1. Chimps!
2. Mum at the cotton tree (center of Freetown)
3. My gross burnt leg before I made it to the hospital
4. Gold panning ladies. This is where your gold comes from.

What's been going on

1. Sunshine looks like obama, right?
2. We went to Bumpeh to visit Salifu, a kid i met in November who has had a really crappy life...he's a disabled orphan, and lived for 7 years on the streets of Ftown, dragging himself around with his arms. He'd fallen through the cracks, but this British guy I met set him up with a small room and school fees, so now he's fairly self-sufficient, and has a life. We brought him an Obama tshirt because we knew it would make him a rock star in the village.
3. Kids in Bumpeh excited by white people with cameras
4. MORFA's trees got eaten by locusts while I was in Mali. Still trying to sort out what should have been/should be done. The leaves will grow back, so it's not disasterous...yet.
5. Moringa Pioneers! These T shirts were requested and eagerly anticipated by MORFA, and man were they happy to get them. T shirts matter here. Actually, as I walked around Koidu that day, people yelled 'MORFA!' and gave the thumbs up, so that's cool.

Pays Dogon

Eventually, we made it to Dogon country! We got a guide at a hotel in Bandiagara, the place where most people set out from. Ibrahim (aka 'Pygmy') has one of the driest senses of humour I've ever encountered, and that is exceptionally rare to find in Africa. Like, crazy rare. So, that was enjoyable, and he did his job well, but I think he was super-tired of showing tourists around, frankly. Fair enough! He gave me a turban and I have him a necklace I made, so we're bff now.

We did 4 days and 3 nights, about 40 km of trekking along the escarpment- mum even climbed it (not that she had a choice)! Dogon country was amazing- the landscapes, architecture...but the culture was a bit of a low point for me. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but hear me out! Maybe it's just the way Ibrahim explained things, but he kept describing this really misogynist culture that revolves around jealousy and deceit. He told us all these stories about how people are selected for human sacrifice (tricked into it!), how disgusting and impure women are in Dogon culture (we bleed, so are obviously pure evil and should be treated as such), and the many different ways people can get ostracized from and/or enslaved in Dogon society. All this, while every. single. fucking. person. we met along the way asked us for a 'cadeau'. Hundreds and hundreds of people every single day came up to us, kids, grown ups, elders, men, women, other, with their palms outstretched saying "madame, cadeau!" "donne moi ton bouteille!" "donne moi un bonbon!", and literally grabbaing at our stuff- I had to smack an old lady's hand who was trying to steal my water bottle! That aspect was geniunely upsetting. Not because I can't handle being asked for things, but because I am very ashamed of everyone, self included, who has been part of the process by which an entire culture has integrated demanding inconsequential gifts from visitors into their daily lives. I get it, but I don't like it.

This gentleman describes it well: http://www.paulstravelblog.com/2009/01/monsieur-cadeau.html.

But back to the Dogon landscapes...wow. Truly some of the most amazing I've ever seen.

Timbuktu

Boy in Timbuktu with a watermelon, and toubab in a wagon.

With this behind us, we headed up to Timbuktu, expecting...something sort of scary. The canadian embassy has Timbuktu at the highest level of warning, though we couldn't (and can't) really figure out why...some stuff has gone down waaaay out in the north of the country, and in neighbouring Mauritania, but that's days and days from Timbuktu. Nevertheless, with every western country having issued a terror warning, a good half of the tourists we met in the south weren't chancing it, which ultimately meant that we had a wonderfully hassle-free time up there...I wanted to stay! Not only very few tourists, but the touts (vendors- VERY aggressive here in Mali) weren't bothering with the piddly few of us who were there. Timbuktu is funny, because it's so legendary, and yet it's really sort of nothing-y...not beautiful, not a lot to see...but lots of history. We saw some Bella campements, and understanding what the current situation is really between the Tuareg and the Bella is of interest to me. The Bella are the black Africans who have traditionally been slaves of the lighter skinned (Berber-y) Tuareg, and though slavery is officially abolished in Mali (but not that long ago...), all signs point to the Bella still being an enslaved and (obviously) marginalized people.

This travel advisory for Timbuktu is a hot topic in Mali right now, as to most people here, including the long-term western residents, it's completely overblown. People opine loudly and constantly about it. True enough- it's high season, and there are very few tourists about- hotels, guides, the whole country is losing money. There is even an advisory against people attending the Festival au Desert! We have had hotels to ourselves some nights, and rarely shared campements with others in Dogon country. One day, leaving the town of Djenne, we took a bashee (pickup truck with benches in the back) with 12 other whiteys, and they are the same ones we've run into all over the country (the capital, Bamako, excepted)! There are more tourists about, of course, but relatively few in what is purported to be the most touristed country in W Africa. I can't really have an educated opinion on the advisory, as I don't know the behind-the-scenes of the risks, but I have to say that I think a high-level terror advisory is a bit much based on what I've seen, heard and experienced here.

Kirsten vs the Dogon

A guide for Dogon country (you need one) was recommended to me by a Canadian friend who did a One Sky internship in Mali; I'd been corresponding the guide (Dra) via email for a few weeks, and once we got close to where he works out of, I called him to meet. He asked me to come meet him at the hotel he was staying at, rather than coming to my hotel. This is an odd thing to request, as it was after dark and we'd just arrived in town...I said no, you can come to me, or we'll meet tomorrow- he started to get strangely pushy and aggressive about it all. The owner of the hotel we were staying at caught wind of the conversation (gregarious and take-no-shit german lady), and got on the phone with him, basically saying 'wtf, who is this, why are you asking my guests to go to a different hotel'...and then all hell broke loose. Seems Jutta (the proprietress) and Dra have a history, and long story short, Dra chased us down the street, into a restaurant, threatened Jutta's life, and told us that if we didn't take him as a guide, we'd better watch our backs in Dogon country. To which the obvious response was "we're not going into the desert alone with you, you crazy mofo!". He didn't understand. I suspect he was drunk or high or something, but maybe he's just crazy.

