A new week. A new country

Looking back at the day we finally left Bamako and The Sleeping Camel already seems a lifetime away. There was such excitement to be back on the road again. Monday morning, while Mark had gone off to the Nigerian embassy to fetch our passports with visas, everyone helped to wash all our crockery and cutlery, pots and pans and anything else that had been standing outside for these past weeks, in Dettol – the smell making your stomach turn – packed up tents, sorted out lockers on the truck, walked to the little Syrian supermarket for the last packet of biscuits, the last bag of water. At around midday we brought out the left overs from the pig roast of the night before for lunch, some nibbled a bit, others ordered their last Mali Sandwich from the kitchen, drank their last Flag beer from the bar. Then Mark arrvived back with the passports clutched high above his head! Jubilation!

“Let's go!” he said, and suddenly there was a mad rush to say our goodbyes to the staff of the Sleeping Camel, to Erik and Frits – with promises that we will meet again along the road somewhere, to the motley group that had arrived the previous day with Mat, and then, as we were about to board the truck, Mark started the engine, and ---- ku-tuck ku-tuck -- flat battery! – and that had us all go sit down again – and wait... But, waiting for five weeks for our visas, another ten minutes was not going to faze us and all too soon Mark shouted for us to get in, we're going – and off we went, waving and leaning out for a last look of our home in Mali.

Our first night's bushcamp was set up with such excitement and energy – everyone happy to be back in the routine of getting the tents down from the roof of the truck, finding a good spot and pitching tents, digging a hole for the fire, chopping wood, getting the kettle boiling, chopping vegetables – sitting around and talking about how good it was to be back on the road again.

Crossing into Burkina Faso went without too much palava. The officials sat under a grass roof outside their little building, making the most of the slight breeze. Friendly, welcoming, every bit as lovely as we had been told the people of Burkina would be. No sooner had we arrived with our passports, than a long bench was brought out from the back of the building and placed under the tree for us to sit on. Not quite big enough for all of us, a second, then a third bench was brought out. Across the road from the 'immigration office' was a picture out of a Steven Soderbergh film: A small shack with a counter in the front wall. Underneath the counter a painted stem of a flower, the flower itself climbing up the right hand side of the wall. There was a seat of some kind in front of the counter where the 'shopkeeper' sat, a young woman in a wide-skirted dress, her legs crossed, her hands resting on her lap. The impression was that she was seated on this suspended flower stem, waiting for someone to come to her shop – perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps never...

Next stop Bobo Dioulasso – Bobo for short. There we stopped for the cook group to get provisions at the market and all of us wandered through the huge market in the centre of town. Wide streets lined with lush green trees, more cars, it seemed, we had seen in the whole of Mali. This market was also very different from what we have experienced before. Instead of grass-roofed lean-to's, this was a brick and mortar built market with archways, paved floor, steps leading up to under-roof areas where concrete plinths served as tables. But whereas all the markets up to now seemed to have had an ordered layout to them, this one was chaos. Instead of the vegetables being in one area, the clothing on one area, the wood carving, the shoes, the secondhand car parts, the butchers, the coiffeurs and wigs, the fabrics, the fetishes, the salt, the fresh dairy – each in its own area, this market was just a higgledy piggedly jumble of everything anywhere. The gaudy plastic hair accessories stall could be right next to where the goats are

slaughtered; choosing a fabric you might have to step over a pile of 'grass cutters' – I think the equivalent of our cane rats – big fat round flattened rodents splayed out on a tray, looking like a good harvest of road kill, and then move out of the way of a woman choosing the biggest dried fruit bat from a basket tucked almost directly under the fabrics display, these giant bats' black leathery wings and small human-like fingers giving a Goth feel to the scene; the bread loaves are hardly noticeable tucked between the brightly coloured plastic buckets and bowls on the one side and the yet-to-be-scrubbed offal on the other. But the people are friendly and smiling and welcoming and keen to stop you and ask where you are from and where you are going. I mention that we were going to stay one week in Burkina but because of the troubles we have to keep moving straight through.

