TravelStream™ news feed for member the_wayfarer on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/the_wayfarer en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:56:38 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1258746974/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1258746974/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1258746974/tpod.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:56:38 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Bamako, Mali

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Bamako, Mali

My photographing must be pretty conspicuous. At least, my camera must have been, even if I tried to be as low-profile about it as I could. In general, some people were taking it gracefully, but some played guardians of law and order, and threatened me, asking for „authorisation".Having said that, I had an incident related to it and for quite some time I didn't even have an idea that there had been an incident in the first place.The road between Sikasso and Bamako is literally infested with check-points. Why exactly, I am not sure. I know that if you asked authorities, they would surely come up with all sorts of important reasons and explanations. For all that, they remained incomprehensible for me. I am even tempted in my bouts of petty malice to claim that those roadblocks didn’t serve any purpose other than giving the police a good excuse to collect more bribes. But OK, it was as it was and as a tourist, you just take it all as it comes. Anyway, at one of those check-points some of us left the bus and went out to stretch our legs. I did the same, as I always do whenever given an opportunity. And just as ever, I started roaming around, looking for things to take a picture of. However, this time around, I had not even found anything interesting yet – maybe because after a while such spots finally start looking like each other – when a policeman came up to me and gave me a polite, but stern warning that photographing was not allowed. I told him, this time really truthfully, that no pictures had been taken. OK, quite honestly, I wasn’t guilty of not wanting to take any pictures. I surely would have if I had found anything to catch my eye. However, the policeman didn’t have to know that. According to the letter of their regulations, if they existed as such, I was guilty of nothing. But he wouldn’t take just my word for it. So he summoned me for the passport check to the tent by the roadside where the police manning the check-point retreated to avoid the sun. He also demanded to see my camera display.I will be the first one to fess up to the fact that it may be in human nature to be suspicious, at least sometimes, of other people’s motives. Particularly if those people are totally unknown to us. And if they are in a position of any kind of authority to boot, you may have all necessary ingredients of a healthy suspicion brew. Much as you consciously try to keep in mind that your travels and interactions with unknown people have taught you exactly opposite, you nevertheless occasionally fall into that trap of distrust. So in a way maybe Naprisca and I were not all that different.Therefore when the guy took my passport and started leafing through it, I couldn’t be convinced of anything else than it was his intention to find me out on some count or other, so he could slap a „fine“ on me. Or in translation, to tease some backhander from my wallet. Also, when he asked, I showed him a few of recent pictures and he realised that indeed I was not trying to pull any wool over his eyes. Just as I had told him, no pictures had been taken.Well, my passport and everything else was in order and, to his credit, he didn’t really seem to be too pettifogging. The more he was at it, the more he looked like someone who was really trying just to do his honest job. So in just a few minutes his short passport check and everything else was over and he let me go. Just before I stepped out of the tent, he had warned me not to take any pictures at any of the further check-points. I pretended I „didn’t know“ I couldn’t do it, professed to be „really sorry“ about the whole trouble and promised I wouldn’t do it.We shook hands like best of friends and I went back towards the bus. By the time I returned, the bus driver had cleared whatever he had to clear on his part and we were ready to go.Once in the bus and on the road again, Naprisca asked me about my close encounter with the Malian road police.„Nothing special,“ I said. „The guy was OK. He just checked my passport and when he saw that I hadn’t taken any pictures, he let me go.“She nodded and then it was more or less the end to our conversation. Again for some reason, she was not in much of a chatty mood.But a young guy, to the right from me across the aisle, seemed more than happy to step in. He spoke some English and soon started asking this or that, like it was by now pretty much usual whenever I got in touch with any English-speaking locals. Even those only French-speaking ones.“Good camera,“ he said at one point.I thanked him. Then he added:„Many good photos,“ showing around and outside the bus, indicating there were many interesting things to take pictures of.„Yes,“ I said and nodded.And then, in a way that pretty much made me raise my eyebrows, he started pointing things out and urging me to shoot them. Needless to say, the two of us didn’t necessarily saw it eye to eye as to what made an interesting picture, and somehow I didn’t follow up with action on any of his suggestions. But that didn’t seem to deter him much. He just marched on and literally every two minutes kept encouraging me to take pictures, quite peculiarly, of almost every conceivable nonsense he could lay his eyes on. The more he did it, the less I found it amusing, and gradually I lost every enthusiasm of as much as looking his way.By the time we arrived in Bamako, less than two hours later, I didn’t have a single picture shot after we had left Bougouni.And when we retrieved our luggage, I never even bothered to say good-bye to the guy.Our bus station in Bamako was gare de routiere de Sodoniko. As almost every other town of some size in West Africa that we had been to so far, Bamako probably had more than one bus station. This particular one was pretty far down to the south of the city, below the Niger river. So we had to take a taxi, cross the river, go up north and find ourselves a hotel to stay in. I kind of thought that „Tamana“ hotel might be a good choice, so we asked one of the numerous taxi drivers to get us there. After some hard bargaining, when I had a feeling that we had still ended up on the receiving end, one guy agreed to three thousand CFA francs and we left the station.At first the ride seemed smooth, but when we crossed the Niger river – which was my first encounter with this lifeline of West Africa – it got ever slower. The streets got ever more jammed. It was first cars only, but then after a while there were people all around, spilling all over onto pavements and carriageways from all possible places, and the area we were passing through was more like somewhere around a football stadium right after a derby game than a downtown street. The driver didn’t seem to mind much, which led me to a conclusion that he was not seeing this nearly impenetrable chaos of a crowd for the first time. Well, either way, for a while when we moved, it was only at a snail’s pace. And then we wouldn’t move at all. Then a bit of a snail’s pace again and so it went.Finally, when we cleared the Grande Marche area, for it was the grand Bamako market that we were trying to push through and no local Wembley or something, the things looked up again. After that, it was only a matter of minutes until we arrived at the „Tamana“ hotel. And when, after more than an hour in the taxi the driver asked if he could get a bit more than three thousand CFA francs, I realised with a sense of guilt that the bargain Naprisca had struck with him back at the bus station was really hard. But he would have been the short-changed party, not us. So with my changed perspective and this nagging guilt, I gladly gave him more and we left the car.In the hotel, there was a room available for us and we checked in.And then Naprisca told me an interesting story which made me realise I had been a part of a more sinister incident back at the check-point than I had originally thought. According to her, while I was in the tent, the rest of passengers urged the bus driver to go on without me. For some reason, collective maliciousness got the better of people and took over.„They thought I didn’t understand what they were saying,“ she said. „But I did.“However, it didn’t seem to be powerful enough as the driver did wait for me. Or had to wait. What it was exactly that pissed them off, I can’t know. It couldn’t have been the wait itself. It wasn’t longer than, literally, five minutes. If at all. But for some reason, if Naprisca was to be believed, they turned against me. So even if it was absolutely negligible next to all the accumulated waiting time at all police check-points along the way, according to Naprisca one guy nevertheless volunteered to try to cause me problems for the rest of the trip. And that was the guy who was so oddly urging me to take pictures. This time there may have been something to it and more than just her innate fear of strangers that usually makes her see things. If what Naprisca said was true, and it may have been because the guy was simply flaky, to put it mildly, then he clearly expected to get me into trouble merely by persuading me to take pictures. As if it is a felony. But for some reason, just as I said, I took no pictures any more. Not least because his friendliness didn’t seem quite right and for once, to Naprisca’s satisfaction, I turned out to be less than ready to engage in a friendly chat. So if this guy was really getting up to pushing me into trouble, his plan had clearly run aground.So much about it.Well, at the end of the day, nothing happened and so Naprisca and I were now in the „Tamana“ hotel, leaving bus rides behind us for a few days to come.It was still the broad daylight outside, so we rushed out as soon as we could to take a walk, maybe find a place for Naprisca to eat, possibly locate a supermarket in the vicinity for some drinks and milk, and such things. After several days back to back on wheels, it felt kind of refreshing to know that only wheels we would use for a while would be taxi wheels and nothing more. The afternoon was getting late, so it was really pleasant outside. A great setting for a stroll, to stretch cramped legs.„Tamana“ hotel is situated at the very beginning of a small, leafy, unpaved side street and is a very pleasant place with a large, equally leafy garden, complete with a swimming pool. There is an outdoors bar in the garden where you can sit in the evening – or even during the day if you insist – and enjoy yourself on a barstool with a drink in your hand. You didn’t need to be too smart to guess that locals didn’t come to this place much. Only the staff were black, and apart from them, there was one young African lady so pretty as if she had just stepped down from the centrefold of a fashion magazine, and a young, smiling guy who had spread some souvenirs on the bar on display, and possibly for sale. „This girl is waiting for the bartender,“ Naprisca whispered to me. Her sharp eye had already sized up the situation. Well, the bartender was white.„Is she?“OK, maybe she was waiting for the bartender. And upon a closer inspection, you’d probably come to a conclusion that it was really so. It’s just that I was not connecting the dots. I simply didn’t care much about who was waiting for whom. But Naprisca found it much more of interest than I did.The young guy politely asked us to check the handicraft he had in his possession. I told him that right now I was not interested in buying anything. Besides, we were going out on an entirely different business. But I did stop by for a minute to shake my hands with him and he told me that he was an artist. When I asked him whether he could do any good living like this, he smiled with a bit of uncertainty and said:„Not much.