Reflections on Mali and Burkina

-Erica, Bobo-Dialassou, Burkina Faso
I haven't written anything in a while, so I thought I would just get some thoughts down here, quickly. We just arrived in Burkina Faso 3 days ago and will just be here a week before heading back through Mali and to Senegal from where we fly to South Africa in 12 days. I am excited about South Africa and the prospect of a nation of many English speakers where we will be able to buy books, watch movies and TV in English, etc!

• We had some rough days in Mali. We abandoned the private taxi method of getting around that we had adopted in Senegal and took some very long, hot and crowded local transport around the country. It is amazing how many people and goods can be squashed into a station wagon, Land Rover, bus, and how slow these things move!
• It is harder to get things done in Mali. Communication with locals is more challenging (less people speak French there than in Senegal; a lot of local dialects are spoken instead) and there are more would-be guides and craft merchants than anywhere I have ever been. It became comical.
• We met more English-speaking and tourists back-packing like us in Mali which made for a lot of fun times, laughing at our shared predicaments of trying to get from place to place and avoiding the touts, etc.
• We spent our last few days in Mali in Dogon Country, which is a part of Mali where people used to construct dwellings and villages in the cliff walls, as in the American Southwest. Now, the Dogon people live on the flat lands below the cliffs, but the original villages in the cliffs can still be explored. We hired a local guide and went to Dogon for 2 nights with a Peace Corps volunteer from Maine who we met in Mali. We hiked about 15-20 km a day through very beautiful country and slept in the villages at night. We had a lot of fun but were ready to get back to civilization after 3 days because the food was pretty bad and we wanted to take showers!
• After a long travel day from Dogon, we arrived in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, a couple of nights ago. We treated ourselves to some good (French-owned) restaurants there and went to see live music at the most local live music venue we have been to since arriving in West Africa. We were the only non-Burkinabés there. It was super fun.
• We are now in Bobo-Dialassou, Burkina's 2nd largest and very chill city, from where we will head to the smaller, tropical town of Banfora and rent bikes to see some hippos (that is what all the tourists do there and it sounds good!).

Mali, Dogon and on...

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It's been too long, but internet has been hard to find. Since the last post, we went (in Mali) from Bamako to Segou to Sévaré to Dogon Country, with a couple day trips to Djenné and Mopti. We're now sitting in a "cyber" in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Where to start? The picture at left was taken from a restaurant in Segou, of a boy polling along the pirogue while his father put out a net. Watching the sunset over the Niger with a beer was a highlight. As we've mentioned, travel has otherwise been hard. There is clearly a heavy tourist trail most everywhere we've been, but not many tourists as its the down season. The result is there are far less tourists to garner the attention of would be guides, curio hawkers; etc. It gets old after time - with almost any walk of any distance involving a significant amount of repetition. After being here for weeks, I would love to know how many people (in Sénégal and Mali) have asked us to take a look at their wares "juste pour la plaisir de les yeux" - just for the pleasure of the eyes. I think we're nearing the triple figures on that one alone.

But on to some quick impressions :

• Segou - the Niger is beautiful there, and when we weren't being followed/spoken to, it was fun. Unfortunately, that wasn't for very long...
• Sévaré - We did mellow out a bit in Sévaré. Its a bit in convienient, but centrally located. Not much shaking, but we did get our day trips in to Djenne and Mopti
• Djenné - this unesco world heritage site with a large mud mosque built in 1905 has sewerage running down all the pathways in open streams. The mosque is certainly unlike any building I had seen before, but after taking 3.5 hours to get there, we were very glad we would be leaving that day.
• Mopti - After being told that it is the "Venice of Mali", I took a day trip out there with some friends we'd met in Djenné while Erica sat it out. We got to see a great thunderstorm come in to the town, and the pinasse and pirogue activity around the river was fun to watch, but I couldn't muster the strength to tell Erica she'd missed much.

Dogon country requires much more than a bullet item. It is certainly the main tourist draw within Mali along with Timbuktu. After having a bit of a rough go attempting to secure a guide into Dogon Country, we tagged along with Nick, a Peace Corps volunteer from the Gambia who had a connection via some Peace Corps Mali volunteers. After a SUV ride to the first village (wonderfully pronounced "jiggy-boom-bo"), we started walking down the falaise (french for cliff). It feels a bit like one half of a valley in the Canyonlands, but as its the rainy season, there's a fair amount of greenery with an occassional palm tree. I wish I could upload pictures as they would assist me here. We stayed for 2 nights and hiked for 3 days.

