Niger River Project

We stop for our second night in Pays Dogon at a village called Ibi, our guide Atemelou’s hometown, if you can call it that. In fact Ibi is an agglomeration of three villages, one on the plain at the foot of the escarpment, the other two ranged precariously along its lower slopes. Our stoping place for the night is in ‘lower’ Ibi, a bleak, exposed place.

During the night our peaceful repose is a broken by a strong wind sweeping in from the plain, bringing with it clouds of dust and sand that whip across the rooftop where we’re sleeping. After a night of little rest, we awake to a washed out world. The sun is rising, but it is only visible as a flat, white disc behind the veil of dust that has been kicked up into the sky. This is the first sign that the Harmattan is on its way, the great seasonal wind that every December to February sweeps south from the Sahara, coating much of West Africa in a fine patina of dust.

The drab morning is pierced by what sounds like gunshots coming from the direction of the escarpment. In fact, this is exactly what they are. Today, the 30 December, is Tabaski, a major annual Muslim festival commemorating Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac.

Tabaski is one of Islam’s most important festivals, and in Mali, as in other Muslim countries it’s marked with a two-day feast, the centrepiece of which is freshly slaughtered sheep or goat. Over about the two or three weeks prior to the festival, it had been obvious Tabaski was coming up, as everywhere we travelled there seemed to be as many live goats and sheep as passengers on public buses; there are no cattle trucks in West Africa.

The gunshots herald the beginning of the day’s festivities. The weapons in question are very ancient and elaborate-looking ornamental rifles that as far as I can tell are home-made. They’re muzzle-loaded with a charge of crude gunpowder - also apparently homemade judging by the number of rounds that fail to ignite.

Venturing outside the Auberge we encounter groups of Ibi’s young men strutting around with their firearms, discharging them at random. There’s no apparent ceremony involved in this; they simply load up, pull the trigger, there’s a click, a hiss, and then, depending on the quality of the gunpowder, an enormous bang that rolls and reverberates along the escarpment with a booming echo.

But it’s not just the young men and their guns that are out. All the villagers have congregated at the foot of the escarpment for the occasion, which begins with prayers. After this, they all mill around, talking, laughing, greeting one another in the sing-song, Dogon tongue that sounds more like chanting than speech. It’s a vivid scene, the colourful dress of the villagers in their best attire bright splashes of primary against the dun-coloured canvas of rock, sand and dust.

We stop for a few days in Segou for Christmas. Segou’s a relaxed place, strung out along the banks of the Niger, once a major centre for the French colonialists’ occupation of what’s now Mali. It was also where Mungo Park first beheld the Niger and confirmed, once for all, that the river flows from west to east, not the other way around as many believed at the time.

Segou was about as far along the river as Park got on his first expedition. Approaching the river from the north bank, the opposite side of the town, Park attempted to cross, but the king of Segou was reluctant to welcome Park into the town so refused his entry. Instead he paid Park off with a handful of cowrie shells, then the currency in West Africa.

For the starving, disease-ridden Park, it was a major boon, enough to stave off death. But such was his predicament that he decided that instead of pushing on to his ultimate destination, Timbuktu, he should cut his losses and head west back to the relative safety of the coast, where European traders were based.

After resting and feasting in Segou for a few days, we head north to Mopti again. This time, though, our goal is not the river, but an area 100 or so kilometres to the east, known as Dogon Country.

The Dogon are one of Mali’s major ethnic groups, and one of its most fascinating. Their home, the Bandiagara Escarpment, is a seemingly inhospitable place, a huge cliff system that slices though a barren plane which stretches all the way to neighbouring Burkina Fasso. But somehow the Dogon manage to scratch out an existence here, living in tumbledown villages that cling to the bottom of the cliff face. Typical of Dogon villages are the characteristic conical-roofed granaries that bear a strange resemblence to witches’ hats.

Perhaps even more fascinating than Dogon architecture, though, is its culture. Although some have converted to Islam, and some even Christianity, most Dogon people are still resolutely animist, ascribing living forms to spirits they believe control the forces of the universe. Each of these spirits must be appeased, so central to Dogon culture is the concept of fetishism, whereby ritual sacrifices are made as offerings to the gods. Each village has its own holy man, known as the Hogon, who is able to converse with the spirits and so plays a key role in the fortune - or otherwise - of his village.

