Memories from Mali part 1

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  Segou, Mali
Thursday, November 9, 2006

Happy Holidays! Over here we're saying Happy Harmattan! Because it's that time of year again when the wind blows the Sahara sands down south. This year it came earlier and it's a lot dustier than last year. It seems we had just left Ghana at the tail end of the rainy season on our way to visit our PCV friend, Milagros, in Mali. When we returned the weather had changed dramatically. The days were much hotter, but the nights and mornings cool like late fall. (Even the leaves are falling off some of the trees making us reminisce our favorite season back home.) The nights have actually gotten so cold that we had to cover up with blankets, which we didn't previously have, until we went to Mali. As you might have guessed this update is about our adventures to, in, around and back again from Mali. Enjoy.
 
To overland to Mali from Ghana, you must first overland through Burkina Faso. To do that you need a visa and your WHO card with all your immunization records. And it would also help if you can speak French. We had everything done except the last bit about speaking French. We even met up with a French major PCV friend in Ghana to give us a crash course before we left. All we got out of that was "No par-lay vu Français."
 
Well, on with the story. The trip started out quite disastrous, leaving the three of us (we were traveling with our friend Sumit) wondering if we should still go. With our freshly stamped passports in hand, we marched up to the ticket counter at the STC (or greyhound equivalent, of sorts) station in Accra. We purchased our one-way (24 hour) ticket to Ougadougou (Ouga for short, pronounced Wah-gah), capital of Burkina Faso, and boarded the bus.  More passengers boarded the bus, but they had the same seat number that we had on our ticket. Some confusion, then bright idea: let's tell the man checking our tickets before we board that some people have the same seat number. Bad idea. As it turned out, STC double-booked tickets, thinking that there were two buses going to Ouga. There were two buses, but the first one left at the designated time of departure, however, and that meant it left empty! So that also meant that the three of us who actually realized there was a mistake and told someone about, were punished. Not really punished; we weren't kicked off the bus, but we certainly were tormented for the entire ride. We had to give up our seats and move to the back of the bus. Sitting in the back of the bus was a very obese woman, who was easily taking up two seats by herself. And they wanted to squeeze three more of us in the back! It was the most uncomfortable ride of our lives. We were squished together for hours on end, our legs went numb, and to top it all off Sayward got carsick (luckily we had a plastic bag!). As the journey wore on, the fat lady started dozing off, slumping her entire 400-pound mass over who ever was sitting next to her at the time (we had to take turns). Once she must have been having a bad dream that startled her so much, for when she awoke she clocked Sayward in the chin with her fist.
 
What was supposed to have been a 24-hour bus ride turned into more like a 30-hour bus ride. After a four-hour delay in a border town and the frenzy of a border crossing and another couple hours of dull and depressing Burkina landscape, we finally reached Ouga. Only to board yet another bus! This time the journey was more manageable. We had met a very nice man who had been on the Accra to Ouga bus and he helped us get to the next bus station. Now on our way to Bobo, supposedly a five hour ride. We had been going at a pretty good pace, we had our own seats, we stopped at a rest stop for refreshments, the sun was setting and the moon was rising; it was smooth sailing... then WABAM!! The bus hit a donkey cart! Killed one of the donkeys instantly, entrails spilled out on the side of the road. We found the kid who was driving the cart a good 20 feet from the cart, lying amid all the firewood that had gone flying through the air with him. He knew his name and could move his legs. Thank God. Sumit, an EMT back home, checked his neck, but didn't want to move him. All the passengers were off the bus checking out the scene. Chris and I wandered over to the see the damage to the front of the bus. One huge 10 foot long branch was jammed into the grill just above the left headlight. Not much later, the second donkey lay down and died too, we think from shock. Within an hour a second bus came to pick some of the passengers, as many as they could fit in with its own passengers. We decided to wait for the next one, instead of cramming on the first bus. Our second rescue bus broke down, just outside of town. But we were lucky to get a taxi, after fumbling in French and agreeing on a price with the driver. He took us to a hotel where we could order a fried egg sandwich on a baguette, take a cold shower and sleep under a mosquito net for the night.     
 