“ I already had my two souvenirs, all that I was ever going to buy during my trip, and just wished him luck. Then Naprisca and I went out.It takes you literally just a few steps from the „Tamana“ hotel to reach a much bigger and paved road, called Rue 235. Which is colloquially much better known as Rue de Bla Bla. This street is allegedly where all the fun of the neighbourhood is, so we hoped that we wouldn’t have to stray too far and yet find whatever we were looking for.We found even more than that.For starters, just a few hundred metres up the Rue de Bla Bla we located a hair salon.Naprisca had been fixing for some time to get her hair changed, as she called it. Before I met her I had had no idea that African women couldn’t grow much hair, certainly not in the fashion that women of other races did. I saw all those wonderful and colourful hairstyles, but it never occurred to me that they had all been made out of artificial hair and simply attached to the short and relatively weak natural one. This genetic twist on African race was a true revelation for me. Maybe the entire rest of the world knew that all along, but as for me, in that respect I had been living in total darkness. Only when I had learned that, did I fully comprehend why with my long hair I was standing out to such an extent among locals.Anyway, that artificial hair would wear out after two or three weeks – at least that’s what Naprisca told me – and then it was time for a hairdo overhaul. Quite an expensive sport, if you ask me, particularly on a continent where incomes were not exactly soaring sky high. I have no idea if American blacks had the same problem or not, but right now it didn’t matter too much. The question came to me merely out of curiosity.So now it was about time for Naprisca to have her hair rehabilitated, as it were. And true lady as she is, she dropped off everything on the spot, meal, drinks and all, walked into the salon and her hair was the first thing she was going to take care of.There were three idle ladies sitting, with no customers at all, and I guess Naprisca came in both as a welcome diversion and an even more welcome potential source of income. Not much of a guy who is at home in hair salons, particularly not those for ladies, at first I followed the proceedings with fascination. There was a load of transparent packs with artificial hair in all lengths, colours and forms hanging on one wall, and it took a long and elaborate decision-making for Naprisca to settle for one of them. Once she had done that – I guess many a man would have come and gone, shorn as a sheep by the time she just picked and chose her future hair – they were finally off the blocks with the stage two. The real hair-making. However, by the time they had really gotten down to it, my interest in the whole hair business somewhat faded and I told Naprisca I would explore the neighbourhood and drop by later.Once out, a guy who even at first sight safely belonged among those least clean ones in the street approached me and – started speaking English to me right away. Well, it may be true that his clothes had last seen water during the last rain he’d been in, but I wouldn’t discriminate against anyone just on the strength of how clean they were. Besides, the fact that he spoke passable English was something that made him different in a way that was interesting to me, so I returned his greeting.He asked me usual things like where I was from, how I liked Mali, where I was headed to and so on. I told him a few things, all in general, and then he enquired if I would visit the Dogon country. Now, they say the Dogon country is one single thing in Mali that shouldn’t be missed if you’re there, so understandably it was pretty high on my agenda. I said, yes, I did plan to go there.„I am a Dogon,“ he said.„Really?“ I was genuinely interested now.„Yes,“ he nodded. „I come from a village near Bandiagara. My family lives there.“„So what do you do here?“„I go to school.“Ah, OK. School. Right. But weren’t they having vacation in Mali right now? Or very soon? So why was he still in Bamako?„I needed to get some more money,“ he said. „I’ll go tomorrow.“I nodded.„If you want, when you get there, I can be your guide,“ he offered.„Can you indeed? Well, we’ll talk about that later. I just arrived in Bamako today, so I don’t know my exact plans yet,“ I said, refusing to commit myself to anything yet. „I might let you know when I know more.“The guy was insisting on giving me his telephone number, so I could call him when I arrived in the Dogon country, but I told him it could wait.„I am David,“ he said.„Nice to meet you, David,“ I accepted.Then he wondered what I was up to right now. I told him about Naprisca and her hair business, and explained that basically I was waiting for her and not up to much.„I might just go have a look around if there is a supermarket nearby.“„What do you want to buy?“„Nothing much,“ I said. „Some water, maybe a milk, that’s all.“„I know a supermarket,“ he offered. „I can show you.“„Is it far?“ I didn’t want to stray too far, as I didn’t want Naprisca to wait for me. I knew it wouldn’t necessarily go down well with her if she was to wait for me all by herself in a strange city she was visiting for the first time.„No, not far,“ he assured me.„OK,“ I agreed. „Let’s go.“And indeed, the supermarket was not far. Just a bit farther up the road. We took a leisurely walk during which I shot a few pictures and then we were there. On our way to the supermarket at one point I suddenly heard „hello“. So I looked around and saw some smiling fellow, probably in his early thirties, looking pretty sophisticated, with eye glasses on. I smiled back and returned the greeting. After a few initial sentences, he said:„I am a teacher.“„Oh, that’s nice,“ I tried to sound enthusiastic. „So what do you teach?“„I teach in a primary school.“„Very good.“„But you know,“ he started up, „it not easy. I have a wife and two children, so maybe you can give me some small money...?“Well, another one. I shook my head and told him straight:„I am sorry, but do you know how many people here ask me for money every day?“That was something I obviously didn’t have to explain much. His face expression clearly told me he could well guess.„And even if I wanted, I couldn’t possibly give money to every single person who asks me,“ I added. He just looked at me, smiling a bit of an awkward smile.„So tell me,“ I asked, „why would I possibly give the money to you and not to the guy over there?“ and I pointed to someone at random. „Give me one reason.“Of course, he had no reason.„I’m sorry,“ I said. And I was. But I didn’t feel guilty.David wasn’t happy. You could clearly see it on his face.„Don’t give them money,“ he said.Of course I wouldn’t. But what was it to him?„Why?“ I asked.„It’s not good,“ was his only explanation. By the time I bought the water in supermarket and we returned to the hair salon, it started getting darker. I checked on Naprisca, but she was still in the chair in front of the mirror, with all three ladies in attendance. I asked how long she thought she would take.„Soon,“ she said.Fine.As it was getting dark quite rapidly, it made no sense for me to go anywhere without her any more. So I just got out of the salon to watch people pass by from the doorstep. David was still there. I was a bit surprised, I must admit. He was sitting few metres away from the salon entrance on what would have been a curb if the road had had curbs along any length. But it didn’t, so this way, it was just a piece of an extremely low wall. He seemed to be waiting for me. I nodded towards him.„Will you call me when you come to Dogon country?“ he asked.„We’ll see,“ I said. „If I come there, I will.“„What will you do now?“„Now?“ I wasn’t quite sure what to begin with what to me looked a bit of an inappropriate curiosity. It put me a bit on guard and I tried to be vague. I said that it would depend on when Naprisca was going to have her hair done. But by the looks of it, it increasingly looked like we wouldn’t have time for much.And then, suddenly, David asked me for money.„What for?“ I frowned.„Because I showed you the supermarket,“ he said.For that? Well, I told him that for that he wasn’t going to get any money.„I could have found the supermarket without you just fine,“ I assured him. However, the less likely I looked to give him anything, the angrier he grew. And his demands grew nastier.„And what about my time?“ he demanded, now obviously looking pretty ominous.„What about your time?“„I spent my time with you! I want my money!“„You’ll get no money,“ now I was beginning to get huffy myself. But he started threatening me.„You won’t go before you give me my money!“ he declared.I realised a quarrel with him would get me nowhere. So I returned into the salon. Naprisca was nowhere near being done yet. However, the girls inside got a whiff of something being afoot outside. So they asked me what it was and I told them. One of them got out with me to check. And David was still there.„Give me my money!“ he snarled.We both, the girl and I, wanted to return inside when suddenly this guy from the „Tamana“ hotel who was selling souvenirs earlier in the afternoon passed by. He saw me, smiled and came up to me to shake hands. We did and he asked what I was doing here. I told him Naprisca was having her hair done, but I also showed at David and said that he was threatening me for my refusal to give him money.The guy only now noticed David and asked:„He?!“„Yes,“ I answered.„Don’t worry,“ he said reassuringly and went up to David. Then he started talking to him. I have no idea whatsoever what it was that he told him. At first David was angry and not willing to go, but the guy from the hotel wouldn’t give up, so he finally managed to get David away from his spot. Still mental, but going. After a bit more discussion he seemed to finally be able to persuade him to go away.Then he returned to me, smiled broadly, put his index-finger to his temple and said:„He’s crazy, but he is not dangerous.“I thanked him, not entirely sure that David was so harmless. The guy went up in the direction of supermarket, and I stood on at the entrance, now almost on watch, less than certain that David was really away.True to my suspicions, soon after the souvenir guy from the hotel had left, David returned. This time he didn’t take up his former position on the wall near the hair salon, but rather lurked in the deep shadow across the road. But he was there all right. For a while things didn’t change much. Some fifteen minutes later, the guy from the hotel doubled back, obviously on his way to the hotel now. He smiled and waved.„David is still there,“ I said as he passed by.„Where?“„There,“ I pointed in the direction of the shadow. The guy looked there and sure enough, spotted David again. He went up to him once more, probably trying to get some sense into him, but the result was the same. Initially he persuaded him to leave, but as soon as he disappeared out of sight, this loopy, unwashed guy returned.I was feeling increasingly ill at ease. Not so much because of myself, even if in the best of circumstances you don’t really need such nutters who, ultimately at a loose end, cast about for foreigners to harass. I was more concerned about Naprisca. After all, having come with me, she was under my wing and my responsibility. A pillock like this David, who got round the twist after I had refused to give him „his“ money, didn’t make things any easier in that respect. The longer I stood there at the door to the salon, the clearer it got to me that David wouldn’t give up just like that.So what now?For all I knew, he could even be dangerous, and in a real way at that. Not only by being big on threats like those guys looking for authorisation for my pictures. I vaguely felt that he wouldn’t let us get off the hook and go to the hotel just like that. And I wouldn’t risk his turning violent. So I decided that, once Naprisca was over with her hair, we should fake going up in the direction of the supermarket and then catch a taxi. And then we would see what would happen next.Naprisca took her time. When she was finally ready to go, it had been more than three hours since the moment she had stepped in. Night had long fallen over Bamako. Rue de Bla Bla wasn’t exactly basking in the street lights. And David was still there in the shadow across the street.