Laughing Cousins in Timbuktu

I have never been fond of cold showers, even in hot countries...but after two days on the dusty desert piste of Mali’s Dogon country I was ready for a cold wash. The red sandy mud permiated my clothes and nostrils, my tummy was acting up, and the malaria medication was giving me vivid nightmares. It had been a bone rattling experience, riding in a cat cat (4X4 truck) across the desert Sahel. Great plains with soaring ridges topped by ancient caves, a surreal landscape more spectacular than any Grand Canyon. Mali is the largest country in West Africa, and the great Sahara desert covers more than half of its landmass. I was headed for Timbuktu, a place my mother had always threatened to send me if I was naughty or didn’t eat my peas.

I had spent several days visiting Dogon villages, climbing up steep rock inclines to the ancient Tellem caves, now inhabited by the Dogon. I felt like a novice anthropologist. Indigenous people had lived in these caves for centuries and continue to do so, even though the village wells are a kilometre away on the plateau below. There is no electricity. Just working families living their lives, women pounding millet cereal, children carrying water, men working in the fields and seniors sitting in small groups greeting visitors.

All live harmoniously in villages often shared with other tribes they call their “laughing cousins.” The concept of “laughing cousins” really tells the story of Mali and how the tribes complement each other. The Bozo people are the fishermen; the Fulani look after the cattle; the Dogon are the farmers; the Bella people manufacture straw mats; and the Songhay have a proud, fearless heritage of empire building. Then there are the nomadic Tuareg, who constantly move in caravans across the Sahara, loading up their camels with salt slabs from the Taoudenni Salt Mine and taking them on a long trek across the Sahara, following the stars to Timbuktu where they are sold, loaded on to donkeys or boats headed down the Niger River.

On this day, after the cold shower and traditional breakfast of baguette and cream cheese (the Malians have been heavily influenced by French culture) I was headed for more villages. I drove past endless fields of millet, onions and cotton then back on to dry dirt-track road that seemed to go on forever. There were few vehicles on the road but plenty of people working the fields dressed in bright colours.

At noon I arrived at a small mud village with its very own mud mosque . Greeted by dozens of the village children I then went to visit the schoolhouse and saw 200 kids stuffed into a small, hot classroom, all of them behaving so well and listening attentively to the teacher. I thought about my children and how we would complain if there were more than 30 students in their classroom.

One little boy was limping with a bandage tied loosely around his foot. A village elder showed us his wound, a big hole in the bottom of his foot that looked like it was turning green. While visiting this richly cultural nation, it’s easy to forget that it is one of the poorest countries in the world, until you reach the remote villages. I dug out some antiseptic cream and fresh bandages for the boy from the first-aid kit in the back of the cat cat. I felt so useless. There was no medical clinic nearby. Most people couldn’t afford medicine. Many had resorted to buying cheap, expired pharmaceuticals from stalls in the local markets. Self-medicating was common, as was death from poisoning.

Published in "Special Glasses Magazine" 2007