2007: West Africa, East Africa

MALI

Dogon Country

I TOOK THE BIG BUS from Ouagadougou to Ouagihouya, and I was happy my diarrhea didn’t cause any problems. On a big bus going cross country in a place like this, with more than one person in every seat and your pack in the hold, having to go to the bathroom can leave you stranded on the highway. Once we reached Ouagihouya, I only had to wait 8 hours in the baking sun to get a small van to Koro, Mali, where I slept in a “hotel room” that consisted of a patch of dirt with three walls around it and a towel. The local loose woman came along and made conversation, hoping for a customer, but I said goodnight. The next day I was in Dogon country, home to one of the most interesting original cultures on earth.

I had read about Dogon country and was excited to be there, with my newly acquired guide, James Brown, the son of a local chief. We started with a ride in a donkey cart, to make up for the fact that we had arrived a bit late in the day. While riding, I saw some kids driving a small cow to pull a cart in the other direction. I told James, in French, that it was too bad the poor little cow had to work in the hot sun – it must not be nice to be that little cow. James said hey, it’s a cow – it’s supposed to do what we want it to do, and then we kill it and eat it. And just as we were talking, the little boy hit the little cow one time too many with his stick, and the little cow started to kick. He kicked and kicked his heels high in the air, and the kids scattered away as the cart turned over and the little cow got loose. I cheered as the little cow ran away from the kids, off into the bush, where he would surely be caught and put back into service later. But for now the little cow was free and I was raising my fists in triumph – James brown laughed and laughed, saying something like that might happen once a month and it just happened at the time when I was there talking about helping the cows, not the people.

Day One

James and I walked easily from village to village, speaking in French. James told me about village life and the beliefs of the Dogons. All the villages have a five-day week, but they are not in synch. They used to live in the cliffs but now live in mud and wood huts at the base of the cliff. In each village, you meet the chief, who generally has little else to do and is hoping for the time-honored gift of a cola nut from a passing visitor. In each village, they show you what they make and they hope you buy it – it’s pretty much the same stuff every time – carvings, masks, plaques. A few villages do some interesting weaving with natural indigo dye. In each village, they make and sell delicious meals. The first night, we stayed in the third village, and I ate very well. I stayed on the roof of a small mud structure, putting my foam mattress on the mud roof and arranging the wet clothes I had just washed on all the bushes and tree limbs I could find. In Dogon country, you WANT to sleep on the roof – it’s far too hot indoors, and you get above mosquito level on the roof. You fall asleep watching the crystal clear sky, thinking of Dogon creation myths.

The next morning, there was a storm. It was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. We are essentially in the Sahel desert, and the storms at this time of year arrive about once a week. First comes a warm wind, then it gets stronger. Then you see it – a wall of dust coming that looks like the land itself is folding up and coming straight at you. Everyone gets out of the way. I put my camera into the little room that comes with my rooftop. And not a moment too soon. A minute later, a dark wall of dust enveloped the village – a full-scale sandstorm that deposited sand into any square centimeter of exposed skin or hair. And a minute or two later, the sun simply turned off, as a wall of water came pouring out of the sky, turning everything into mud and mud into rivers. Tons of water falling – it might as well be midnight.  One of the most dramatic weather events I’ve ever experienced. And as quickly as it came, it left, leaving everything soaking wet and not a drop falling from the sky. The Dogon live near a high cliff, and in minutes the waterfalls turned on – the result of flash floods that had already hit miles away; tons of water washing down gullies on the plateau above. Everyone came out to play and enjoy the water. Now was a good time to get some millet seeds in the ground. Now was a good time to wash clothes. Now was a good time to bathe, because the Dogon have never gotten used to the toilets and showers installed by European aid organizations and leave them to the tourists.

Day Two

I was soon served a delicious breakfast of millet pancakes. They included a bowl of white sugar, which I was supposed to use as a topping. I ate a couple dozen of these small pancakes. They were yummy. Then I packed up all my stuff, put my pack on, and we hit the road, which was already dry enough to walk. Soon after that it was dry, period. The rains had cooled things off, but the mud turned back into sand and the desert reclaimed the land.