Music....

Although we're somehow unable to stay up past about midnight, we've managed to check out the following live music so far on the trip :

I've forgotten his name, but we saw a great group @ Just 4 U in Dakar. The band consisted of a lead acoustic guitarist, drums, bass, trombone, & bongos. The lead singer didn't come out for a few songs, and the band played some great stuff - mixing is some covers we recognized with some senegalese music. The band was great, and I really enjoyed listening to the guitarist. Later the lead singer came out and played some great songs as well. I only recognized a Fela song (Mama Africa), but they all sounded wonderful.

In Saint-Louis, we caught a local band playing what I think is more straight-up Senegalese music, with a similar instrument selection. The guitarist was again very very good, and it was great fun watching this group as the venue was filled with locals who were really enjoying themselves and the music. A few songs in guys from the audience got up and switched with some members of the band for a few songs as well, which added to the vibe a bit. After this place, we went over to a jazz bar and listened to some more standard jazz played by a trio - drums, bass & keys.

Night before last, we caught some wonderful music here in Bamako at La Savanna. Lead guitarist, backup guitarist, bassist, drums, 1 guy on a single bongo-style drum, and another who would alternate between a couple stand up bongos and a tranditional percussion instrument, which erica described as playing a pumpkin with chopsticks... the lead guitarist was really impressive, and we had a great time listening to these guys.

Finally, last night we caught an extremely informal guy playing a kora who was later joined by a guitarist at another restaurant here in Bamako. We were basically the only people in attendence, and I'm not sure if they continued once we left, but the music was really cool. It was fun to watch and learn a bit about the kora as an instrument, as I wasn't very familiar with it previously.

All for now...

Zebrabar Days and Moving on to Mali

Joe and I spent five chilled out days at a Swiss-run campement (a tourist hotel), called Zebrabar in northern Senegal, very close to Saint-Louis, before heading back to Dakar for a couple nights and flying out to Bamako, Mali this morning. Zebrabar was such a welcome retreat from the hot, cities and tourist beaches of Senegal where people so frequently wanted to sell us things or guide us around, etc. The owners of Zebrabar bought the land 12 years ago when they decided to relocate to Senegal permanently from Switzerland. The couple now has two children, but just the dad and the 6 year old son were there when we stayed there (the wife and daughtere were in Switzerland). The land abuts a lagoon and the Senegalese National Park of Langue de Barbarie, which is a series of barrier islands and lagoons separated from an unpopulated part of the Atlantic by a thin strip of land (the Langue de Barbarie). When the owners bought the land, there was nothing there. Now, there are bungalows for rent, a campground, a main building with a restaurant and a large house for themselves. They run off of solar energy, which is an anomaly (but shouldn't be as Senegal is prime real estate for solar power) there, for sure. There were kayaks and a windsurfer for our use and a variety of travelers who passed through while we were there. We had communal dinners outside at night (the food was so good, it was a treat! the owners had taught their Senegalese cooks to make incredible European food, including salad with sterilized vegetables that we could eat!), with a changing group of Belgians, French, Germans, Senegalese, and Americans. The common language was French, of course, but people would humor me and speak English from time to time. We met several Europeans who are ex-pats in Senegal and it was incredible to have a glimpse into their lives. Many of them drive home to Europe in the summer and drive back with supplies, taking a ferry from Spain to Morrocco and making the trip in anywhere from 3 days to a few weeks to Senegal. Each day we kayaked to the ocean, across the lagoon. We didn't do much else, aside from read, walk into the village (where the kids would follow us around and ask us questions and call us "toubabs", of course) for lunch or bread or soda and drink beers on the roof (great view!) at sunset. While there, we didn't check email or have news of the outside world for 5 days, which was strange, but good.
We traveled back to Dakar with the owners of Zebrabar and a new friend, Alexis, from Albany who was at Zebrabar with us (and who will be travelling to Mali in a couple of weeks, so we might run into her again!). Dakar is just kind of crazy. Lots of traffic and energy and attention on us. We stayed in a wealthy beach neighborhood this time and it seems a stretch to call it wealthy- there is extreme poverty next to $500 a night hotels.
This morning, we flew from Dakar to Bamako, the capital of Mali. We had met several aid workers in Senegal who were working Mali and everyone told us how much less developed and poorer Mali is than Senegal. This is apparent as soon as you leave the airport. But we like it here so far. Everything is brown (from the buildings and houses to the river and streets) and green and wet, as the rainy season just started here. The Niger River (one of the longest and widest in Africa) runs through Bamako and most of Mali and it is beautiful - with green islands dotting it. We are staying in the neighborhood that is frequented by ex-pats (there are a ton of development/aid workers from a wide variety of nationalities in Mali as it is one of the 4 poorest countries in the world according to the UN development index), and there are several live music venues nearby. We plan to hit up a few of those in the next couple of nights (this is one of the reasons why we came to West Africa- to see live music in Bamako!) before hitting the road to head further south and east into Mali. We are planning on going hiking in the famed Dogon Country that we have been hearing about from every tourist we've met in the region.
- Erica, Bamako, Mali