„Let’s go up there,“ I told her.„Why?“ she asked.„Let’s just go,“ I said. „And don’t turn around.“We headed up the Rue de Bla Bla and sure enough, David emerged from his shadow, starting to stalk us. I kept a deliberately measured pace, reckoning that any display of hurry would work against us. For a while he matched his pace with ours.„When you see a taxi, flag it down,“ I told Naprisca.Well, one of the things I liked about Africa at that very moment was the fact that there would be hardly a minute, wherever you were, before you spotted a taxi. So very soon we got ourselves one. We tried to get in as fast as we could and shake David off. But it wouldn’t work out that easy. Seeing us getting into the taxi, beside himself from rage, he ran up to the cab and sought to open the door by force.„Give me my money!“ he roared from the outside.The driver looked at him in amazement.„Just go,“ Naprisca told the driver. Finally, he started the car again and we cut David loose at last. I was hoping the driver would get us to the hotel before David returned there and then the matter would be settled for the night. But it wasn’t going to be so simple. First of all, this was a shared taxi we were in. Which meant there were other passengers inside, two ladies, who had already paid for their own destinations. So getting to the hotel before David was now impossible. The ladies were to be delivered first. And second, the driver would not even get us to the hotel. He just dropped us off in some dark side street, overcharging us for this short ride and lit off.So we now had to look for another taxi, but fortunately it was not much of a problem. We found one easily.I wasn’t even in a mood to haggle. I would pay whatever it took to just return to the „Tamana“. And as expected, David was there. The taxi got us as close to the entrance gate as it possibly could. Naprisca sneaked right in and I stayed only so long as to pay the driver. And during those two minutes when I was giving the driver the money, it was clear that David had been completely off his head. He kept demanding his money and pledged to „f... my mother“ and „kill me to my room“ (his exact phrase).I ignored him and disappeared inside the „Tamana“ hotel garden. There was a guard at the gate and it was clear that whatever David was getting up to, we were now out of his reach. The calm and rational part of me was ready to place my bets on it that he wouldn’t get to fulfilling his threats in this incarnation. But as he seemed to be batty enough to camp outside the hotel gate, we decided the most prudent course of action was just to stay in for the evening. After all, Naprisca could eat in the hotel just as well.After her dinner in the hotel garden, with a lot of western tourists in after the day in town, or arrival in Bamako, and all tables occupied, we discussed what we would do next. We had no word from Naprisca’s father yet on whether she could stay on past the January 2 with me or not. But nevertheless, we decided to change our plan, skip Ségou and extend our stay here in Bamako by another day, three in total.I guess the wonderful atmosphere of the garden and clean hotel on the whole did the trick.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1258137431/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1258137431/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1258137431/tpod.html Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:14:52 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Bougouni, Mali

Some three hours into the trip to Bamako, we had a stop-over in a small town called Bougouni. It is a settlement of approximately 20,000 people, first established as a hunting camp a few hundred years ago. Some say that as recently as forty years ago you could bump into an odd friendly lion casting about for a company around Bougouni. Nowadays the lions must find the town rather uninspiring, I guess, because they have given way to the only paved road connecting Bamako to Sikasso and retreated elsewhere, well out of reach for us commuters to and back from Malian capital.Well, in truth, lions must be onto something, because clearly, unless there's more than meets the eye, Bougouni is hardly anything more than a bus-and-lorry stop with a number of rundown shacks on the side. But I welcomed the opportunity to stretch my legs, roam around a bit and take a few pictures.As every provincial gare de routiere in the countries of West Africa I had visted so far, this one was also brimming with people who clustered around buses, seeking to peddle something or other for some trifle sum of money, usually a coin or two. Colours they wore were ubiquitously as bright and glaring as Van Gogh's palette and if the design of local outfit was any standard to go by, the people here surely led a lively existence. There were ladies with bananas, cold drinks and sweets. There was a spot or two where the food was cooked on burning wood for those who preferred it hot. There were people who just moved up and down without any visible purpose. There were no lions, but a number of goats roamed freely around, often right among buses, and made their best to fill in for them. Albeit creating a bit less of a splash than lions probably would.Next to where the buses were, there was a large clearing that stood in for a football pitch, even if not a blade of grass was in sight. Well, yes, the place was colourful. But it was most certainly one more of those settlements that is of interest only to those who live there.Naprisca never left the bus. She contented herself with watching the scene through the bus window and staying safely away from me while I was busy with the camera. But the crowd was cool and friendly and, even if I exercised restraint and took most of my pictures from the waist, you couldn't fail to notice my camera, at least hanging off the strap round my neck. However, nobody cared to pester me with that authorisation rot. I was routinely followed by curious look no matter where I went, but I am sure it was because I am white. Nothing more.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257948038/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257948038/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257948038/tpod.html Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:36:06 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Sikasso, Mali

Naprisca was in the bathroom having a shower and I had just returned from breakfast when there was a knock on the door. I opened it and on another wonderful African morning there were two guys standing outside. It took me a few seconds to sort them out in my mind and when I finally connected them with everyone I had met the night before, it suddenly dawned on me that I was seeing one of the hotel guys and – the last night's taxi driver. The driver was smiling broadly.And holding my camera bag.Well, the way he smiled, his smile was not the patch on the smile that suddenly spread across my face. I guess if I had had no ears right then, my smile would have wound all around my head at the sight of that bag. Luckily, I had forgotten it no further than in the taxi upon our arrival to the hotel. A huge load tumbled off of my chest. No matter what was going to happen next, this would be a good day. I didn’t have the slightest doubt about it.I thanked the driver from the bottom of my heart. Then I produced my wallet, took out five thousand CFA francs and handed them to him as a reward and token of my gratitude for his being so honest and not lazy to come to me. His smile stretched a bit more and now his ears, too, exercised an additional function. I asked him about his name and he told me he was Gausu Sidibé. The least I could do was remember him and mention him in my diary.The two guys knew enough English so that we could make an arrangement for a ride to the bus station. It seemed the driver was not overbooked with clients on this Saturday morning. So it was perfectly fine with him to wait until Naprisca was ready. I asked him to please have a bit of patience and we would try to be out as soon as possible.„Who was that?" Naprisca asked when she emerged from the bathroom.Triumphantly, I showed her my camera bag.„Your bag?“ she seemed to be genuinely happy for me. „Where did you find it?“„The taxi driver from last night brought it here. We left it in his taxi,“ I explained. And then I told her I had given him five thousand CFA francs. She agreed that it was an appropriate reward. I was glad to hear that I had got it right.And then, as soon as she was ready, we looked for the driver to get us to the bus station.Sikasso itself is allegedly the second biggest Malian town. As such, it has surpassed Ségou not a long time ago. Well, it may have been the case, but all the sources claimed that there was not really much to see here. That’s why I thought one afternoon would do just fine and we would then move on.Well, we were now moving on anyway, only without seeing anything. But by all accounts, if anywhere our plans had to go astray, then clearly it was best that it had happened here. The locals had put one of the last stands against French colonial army in Sikasso before it fell to European colonisers, same as the rest of the country, at the end of the nineteenth century. The French erected a small fort in the wake of their victory, probably considering the place strategically important and vital to strengthening their control of the area. But hardly any of it has survived through to our days. In short, Sikasso was a kind of place you go into trouble of visiting because, well, not everyone goes there. Other than that, pass it by, and you have not missed much.The driver got us to the bus station. I paid him, thanked him once again and now the only thing left to do in Sikasso for us was to board the bus whenever it was due to leave.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257876555/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257876555/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257876555/tpod.html Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:43:11 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Sikasso, Mali

Comfort was not the thing we were looking for when we moved over from the bus into the minibus. So what you don't look for, you don’t miss if you don’t get it, either. I was more than ready to put up with somebody’s elbow wedged between my shoulder and ear and my foot protruding from someone else’s pocket. Naprisca was taking it bravely, too, even if she obviously scraped to shake off her fear of minibuses. Other people were as stoic and patient as we were, so under circumstances, it was a pleasant half-an-hour ride to Sikasso. That’s how close we really had been all along to our destination. The young guy who helped us with the idea to change the transport was enjoying himself immensely, chatting with us amiably during the ride. I am not entirely sure that Naprisca wasn’t still a bit suspicious about him, fearing that he might have an angle after all. But I was unconcerned.He was from Burkina Faso, but was a student in Sikasso. That was his reason for going there. When I asked him if it was really better to study in Mali than Burkina Faso, he emphatically said it was. He was asking about my reason of going to Sikasso and I explained to him that I was in fact visiting both Mali and Burkina and that the stretch between Bobo-Dioulasso and Sikasso was simply on my planned route. No other reason. He offered to help us during our stay in Sikasso. In any capacity. As a guide, as just a friend, anything. I told him, however, that we would be staying only overnight and next morning head off to Bamako. He seemed a bit disappointed, but I didn’t think Naprisca and I had much choice. There was a lot to see in Mali and a longer stay in Sikasso would only take time which would be better spent elsewhere. Besides, I had to keep in mind the fact that she would probably have to return home in a week. So her time in Mali was limited. That was one more reason not to linger for too long in less than outstanding places.In any case, before long we finally reached our final destination for today.Having for the first time arrived on a bus