James and I walked the hot dirt road to the next village, where James bought a live pigeon, which he carried by its feet to the next village, which we reached around noon. When we got there, I was thirsty. I bought a cold liter of water and drank it all down. Then I sat down and chatted with a few tourists who were going in the other direction. Soon, the water didn’t feel like it was doing what it was supposed to be doing. It felt like oil and water in my stomach and things weren’t settling. Then a few waves of yuckiness started to spread, and I headed for the toilet. I’m glad the locals don’t use the european toilets, because they are kept quite clean, and I spent the next four hours next to the hole in the concrete puking up the water and the millet pancakes. It wasn’t regular puking, thought, it was grand-mal projectile vomiting, which i really wish i had for the highlight reel of my life – everything within 7 feet was drenched. It was like my face was the nozzle through which a liter of water and a dozen pancakes came speeding through. The fourth time I threw up I was starting to get stomach cramps and instead of pancakes all that came out was some ropey yellow stuff (bile?). There I was, 46 years old, in the Middle of Nowhere, Mali, face down on the cement shit-hole, squirting out yellow liquid from both ends ( all three ends, actually).

Probably Salmonella, but whatever it was, antibiotics were going to help, and I had some. I managed to take a big pink Levaquin pill and keep it down on the 2nd try (the first one went flying out into the dirt). Levaquin is sort of a universal hammer for anything that might set itself upon you in the bush. I spent most of the afternoon sleeping and trying to sip water or Sprite or get anything down, but I really couldn’t eat or drink anything. I slept. By 9pm that night, I wrote everything down James needed to know in case I collapsed into unconsciousness from dehydration. He sent a kid on a bike to the big village, and two hours later a doctor arrived. This handsome young man could have been an intern at Columbia Presbyterian. He brought a complete rehydration kit, including two bags of glucose, a bag of saline, and various anti-vomit, vitamin, and electrolyte boosters. Everything, including the swabs and syringe, were just like you’d see in a hospital in New York. In a bush situation in Southern Utah, this kind of emergency service would probably cost thousands of dollars, but the doctor asked for $20 plus some gas money for his motorbike, which I was happy to pay.

Escape from Dogon Country

The next day, I felt a bit better but not much. I couldn’t eat or drink. I slept most of the day. James was hoping I would hop up, grab my pack, and tell him let’s hit the trail, but I stayed horizontal and made several more diarrhea trips to the shit hole. I took my second Levaquin and hoped my appetite would return, but during the entire day I managed to drink one bottle of sprite and eat one mango, in many small pieces over many hours. That afternoon, my third in Dogon country, a storm began to brew. It was decision time. I was either going to stay or leave, but now was the time to decide. If I stayed, I would probably wake up fine the next morning, but there was a small chance something was going to be worse. I could develop a fever or an ache, or I could get even more dehydrated, and that would make it much harder to evacuate. I figured I would probably be fine, but I had run out of extra protection and it wasn’t smart to risk it. I wanted to stay, but the prudent thing was to go now, just in case.

So I asked Mohammed to take me back to civilization. We packed me and my stuff onto his dirt bike. We brought a pump not because we might need it, but because we did need to pump up the tires every 10 minutes or so as we bumped along and I hung on. First came the wind, then came the rain. We drove through the rain, which made the night colder. We got to a flooded river crossing, where there were several people hanging around, even though it was starting to get dark. Mohammed didn’t know how deep it was. He nodded, and two young boys waded into the river to show us how deep it was. Satisfied that we could cross, Mohammed gunned it and we sped across, lifting our legs off the pegs. then it started to rain harder, and everything got cold. We both started to shiver. Things started to look unpromising, until the bike’s engine broke down and we came to a dead stop in the middle of the desert. I huddled under a tree (the trees here give no protection from rain, because the Dogon people strip the leaves to feed the goats) and watched a small, bright red velvety beetle crawling around. Beautiful.