“Ah – but the troubles are only in Ouagadougou and they are not really serious troubles. It is too hot so everyone gets hot and bothered. The price of rice is too high. The price of everything is too high. So this is the season of troubles. But only up there. We let them do the fighting for us. Here it is too hot to fight”. Were it that simple...

We drove another hour or two and when it became apparent that we were not going to get over the border into Ghana and were going ot have a spend a night in Burkina, I think everyone was secretly pleased – to not at least spend one night in this beautiful country would have been a great pity. Mark found a perfect spot – as he usually does – amongst thick clumps of trees and at the foot of a small rocky hill. There were ominous black clouds on the horizon and we quickly rigged up the tarps on the side of the truck for shelter before anything else. However, as is so often the case, the clouds blew over and the rain stayed away, but at least the wind had cooled the air a bit and the night was much more comfortable after the searingly hot day.

Early the next morning I was woken with the sound of swarming bees and immeditately started looking to see where they were. It turned out that they were in a trees close by where the hard round light green balls on the tree – slightly smaller than golf balls, had blossomed into perfectly round yellow flowers – quite spectacular! – and these were what the bees were after. I walked a little further and found a wide footpath winding its way through the dense trees and around the rocky outcrop. This was just a little too tempting for me not to follow. And the reward was worth the boldness! After a good ten minutes walk, the forest opened up and a large wide open plain with green, green grass and herds of cattle and goats and sheep lay before me – a pastoral picture of idyllic tranquility and calm. A little further around the hill was a small village of probably about ten huts where there was some commotion going on. No sooner had I stopped, wondering what was happening there, when a man on a motorbike started leaving the village and made his way towards me where I stood. There was something large slung across the front of his motorbike, and as he came closer, I saw that it was an entire sheep – a large, live sheep – obviously fetched to be taken to a pavement 'restaurant' where it will be slaughtered, grilled over an open fire and sold in chopped up pieces wrapped in brown paper to the likes of us – and anyone else who feels like a juicy meal of meat – delicious!

Needless to say, this little 'Alice-in-wonderland-walk' merited a big red button – a magical moment in Burkina Faso.

All too soon we were back on the road and across the border into Ghana. At the border there were four uniformed military officials working at two large desks in the immigration office and each one had to go through each entry form and each passport with a fine toothcomb – each one checking on the previous ones check until the passport and form finally reached the most senior official who checked the previous three's checks and then stamped the passport – one stamp on the visa and one stamp on another page. On a third table was a big television set on which the afternoon's soap opera was being screened – sound turned up volte voce, so loud the window panes shuddered each time one of the characters shouted his or her lines melodramatically for maximum effect – and that was just about every line in the soap. All of us were hanging on the walls of the office awaiting our passport's scrutiny and stamps and almost hoped ours would be at the bottom of the pile, not wanting to miss the end of this scene in the soap or the beginning of the next scene. The acting was SO bad that you could not help but be transfixed to the screen, mouth hanging open, head shaking – was it really possible for anyone anywhere to make such a poor film? Well, the answer is: In Ghana, apparently so!

Our first stop in Ghana was Wa. Yes – as simple as that – the town is called Wa. Here we all had an opportunity to find a bank that would change money for us. (In Mali and Burkina we used CEFA and in Ghana we use Cedes) There are not that many ATM's around in this part of the world and often, if there are ATM's they only accept certain credit cards, so finding money is often a hot and long procedure – walking from one bank to another, from one end of the hot dusty town to the other. In between you look at the shops and what is different in this town to the previous one. You usually, before too long, start looking for a place to buy a cold drink – any cold drink. You also end up looking for a toilet (and so far Wa takes the medal for having the most foul of foulest toilets in Africa).Once you have (finally) found a bank and an ATM that accepts your specific credit card, you then look for a place where you can buy a new SIM card for your cell phone. This is the easy bit. There are MTN, Vodaphone and GLO outlets at five metre intervals. Almost every built structure in every town and village and city is painted either in bright golden yellow (MTN), cherry red (Vodaphone) or fluorescent lime green (GLO).

