Niger River Project

We set off early after a bowl of hot, gloopy gruel from a woman on Forokonia’s high street, if you can call it that. The day’s march begins with a crippling ascent up the side of one of the mountains enclosing the village.

The going is tough, and Sori slows the pace right down. “Today the road is hard, we must slow down,” he says in his strange drawling English. He tells me he learned this in Liberia, but it’s almost impossible to understand. The word “dollars” comes out as “dow”. Sometimes it’s actually easier to communicate with him in French.

After about an hour we reach the next village, Bakando. Here Sori says we will need to seek further permission to proceed, as the villagers are effectively guardian’s of Tembicoundo - the source.

Upon arrival, there’s the inevitable meeting with almost the entire village, kola nuts are exchanged and Sori struts his stuff. I’m asked to say a few words, which I enjoy, hamming it up like something out of King Solomon’s Mines. “We have come from afar to visit Tembicoundo. We are hoping to follow the river all the way to its end, so we wanted to see where it begins because we hear that it is sacred. We thank you for your warm welcome.”

But the welcome quickly turns sour when the chief stands up to say his piece. He’s only a small man, but he has a fierce face which he uses to great effect when addressing us. He quickly whips himself into a frenzy that carries on for about 20 minutes. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: more and more people are coming to visit Tembicoundo, but the people of Bacando, the nearest village to the source, don’t benefit; because of its remoteness Bakando is a very poor village that needs a road, schools and health facilities; if people in the village get sick they have to walk a long way to seek help.

This carries on, the chief getting more and more worked up by the outrage of his theme. All the time he fixes us with a look of thunder. Eventually he finishes and retires to his hut presumably to calm down and consult with his elders about our being there. We’re called over, and I have a nasty feeling as to what’s coming next. “You can go to the source, but you must pay 150000GFA (about 15 quid),” he says.

I knew it! This would all come down to money. So much for sacred. Sori is incensed. “This would not have happened in my grandfather’s time. This is a sacred place, people should not have to pay to visit. I will visit the minister of tourism in Conakry and tell him about this.” I wonder if he means this, or if its all part of the Sori show.

A huge row breaks out. The chief produces three papers that are apparently letters of recommendation for previous people who’ve come looking for the source; they suggest these individuals all coughed up the 150000. But Sori and I are adamant that we shouldn’t pay this amount, for me mainly because I don’t want to be responsible for setting a precedent that will affect future visits by travellers to the source.

After about an hour of arguing, we eventually get the price down to 50,000. I’m still loathe to pay anything, but we don’t have time to sit around arguing about it, and it is, after all, only about a fiver.

The deal is struck and off we go. Our entourage now includes Sori, two soldiers, the chief, his son and two of his henchmen. The going is easier now, flatter but still rugged. After about an hour we come to a line of trees. “These are the trees my grandfather planted,” says Sori. “This is the border with Sierra Leone.” It doesn’t look much like a border; but we hear voices coming from the other side of the trees. “Those voices you can hear - they come from Sierra Leonian people,” Sori says.

The path dips and turns away from the border. There are more of the magical bamboo thickets we encountered near Forokonia, plus a riot of other huge trees, ferns and creepers. There is a real air of mystery to the place. “We are near now,” says Sori. “This is as far as we go.”

What! We’ve come all this way only to be told we can’t actually see the source! Dan and I both protest loudly. “We want to see it with our eyes,” we say.

“Then the chief’s men can go and bring some water from the source for you to see,” Sori says. Seeing a bottle of water from the source isn’t quite what we’d had in mind, we protest. After another few minutes of arguing, the chief relents and agrees to show us. Sori stays put; he’s clearly superstitious of the place.

The chief takes us through a thicket of prickly vegetation and through a dip in some rocks. We scramble through this, then there it is: Tembicoundo. It’s just a puddle really, seeping out from a pile of boulders before forming into a stream. But, maybe because of the location, in the middle of nowhere, maybe because of the soaring forest canopy, maybe because of something else intangible, there is a palpable electricity in the air, a sense of mystery about the place.

There’s no way of knowing whether this really is it, the source of the Niger, but I try to believe it is.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 3:46 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.