In addition to the pump, Mohammed had brought some tools and managed to get the bike running. The sun set, but there was still plenty of light in the sky. We finally reached the main road, where we ran into the taxi we didn’t know we had called because the cell phone had cut out during the conversation as Mohammed had tried to call them to come get me hours ago. I thanked Mohammed, and he headed back to his village.

The taxi took me to Bandiagara, only 15 kilometers away. I was encouraged by this taxi – all four doors had window cranks on them – normally there is one window crank for the entire car, or just a pair of pliers. On the way, we stopped to “fix” the windshield wipers. Then we stopped again, the guys got out, opened the hood, and I saw them take out two spark plugs, blow them dry, and put them back. On our 15-kilometer journey, this would later be referred to as the FIRST time we stopped to remove spark plugs and blow on them to restart the motor after it had flooded (yes, it had a caburetor – most cars in this part of the world do).

In Bandiagara, i checked into the wacky Swiss-run upscale Hotel Kambary, whose web site you really must see to believe such a place exists. I had sent my main bag ahead, and it was waiting for me. This run-down dream village with suffocatingly hot domes for rooms has a disgusting pool, mini-golf, and a strange Swiss owner – a large white man who wears clothing a circus high-wire performer would wear. The food and the service, however, are excellent. I took a hot shower, which was great after two days in the same clothes. I still didn’t feel like eating, but i made myself eat rice and drink what passes for juice here. I slept well, in soft cotton sheets and the only air conditioning for 200 miles.

The next morning was basically back to my old self. I could have stayed and continued my trip in Dogon country, but I realized I’d made the right decision, just in case. On to Mopti.

Getting around in Africa is easy. You go to a place where a guy and a car are waiting, and then you wait with him until the car fills up with passengers. This usually takes the whole day, then you take off and arrive at your destination in the middle of the night. At some point during the whole day of waiting, however, you realize that you can easily afford to pay for all the remaining seats, so you give the guy what amounts to $10 for five people, he starts the engine, and off you go. Simple as that. You can wait longer and save $8, but I don’t recommend it.

Along with the millet pancakes, I got a small taste of Dogon country, and what I took in through my eyes and ears I managed to keep down. It wasn’t as much as i would have liked, but it was something. I hope to go back in 2032, the start of the next Sigui ceremony, which they have only every 65 years. It is a fascinating place with a charming people. I’ve read a few accounts online of others who managed to hook up with James Brown, and they all say the same thing – he’s a good guy, but he mysteriously disappears for hours at a time and keeps you waiting without telling you what’s going on. Yep, that’s James Brown. He cared for me. He sat with me all day and night as I suffered. He was really very sweet, and he arranged to get me out when it looked like I was just too sick. Perhaps he felt bad because it was the Dogon pancakes that did me in, but even though he’s hard to trust at first, I believe he’s a good guy with a good heart. I hope we meet again.

My overall impression of the Dogon people is that they are very happy. Their kids are happy. The kids don’t, in general, seem to want to head off to the cities and find a better life. Dogon life is very good. Compared to the rest of West Africa, these people lead very happy lives and are thankful for every tourist who comes through to look at their masks, carvings, and weavings. If you go, bring a deflated soccer ball and a small pump, and give it to your guide as a tip. He will know what to do with it. See images of the Dogon people and their homes.

FOUR HOURS LATER, I was in Mopti, where tourism is a contact sport. A strange rasta-looking guy followed me all around town and then to my hotel, telling me he was my friend and just wanted to help me find a hotel and a cheap boat trip on the Niger river. He stuck to me like glue, ever when i tried to wipe him off onto the incoming traffic. When “we” arrived at the hotel, he set himself down onto a couch in the lobby. I told the hotel manager in VERY LOUD FRENCH not to pay that guy anything for bringing me to the hotel, as i was headed there anyway and … before i could finish, my new friend had vanished. I later read about that guy in another guide book – it seems if you arrive in Mopti, you will meet him, too.

Tomboctou

I hadn’t planned on going to Tombouctou. My goal was to get to Dogon Country and maximize my time there. But when I found myself in Mopti with extra days and my stomach recovered from ‘Les Galettes de Dogon,’ I figured I probably wouldn’t get a better chance. Now or never.