A SIM card is generally quite cheap – here in Ghana it cost me CEDE1.50 for a SIM card (about one Euro)(The CEFA is about 6.50 to euro. The Cede 1.8 to the euro) and interestingly this was the first time my details had to be registered when I bought the card. But the transaction took no more than ten minutes and happened at a table under a bright yellow MTN umbrella on the corner of the road. To add the cherry on top, the neighbouring umbrella provided shade for the man with the coolbox which contained icecreams! What a pleasurable surprise! An icecream in this heat must surely be the ultimate bit of heavenliness!

TBC...

Still following the fragrance of shooting stars...

Night fell quickly, the vast cold sky opened out over the dark earth. And then the stars appeared, thousands of stars stopped motionless in space. The man with the rifle who led the group called to Nour and showed him the tip of the Little Dipper, the lone star known as Cabri, and on the other side of the constellation, Kochab, the blue. To the east, he showed Nour the bridge where five stars shone: Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Fecda. In the far-eastern corner, barely above the ash-coloured horizon, Orion had just appeared with Alnilam, leaning slightly to one side like the mast of a boat. He knew all the stars, he sometimes called them strange names that were like the beginning of a story. Then he showed Nour the route they would take the next day, as if the lights blinking on in the sky plotted the course that men must

follow on earth. There were so many stars! The desert night was full of those sparks pulsing faintly as the wind came and went like a breath. It was a timeless land. Removed from human history perhaps, a land where nothing else could come to be or die, as if it were already beyond other lands, at the pinnacle of earthly existence. The men often watched the stars, the vast white swath that is like a sandy bridge over the earth. They talked a little, smoking rolled kif leaves; they told each other stories of journeys, rumours of the wars with the Christians, of reprisals. Then they listened to the night.

– J.M.G. Le Clezio, Desert

Oh how I wished I had JMG Le Clezio with me all those starry nights in the desert! To lie on the powdery soft sand of the Sahara, under the stars of the Northern hemisphere on a moonless night and have such a man with the gift of words tell me about the stars above us!

We are now at the most southern edge of the bulge of Africa and last night we saw, for the first time, there, sitting proudly anchored in the black velvet sky, the five distinctive stars of the Southern Cross! I felt like giving a whoop of joy and throwing my arms up to greet this old friend!

Up to now the sky has been somewhat alien to me – like an unattainable beauty that keeps itself distant and reserved. Every night I would look up and search for one star, one part of a constellation that I knew, that knew me. But every night it was as if the sky was reluctant to allow me to reach out to it and read it. Yet, whilst on the Camino I felt such a strong affinity with the Northern Hemisphere stars. Perhaps it was just that walking under the Milky Way, that amazing “vast white swath that is like a sandy bridge over the earth” that JMG speaks of, one could not help but feel enveloped in its splendour, covered in its magnificence. Perhaps it was that the stars were so much clearer – ironically in a Europe where there are organisations fighting for 'black nights' (– for the sake of children who have never experienced a completely black night, due to the many inhabited and electrically lit built up areas.), but here in the desert it was nature itself drawing a fine gossamer veil of sand particles and dust clouds over its starry skies. Even on a moonless night in heart of the Sahara I was disappointed in the number of stars. They were there, of course, but they were kept hidden from us and apart from the ever-faithful sisters, the Pleiades, the flashy three stars of Orion's belt boasting its stellar strenght, and of course whilst in the Dogons, the beautiful bright jewel, Cirius, reminding the people from the Dogon that it is still there, hiding and protecting Cirius B – until 2027 when it will step aside for a brief moment and reveal their unique god – as it does every sixty years.

But it was last night, when I sat on the beach, there where the outgoing tide still laps at the line of shells it had pushed out earlier, away from the light of the bonfire and the gleaming ebony bodies of the drummers, that I looked up and saw my childhood friend. I had wondered how far south we had to be to see the Southern Hemisphere stars that I grew up with and somehow I had not expected to start seeing them so early. But there is the Southern Cross and suddenly I feel at home!

This is the sky I know. This is my Africa.

On the road again...

FIVE weeks of waiting for the visas we need to continue on our journey!

But finally we are on our way!