We gear up for a four-day trek through Dogon country. To help us and act as our guide, we have enlisted the services of Atemelou Kiodio, a local from the Dogon village of Ibi, though now studying English in Bamako.

The first leg of our journey is from the large village of Sanga, located about a kilometre from the edge of the escarpment, to Banani, a smaller settlement located at the bottom of the cliff itself. Our path crosses the plateau at the top of the escarpment, before dropping suddenly down the rock face. It’s a steep scramble, but the views along the escarpment are monumental. The sun is beginning to set, casting everything in a fiery glow. Among the huge rocks that pepper the landscape are some of the most ancient-looking and twisted baobab trees that I’ve yet seen in Mali. Beneath one of them, a group of young boys plays a frantic game of football, their scuffling kicking up clouds of dust that catch fire in the light of the setting sun.

As we descend we catch our first glimpse of the Telem architecture for which Dogon Country is also famous. The Telem were a mysterious people who lived in the area before the Dogon came along and drove them out. Somehow, they managed to achieve even greater feats of architectural alchemy than the Dogon, building homes, shrines and burial chambers into natural fissures in the cliff face, rather than at the foot of the cliff, as the Dogons have.

I ask Atemelou how the Telem managed to build in such inaccessible places. Given that Atemelou is a firm Muslim, his answer, indicates to me how strongly animist ideas are still rooted in Dogon beliefs. “Some of them used ladders, but others were in touch with spirits and used magic to fly,” he says. I might have expected a devout Muslim to scoff at any notions of magic, but he delivers this statement matter of factly, without any hint of dismissiveness. I can’t help but wonder if there’s anywhere else in the world where Islam mixes so freely with traditional animist beliefs. It makes for a fascinating blend.

Happy new year to all our readers out there. This is just a quick update to let you all know that we’re both alive and well. News has reached us that the Salisbury Journal has just run a big page lead (though only page 8 I’m disappointed to hear) saying something to the effect of ‘Malaria threatens West Africa adventure’. Well, almost but not quite.

Even though the malaria incident was my last blog entry, I’m pleased to say I’ve made a full recovery. Shortly after it, I got a bout of amoebic dystentary, but that’s gone too. So, if any Journal reporters are reading this now, perhaps you’d be good enough to do a follow-up to inform your readers that we’re both flourishing. We just haven’t written much recently because we’ve been enjoying the festive period, Malian style. If you need any quotes, please post a request in the comment box

So there’s lots more to update since the malaria bout. But we’re going to have to leave you hanging for just a bit longer as on Monday we set sail for the fabled city of Timbuktu and the riches it no doubt has in store for us. Mungo Park never quite made it here; let’s hope we have better luck…

I had an idea I wanted to photograph people asleep in the street. I wanted to give the pictures a ’scene of crime’ objectivity and detachment, similar to the great Weegee of New York fame.

Ben and I had been observing street life in Bamako over the last few days, and we were both taken with the idea that life here happens without walls. Everything from eating and sleeping, to working and hanging out, happens within view of the world.

The camera I have doesn’t allow for any discrete long-shots, so I decided to get up at 0430 and patrol the streets, looking for some interesting juxtapositions.

People here are very wary of the camera. The street in Europe - which we consider to be a public place - is accepted here as being just a continuation of a living room.

So it’s not more than 10 minutes before the strobe of my flash gun attracts some unwanted attention. I’ve been spotted by a security guard or policeman who starts shouting, calling me to account. I can’t think how I’m going to explain my actions, so I keep walking. Next I hear a blast on a whistle, which cuts through the still night air, and I flinch as if a bullet just winged over my head.

Turning out of view I increase my pace back towards the sanctuary of the Auberge. I don’t look back, staying focused on trying to put some distance between us.

But I can’t help taking one last shot of a mother and two children sprawled out under an orning. Again I’m spotted: this time a woman selling street food yells her disapproval. I get the message and keep walking back to the room, imagining her giving the pursuing copper my last movements.

I creep back in and I lie in bed wondering who the British consular rep is in Bamako.