I could fly, which takes an hour but only goes once a week. The bus takes 2-4 days, depending on weather and breakdowns, and the buses stop for people to get out and pray several times on the way to anywhere. The boat takes 3 days. Or I could hire a 4WD and a driver and stay as long as I want. The 4WD takes 7.5 hours with a normal driver, but 7 hours flat if you go with Cargo, the Mopti driving machine. I should say 7 hours, including the flat tire we got.

We sped North to Tombouctou in Cargo’s monster Toyota Land Cruiser, virtually floating over the dusty red washboard hardpack, passing Pelle cowherders, who walk with their cows and drink their milk. Aside from a few days every couple months in town to sell their cows, these people walk and sleep with their herd, and cow’s milk is their only food. They wear cone-shaped hats that make them easy to identify, but they don’t make these hats. We later passed by the village of another tribe that makes the hats for them. It’s similar to the shoe situation. Everyone in Africa wears either Flip Flops or leather shoes of some kind, and you would think there would be shoe factories here, but those are in China. I even saw a pair of NKIEs for sale in Bamako.

Cargo got his name from riding on top of his father’s truck all over Northern Mali as a kid. His right foot is 5″ shorter than his left – everyone can recognize him at a distance. He seems to know everyone in every town and always has a smile on his face. We talked in French on the drive. I’m fond of telling people about the Earth, stars, the Universe, and evolution – things they know nothing about. I told Cargo the Earth was four billion years old, and he thought about that for a while. Then he said, “That means, next year the Earth will be four billion and one?”

We crossed the Niger river on the ferry and arrived Tombouctou by 4pm. Cargo got me a Tuareg guide, who took me on an evening camel (Dromedary, actually) ride into the Sahara to visit some Tuareg nomads in their tent. I kept expecting to see Omar Sharif ride up on his camel. I sat and had tea with the Tuareg family. They had many questions about my watch, which has GPS. They hadn’t heard of GPS, so I explained how it worked, showed them which satellites it could see at the moment, and they were amazed. They told me about the salt caravans to the desert and how they navigate by the stars, but also by the smell of the sand.

I had studied up, so I was prepared for the tour of the town the next day, given entirely in French by my young and trusty guide Ali, a Tuareg, who told me often of the big exciting project to dig a well every 25 kilometers across the entire Sahara desert, creating a grid of wells that would sustain the nomad herders, and for just $10,000 they would drill a well and put my name on it. The town had almost no tourists and just a small flock of American Peace Corp girls going through orientation. The town is dusty and small, and you can’t go into any buildings except the museum and the library, so you need to follow the history. Without the history, you might as well be in Guadalafuckinghara – that’s how impressive Tombouctou is today. It’s not dangerous, it’s just dull. But the stories of 50-day camel (Dromedary) rides to the remote salt mines, ancient centers of learning (Tombouctou U had 25,000 students!), the development of Malian archtecture, a 1200-year-old well with its ‘original’ (yeah, right) camelskin water bag hanging over it (the well is now 2 feet deep), and a brilliant tour of an ancient rich person’s household (women were – and in many places still are – banished from view during menses) all convinced me that this is, indeed, a must-see-before-you-die place. Plus, you get the cool stamp in your passport.

On the way back, Cargo floored it across the desert and only hit one cow. We came over a rise screaming over the washboard hardpack, and there was a herd of cattle, their cone-hat Pelle herder nowhere in sight. Drivers are careful with livestock, because animals have a tendency to cross back in front of the vehicle at the last second, trying to stay with the herd – splitting a herd is risky at best. Cargo was decelerating from 60 mph, dust flying behind our braking vehicle, and as the cows scattered, this one last cow just couldn’t decide left or right. Cargo locked the wheels and we skidded into the cow squarely from the rear with a BANG! The sound was that of 2,500 pounds of Toyota Landcruiser hitting the rear end of a 300-pound skinny bony cow walking slowly. We catapulted the cow about two feet and his rump straight up. Cargo got out immediately to check the damage to the car; I watched the cow to check for any signs of broken bones. The cow kept walking, calmly, then drifted off the road as if she had just seen some delicious grass. Not much worse for wear, I suppose. I asked Cargo how often that happened. He said about one a year. If he’s going a bit faster, he carries a hatchet and puts the cow on the roof rack, and his family eats for two weeks. I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not.