station in Africa after dark, I really had an impression we were dropped off in the middle of deepest wilderness. There were absolutely no lights around and there was nothing to lead you to believe you were on a spot a human being had set foot on any time recently. Except for the fact that humans swarmed our minibus the moment we pulled in.In a second we were surrounded by potential taxi drivers offering us a ride and, spotting a white man, even some prospective guides. Well, as the very idea of sightseeing was somewhat ridiculous now, and not only for the fact that you could hardly see a finger in front of your own nose, I dismissed all the guides on the spot. As for the taxi drivers, somehow one of them managed to persuade the others to give way and he emerged as the guy with whom we struck a deal to get us to the hotel for the night.After we had bought a ticket to Bamako for tomorrow morning, that is.At this late hour – well, relatively late, anyway – it may have been a bit of a stretch to expect a ticket booth anywhere around the station to still be open. But I wanted to give it a shot, and maybe miraculously, we found one. With the assistance of the young Burkinabe student, I must add. Within just a few minutes he discovered someone who was able – and still willing – to sell us those bus tickets. With the help of some candles and torchlight, and money on my part, of course, the whole thing was soon brought to a conclusion to everyone’s satisfaction. Now we were ready to go to the hotel.I thanked the student with all my heart, wished him all the best and we all fanned out into the night.The taxi driver brought us to the hotel „Mamelon". Even if most of the rest of the town seemed to be in almost complete darkness, „Mamelon“ was well lit. At least according to African standards. And on top of it, they had free rooms. We booked one and thereby our journey to Sikasso finally came to an end. When we dropped our luggage on the room floor at last, it was just shy of eight thirty. A long day indeed.And then I realised I couldn’t find my camera bag and suddenly broke into a cold sweat. I searched over and over, but there was no trace of it.„Have you seen my camera bag?“ I finally asked Naprisca.„No. Why’?“„Seems I lost it.“„Where?“„I don’t know.“ I said, making a conscious effort not to let my mood go sinking down through the floor. OK, my camera was on me. So it wasn’t the worst possible scenario. Also, for some inexplicable reason, I had put my spare camera battery into my small backpack, which I otherwise never did. That was another small thing on the plus side. But my battery charger was in the bag. And I had three full weeks to go until the end of my trip in Africa. With so many days still ahead, so many good pictures would not be taken. I wasn’t going to call it a disaster, because disasters come into people’s lives in shapes different than this one, but I certainly experienced it as a very unpleasant setback. „When did you last see it?“ she asked me.„I am not sure,“ I desperately tried to remember. „But I guess on the road when we took our things out of the bus on the border. I probably left it there.“The thought made me sick.„No, it was not there,“ she said. „I had it in the minibus.“„Are you sure?“„Well... no. But I think I did.“Hmmm... a fleeting glimmer of hope vanished the same way as it had appeared.„So you just think so?“„But I really think I had it in the minibus.“However, whether I had left it on the border or in the minibus, it didn’t appear to matter much. Either way, I saw no way how it could possibly be retrieved now. With every new minute I was girding myself for the prospect of having to heavily restrict my use of camera. And all that on my first trip to Africa ever.Well, to an extent, that is. Things were not that bleak. I mean, for another inexplicable reason, I had packed along my old compact camera, too, and it was still in my luggage, unpacked as of yet. I had never thought I would need it. I had just tucked it into my luggage on the spur of the moment and that was all. In all likelihood, albeit entirely unexpectedly, it looked like it would now come in handy. Well, better than nothing.I tried to console myself that the material damage was insignificant. Which it was. I would buy myself a new charger back home. The bag too. So that was not where the problem was. I just had to consciously work on accepting that there was nothing I could do about it, so it was for my own good and in my own interest to get over it as soon as possible.Next to the hotel there was a restaurant. Probably belonging to the same complex. It was almost empty. Only one table was occupied by some mixed company, both black and white. Anyway, as it was still open, I checked if they could prepare some food for Naprisca. She was hungry and was looking to have a dinner. A very nice and helpful waiter said no problem and even promised to find me milk, so I could prepare myself milk tea in the room. Camera bag or not, the world kept on spinning.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257595655/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257595655/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257595655/tpod.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:08:12 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Herenakono, Sikasso, Mali

Crossing an international border on foot somewhere in the middle of West Africa was fun. Only once in my life had I had an opportunity to do the same, and that was much closer home, between Austria and Liechstenstein. But this one was in everything different.We were met by a Malian official, a police guy dressed up in blue, who lead us towards their station building. Being the only white guy among the whole bunch, I obviously had a VIP treatment so my passport and yellow fever vaccination certificate were processed first. Nobody seemed to complain and, ominously so, that almost started looking like a common practice. Three guys inside the building were very efficient and I was through with them almost as soon as I had entered. Except, on balance, it hardly made a difference. Having arrived by bus, I had no choice and had to wait until the last of the passengers would be allowed through, no matter what. Be this as it may, in a minute I was back out and then the rest of the gang started filing in. Naprisca was among them, of course. As I couldn't be of any use to her, I just roamed a bit around, apparently taking a look, and in reality taking pictures, strictly from my waist. I knew that wherever there was uniformed personnel in the vicinity, police, army, anything, tourists were strongly advised to refrain from shooting photographs. Many things might be OK to have pictures of, but such things were still out.Anyway, I was strolling around for a while when, all of a sudden, everyone started calling me and waving my way. At first I had a brief scare that it had to do with my taking pictures. But it was not that. I was inconspicuous enough. Instead, Naprisca seemed to be in trouble.So when I arrived back in the border police building, one of the police guys inside showed through the back window at a bunch of people, among them Naprisca, gathered just outside. He said something in French which, recognising „votre madame", I realised was a question:„Is this your wife?“He was pointing at Naprisca, who was the first one in a row, right by the window sill. Something told me that going into details and explaining things as they really were wouldn’t be too productive and wouldn’t help anyone anyway. I had a feeling that the best way to deal with whatever was going on was to answer affirmatively.„Yes,“ I said.Well, that part out of the way, he went on rambling in French, but I was as clueless as to what he was on about as if he had spoken in Bambara, or whatever his native language may have been. So I leaned out through the window and asked Naprisca what the problem was:„I don’t have the vaccination certificate,“ she explained.Now I got it. This whole bunch outside were those who for some reason failed to produce their vaccination certificate. Naprisca among them.„You lost it?“ I asked her.„No, I forgot it at home,“ she said with a trace of shame in her voice. But, ashamed or not, there was no going back now. So I asked:„What do we do now?“„He wants you to give him three thousand francs and he will let me go.“Ah, OK. So that was how it worked. A small graft in the form of three thousand CFA would grease the skids and everything would be fine. I looked at the official.„Three thousand?“ I asked.„Oui,“ he answered with a nod.I took out three thousand CFA and Naprisca was bailed out. Of course, no receipt was offered and none given. Instead, Naprisca’s passport was returned to her with a valid stamp in it and, at the end of the day, that was all we needed. Whoever had witnessed this scene hardly popped an eyelid. It seemed perfectly normal to everyone, both fellow policemen and bus passengers, that the guy was on the take as he had an opportunity to be – almost as if it was his natural right - and I would bet that the moment Naprisca cleared out of sight, the whole thing evaporated from everyone’s mind, as well. It must have been that natural.Once out, I asked Naprisca:„And those other people? They don’t have the vaccination proof, either?“„No, they don’t.“„So what will they do now?“„I don’t know. They’ll have to make some deal.“Or they won’t be able to go into Mali. The problem was that three thousand CFA francs in all likelihood didn’t represent the same thing for me as they did for most of the people out there under the window. The equivalent of six dollars that I had given was nothing I was going to lose any sleep over tonight. But locals were not that fortunate. If they were, they wouldn’t be taking this bus now, I thought. Only dippy Europeans do, even if they can pay for a better transport. And even if the deal they would strike with the border police was cheaper than mine – it had to be – the sop to part with would still hurt them much more severely, I was sure.„He was much more polite with me when they told him I was with you,“ Naprisca said.„Really?!“ I was curious. „Why was that?“„Because you are white,“ she said matter-of-factly.„Because I’m white?!“ now I was surprised, and my surprise was quite unpleasant.„Yes.“„But what’s that got to do with anything?“„That’s how it is in Africa. If you are white, they treat you differently than if you are black.“„But that’s not right,“ I protested. „You can’t judge people based on their skin colour.“„Yes, but sometimes it’s not wrong. Blacks are different than whites,“ to my utter astonishment, Naprisca seemed to even approve of such an attitude. I just didn’t quite get it. How could it be?„But why would they be different?“ I pressed on with my correct tenets and convictions. „People are same everywhere, regardless of race, faith or nationality.“„They know that Africans will always try to cheat you if they can. White people don’t do it.“„Well, my dear,“ I said. „Not every white man is honest. And I am sure there are many black people who are good. You can’t consider them thieves just because they are black.