.

Ireli and Kundu, Dogon Country, Mali

The children are well used to tourists here and rush up to you to hold your hand and ask how you are in French. In no time at all they are asking for money. It's like a game that the little ones learn from their older brothers and sisters.



It seems a tradition, when we leave a village, that someone accompanies us to the edge of the village. If there are a few men doing this they take our bags and this bid us a safe journey. The women are too busy for such traditions. They are up early and off to the village well or pump to get the day's supply of water carrying between 15 and 20 kilos on their heads.

The little girls start quite young carrying things on their heads as they copy their mums. They also spend a lot of the day carrying their baby brother or sister on their back as the mum is out working in the fields. We have seen five year olds with a baby strapped on. We could never imagine our kids doing this or walking the long distances that the African kids walk.




These carved log ladders are often well decorated and used to reach the top of the granary or to get to the flat roof where the grain is left to dry.

The granaries sit up on rocks to protect them from vermin while the thatch protects the roof from erosion and water damage during the rainy season.

Seydou took us around Ireli village and showed us some of the sacrifice sites and where the men hold their meetings. The mud buildings were colourfully decorated unlike the others we had seen in the earlier villages.

This old man was busy weaving cotton cloth. He wanted money to have his photo taken. Another group were killing a pig to take to market and charged Chris for his photos.

There are some microfinance initiatives operating in the Dogon area. The locals can borrow at 5% interest over three years and this enables some people to buy a cow, grow crops, or set up a small stall.

On the walk from Ireli we passed a small pond full of sacred crocodiles. We saw a few noses breaking the muddy surface of the water but many had gone into the hills to find water there. The rest of the walk we passed through mounded millet fields waiting to be hoed for the next season's crops. The wind was up and blew dust everywhere.

We stopped for lunch at Ibi village. It was a small quiet place with very little happening and not many tourists stop here. The restaurant workers had to go around the village shops looking for drinks for us. They didn't keep any supplies on hand as they needed the money for their daily needs. A group of about thirty local women gathered under a tree in the restaurant compound and a man was talking to them. Several of them had small children or babies on their back and a few were obviously pregnant. Seydou told us the man was a community health worker and was trying to discourage the women from circumcising their daughters which is the tradition here. He also gave the pregnant mothers free mosquito nets for their babies. It seemed so odd to see a man talking about such subjects to a group of women as we would use a female. But in this society they are used to having to listen to the mens' advice.

Chris went wandering and met a few locals. After a rest here to wait out the hot midday sun we headed for Kundu.

We climbed up through a rocky pass for about three hours. There were a few old men and women collecting firewood on the way. We gave them the last of our kola nuts for which we received wide smiles and a handshake. At the top of the pass was a man setting a trap for genets that hunt at night.

Kundu was a small place too and quite like a fairytale land with its granaries close together. We settled into a guesthouse just before dark. The lukewarn soft drinks we had were very expensive. They had a solar panel to provide light for us on the roof. We had a cool bucket shower and after dinner we moved the tables to put down our mattresses to sleep the night.

In the night there were a couple of small spits of rain, which John and Chris slept through. The next shower had drops big enough to wake us all and become annoying so we packed our beds up and moved downstairs into a room. It was so hot we had trouble sleeping the drizzle had stopped but we were too tired to bother to return to the roof again.

In the morning after a breakfast of fried bread and tea we headed for Sanga where we were to be picked up.

The temperatures on the rocky escarpment that we walked along to Sanga must have been between 45 and 5o degrees in places as it was so hot. We could look down from Sanga to the villages we had left behind.

As we neared the outskirts of Sanga, we herad children shouting. In no time they had gathered their welcome band together and were using plastic drink bottles and empty plastic jerrycans as drums. Some had strips of paper around their waists and paperbag masks on their heads. They had created their own mask dance to collect money off the tourists. This was a town used to tourists and the centre of a few travel and guide organisations. We had lunch here and then headed back to Sevare to stay a night and pick up our stored luggage.

Tireli, Dogon Country, Mali

In Sevare we bought some kola nuts to give to the old people we met during our walk. The kola nut was originally used in coca cola and is yellow, pink or red coloured. It is an appetite depressant and a mild stimulant. Sometimes the old folk asked us for the nuts and at other times we greeted them and gave them some which they accepted with a wide smile.

Dogon villages are set out to a traditional pattern. The family compound has a courtyard and rooms for the parents and young as well as granaries, linked by stone and mud walls. Children from around seven to nine years live in a childrens' home in the village. Single sex dormitories are constructed for those who have been circumsised but not yet married. The granaries are only used by the women and contain grains as well as jewellery or other items the women wish to store. The graneries look like plasticine pepperpots giving the villages a fairytale look.

There is a maison de regles or menstruating house for women to go to when they have their periods. Older women are with them to give them traditional medicines or advice if needed.

There are altars for sacrifices and other ritual sacred places. The Togu-na or case a palabres has a low roof with eight pillars. It is a place where the men meet to discuss and listen to problems that there may be and then they decided on solutions or mete out justice as they think right. The low roof helps the discussions calm as an angry person cannot stand up.

The mud covered buildings have to be replastered every year as the rains erode them. A mix of mud, dung, and a plant oil is used to help waterproof the coating.

The baobabs looked very strange as the bark is stripped off to make rope and even with such scarring the tree still survives.