This morning I woke up to a tap-tap-tap against my tent wall. On closer inspection it turned out to be a baby frog -- I reckon he has not been out of his tadpole stage more than a couple of days -- unless it was the torrential storm we had two nights ago that launched him into this world. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I remember something about waking up with frogs in my socks and I thought, 'How apt!' Bob Dylan's 'On the road again' -- today is the day that we get moving again on our expedition through Africa -- and a minute little frog trying to get into my little bubble of consciousness was the one to auger in the day!

Well, I wake up in the morning
There's frogs inside my socks
Your mama, she's a-hidin'
Inside the icebox
Well, I got to pet your monkey
I get a face full of claws
I ask who's in the fireplace
And you tell me Santa Claus
Your grandpa's cane
It turns into a sword
Your grandma prays to pictures
That are pasted on a board
And you ask me why I don't live here
Honey, I can't believe that you're for real.

Yesterday was our Big Celebration -- pig roast on the spit and pants party -- once again the hog was brought back from the dubious-definitely-NOT-health-and-safety-approved pig-place on the other side of town. We went to choose the pig we wanted, opting for a slightly smaller one than last time. This pig was a good 8 kilograms lighter than the one we roast on my birthday, and we invited everyone in the Sleeping Camel to the celebration (about 30 people) and still it could have fed at least 50 more people comfortably. Because of religious reasons, none of the staff here eat pork, so I quickly went out and got a large chicken-on-the-spit for them so they could also share in our final night here. I think they all tried very hard keep their mouth from watering -- anyone would have struggled with that, as the aromas of the sizzling pig permeated the air around us. But the chicken smelt good and tasted great -- and the splendid salads that Emy and Tash prepared were excellent accompaniment to this celebratory feast. There was a beetroot salad -- a new taste for the staff and vociferously approved, a mixed garden salad with hard boiled eggs and mango, a pasta salad with pineapple, gherkins and a delicious concoction of a dressing (one for the recipe book, Emy!),

After the meal, it was time for our group to get to know the new group that had arrived with Mat -- who had, by this stage, already passed out...

The boys were on the prowl -- it has been a long long time...

When the drinking games stared -- Ring of Fire was the first one -- it helped to break the proverbial ice. Not there was much ice around with temperatures soaring in the forties.

As expected, the members of the other group were mainly the ones to end up as being the Bitch -- so there was a lot of fetching drinks, running around the truck, and singing the Canadian National anthem. We were joined by a crazy Hungarian mid-way through who instantly got involved, became a Bitch and jumped into the pool with all his clothes on. Roughly at this stage Bill passed out -- how he lasted that long, remains a miracle -- must be the Malian water... By the time the game was finished and the cards were all soggy on the floor, people broke off in groups -- the boys desperate to become better acquainted with the girls -- with varying tactics and low levels of success. Trust one of our adopted Dutchies to have the most success --( man-up, Trans boys!!!). Around 6 am the last bedraggled ones lurked off to random air mattresses, dorm beds and vacant tents and it was generally the consensus that a good night had been had by all.

This morning, one by one, blurry eyed and smiling, people are emerging... No doubt there will be a few stories to tell when we hit the road!

A happy smile for Shishco, a huge relief for the Bearded Ones, a big celebration coming up...

Over the past two months, Jesco has slowly but surely turned into a Shishco.

One of the many little routines of life on the road has become the shisha pipe being set up, the tobacco being prepared, the stools brought out from the back locker and coals pinched from the

cooking fires, which would, by this stage, be well on their way -- and then Jesco and his water pipe smoking buddies would huddle in a circle at the back of the truck and enjoy the pleasures of the apple aromas...

Then disaster struck. We were stranded in Bamako and Bamako ran out of apple tobacco for shisha pipes!

Every Syrian shop or trader in Mali was contacted. Every Lybian or Egyptian or Malian with a possible contact in any of those countries - was contacted. Long and hot and arduous trips were made across town, in the heat of the day, at great risk to life and limb. Desperate telephone calls - local and long distance - were made. Yellow Pages and White Pages were rifled and studied and studied again under a magnifying glass. Dehydration and withdrawal symptoms, pain and agony, cold sweats and hyperventilation, but no tobacco. Jesco even googled recipes, wrote to friends in Palestine for ideas, consulted friends in Egypt for expert advice. He sat in the sun and mixed tobacco and grated apples, glycerine and honey. He kneaded and squeezed and rubbed and filled one head after the other, put the coal on top and --- no cigar! Lots of smoke, bad tobacco taste, no apple taste, doesn't work.