Thoughts a week in to this thing...

As Erica has alluded multiple times, and I must repeat : Senegalese people are the warmest, kindest, most ready to smile people I've encountered. I particularly enjoy our interactions with guys who's primary purpose is to get us to buy something from them (a tour, a curio, seafood, etc.). Some are pretty driven and will stay on message (i.e. sell, sell, sell), but for the most part, if I start asking questions about what they are talking about, or move the conversation at all tangentially, we end up just having a brief conversation and say goodbye. I just get the impression that they would obviously like to sell something, but would prefer to just talk a bit, which is great fun.

Along with soccer, the national sport here is wrestling. We saw many kids wrestling on the beach, and I hope to catch some of it on tv tonight. Coming out of the water on the beach last week, I was jogging up to where we were sitting, and crossed paths with thing youing Senegalese guy. He stopped right in front of me and put his arms out straight at me sorta like a kickboxer and said, "mon ami, tu veut faire un peu de combat avec moi?" (my friend, would you like to do a little combat with me?" - with a huge smile on his face. I started laughing immediately and thanked him for the offer. He laughed a bit and continued on jogging down the beach with his friend. It was just a great quick interaction that I really enjoyed. Later that evening, I was taking a picture of Erica on the beach, and another young kid says to me, "you want me in there too, right?" with another huge smile. I dig it... I can't remember being anywhere else where people are so happy to joke and laugh with us. Solid fun.

I got 3 more minutes on me internet so will drop off for now. More later...

How does the CFA being pegged to the Euro effect West Africa?

After spending about a week here in Senegal, I'm extremely curious to learn what the on balance effect on the local economies the CFA being pegged to the Euro has. The positive aspects, I would think are :

* - the currency's value only fluctuates with the Euro, and not due to local economic conditions
* - the governments are unable to devalue their currencies themselves
* - eases trade with the Euro zone
.... etc.

Given the recent rise in the Euro, however, I think it would fairly negatively effect the region's exports to any non-Euro countries. So, given just the few things I've mentioned, I wonder if overall the peg is helpful or harmful to these individual economies.

Toubabs in Saint-Louis

4th of July.
Senegalese people call white people "Toubabs." We hear it several times a day. Yesterday, a woman leaned out of a bus, patted joe on the head and said, "Bonjour, toubab." We are constantly amazed by how nice everyone is here. Children stop us on the street to shake the toubabs hands, everyone waves at us, etc.
We are now in Saint-Louis, Senegal; a city on the North Atlantic Coast, near the border with Mauritania. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city is on an island in the Senegal River. It was the French administrative capital of French Colonial Africa for 200 years. It is beautiful and the architecture is picturesque but also looks like it is falling apart. The food here is great - all over Senegal, we have been impressed by how good the food is. The hot sauce is incredibly, mouth-burning, too, which is fantastic! In Saint-Louis, we are staying at a beautiful hotel on the river- La Louisiane. We are currently the only guests. When we arrived, a Dutch family traveling with their teenage daughter for 2 weeks (and all by public transportation- they are an inspiration to us!) was also there. We drove north from the southern Petit Cote to Saint-Louis 2 days ago. We paid a driver 180 dollars for the 4 hour cab ride (Felipe Orrego told us that we were going to have to get a driver in West Africa but we did not take him seriously at the time, we thought we were hard core public transport travelers, but the busses here go so slow and look so packed!). We still have not braved public transport, but are thinking we might try it next week when we go back to Dakar to fly out to Mali.
Saint-Louis is famous for its Jazz Festival every spring. We missed it but are going to see a jazz show tonight. It will be the first time we are not in bed by 10 in a week! Happy 4th of July!
- Erica, Saint-Louis, Senegal