Suffice to say, I’m not spending the festive season in a Bamako jail, but that said project is on hold… Merry Christmas everyone!

The Catholic Mission where we’re staying is a tranquil haven in the midst of bustling central Bamako. Coming and going, one runs the gauntlet of street hawkers selling everything from ‘authentic’ jewelry, to their own ‘indispensible’ guiding services.

Omar was looking for a Spanish friend of his to take to a music event on the other side of town, but had seen no sign of him. He asked if I wanted to go instead. My senses said this guy was genuine and I decided to trust him with his word. So off we went.

Ben, still suffering from his flu like symptoms, was more than happy to have an early night, so we meandered our way towards the river. On the way we passed a flickering TV showing a concert, Omar excitedly telling me we should hurry up, the show’s already started. Cool: it’s televised.

Crossing the ‘Pont des Martyrs’ Omar’s choking on the peanuts he’s just bought, gagging on a huge reefer, while trying to shout down his sister who goes sailing past on a scooter. It’s a commical scene which breaks the ice.

The show is well underway as we descend the crumbling bank, by-passing the entrance. Orange, the phone company, has a logo embazoned across the stage. We weave through the crowd, and find ourselves poised on the edge of a moat of space between us and the inner circle of spectators: clearly the latter have paid. It’s patrolled - in the loosest sense of the word - by cops, but I sense Omar’s bravado is increasing.

‘Lets go’, he says and we break into the open, and then jostling, back into a mass of bodies. We’ve got away with it. It’s a good view for my 6 feet, but Omar’s having none of it and he guides me round to the back of the stage on the seemingly spurious notion of meeting some of his Musician friends.

From there we crouch in the wings of the stage. Omar leads a chorus of abuse aimed at one of the TV crew when they spoil his view. I don’t think you’d get this at the beeb. We watch a snake charmer who, in a gut wrenching ‘tromp l’oeil’, then turns his hand to hacking at his arm with a blade, drawing gasps from the crowd. With a couple of casts from his Ju-Ju wand and a bit of saliva, the wound is miraculously healed.

Omar then makes a dash for the front row and I find myself diving for a gap. We’ve started a mini avalanche of gate-crashers, which causes jears from the crowd behind. We hunker down and stare past the now leering coppers. They want us all to go back, but everyone’s accutely aware of the roaming TV crew: the sargeant seems to be keen to play the whole thing down. High on the adrenaline, we allow each other a look that says: bien joué!

We’re now in pole position and Omar’s gold tooth gets an airing with his now uninterupted grin. The rythms and sounds are from some of Malis most talented acts, and a real insight into what we’ll have in store at the ‘Festival au Desert’ in January. Dancers accompany the musician each in turn performing their own solos to portions of the crowd, gyrating hips with as much flair as the guitarist plucking strings Hendrix style behind his head.

The night’s over all too soon. We flood through the gates for the first time and start the long walk along the deserted city streets, punctuated with guards lying corpse like, rifles just out of arms reach.

I won’t forget the night I was almost thrown out of my first Malian music gig and I thank Omar warmly for the experience. But it won’t be my last run in with the law.

All you can do with malaria is sweat it out. After we make it back to Mopti (just before midnight of the same day my condition has been diagnosed) and I’ve got the first round of drugs down my neck, that’s exactly what I do: find a quiet place to stay, retire to a darkened room and wait for the fun to begin.

There’s nothing much of interest to say about this period of my life. The illness comes in waves; all I can do is lie back and try my best to ride them when they sweep in.

First comes the cold, the same uncontrollable shakes that first heralded the illness. Next it’s the fever, the headache and the endless thrashing around trying to find somewhere comfortable for jumpy legs and arms. During this phase, your world shrinks to the confines of the room around you; contemplating the outside world is impossible.

Then the fever breaks, and it’s like emerging from a dark cave, blinking in the sunlight. All that’s left is a complete lack of energy and a numbness compounded by the strong cocktail of drugs I’m on.

I’ve been prescribed, among other things, a particularly hefty dose of mefloquin, the same stuff as I’m taking on a weekly basis anyway as a prophylactic. A hallmark of this potent chemical is that it leaves you with a hollow feeling at the centre of your being that’s hard to pin down and even harder to put into words. Suffice to say, it makes me feel like a bit of a vegetable and I spend much of my convalescence peering vacantly into space like some Nam veteran with a 1000-yard stare.