Soon after, i notice my hands were sweating, thinking about the poor cow. Then I noticed the AC wasn’t working – the impact had leaked all the freeon out of the system. We rode back on the dusty road with the windows open, getting the red dust of Africa into every pore.

Once on the sealed road that runs from Gao to Mopti, we stopped for a drink and saw a storm coming. This is the most powerful storm I’ve ever seen in my life. It was preceded by a dramatic dust storm that looked more like something you see through a telescope – a supernova of roiling twisting churning dust, followed by immense black clouds, all very low to the ground and very, very dangerous. I tried to take photos, but I didn’t have the right camera out, and I had seconds to shoot before we were engulfed. Once again, day turned to night, and a wall of water poured over us. We managed to drive for a while, but when the winds started lifting the car a bit, pushing it off the road, we slowed to a crawl. Trees blew past us. Other cars struggled to stay on their side of the road. We crept along until we got a flat, and Cargo got out to change it. Small trees were flying past us now, carried by the wind. Cargo parked so the flat tire was on the leeward side of the car. I handed him my GoreTex jacket, which he was very thankful for. The storm slowed us down by half an hour, and we arrived in Mopti around 6pm. The resulting flash floods damaged bridges and snarled traffic on the road from Gao to Mopti for the next four days. I would love to get a group of photographers and videographers and go back to Mali to photograph the storms. They are truly impressive sights and deadly to camera equipment – a real challenge.

I also got the idea to take a group of plain everyday people from someplace in Iowa or Wisconsin to Tombouctou and show them around, so they could say they had been someplace they’d heard of but never dreamed they would go. And each of them would pay for a kid from Tombouctou to come back to the US with us, for a 1-week tour of the States – probably the only time they will ever fly on an airplane in their lives. I have too many other things to do, but it does sound like a fun project and would make for a good documentary.
To relive this adventure in pictures (without graphic scenes of me vomiting), see my Mali slide show.

KENYA

After six weeks apart, Beatrice and I met for our fourth date in Nairobi, Kenya. We stayed at the Stanley Hotel, the same hotel I had stayed in back in 1982 with my family. We were happy to be back together. Beatrice was feeling the reality of having quit her job, rented out her flat, and flown to Africa – Africa! – to meet a guy she had spent a total of three weeks with so far since January. It was great to be together. I had flown from Bamako a few days ago and had already gotten my bearings in Nairobi, so I spent a few days showing her around and we planned our trip. We picked up our Toyota RAV4 and drove North, to a friend’s private ranch, where we had a spectacular time.
Kenya is full of guns. In colonial days, they used guns to to exterminate the elephants (whose populations are now on the rise, thankfully); today, they use guns to try to exterminate each other. The good guys have guns, the bad guys have guns, and pretty much every building or parking lot has a guard with a semi-automatic rifle. This includes all the little villages, not just Nairobi. Guns are everywhere in Kenya. The government seems to have just enough money for security and corruption with nothing left over.
But the animals are still there and they are spectacular. If you had to save one country from economic decline and ruin, it would have to be Kenya, because the wildlife there is like nowhere else on earth. Fortunately, many American hedge-fund honchos have already bought much of the private land, and they say, at least, they want to preserve it for the wildlife (and their rich friends who want ultra-luxury safaris).

UGANDA

Kampala

We drove into uganda the other day and only had to pay 25 dollars in bribes to keep our papers with us. got stopped by a cop today for going the wrong way on a one-way street (“so that’s what that blue arrow was all about”) and ended up giving him $14 for his pocket to make the problem go away.