“But Naprisca calmly maintained her point of view and, same as entire bunch out there, saw nothing wrong in it that I, as a westerner, was treated in a privileged way. It was not that she was trying to suck up to me in any way. You sense that. She simply seemed to genuinely believe in what she’d just said. And that shed some light on her unease and apprehension whenever I engaged in a closer contact with anyone. It looked like she was always half expecting that some kind of a cheat or a thief was lurking in any person that whished to talk to me. Like sooner or later they were bound to drop their mask of friendliness and flash their werewolf teeth on me.Of course, my beliefs were different. If nothing else, then my travels indeed taught me that people can’t be classified on the basis of their race, faith or nationality. They can only be classed geographically. Or statistically. But that was all. And in most ways insignificant.Anyway, the whole thing with the sorry crowd without the vaccination certificate below the window of the border police building dragged on. Much more than I would’ve liked it. At one point I realised that there would be nothing of our sightseeing in Sikasso. If I wanted to see the town, we’d have to stay on for a day longer than planned. The sun was well on its way down when the police finally released the last person. Not everyone looked happy, but at least we could now move on.However, it didn’t exactly mean we were now free to move on to Sikasso. We merely walked from this check-point to another. Same as on the Burkinabe side earlier.And then the long wait started. Half an hour. An hour. Then half an hour more. Apparently, nothing happened. We were just sitting around waiting for any clue to give us an idea what was to come next. I hardly took pictures any more. Much as the whole crossing was interesting and colourful, same as on the Burkinabe side, at one point there’s just nothing else to take pictures of. And so Naprisca and I followed an example of most of other passengers and sat by the roadside.Occasionally a vehicle would pass in either direction, and we would with envy watch them cross the border while we seemed hopelessly stuck. Then at one point we realised that the reason for all this was the fact that entire cargo – luggage and whatever else the bus was carrying – had to be checked. Every single item. And only then we would be able to go. But no one seemed to be in particular hurry to have a run at it.„They want more money,“ Naprisca maintained.„Who?“„The police,“ she explained.„So?“„But the driver won’t give them.“Ah, OK. So that was it? If he had added some more sop, we would have already been through? Now, that was gradually becoming irritating. I mean, it’s funny to read about it. And in a way, it makes for a nice anecdote to give an account of how you had to pay three thousand CFA in order to get Naprisca through because she had forgotten her certificate. But that whole incident took us mere three minutes. This thing now, though, was not that funny at all. Having a greedy border official on one side and a poor bus driver with probably very little money on the other, either of them refusing to give ground, was a clear recipe for a stalemate that could theoretically go on forever like that.After a while Naprisca was simply too tired and went back into the bus to sit back more comfortably. She was beginning to feel cold, too. Quite a few people had done the same already. I decided to stay out. Somehow, the smell inside the bus wasn’t the thing I was yearning for most in the world. And as by now it was completely dark, I could finally enjoy the air more suitable to my metabolism.Naprisca was sitting by the window. So at one point I grabbed my camera, got right to her from the outside and had her picture taken. As it was dark, the flash went off. The preset mode my camera was on had set it automatically off. And virtually the moment it did, there was a general consternation and uproar. For a moment it appeared as if police, army, everyone who wore any kind of uniform within the circle of at least five kilometres from the border swarmed around me with an intention of holding me accountable for the greatest felony committed, i.e. taking a picture of Naprisca while she was in the bus.OK, this was a sensitive zone. At least by African standards. Obviously, you don’t take pictures openly at border crossings in Africa. But also, this was a nice diversion for everyone. Except me, that is. With this border crossing showing no signs of getting completed any time soon, everyone seemed intent on seizing on the opportunity to entertain themselves a bit. And maybe earn some extra dosh to boot. A huge soldier came up to me, wildly gesticulating, probably seeking to scare me shitless first. I suppose that was how it should have worked. First you rattle the foreign tourist to the point where he is more than happy to pay his way out of trouble. And then you collect what you can. The soldier was closely followed by what at first looked like whole company of comrades armed up to their teeth. And passengers looked on.I tried to keep my cool. He spoke no English. I spoke no French. Even if I had, I believe it would have gone down the drain right there. Anyway, we couldn’t communicate much in terms of sensible conversation. But I knew what he was aiming at.All I could do was show him my camera display. And on it, the last picture taken, you could clearly see Naprisca sitting behind the bus window.„This is my wife!“ I protested. „I took no pictures of the border. I just took a picture of my wife!“Well, I assumed that if she had been my wife before, and it had helped her out of trouble, the whole thing might serve the purpose again, this time for me. The soldier was clearly interested in the display screen on my camera. Whether out of sheer curiosity about the camera itself, or he really agreed to check the latest picture, I can’t know. But the thing is, he leaned over my shoulder and had a look at it. That was all I needed.„You see!“ I insisted. „That’s her. Sitting inside.“Then I zoomed the picture a bit in and out for the good impression and the storm seemed to be passing as suddenly as it had blown up. A minute later things calmed down enough for me to realise that the whole unit of armed forces that had come to attack me in fact consisted of two guys only. Also, seeing the fuss, Naprisca decided to come out again, as well. But by the time she joined me, the soldiers were gone. On their leaving, they just admonished me not to take pictures in the border zone, for the sake of good form, I guess. I promised I wouldn’t, and they left. And that was it.However, Naprisca didn’t entirely trust me with my promise, I think. So she stayed with me, I suspect at least in part to keep an eye on me. But I decided to make good on my word to the soldiers this time. If nothing else, then for the reason that it was completely dark. And if you cross the border in West Africa after sundown then the only light you get is the starlight that we had. Or moonlight. Which we didn’t have. Or headlights of occasional passing vehicles. That was all. No electric lights. Not really the best conditions to take any pictures, no matter how enthusiastic you may feel about it.And when we had already been on the Malian side of the border for more than two hours, and no progress in the crossing business was in sight yet, a minibus from Burkinabe side pulled in. It turned out it too was on its way to Sikasso. Its passengers got out and its luggage, mysteriously, was being checked in short order. What secret did its driver share with Malian border police that our driver did not, I can’t say. I can only own up to it that I looked at them with an increasing envy.Some of the passengers noticed me and, friendly and communicative as Africans usually are, particularly upon seeing a white European tourist stranded in the middle of nowhere, they started chatting with Naprisca and me. And so, word by word, one young guy suggested we leave our bus and join them aboard their minibus and cut short our ordeal on the border. I liked the idea immediately. But Naprisca, for her part, harboured another one of those peculiar fears, this time against vans and minibuses as a species on the whole. Why exactly, I didn’t know, except she „had bad experiences“. Well, what can you say to that? That many people went through car crashes – which she had not, by the way, as her experience must have been of a different sort – lived to talk about it and, well, got in cars again? Yes, but there would always be another „yes, but“ from her. So even if I gently tried to persuade her to seize this unexpected opportunity, I was nevertheless half prepared to stay on if she couldn’t bring herself to overcome that fear.However, this time, when she weighed things against one another, even she conceded that her fears should give way to pragmatism. At least tonight. Therefore she reluctantly agreed to let the young guy inquire with the minibus driver if he would be willing to take us on. The minibus was full to the brim. But this was Africa. Even when the passenger vehicle is full, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be fuller if it would bring in some more cash. So after a nod from the driver, Naprisca and I hastily retrieved our luggage, tossed it into the minivan and somehow squeezed our way in.Nobody inside complained much. It had been crowded before the border. Two more people, not the fattest ones in the world, wouldn’t make the situation much worse. A European bunch would have raised the hell, I know. But Africans took it in stride and gracefully. The driver pocketed two thousand unexpected CFA francs and soon we were headed up on our way to Sikasso.Leaving the hapless „Diarra Trans“ bus on the border. Once in the minibus, neither Naprisca nor I would trade our newly acquired patch of floor inside the smaller vehicle with any of the passengers of the bus we had left still standing for anything in the world now.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257515539/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257515539/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257515539/tpod.html Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:05:59 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Koloko, Kènèdougou, Burkina Faso

My original plan had been based on the assumption that we would reach Sikasso in, say, four to five hours, find ourselves a hotel there and then still have enough time to explore the town. All the sources indicated Sikasso was not a place where you usually spend days on end. Unless you settle there, of course. So one afternoon would be enough. Possibly an hour or two to boot in the morning if necessary. And that would be all.But it wasn't going to be.As it turned out, I had hardly started learning things about Africa and one of the first lessons was time. By the time when according to my optimistic reckoning we would have been in Sikasso and already taken a pleasant stroll around the town, we only reached the border. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, without any visible indication that we were approaching border area, all of a sudden we came upon a check-point in the form of several metal barrels placed across the road to serve as a barrier to traffic. They were all painted in red and white, like Austrian flag. I suppose for the purpose of better visibility.There we were all told to leave the bus and only outside did I realise that we had just arrived at the Burkinabe side of the border.Two of those barrels on the road were placed at a somewhat larger distance from each other, but there was a long wooden pole resting with its opposite ends on each of them. Once the bus was empty, two guys removed the pole and the it passed slowly through. Only to stop some fifty metres up the road again.And we, the passengers from this overcrowded bus, were to go through the police check. By the roadside to the left there was a concrete building which served as the facility for the border police. So we formed a loose queue, went towards that building and had our documents checked by two guys standing at the entrance to it.The Burkinabe side of the border crossing is officially in Koloko, a small town – or village – which would in all likelihood be completely forgotten and godforsaken were it not located en route to Mali. I’m not entirely sure they have electricity there and I am absolutely certain they have no running water, except what they dig up from wells themselves. It is difficult to describe how poor the area is because most of us have no reference point for this kind of poverty. I may imagine that the largest source of income for local people is us, occasional cross-border passengers. They were there, clustered along the road in makeshift mud-and-straw shacks, peddling fruit, phone cards, refreshment drinks, occasionally cooking something.There was even a thing called restaurant in a small, dilapidated brick building, plastered only on the front side, with metal roof and eaves, propped up with crooked wooden poles which were nothing more than tree trunks with their branches cut off. It had two doors and no windows, a wobbly wooden table right outside and no customers. Our group didn’t bring them much luck.The Burkinabe official, dressed casually like any other local around, didn’t complicate matters much. He made sure to check everyone’s passport – or ID in case of some locals – but let us go just as easily. To my delight, the whole affair looked to run pretty smoothly. I liked that.However, there was more to come. We were not allowed to get back aboard the bus yet. Instead, we proceeded on foot until a few hundred metres up the road we came upon another bunch of red-and-white metal barrels. Our bus followed us lazily. This time nobody bothered with us. Instead, this seemed to be something of a bus check. Or at least I understood it as such. Naprisca didn’t explain much. But I guess she didn’t get everything, either. After all, for her, too, it was the first trip to Mali.Anyway, whatever had been going on here, didn’t last for too long and we were free to go. Again on foot, though. And to yet another check-point. This time around both the vehicle and passengers were checked. But on the whole, I can’t say we had much reason to complain. All three checks combined had hardly taken more than twenty minutes. That wasn’t so bad. Here at the last one, one by one, we entered another house, this time with uniformed officials and now my passport was finally stamped. Officially, after eight days, I was leaving Burkina Faso and now it was on to Mali.On foot, for starters.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257453471/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257453471/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257453471/tpod.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:36:30 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Orodara, Kènèdougou, Burkina Faso

