Sori Keita
We head off early the next morning, eager to have a second crack at the source. We decide to skip breakfast and pick up something at the next town along from Faranah. It proves to be happy decision.
We stop at the town – Banian. The day before when we passed through it had been market day, and you could barely see the ground for the bewildering array of stalls laid out selling everything you could imagine and other things you’d probably rather not – cows’ heads, chunks of unpleasant looking fish, pungent smelling roots, exotic spices, mysterious bowls of what looked like grit. Today, though, things are much calmer.
Almost as soon as we stop, an elderly man in a worn black and white checked suit sidles over with a bag slung over one shoulder. He looks familiar. Even before he opens his mouth I know it’s him: Sori Keita. In that sixth-sense way of African guides, we’ve not found him; he’s found us.
Actually, the truth is rather more prosaic. After we saw him the day before, Sori’s son, it turns out, jumped on a motorbike and sped into Banian to tell Sori we were looking for him. Sori did the obvious thing and waited at the side of the road for us to turn up, as he knew we would.
He pulls out a battered copy of Mark Jenkins books, a German translation. It’s evidently become his calling card, and he holds it out to us like it’s a sacred text. “I have shown many people to the source,” he explains to us, patting the book, eager to big up his credentials. “I was born in this area, my grandfather was a king of 40 villages around here. I am well known in this area. I will get you to the source.”
He jumps in and we hit the road. It’s good to have him on board, though I can’t help but wonder what a guide who’s achieved a modicum of fame in a travel book is going to ask for as a fee. I decide to wait until Koubikoro to discuss it with him.
Tags: Travel
djnorwood