Under the escarpment cliffs are the remains of the houses built by the Tellem people who lived here before the Dogon. Although the buildings are high up in the cliffs they would have been reached by rope ladders or from the tops of the tall forest trees that were around at the time. Today there is very little forest and the desert is taking over the plains below the cliffs. The old Tellem houses are now used by the Dogon for burials.

The guesthouse at Tirelli was a treat as it had a petrol powered fridge and we were able to have cold drinks. It also had a shower attached to a 44 gallon drum and a western style toilet. The owner was a Catholic man with nine children and had recently moved from his smaller hose to the present one where he could fit everyone in and have enough accommodation for the tourists. The ornate carved doors tell the history of the Dogon people and are now a sought after tourist souvenir.

A Korean film crew arrived for lunch at the guesthouse and had paid the village to see and film the masked dancers that the Dogon people are famous for. We were allowed to watch as well as long as we stayed out of the way of the Koreans and paid a small fee to the village. We went into the town as it was market day and then watched the dancers.

The drummers

The stilt dancers

One of the masks in the form of a prostrate serpent can be ten metres high. Some of the other masks resemble goats, rabbits, cows and other animals.

The French government has issued warnings on its advisory site against travel to Mali. They say that there is some Al-Quaeda activity in the country but from what we can make out, France wants to return some Mali refugees but wants Mali to pay for their repatriation. The Mali government doesn't want to pay. As a consequence, there is a drop in the number of French tourists coming to Mali and it looks like it will continue for as long as the warning stays on the French site and is added to other government sites.

There is a large French built tourist complex opposite Tireli village and it looks like it will empty for quite awhile.

Nambori Village, Dogon Country, Mali

Dogon Country is a UNESCO site because the Dogon people moved to the Badiagara Escarpment in the 13th and 14th centuries from the west of Mali to escape Islam and the Fulani armies. The area is rich in the animist culture having complex traditions including cosmology.

We passed several baobab trees along the walk and this one had a beehive propped up in its branches.

After walking through a small village we descended through a narrow section in the rock and down into the valley. In the village the children rush up calling 'Baboo' (whiteman) and after greeting us with 'Ca va' (hello in French) stick their hand out for a gift (cadeau), or bic (pen), or bonbon (sweet). Some want to hold hands and walk along with you but the guide shoos them away.

A meeting place.

The Dogon people live beneath the escarpment but in some places they also live above it.

Nombori is the village where our guide Seydou was born, and our first stop for the night. When he was living in the village he was an animist. As a child his job was to look after the families' animals. When he was sixteen he decided that he would like to be a tourist guide. He had very little education but moved to the city where he learnt English and some Italian when he worked for an Italian tour company. He now belongs to a guiding association and does very well guiding.

The Dogon people have a traditional greeting exchange that goes on and on. As Seydou knew many people in the area he was stopped all the time and had to go through the whole ritual. It goes something like this:

The person greeting Seydou : Hello

Hello

How are you?

Good

How is your mother?

Good

How is your family?

Good

How is your work?

Good

How are your clients?

Good

Then it is Seydou's turn.

How are you?

Good

How is your husband?

Good

How are the children?

Good

How are your parents?

Good

How are the animals?

Good.

Then they exchange some news. Sometimes Seydou would greet a group working in the fields or passing us on the road and then the exchanges are like a chant where they all reply in unison.

We stopped at a guesthouse in the village and after a bucket shower we drank tea and they prepared a meal of couscous and vegetables in a tomato sauce for us. The guesthouse was made of mud with an open area where we ate. Only five members of the family lived in the house but locals wandered in and out all the time. After the meal Seydou told us some dancers would come later and dance. They cleared the courtyard and turned on the solar powered lights.

We expected a few people but I counted forty women. Most were dressed in their homemade cotton and indigo-dyed clothes.

The women who danced had a whistle in their mouth which they blew as they danced towards the male musicians. This woman had a sleeping baby strapped to her back who vibrated up and down as she danced. I wondered about our 'Never shake a baby' campaigns, and if this baby would be affected as a result of the vigourous shaking it got from its mother.

The men played different kinds of drums and when the women finished their dance they touched the ground in front of the drummers. The man with the biggest drum rolled his drum towards a woman if he wanted her to dance again. On the ground, in half a calabash, is some millet beer. The women had one that was passed around amongst them while the men had their own. It is not a strong alcohol and is served at room temperature. Chris really enjoyed it as it reminded him of 'real ale'.

Of course we all had to dance as well.

As we danced the women sang and clapped. There was only one song and the same dance the whole night.

A woman places her scarf on the man's neck and after the dance he has to find whose scarf it was. At 10 pm we all danced in a circle to end the evening. There were a few children watching and they enjoyed using Chris's camera to take photos of themselves and then laugh hysterically as they saw themselves on the screen. It was a great evening and if we hadn't been there it would have still been an evening where the locals got together and enjoyed themselves. Seydou left us in the evening as he went home to see his mother and as far as we knew it was not arranged especially for us.

We clambered up a narrow log ladder to mattresses on the roof where we slept the night. The stars were out and we could hear the dancers chatting as they headed home by torch light. As we were dropping off to sleep we could hear drums chanting and drums in the distance.

In the morning Seydou told us it was a male circumcision ceremony that we could hear and they are held every three years. The women are also circumcised in Dogon.

In the morning we had the bread that Seydou had brought from Sevare along with jam and tea.

We had time for a quick visit to the local museum and then headed off towards Tireli.