Some two hours later we came to a town called Orodara. There, at the local bus station, we had a welcome stop-over of some fifteen minutes. After two hours in an overcrowded bus, with more passengers than it should have taken in the first place – now I knew what those plastic vessels in the aisle were meant for: people were sitting on them – I guess we thoroughly deserved it. With so many bodies tightly packed aboard, I was literally melting with trickles of sweat constantly running down my cheeks and neck. An odd window had been open during the ride, but almost everyone had pulled the curtains over, sheltering from the sun, so it didn't help much. But at least I had a feeling that with time it helped a bit with this strong and musty odour inside.Our „very good" Diarra Trans bus had no air-conditioner whatsoever.I was relieved when I was told we would be able to get off the bus and have a chance to stretch the legs for a while. And also, for all the early afternoon African heat, once out, the air was not stuffy any more and that, too, was a welcome bonus. Quite a few people used the opportunity to leave the bus. Even if not all. But Naprisca came out, as well. She was hungry so she wanted to buy something too eat. And she was not the only one. Actually, none of those who trust locally cooked street food in Africa should ever go hungry during trips like this. Bus station in Orodara was full of people selling all sorts of food, many of them cooking and frying it on the spot. There were several food stalls with smoking stoves and Naprisca picked and chose one selling mutton.Orodara itself is a town which I am not sure would be of much interest to travellers were it not situated on the National Route No.8, or main road between Bobo-Dioulasso and Bamako via Sikasso. „Lonely Planet“ fails to mention it altogether and an average tourist would therefore be pretty much excused thinking that there’s nothing there whatsoever. Having said that, though, with the developed cultivation of mangos and oranges in the area, as well as some other crops, they call it the fruit basket of Burkina Faso. And on top of all that, the town is the capital of Kénédougou Province. So in a way it all puts it on equal footing with Banfora.They say the town has a district hospital, a large market, a cinema, post office, town hall and two gas stations. So compared to Banfora, at least in terms of hospital and cinema, it has even more to offer. Unless I missed them back there. Only, it doesn’t seem to have natural assets that Banfora surroundings do.But then again, the better of two Orodara hotels is cracked up to be in any sense way above anything that Banfora has. Even Bobo-Dioulasso has only one dig, hotel „l’Auberge“, that beats best Orodara accommodation. So you ask yourself a logical question. If there’s really nothing there in Orodara, why on earth have they built themselves a hotel like that?That was one of the questions I was not going to find an answer to. Maybe I would have if my plans had included an overnight stay there. But they didn’t. All I had were fifteen minutes at and around bus station and then it was on to Sikasso.I had thought that the open windows in the bus during the ride from Bobo had helped air the inside and dispelled some of the stench. They had not. When I got back on board, I realised it had only been my nose adapting to the odour by dulling my sense of smell. The bus proudly stank as much as it had at the beginning of the trip and that was an extra included in the ticket price, free of charge. Well, my nose had adapted once, so it would again. And we moved on.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257342760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257342760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257342760/tpod.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:36:33 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

Bobo-Dioulasso, December 26, 2008 - FridayAs that guy yesterday had told us that the bus to Sikasso would leave at ten, with a significant qualification that it would only be „maybe", Naprisca and I showed up at O.Tra.F. bus terminal at nine. Even a bit earlier. I had gotten up early enough to have breakfast and make it to „Marina Market“ for some food, and we were on gare de routiere straight afterwards.And there, on the spot where we had bought our tickets the day before, there were two battered „Diarra Trans“ buses, one of them hopefully waiting to soon start to Sikasso. As usual elsewhere, O.Tra.F. bus terminal was already rather busy. There were people who were already selling things, then others who were travelling places and those who were apparently doing nothing. At what looked to be the Diarra Trans waiting spot, there didn't seem to be too many people yet. However, most significantly, there was one guy sitting at a wooden outdoors table, a toothpick in his mouth rolling from corner to corner, and he seemed to be a Diarra Trans employee. Naprisca went up straight to him and asked him when the bus was due to leave. He checked our tickets against some hand-written list and then – he didn’t know yet.Well, we were there. We were lucky to the extent that the bus had not left without us. And as to when it would really go, we could right now only hope it would be relatively on time.Now we had some time to kill on our hands. How long, no one knew exactly. So whatever we would do, it had to be nearby, so that we wouldn’t be in for any unpleasant surprises. Like missing the bus. Naprisca chose to sit in the shadow of the waiting area. I roamed around a bit, taking pictures when it wasn’t too conspicuous. I would shoot close-ups in secret, and wider angles, when no one would feel a target of my lens, openly. It worked perfectly. No one complained and everything went smoothly.Until I returned to Naprisca. I took a seat next to her, checking what I had shot, when one guy, not really at the waiting space around us, but ten or so metres away, sitting on a low wall, apparently one of those deadbeats with no clear purpose in life, at least right now, started demanding „authorisation“. Again.Now, I was familiar with the fact that not so long ago many things in Burkina Faso had been off limits to cameras. Some of them had been relatively easy to understand. Burkina was not an exception in not allowing people to photograph military installations, police buildings and so on. But bridges? Roads? Well, most of those silly restrictions were now lifted. Military installations and similar stuff were still off bounds, but that was OK. Most of tourists could live with that. Including myself.However, the notion of those restrictions must have still remained in heads of many local people who were unaware that Burkina had come a ways from those heavily restricted days. While not the paradigm of freedom yet, Burkinabe authorities were now much more relaxed in their attitude towards camera-toting tourists. Annoyingly enough, though, many of those self-styled street guardians, often only wasters and slobs, were completely oblivious to that. After one of those had accosted me the day before, I had to deal with another one now.When I heard him and got up, Naprisca urged me to stay where I was. But I assured her that everything would be fine. After all, not even once in my life had I engaged in a physical show-down. So there was absolutely no reason to finally start one now. However, I wouldn’t be bullied around. Particularly as no one knew how long we would be sitting around on O.Tra.F. If it was going to drag, I wanted to be able to do what I pleased in the meantime.But I was in a much better mood than yesterday afternoon. Besides, mosquitoes hadn’t bitten me much last night and that was another reason to start the day cheerfully. I wasn’t going to abuse anyone verbally today. I was just going to put up some bluff.I went over to the guy, followed by eyes of quite a few people around. I think he didn’t really expect me to do that. A bit less cocksure now that I was there, he looked at me unsure as to what I was going to do next.„Hello,“ I gave him a polite opening.He didn’t answer.„Do you speak English?“ I asked, absolutely certain that he would answer exactly as he did:„Non.“„Anyway,“ I marched on, undaunted. „What do you want?“He mentioned authorisation, again.I took out a pen and my little notebook from the backpack and asked:„What’s your name?“He looked at me, completely at a loss. So I dusted off one of those useful phrases from grammar school French classes which you don’t forget no matter how lazy you might have been back then:„Comment tu t’appelles?“„Pourqoi?“He was now on alert, sensing that the initiative of the moment, if he’d ever had one, was rapidly slipping out of his hands. My French was pretty much limited to such short one-liners and an odd word I had picked up here and there in Burkina so far. So I couldn’t put what I wanted to say in a fluent sentence. But I managed to convey my „intention“. Basically, I said that I needed his name, so I could forward it to my country’s embassy. Then the embassy would check his name against police files. And if he had no authority – or authorisation – to ask me for authorisation, the police would deal with him for pestering me in appropriate manner.Well, the fact that Croatia – according to my knowledge – had a proud tally of only one diplomatic mission on entire African continent, outside the Arab world, that is, was something he didn’t have to know. And even that shiny exception was a long way off, down in South Africa. It nevertheless served my purpose nicely and sounded serious enough. Just as I needed it.Certainly, the situation now turned completely around, guy refused to divulge his name. For the sake of good form and adequate impression, I put up a bit of a frown and pressed him some more. But he was stubborn. When I decided that my point was clear, I wagged my finger and said:„Then I suggest you’d better leave me alone.“The expression on his face was difficult to describe. People looked at us and I had a feeling the guy felt pretty awkward, wishing he had never attempted to assert any personal authority over me in the first place. But now it was too late. However, I offered an olive branch. Albeit in a most unusual manner:„Want me to take a picture of you?“ I asked with a broad smile. I don’t think he understood, but I pointed at my camera, too, so it was easy to catch my drift. I think my sudden request only confused him more. He refused.However, one of the guys among the bystanders who had been following the whole show, seemed to speak some English and said:„Take a photo of me!