And then, a miracle! Mark wanders through the fridge section of the supermarket -- there where the luxury-most-luxury-of-luxury items are kept -- the chocolate and the apples and the French cheese and the smoked salmon. Why was he looking there? No one knows. Perhaps just to dream...?

And there, tucked in between the last remnants of the chocolate easter eggs and the green Granny Smith apples, there, in neat little tins with plastic lids, shisha pipe tobacco!!

Marc kindly bought a tin for Jesco and brought it back to the camp. I say 'kindly' because he was thinking of the rest of the group that have had to put up with Jesco over the last few tobacco-less weeks! -- And -- needless to say, Jesco rushed back there and bought out the entire stock! He is smiling again. And should you look for him -- go look at the back of the truck, under the tree,

where he is happily sitting on his little stool, next to his shisha pipe, puffing away, the water bubbling, the smoke rising, the apple aromas wafting this way...

Yesterday the Nigerian Consul wanted to meet the entire group before the final decision about the visas. Mark's instructions were clear:

"OK guys! *&^%#/ing Everyone *&^%#/ing clean up. Proper *&^%#/ing clothes, proper *&^%#/ing shirts, clean *&^%#/ing clothes, everyone *&^%#/ing shower and *&^%#/ing wash up and *&^%#/ing shave."

Photo Credit: Kyle Mijlof

There was a lot of debating amongst the boys -- and in particular the Bearded Ones, as to whether it meant that they had to shave their pride and joy and crowning glories off (well -- that is how they see it, you understand. After all, they have been working long and hard for two months now to grow the lushest, thickest, longest, most disgusting beards and they are very, very proud of this utterly magnificent hirsute appearance!)

In the end the scissors came out and there was a lot of trimming and snipping and preening and prancing in front of the mirrors. The end result was not noticeably different to the starting result -- at least not in the eyes of the non-bearded ones, but they felt they had made the effort.

We all went off to the embassy -- sparkling clean, washed and ironed (I exaggerate -- no ironing), darned and shiny, clothed and shod, and there we waited and waited and waited to be interviewed. But -- as things happen in Africa, only Mark and Frits were called in and the rest? It did feel good for that little while to be clean again -- and the Bearded Ones gave HUGE sighs of relief that they had not sacrificed their growth for the sake of -- nothing!

***~~~***

And tomorrow night we are celebrating! Another pig-on-the-spit-pants-party to celebrate the fact that we have our visas, that Jesco found some shisha tobacco, that Orm and Graham and Ben and Frits got to save their beards, that we are OUT OF HERE! and that we will finally be back on the road again! We apologise in advance if there is a bit of noise that is sure to last late into the night, and if you want a bit of crackling or an extra portion of apple sauce or honey and mustard grave, place your orders now!

Invitation designed and executed by Emy

A Question:

What is the fine for using Offshore Drilling Rights without prior authority?

Sending parcels home...

A fascinating experience while on the road. is a visit to the post office.

The route of a parcel from The Sleeping Camel, Bamako, Mali, to Port Alfred, South Africa :

1. Buy a Koman Coulibali, (Malian World Cup Referee) (slightly sweaty slightly dirty) second hand shirt, No 6. straight off the back of a man in the Bistro Baffi. 5 000CFA

2. A rough ride in a sauterama to the other side of the bridge, the other side of the markets. 100FCA

3. Arrive at the Post Office

4. Fight off the owners of the stalls across the street from the Post Office.

5. Find a 'wrapper' on the steps of the Post Office.

6. Watch the wrapper use recycled brown paper to wrap you parcel.

7. Haggle with the wrapper and get the price down from 12 000CFA ("Yes, but it is not just putting paper around the parcel. It is the symbolism of making your special gift safe and secure for its journey across the continents!") to a ridiculous 6 000CFA. Pay the wrapper.

8. Take the parcel in to the Post Office. Go to counter4.

9. Wait for the Post Office ladies to finish their morning chat, exchange pleasantries with each one of them (Questions and Answers: Each side get to ask and each side gets to answer: "How are you? How are your parents? How is your family? How are your children? How are your grandchildren? How are your friends? Do you also find it very hot today?").