After a good nights sleep, we were ready to start the day off right. Wrong. We missed the first bus to Segou, Mali (7am). The tickets had actually sold out the night before. We had to wait until the next bus (2pm) was leaving. But it wasn't all that bad. Bobo Dioulasso (Bobo for short) was a cool town. We wandered around for a few hours, poking around the shops, munching on pastries and sipping coffee. Sumit and Sayward checked out the Grand Marques (Grand Market) while Chris relaxed at the station waiting for the bus. We bought more baguette sandwiches with meat and cucumbers inside for lunch. Well after 2pm we boarded and pulled out of the station. Another round of border crossings between Burkina and Mali, proved to be more tedious than the last one. We stopped three times on the Burkina side and two times on the Mali side, flashed our passports, rummaged through our luggage, and filled out visitor forms. Meanwhile, about 10 or so passengers without visas went running through the bush, slipping through the border undetected. The bus picked them up on the Mali side about a mile down the road. By now it was starting to get dark. We stopped along the roadside where women were selling baguette and meat sandwiches (we couldn't get enough of these baguettes!) and bought a couple for dinner. Sumit wasn't hungry and as he waited for us on the bus, one of the renegades who sneaked across the border approached him. He asked Sumit if he wanted to buy some cocaine.     
Of course, Sumit said no, but we wondered why he didn't ask us too!
 
Back on the bus after a quick bite to eat, we were on the road for only a short time before we stopped yet again. This time at a police barrier. We thought that if police barriers were anything like the ones in Ghana, the driver would just pay the police a bribe so he wouldn't waste our time looking through the cargo and we'd be on our way. As it turned out, however, the Malian police are quite a bit cleverer than their Ghanaian counterparts. Their extortions came not from blatant bribery, but from fear of banditry. Instead of the driver giving the police officer a lump sum of money to expedite the him searching our luggage, each and every passenger had to pay a police officer 100 CFA (about 20 cents) to escort our bus all the way to Segou. The threat of bandits on the open road in Africa is as real as it was in the old American West during the Gold Rush. It's happened several times in Ghana, and Peace Corps Volunteers are advised not to travel at night. But here we were on a bus well after dusk in Mali with bandits on the loose. Chris and Sumit didn't really seem that concerned; they even dozed off on the bus! After all we had an armed police officer on board and we were supposed to be traveling in a caravan with other buses and cargo trucks. But that didn't ease Sayward's mind in the least! She was on the edge of her seat every time the bus even slowed down to go over a speed bump. Once the bus came to a complete stop. Outside the moon was bright and the landscape was clearly visible. A few small mud or concrete houses and scrub brush dotted the area where we stopped. It would have been a very serene sight if it weren't for why we stopped. The police officer stepped off the bus and fired a blank into the air. It made Sayward jump, but then Chris told her that it was just for theatrics. No bandits terrorized us that night. Maybe it was because they heard about the armed police officers on board. Or maybe there really weren't any bandits and it was just a ploy to get some extra cash. Either way, we were safe and made to Segou, Mali by 11pm, exhausted but excited to finally be at our destination.
 
We rang our friend Milagros from the bus station office, got directions and found a taxi driver to take us to the Hotel Savanne to meet her. Despite our exhaustion, we stayed up until 3am talking with Milagros and munching on the snacks she had for us.
 
Next day, refreshed and eager to see a different part of West Africa, we headed out, grabbed some breakfast and went down to the banks of the Niger River. Milagros had reserved a pinasse (covered canoe with a motor) that would take us up the Niger to a little fishing village of Markala. We loaded up rented bikes that we would later use to get from Markala to Milagros' village of Tougou. Then we lounged under the low canopy of the pinasse for the three-hour pleasure cruise. It was the perfect way to start our vacation in Mali, especially after the excruciatingly long journey it took us to get there. When we first started out, the pinasse driver crossed the river to a small Bozo fishing village thinking that he would pick up more passengers and maybe someone's goods to take to a market upriver. But instead he picked up a generator, stereo, coal pot and tea set, a watermelon and a teenaged boy who would be his mate. We'll always remember our first taste of Mali as sweet juicy watermelon and bittersweet mint tea. The first sounds of Mali were of Salif Keita's mesmerizing voice and strumming over the stereo on the pinasse. And the first sights were of life along the Niger River. It was as relaxing as it sounds.
 
There's a lot more to this story, so tune in next time for Memories of Mali part 2.
 
Hope everyone is well and warm!
 
Peace and blessings,
Sayward & Chris
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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