We stop overnight at a village on Lac Debo where we’d spent a couple of hours in the afternoon interviewing the villagers about the difficulties they’re facing with failing harvests. Dan starts a game with some of the village children that involves lobbing a tennis ball as high as possible and them fighting for it when it comes back to earth. Simple but effective - though it ends in tears for some of the smaller kids who get trampled underfoot in the stampede for the ball.

When night falls, we sit on top of the pinasse watching the stars come out. Without the slightest hint of light pollution to been seen anywhere over the lake, they’re magnificent. Orion is particularly splendid, marching across the heavens, bow drawn.

It comes to bedtime and we collapse the pinasse’s benches and use the planks to form a bed platform. Woven flaps fold over the side of the craft to create a cozy cocoon.

I’m surprised, then, to be woken in the night by a furious bout of shivering. It’s uncontrollable, convulsing my body. My skin doesn’t feel particularly cold, but my sleeping bag is fairly thin so, reluctantly, I extract myself from the relative warmth of the bed and put on more clothes.

Back in bed, the shivers show no sign of abating. This doesn’t feel like normal cold, I think, the alarm bells starting to sound at the back of my mind. Cold shivers are controllable; these aren’t, even when I exert my whole will to suppressing them. Besides, I’m never one to suffer much from the cold.

I slowly drift off to sleep, the shivers subsiding a little. But as I drop off, I know exactly what the problem is and that tomorrow is not going to be a fun day.

I awake to the sounds of the village coming to life - donkeys braying, children shouting and laughing, the first fishing boats leaving for the lake. My head is throbbing and I’m bathed in sweat. There’s no doubt in my mind I have malaria.

Sekou says we should abandon the trip and find a hospital. I’m reluctant, particularly given that we’ve paid for the boat, but I can also see the foolishness of carrying on when I’m about to lose my malaria cherry.

Fortunately, although we’re miles from the big regional hospital in Mopti, across the other side of the lake there’s a smaller district one at a town called Youwaro. We head out across the emptiness of Lac Debo, which this morning seems an even more remote and inhospitable place. Despite my condition, crumpled in a miserable heap in the bilges of the pinasse, I can’t help bu feel fortunate that we’ve got a private boat to ferry us around and aren’t having to rely on the fickle local pinasses to find help.

Youwaro isn’t much of a place, a small waterside town consisting of the usual ramshackle collection of huts, tumebledown buildings and thatched stalls. There’s plenty of interesting activity going on at the water’s edge, but today I don’t really notice it.

A walk across town brings us to the hospital. It’s a depressing place, gloomy, spartan and crumbling. Huddles of sick looking men, women and children line the corridors waiting to be seen; I join the queue, for today, at least, one of them.

After what seems an age I’m seen by a cheerful young doctor, who knows straight away what I’ve got. He sends me for the test anyway, just because I ask for it. A young assistant sticks a pin in my finger, drawing a spot of blood - tiny enough, but sufficient to confirm, half an hour later, that I have plasmodium falciparum, potentially the most dangerous form of malaria.

As I sit waiting for the results, the young doctor breezes past. “Ben Willis,” he says in that way Africans of chanting your name once they know it. “Today I think you feel very sick.” In my self-pitying state, I can’thelp but feel slightly riled by his happy-go-lucky nature. But at the same time there’s something reassuring in his attitude, which says, don’t worry,we’ve seen this all before, you’ll be fine.

Malaria was once thought to be the result of inhaling bad air in swampy or humid regions such as west Africa. All sorts of barbaric treatments were recommended by physicians of the day, the most famous being ‘cupping’ - or bleeding - where the patient was quite literally cut and bled to remove the pestilence. Eventually quinine was recognised as being effective in preventing the illness, after which, in 1890, it was identified as being caused by parasites spread by female mosquitos. Important as the breakthrough was, however, it didn’t come soon enough to save the countless European explorers, missionaries and merchants who succumbed to the disease and whose demise earned West Africa the label of ‘The White Man’s Grave’.