Within hours, the news of this altercation was all over town, Dra being very certain that he'd been cheated out of customers by Jutta. I ended up having to speak to the head of the Dogon in Sevare in a sort of tribal justice kind of way that night, and mum and I went to bed very freaked out. That night, we decided that terror warning or not, we should get the hell out of dodge and go to Timbuktu! Funny the way that logic worked, because previously we'd figured it wasn't worth the risk, but suddenly it seemed like the safest place to be! The next day we booked our plane tickets and I started corresponding with hotels upcountry under the name of Kirsten- news travels, we were told, and every Dogon was going to be on the lookout for Michelle and her mother. WTF?!

Happily, in the afternoon of the next day, we were tracked down by another high-up Dogon guy (the 'head guide', A.G.), who extracted our side of the story. I emailed him a thanks for hearing us out, and he emailed me to let me know that we were 'cleared', and now free to go to Dogon country. Yay! Thanks, Dogon kangaroo court.

Toubab Paul in the cooking pot

One of the best moments I've had in Mali occured yesterday at the bus station in Segou, on our way back to Bamako...there was a TV screen in the (outdoor) waiting area, showing a Malian soap. Malian soaps are as awesome as Nigerian and Ghanaian ones- that is to say, downright amazing. Low budget, ridiculous, and completely hilarious. The soap yesterday centred on the sotry of Paul, a toubab (white guy) who had lost his fiancee somewhere in Mali, and was going through all sorts of cacicatured 'African' situations in order to find her, including being captured by 'savages' and put into a cooking pot! The absurdity of the plotline, mixed with the hilarity to the local people of watching it with two white ladies, topped off by everyone's falling into hysterics every two seconds at how funny it was, made for what was basically a waiting room full of people exchanging no words, but laughing their asses off together to the point of crying for a good 45 minutes. Good times.

Kira Salak and Timbuktu

First, this article (this woman!)- amazing : http://www.kirasalak.com/Mali.html. The end, especially, but read the whole thing, there is no chance you'll regret it.

Second- Mali has been eventful, and I'll compile the events in about a week to post(there will probably be even more by then!). Would it be a ridiculously obvious statement to say that it's very different here than in Salone, than in Ghana, than in the Gambia? Perhaps, but I hadn't anticipated it to this degree, as w Africa is so often referred to as a whole. The Mali Empire, Ashanti Kingdom, Gold Coast &etc having overlapped so much historically, to consider differences across modern boundaries seems colonial. Maybe it is, but it's also real...definitely real.

Mali has not been exactly friendly to us so far. I could see it being described as a friendly place, as there are always scads of smiling people wanting to talk to us, but I don't consider it to fit my definition of friendly, because there is no interest in making connections, sharing humanity, being friends. Quite the opposite, in fact- the superficial mask of smiles covering the underlying desperation to separate me from my money makes the situation seem really menacing to me. The touts here are agrressive, they don't stop when I ask them to, and it scares me sometimes. This happens in Sierra Leone too- large men will try to block my path to force me to buy from them or whatnot, but there, the sophistication of the technique is undeveloped, so that I can raise an eyebrow and smile, or even scowl and say "make way!", and the fellow will grin, apoligise and move. Here, not so much- the tourist trade is developed, there are cartels in each town, and touts will phone each other to discuss in which direction we're walking, and what kind of interactions have taken place thus far. It's about extracting money from the tourists, in whatever way, at whatever reasonable cost (malleable definition of reasonable!). Whioh is fair enough- I blame myself for the interactions more than anything (if there is blame to be allotted, which is really a bit dramatic), as I loathe the idea of being a tourist- entering towns and villages for a day or two, taking a million photos and leaving nothing behind(except some empty water bottles)- and I should have remembered that in making these travel plans. I wouldn't logically expect the local reaction to us to be any different- I'd probably treat us just as disrespectfully were the tables turned. [let me amend and say that I'm generalizing, of course, and there have been some really kind, truly friendly people along the way- unfortunately their numbers are minuscule compared to the other.]

I've realized that I really do appreciate hiding behind my volunteer/NGO worker veil, letting it impart some legitimacy to my presence in Africa. I feel like a straight up asshole traveling around like this, I feel I'm being treated like one too, and I don't think I'll do it again (be a tourist in Africa, or maybe anywhere in the developing world, or maybe anywhere in the world). It feels harmful locally, nationally, regionally, as well as to me. But maybe it's just ego. I know the delineation between foreign worker and tourist is nebulous in the minds of many, but it's sharp and clear as day in my mind, and now in my experience.

But don't worry- we're safe, my mum is having a blast and couldn't care less about these things, which is a good counterbalance to me. I am having a positive time overall- I think it's obvious that in life, I can appreciate difficult experiences, and this one is teaching me a lot. I can't really complain, I realize- we're seeing amazing things, and despite my pooh-poohing the tourism, I recognize it is the sole option we have if we wish to see legendary places like Djenne, Dogon country & Timbuktu. So far, the perspective imparted by visiting these amazing sites- not just visually amazing, but emotionally, intellecturally, physically, envronmentally, spiritually heavy places- is worth all my western boohoo-ery. I'm lucky to be here, I'm appreciating it, but this does not make the emotional toll of being constant prey any less tiring. Mum is out today while I take a day off from Africa- am in a hotel with hot water and wifi, and damn well enjoying it.