“ I turned to him. He was sitting with some friends on a stack of white sacks which were about to be loaded into one of the buses. Always ready to meet such a request, I aimed my camera at him and his buddies, and the moment later we were exchanging e-mail addresses. He told me he was Kafsy, a student, and his uncle was the owner of the „Diarra Trans“. I asked him whether the bus, which was being loaded right now was the one to Sikasso. He confirmed.„You go to Sikasso?“ he asked.„Yes, I do. I am going to Mali today.“He assured me that the bus was „very good“. Which I must admit I accepted only out of sheer politeness. Because the bus looked so rusty and run-down that „very good“ was one of the last attributes a western tourist would apply in a description of such a vehicle. Anyway, we had a nice chat and I promised him I would send him the picture as soon as I returned home. It would take a while, but I had every intention to keep my word on that one.Then his uncle, the owner personally, appeared from somewhere and we all shook hands like best friends. I asked him when the bus would leave. He didn’t offer any specific answers. It was all along the lines of „as soon as the stuff gets loaded“. And that was going to be „soon“. Well, I nodded and thanked him. After all, did it really matter so much?At one point during our wait I got on the bus to see what kind of the vehicle we would be having our today’s ride in. It was still empty, of course. Anyway, if it looked rickety from the outside, it looked slightly worse from the inside. Torn seat covers, dirty floor, a number of empty and soiled plastic vessels in which people usually sell gasoline or similar stuff placed in the aisle, and a pervasive odour of... well, pervasive stench, more to the point – that would be our „very good“ bus to Sikasso.But that too would be an experience of Africa. I was going to take it as such and one day I’d have a better feel, at least to a tiny extent, of what the life close to the ground on this continent really is. After all, we independent travellers are independent precisely because we won’t get sheltered from real life, aren’t we? How else can you claim you have seen and experienced a local life if you have hidden inside an air-conditioned, sleek and glossy 4x4 and never seen, say, a bus station like O.Tra.F? So, come to think of it, in a quirky way, I was looking forward to this bus ride.We departed 12:30.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257106839/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257106839/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/the_wayfarer/10/1257106839/tpod.html Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:44:54 -0500 World through my eyes: Burkina Faso & Mali, December 2008 & January 2009

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Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

In terms of Christmas, arrival in Bobo-Dioulasso changed nothing. Yes, some shops were closed, but not any of those selling things in the streets. It was banks and Marina Market that closed up and I think I can safely claim that it didn't change the life of most of local population in the slightest. They hardly ever set foot in either of those anyway. So for them a day off there probably went largely unnoticed. Everywhere else it was just another regular day.Naprisca and I were not up to much. The only really important thing we needed to do was to purchase bus tickets for the next stage of our trip. Next morning we were leaving Bobo and heading for the border. After a week or so in Burkina Faso, it was now off to Mali for us. Most of the people going from Burkina Faso to Mali, and also the other way around for that matter, took connections that usually linked Ouaga and Bamako, the Malian capital, passing through Bobo along the way, but also through the town of Ségou in Mali. It was a long ride, easily taking ten hours, but I suspected, and rumours seemed to bear it out, that it routinely stretched to twelve. Even fourteen. And no one considered it much of a delay. Also, looking at the map of the area, it seemed that this particular route wasn’t exactly the short cut. If the map was to be believed, then the shorter way, even considerably so, would be from Bobo to Bamako by way of Sikasso, another town on the Malian side, but just beyond the border,. On top of it, I did plan to pass through Ségou in a later stage of my trip. So it made perfect sense to me to take a different route now and see a bit more of the country. And if I would cut some corners along the way, all the better. So that was our plan.The thing we did first, though, was to check in the hotel and leave our things there. „Le Cocotier", where we had stayed on our first night in Bobo, wasn’t fully booked any more, so we took a room there again. Then, as soon as we were through with formalities, we went out. Naprisca claimed not to be hungry as she had been munching on some stuff in the bus. So we decided to first get those tickets out of the way and only then go look for a place to eat. On the face of it, our task seemed pretty straightforward. „Lonely Planet“ guide had two bus terminals clearly marked on its Bobo town map, so basically we were going to pick the one with better buses, maybe TCV in this case, buy those tickets and that would be it.Except it wasn’t going to be that simple.TCV was there all right, exactly where I expected it to be. A bit uninspiring in appearance with the ticket window more fitting town jails in old western movies than its present purpose, they did sell the tickets to Mali. However, not to Sikasso. We could buy tickets to Bamako, but via Ségou. And Sikasso? No way. And who was selling tickets to there? The lady inside the dark, unlit office behind the iron window bars calmly shrugged. She had no idea.In truth, the reason why I picked TCV first was very pragmatic. It was simply closer to our hotel than the other one listed in „Lonely Planet“, the STMB. I figured why walk more if we could have just a relatively short, leisurely stroll up the Avenue de la République and pack this thing in there. TCV was, namely, in a block literally just off the Avenue itself. Now, this new turn of events forced us to go to the STMB. As a matter of fact, I didn’t mind. I always liked walking and just because I was now in Africa where temperatures were higher didn’t change a thing. Naprisca was a bit less overjoyed, but tickets had to be bought, so it wasn’t like we had a lot of choice anyway.Also, it gave me an opportunity to see a bit more of Bobo. Not that any of the streets and avenues we passed were distinct in any particular way. Yes, after a while we came upon this Place du Paysan with a roundabout and an African-style sculpture of a guy on top of a square frustum, smack in the middle of it. The guy was standing up there on this truncated pyramid, his back turned to the direction we had come from, holding what to me looked like some agricultural tool in his right hand, maybe a hoe. And in a country where squares with monuments were only a bit more frequent than spells of cold weather, Place du Paysan certainly deserved a few pictures. But other than that, all those other streets, Avenue <i>de la Liberté and Avenue du Gouverneur Binger, hardly offered anything other than what I had already seen in Burkina Faso. It meant many colourful characters and a continuous outdoors market, but that about wrapped it up.Well, yes, STMB bus terminal was on the Avenue du Gouverneur Binger. But much as by now I placed all our hopes on it, the STMB had no connection to Sikasso, either. To Bamako, yes, but same as TCV, only through Ségou. Suddenly, we had a problem on our hands. The third bus terminal I knew about, the Rakieta, didn’t even go over to Mali. So who did?Same as at the TCV, the guy at the STMB had no idea. And didn’t seem to care much, either. He even floated a proposition that there were no buses going to Sikasso from Bobo whatsoever. Now, that claim ponged to me. Naprisca was even halfway ready to buy it, but I wasn’t going to be sold on it. Cynical part of me waved the red flag right away, saying „this guy just wants to sell you his tickets“. So when Naprisca translated to me what he had said, I shook my head and said with indignation:„That’s not true.“She translated my answer back to him. He didn’t argue. Of course. We both knew he was thinking things up. But it also meant that now he wasn’t interested in the slightest in offering us any clues as to where else we could go. As far as he was concerned, we were a closed chapter in his life. A footnote on a page he’d already leafed over.Well, not everyone is helpful. Some people prefer profit over friendliness, even if that profit in all likelihood wouldn’t end up in their own pockets. But for every character like that, there are at least five who are more than happy to lend you a hand. So even here at the STMB in no time we had a lively public panel with a number of locals as to where one could really buy a bus ticket to Sikasso. Each one of them claimed to know the best and, as expected, each one offered an entirely different suggestion. As Naprisca and I couldn’t offer our two cents’ worth on the subject – what we could contribute was worth even less than that - we basically just waited for one of the guys to muscle his way out of the discussion and claim the parliamentary victory. When one eventually had, and he conveniently turned out to be a taxi driver – was it entirely by chance? – he even offered us a ride there. Wherever „there“ was going to be. Again, we didn’t seem to have much choice.And just before we got into his car, we had a small incident. I had, in fact. Nothing serious, but enough to drive me up the wall in an instant. The thing is, all along I had my camera hanging off of my neck. Just as usual. So that I could take a picture should I see something interesting. But you can’t really do two things properly at the same time, so now while we were on about finding a bus company to take us to Sikasso, I didn’t think about pictures much. They were simply not on my mind. My camera was just dangling on my chest. That was all. However, it didn’t stop one local guy from feeling himself called and, totally unprovoked, getting down on me, kind of protecting... what? I had no idea. Some kind of non-existent regulations, I guess. Either way, he was for a while standing at the sidelines, no one even paid any attention to him, and then he angrily and pretty rudely started demanding „authorisation“, or asking whether I had one. To take pictures, I mean. For a moment I just couldn’t connect the dots. My mind was elsewhere and what this guy was driving at simply made no sense at first. Not only because he was speaking in French.But then, after Naprisca had translated it for me and his self-righteous initiative of upholding an imaginary „law“ settled in, and especially after – for a change – in this particular case I hadn’t even been taking any pictures, I went spare at him. After less than successful search for bus tickets so far, this ridiculous thing just didn’t sit all that well with me. Inevitably, I cut loose on him – fortunately or unfortunately in English and Croatian – saying things which are sometimes best left unwritten. I’ll only say you won’t necessarily find any of them in textbooks on good manners. I explained him in no uncertain terms where I’d be all too happy to stick up both him and his „authorisation“ at this very moment. In cases like this you don’t need to speak someone’s native language to make your point clear anyway.He was taken aback. I guess he just didn’t expect a reaction like this. But clearly he caught me in a wrong moment. So I couldn’t help it.The guys who had been discussing with us where we could find a bus company to Sikasso up until a minute before were still there and intervened. They were all aware that this time around there was absolutely no reason to tell me off in any way and that this was a completely needless provocation. So they sought to calm me down and to keep that self-proclaimed guardian of public law and order at a safe distance. He was trying to argue some, this time with them. But I had a strong suspicion that by now it was only an attempt on his part to save some face. And while they were at it, our taxi driver opened the doors for us and we left.He was shaking his head, commenting on the incident, almost offering apologies for that guy over here. Naprisca got another confirmation that people shouldn’t be trusted. And I was just seething for a while longer. But by the time we reached another bus terminal, this one called O.Tra.F., whatever it stood for, he had evaporated from my thoughts.Now, when you are in Africa, you should always keep in mind that standards are different here than back at home, wherever your home may be. But even by African standards, this O.Tra.F. bus terminal was pretty much at the bottom of the ladder. Dirtier than any I’d seen so far, ticket offices located in disorderly placed, run-down concrete shacks, rickety, battered and rusty mini buses being only vehicle fleet to show for, that was O.Tra.F. Naprisca was frowning. And me? Well, I would certainly have preferred a bus giving out an impression of a reliable transport means. At least on the face of it. Which was nowhere near the case with those few we could see there. But I wouldn’t shrink back. This was Africa, I’d come to see it and, after all, wasn’t I in principle always making it a point to get as close to the local life as I possibly could as a foreigner? I was. So this was a good chance to do it.