Fortunately my chances are much better than theirs, so long as we can get back to Mopti quickly, where the necessary drugs are on hand. How quickly that will be depends entirely on how fast the six-ton pinasse’s tiny outboard is able to propel the craft against the current of the Niger back to civilisation. The race is on.

After our sojourn in Djenne, the feeling that we want to get back on the river is strong. It’s over two weeks since we were last in Djoliba and we’re getting withdrawal symptoms.

Our next goal is the Niger’s so-called Inland Delta - a vast wetland area covering some 30,000sq km, where the river spreads out into an intricate network of channels, creeks and lakes. At the heart of the delta is the huge Lac Debo, more an inland sea than a lake, especially at this time year before the dry season really gets a grip.

I’ve organised a guide through a Dutch charity, Wetlands International, which is working on various projects to conserve the wildlife and biodiversity of the delta. We arrange for a pinasse (a large covered pirogue complete with outboard) to take us on a four-day excursion into the delta to get a feeling for the area and meet some of the villagers who manage to scratch out a living in this watery world.

We nose out of Mopti early on a Sunday morning. Mopti is the largest and busiest port town on Mali’s stretch of the Niger, and the best starting point for any trips to the delta.

It’s a brilliant morning, bright and fresh. Already, the local Bozo fishermen are hard at work, gliding across the river in their pirogues, casting nets and pulling in glittering heaps of fish. Oumar, the helmsman of our boat, tries to weave a course through them, but more often than not ploughs straight ahead, leaving them to get out of our way.

The roof of the pinasse provides a perfect platform for watching Niger life slip by. We pass countless villages, where children run along the bank waving and shouting “toubab” (whiteman) as we glide by. Humble as these villages are, almost all of them boast an intricate mosque, like scaled-down versions of the great mud edifice at Djenne.

Soon the sun is too ferocious to allow sitting on the upper deck, so we retire to the cool shade below. Sine, our guide, begins to explain to us some of the rich bird and wildlife that lives - or lived - in the delta.

It’s a tragic but all too familiar tale: although still a highly important habitat for migrating birds, the delta today supports only a fraction of the mamalian and reptilian life it once did. A combination of hunting, population growth, deforestation and desertification have all but wiped out the area’s once rich wildlife, and the lions, crocodiles, elephants and other game that once roamed here have either been killed or found other places to live. Weltands International is doing valuable work to stop this trend, particularly where the delta’s birdlife is concerned, but for the area’s other wildlife, it’s probably too late.

After about four hours’ cruising down one of the Niger’s many channels, we reach an area where the bank drops away, the horizon opens out and there’s little to see but water, vegetation and more water. Occasionally, tiny villages punctuate the scene, somehow clinging to the few patches of dry land in the area. This is the beginning of Lac Debo.

The river channel we’re following twists and turns through the marshland, one of many that criss-cross the delta. Somehow, unneringly Oumar manages to pick the right one, and soon we enter the lake proper.

To our left, the lake is so large you can’t see across it. Straight ahead there is a distant shoreline of sand and bushes. This is the first hint that, in spite of the predominance of water around us, we’re heading into the world’s largest desert. The contrast is a sharp reminder of the fragility of existence in this remote place and a graphic demonstration, if any were needed, that here the Niger is life.

Next stop after Bamako is Djenne. This small town on the Bani river, one of the Niger’s major tributaries, is one of West Africa’s most famous, primarily because of its iconic mud mosque, the largest adobe structure in the world.

For our visit, we’ve teamed up with Sekou Toure, a local I’ve been put in touch with for some help with research we want to do into the controversial construction of a dam upstream from Djenne on the Bani. The dam has been the subject of a vigorous campaign for some years by locals and others who believe it will have detrimental effects on agriculture around the normally fertile Djenne.

We arrive at the town after dark. It’s on an island, so the only way to get to it is via a small ferry that takes cars, vans, goats and whatever else needs transporting across the water. We head straight to the house where we’re staying in the town, an amazing mud structure (like virtually every other building in Djenne) that has a wonderful flat roof overlooking the Bani. When we arrive an almost full moon is rising over the river, picking out the outlandish turrets and castelations of Djenne’s skyline with its crisp, white light.