We spent 2 days near the outlet of lake victoria (“source of the nile”) birdwatching – saw hundreds of kingfishers. We are having such a great time but very little time for internet. We’re in kampala now and will head to Mweya tomorrow for 4 nights of fancy lodge game drives and then 2 nights in bwindi impenetrable forest, then next weekend we’ll cross into rwanda to see gorillas. There are maribou storks wheeling about everywhere here. A few days ago we saw a pair of crowned cranes flying together majestically – like in a Discovery Channel show. We’ve only seen a few crocs but did manage to get chased by a pissed-off hippo. The roads and traffic in Kenya and Uganda are impossible to describe. Sort of like playing contact roller derby at 100km/h on smooth tarmac roads with swimming-pool-sized potholes capable of swallowing your car whole. I pass occasionally, venturing into the opposing lane, but the real excitement comes when you see two tractor-trailer trucks coming at you side by side – talking! – and no place to get off the road before you end up on the front grille!

Uganda is in slightly better shape (i actually saw a lexus dealership, which puts it above kenya), but ALL roads in Uganda are jeep trails, including the main ones that look like tarmac on the map. Driving in uganda is a contact sport – dodging potholes that are always as deep as they are long while dodging trucks that are NOT trying to dodge you.

RWANDA

Kigali

Im in Kigali, writing on a french keboard that makes typing seem like a game of hit-and-miss, like trying to play poker while looking through a chicken.

Rwanda is France compared to the Africa of Uganda, though there isnt a single movie theater in the entire country. There are smooth paved roads everywhere, as though Bill Clinton could show up at any time and there would be hell to pay if his Mercedes bumped his latte. I am driving on the right side of the road in a right-hand-drive car, which is sort of like being a mailman: the steering wheel is on the right, which puts me near the side of the road, while Beatrice, who has no control, is sitting nearest the oncomiong traffic. This requires two people to pass a slow-moving vehicle, and a Valium for Beatrice, who is scared shitless for good reason. Everyone travels by the side of the road, often pushing bicycles loaded with 100kg of bananas or potatoes, so there’s really only a center lane left for traffic. the large trucks and buses make a sport of driving down the middle – they laugh as the other drivers like us are forced off the road onto the dirt at 80 kph.

Monday we saw the gorillas! We hiked 2.5 hours and 2.5 kilofeet (steep!) to a misty forest where every third bush is a stinging nettle. I had given Beatrice a hard time about her bringing so much gear (she has enough mosquito repellent to denude Vietnam), but she was comfortable tromping after the gorillas and taking GREAT photos while i got the full immune-system response and was covered with welts. The guides taught us to find lobelia leaves, break them, and rub the juice on our skin to calm the redness. I was easy to spot – i was the guy covered in lobelia leaves.

Oh yeah, we spent an hour with the gorillas. It’s cold that high up on the side of the volcano, and the gorillas are covered with hair so long they look like black yetis, and they are HUGE! The big male silverbacks have harems. Our silverback was about 140 kilos. His head was the size of a middle-age warthog. The troop happily munched greens and relaxed as we, the papparazzi in Gore-Tex gear, took their photos. it seemed as though they were posing for the white monkeys with the lenses.

Rwanda is well developed. They have croissants and middle class houses here. The genocide is long past, and they have a geeky student-looking kid for a president (okay, he murdered a few thousand people back during the war, but he’s the best they have). The money is clean and crisp, and there aren’t too many zeroes on the notes, all of which is a good sign (though they do need a cinema). The fruit here doesn’t match that in West Africa – this morning at breakfast at the hotel Mille Collines i had a glass of yellow liquid that could only be described as ¨juice¨. It looked like it came from a can labeled simply, ¨juice¨. Unfortunately for those who have seen Hotel Rwanda, the hotel in the movie was in South Africa – the real Mille Collines looks more like a Holiday Inn after you run it through Africa for about 15 years. The ¨tile¨on the bathroom walls is actually wallpaper that looks like tile – yuck.

I had the car checked at the toyota dealership today. They took the wheels off and looked for damage after I didn’t see a particularly nasty pothole back in Uganda. I think the family that lives in that pothole had just moved to another pothole, so it was vacant and very deep. We hit with a sickening BANG that was MUCH more worrisome than the sound of a 4×4 hitting a bony Malian cow. Oh – the headline on the newspaper today said ¨600,000 rwandans to receive cows¨. I shit you not.