„Shall we buy tickets here?“ Naprisca asked me. For a moment I had a feeling she wouldn’t mind if I suggested we go back to STMB or TCV and buy one of those through tickets to Bamako.„Yes,“ I said.Well, that was it, then. It turned out we could find a connection to Sikasso here, indeed. So, even if everything looked absolutely seedy, and quite a bit questionable – if I wouldn’t use a heavier description here – I decided to go ahead with it. After all, it was my vacation. I couldn’t get too lost, no matter what. So Naprisca took over with her French and in an obscure company called „Diarra Trans“ finally bought us two tickets for tomorrow. What time? In the morning. When?„Ten,“ the guy said. And then added:„Maybe.“Maybe? What was that supposed to mean? Was it ten? Or not?It was pretty clear he had no idea. But it was also obvious we had no way of obtaining any more reliable information for the moment. All we could do was show up early enough tomorrow and count on God to help us along with some good luck.Well, at least we had those tickets. And that too was something.Some kids gathered around us asking me for a „cadeau“, or a present. After all, I was a white foreigner there, wasn’t I? However, you can’t give a present to one kid – or adult, as in general they were not above asking me for it, either – and tell others you have nothing for them. And in order to give everyone something, you’d have to be a walking ATM. Which very few of us are, no matter how „blanche“ – or white – we are. Besides, whoever travelled around a bit has long learned that begging shouldn’t really be encouraged. It may appear callous, but after you give it a thought, it makes sense. So I had to ignore those kids and we left the station.And now, it was finally time to eat something.Taxi got us back downtown. As I have already said, neither of us was particularly interested in exploring the local restaurant scene. We had eaten in „l’Entante“ once, so it was perfectly OK for both of us to go there again.But before that Naprisca wanted to get changed. So we first returned to the hotel. I knew by now that it didn’t take exactly the same amount of time for her to get changed as it did for me. In other words, I now might have as long as an hour off. And not far from the hotel, five minutes on foot at most, there was the Grand Mosque of Bobo. As Naprisca wasn’t precisely dying to visit it – even if, to be honest, I knew she wouldn’t mind to join me if I suggested – it was a perfect opportunity to go there without bothering her. She asked me to „be careful“ and when I promised I would, I also promised I wouldn’t take too long. After all, this Grand Mosque was so near to the „Le Cocotier“ hotel that I couldn’t imagine anything to keep me away that long.Practically as soon as I was out on the Place de la Revolution that the „Le Cocotier“ hotel is situated on, I could see the conical towers of the Grande Mosquée of Bobo-Dioulasso. The mosque was situated just down the Rue du l’Imam Sakidi Sanou, a street connecting directly on the Place de la Revolution. Really just a stone throw away.This mosque was the first building I saw that was a representative of sub-Saharan, or Sahel style mud architecture. I had seen pictures of a few and I was expecting to see some of them later into my trip. This one in Bobo was the first one.Built out of mud, its entire façade was full of protruding wooden struts. In a way it looked almost like a hedgehog with its spines ready to fend off an enemy attack. Except they expected no attacks any time soon there and those spines were never meant for that in the first place. This being a mud structure, the Grande Mosquée is supposed to routinely undergo new plastering every now and then in some regular intervals. So whenever they do it, those struts serve as scaffolding during the works. However, from what I could see, the most recent outer layer didn’t quite look like mud. It was more like cement to me. I would think that somebody decided this was the way of progress. I’m not entirely sure they were right, and I am absolutely certain they were wrong in terms of authenticity and cultural and architectural value.The mosque was built in 1893, so it was a relative newcomer, but even as such it looked older than the Catholic cathedral we had seen several days earlier.When I got there, the sun was about to go down and a handsome crowd of locals gathered around. I suppose they were preparing for their evening prayer. I took my pictures unbothered and no one pestered me with those ridiculous “authorisations". The people were friendly and well-behaved in every manner. There were scores of motor-cycles there, quite a few parked cars and all in all it looked as if a good deal of social life was revolving around this particular spot. There were no women around. Some of the guys took out their mats, or carpets, and were about to go down on their knees in the typical Islamic fashion.Knowing that, as a rule, non-Muslims were not allowed into mosques in these parts, I didn’t even try to go in. The outside was more than interesting anyway. A few friendly youths in their twenties approached me, asking where I was from. They didn’t speak English much, but the few words they knew, and what little French I had been picking up during my week in this country ensured that we still had a nice chat and several good laughs along the way. One of the guys, with a rastafarian hairdo, offered to take me for a walk in the Kibidwe district, historical area of the town, just across the street from the mosque. I was really tempted to go, but Naprisca was waiting for me in the hotel. Or maybe wasn’t waiting yet, probably still being busy with her make-up and stuff, but would be waiting soon if I hung out with local guys for too long. Besides, knowing her, she’d get worried in no time, as well. And knowing me, I might really get stuck longer than planned. So, much as I was sorry to do so, I had to decline the offer. I could only hope that one day I’d get another opportunity for it. I had another round of handshakes with the guys, and then got back to the hotel.Naprisca was ready to go. As already agreed upon, now we went to the „L’Entente“ restaurant.While we were waiting there for our meals to arrive, a guy selling some local handicraft products came to our table. There was no one in the restaurant but us. So we were the only possible target of his efforts. He showed us some neat figures and masks and I must admit that they all looked great. I meant to buy one or two souvenirs anyway, one for me and one for my sister, and those elegant and beautiful things the guy was showing us were probably as good as any I would find during my trip. So why not buy them right away?I picked a mask and an ebony figure. Naturally, the guy first tried to charge me some ridiculous price. In the minds of local people you’re a white man and as such you’ve got all the money in the world. So the way they see it, you’re a legitimate game. But you know it and you haggle to the extent that you know. Of course, it was all taking place in a very friendly atmosphere and I guess we both had fun along the way. After a while I came down to ten thousand CFA francs for the two items. The guy agreed, but eventually asked me if I could give him two thousand more. The way he asked me that, I just had no heart to refuse him. He was either such a good actor or needed those two thousand CFA francs so badly that it showed on his face. Whatever it was, he deserved them in either case. I guess my heart’s sometimes simply soft. Besides, it was Christmas, and I thought to myself „two thousand in local money is nothing for me“. I just couldn’t be hard on him on Christmas.Or maybe I wouldn’t have been anyway. Well, be that as it may, I paid him twelve and he happily went away, joining his companion who had been waiting for him until we had closed the deal. They chattered with big smiles on their faces and disappeared into the night.„Do you know what he says?“ Naprisca asked me.„No. What did he say?“„He told his companion that because of Christmas, the business was dead. But the God sent him a customer and now they’ll be able to eat today.“When I heard that, I really felt humbled. All I could do is I thank God myself for helping me have a good sense to know the right moment when to buy these two figures. If two people were now able to eat because I had bought a mask and a figurine, than it was as much of a blessing for me as it was for them. It was good to know I had made two people happy on Christmas.But some news was good, and some less so. After the dinner, Naprisca made her regular phone call home and the moment she was done with it, I could clearly read on her face that something had gone wrong. When I asked her what the problem was, at first she hesitated to answer. But I insisted to know and she couldn’t keep it from me forever anyway.„My father says I must return home on January 2.“„Why?!“„I don’t know.“„But he told you you could come with me,“ I protested.„Yes,“ she nodded. „But he says „they“ told him I must come back.“„They“. Hmmm... It was difficult to argue with „them“. As „they“ seemed to have given her the permission to join me, they were now revoking it. Honestly, I felt as if I had just had a surprising cold shower. But Naprisca took it much harder then me. When we returned to the hotel room, she started to cry. So the natural optimist in me had to seek to paint the picture in rosier colours.„Why must you go back?“ I asked her.„I need to go to Ghana,“ she said.Yes, they planned to move to Ghana in March. The whole family. They had told me as much. But I was not of an impression that it was so urgent that she would have to cut her trip with me short and rush back home. So I simply asked:„But what’s so urgent about it?“„I don’t know,“ she still looked inconsolable.„Look,“ I said. „I think that whatever you need to do in Ghana is not so urgent that you need to rush headlong into it.“„I know. But my father says they told him so.“„OK,“ I tried. „But we still have one week to go until then, right?“„Yes.“„So why don’t you ask your father when you next call him to ask „them“ if you could stay longer? I am sure they will say you can stay.“„I don’t know.“„Well, you can ask, can you?“„Yes, I can.“No one knew at this point what „they“ would say. Least of all me. I had no idea who „they“ were in the first place, and let alone how her father got his answers and directions from them. But this idea of asking them again soothed Naprisca and she stopped crying. She even fell asleep like a baby while I was writing my diary and taking stock of the day. So if nothing else, even that little could be termed as a minor success.She was a great company and a great help with her French. It was certainly simpler having her with me. And much more interesting. I was hopeful she’d stay all the way.But come what may, eventually I’d do just fine, I knew.
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