The next day is market day when traders from miles around flood into Djenne’s main square, transforming the usually sleepy town into a pulsating, vibrant hive of activity. There’s everything here: bright cloth, heaps of stinking dried fish, piles of watermellon twice the size of a man’s head, buckets of dried herbs and spices, assorted pieces of animal for fetish charms - the list goes on.

With the backdrop of the mosque, the scene is also one of West Africa’s most photogenic, and unsurprisingly Monday is when the ‘toubabs’ - white tourists - come pouring into town in their droves. Luckily, by Tuesday, most of the toubabs have moved on and we pretty much have the run of the town. It’s a great opportunity to get properly under the skin of the place.

We spend the next few days walking around meeting various locals, to talk to them about the effects of the dam on the Bani River. Our first meeting is with the chief of Djenne, who gives Dan and I both honourary Malian names - Ba-Hassay Toure and Hassay Maiga respectively.

The Malian naming system is very complex, but highly significant to them. Apparently the names we’ve been given makes us cousins, and gives Dan the right to mock me at will. None of our friends in Djenne seem to be able to explain precisely why this is, but they’re constantly laughing and joking about our new names.

The chief is elderly and ill, so we don’t ask him about the dam. But others we speak to only have bad things to say about it, claiming it will only aggravate a situation that has been steadily getting worse in and around Djenne - namely that it’s drying up.

Djenne stands in the middle of a huge flood plain, that every year becomes effectively a vast lake. Traditionally, this has made it a highly fertile area, well suited to growing rice, grazing cattle and catching fish.

But a succession of poor rains and the arrival of two major dams on the Niger means the area is steadily becoming drier and less fertile, causing problems for all the farmers, cattle herders and nomadic fishermen who survive on the region’s waters. Every local we spoke to said the same thing: that the construction of another dam, this time on Djenne’s own river, the Bani, can only make a bad situation worse.

In all, we spend nearly a week in Djenne. Apart from the mud architecture, one the joys of the town is that its narrow streets inhibit traffic. Being able to walk around without the usual fears of being hit by a crazed motorist gives you freedom soak up the atmosphere and peer through the town’s many open doors at the scenes of African life within: women pounding millet with large sticks; men sitting around drinking glasses of sweet tea; children chanting verses of the Koran from little wooden tablets, for many the only education they will receive.

This is Africa at its most timeless, its most enduring. Long may it last.

Bamako looms out of the dark. I’d like to say it’s an explosion of colour, noise and sound - which after the gloom and emptiness of the previous hours, I suppose in some ways it is. But, objectively speaking, the city trickles into our consciousness, a string of weak street lights and ramshackle buildings that slowly cohere into what eventually looks like a proper city.

We have another argument with a gendarme at a checkpoint, again over the boat. This one’s more awkward, demanding papers. We don’t need papers for a fold-up canoe, we argue. He maintains that we do, but soon, like the customs man, he too gives up and waves us on. Djoliba is becoming something of a millstone.

The next morning Bamako reveals itself in all its manic glory. Orginally a Bozo fishing village of no more than a few families, Bamako has grown to over 2million today. The name means ‘river of crocodiles’, a reference to an age when this used to be a popular spot for hunting the eponymous lizard. Now, though, there are all but no crocs left, and, sadly, the city has pretty much turned its back on the Niger, even though the river is broad and magnificent at this stage of its journey.

Modern day Bamako, much like any other large African city, is hectic, hot and polluted. The best time to enjoy the city is in the evening, as this is when it’s coolest to walk around, but it’s also the time when rush hour traffic fills the air with great clouds of unfiltered exhaust fumes that catch at the back of the throat and make walking an endurance feat. It’s not a pleasant experience.

By night things can improve, as it’s then that you’re most likely to catch what Bamako is most famous for - its music. In our few days there, we manage to find one of the city’s famed music spots, a bar called Djembe after the ubiquitous African drum. It’s only a Wednesday night, but the place is busy, a five piece band, complete with a kora (local instrument, a bit like a lute), weaving a blend of moody blues and locally inspired griot music.

It’s a fantastic introduction to Mali’s music scene, but one that’s sadly brief as Dan gets struck down by a short, sharp bout of the Ds and Vs. No doubt there’s plenty more in store for us yet.