10. Take photographs for my blog readers of their 'uniforms' -- beautifully colourful dresses with the Post Office logo's printed on the fabrics.

11. Have the (small) parcel weighed. Weight: 427 grams of which about 227 is the weigh of the brown paper.

12. Fill in forms, in triplicate, with address of recipient, details of sender, contents of parcel, value of contents (slowly creeping up from 5 000 to who knows where...)

13. Wait for both ladies to write these details into three different ledgers - by hand.

14. Wait to be told the cost of sending the parcel. 27 000CFA

15. Ask for some sugar water to get over the shock of the cost of sending the parcel.

16. Pay the king's ransom for the (slightly sweaty slightly dirty) second hand football shirt.

17. Exit the Post Office in a state of shock.

18. Fight off the owners of the stalls across the street from the Post Office.

19. Gasp for air as the heat hits you between the eyes.

20. Shout "Badelabougou" to the passing sauterama's and wait for one that is going in that direction to stop.

21. Get on to the sauterama, pay 100CFA, give a huge sigh of relief and look at the passing world of Mali as you bump your way back to base.

22. Hold your thumbs and keep your fingers crossed that the parcel will get to Port Alfred before you do in about 5 months' time.

AT LAST!!!

WHOOP!!!!!

AFTER ONE MONTH OF WAITING - WAITING -- WE FINALLY HAD SUCCESS AND GOT OUR VISAS TODAY -- SO -- WE ARE ON THE ROAD AGAIN SOON!!!

There is another side, yes -- but do you not already know it?

Quelle joie mais aussi quelle incroyable coïncidence de recevoir ton message ce soir,j'ai bien sur lu ton blog et ce soir je viens de terminer ton long récit qui décrit si bien Djenné. Je n'ai pas de mal à t'imaginer là car quand je travaillais à l'Unesco j'ai été envoyée au Mali et plus précisément à Djenné en mission avec deux collègues.
Je dois dire que mes impressions ont été bien différentes des tiennes et du coup je suis impressionnée par ta description détaillée et si vivante de tout ce que tu vois d'une façon générale. Contrairement à moi, tu sembles toujours admirative et enthousiaste, où tu vois les couleurs, l'animation du marché, j'ai vu le laisser aller, la crasse, les ordures partout, l'eau stagnante au milieu des ruelles les enfants qui attrapent la malaria faute d'hygiène et les conséquences dramatiques de l'Islam sur le progrès, le travail des jeunes, le rôles des vieux rétrogrades etc. Mon rapport au retour à Paris n'était pas du tout optimiste et rien n'a pu se faire tant l'inertie est grande en Afrique
En lisant ton blog, et tes impressions si fraîches et neuves, je me suis sentie vieille et désabusée, tout ce que tu découvres, dans des conditions bien particulières et passionnante, je l'ai vu il y a des années au cours de différents voyages en Afrique et cela me semble familier, le Maroc et plus particulièrement Marrakech (heureusement vous avez visité à temps), que tu sembles découvrir pour le première fois et qui est si familier aux Français;
La suite de votre périple me permettra sûrement de découvrir avec tes yeux, si ouverts et précis, des pays que je ne connais pas encore et de toutes les façons dans un autre contexte, dans une Afrique qui bouge pour le meilleur et le pire.

I received this lovely note from my good friend, Brigitte yesterday. She writes how her impressions of Africa, and in particular of Djenné, were so very different from mine, when, some years back, as an official of UNESCO, she was sent there to write a report about -- I believe, the state of the education in the city. She saw the poverty, the lack of hygiene, the stagnant water, the rubbish in the streets, the children working, the old people locked in their religious and traditional bias.
The note struck me as I read it. Already, in the group, the youngsters are making fun of my passion for Africa and for everything we see and experience. "Wonderful" and "beautiful" are two words I have since tried very hard to keep out of my writing, albeit almost - if not completely impossible to do in describing our daily fare of experiences. A few times I have wondered to myself whether I am being unrealistic in the impressions I convey to my readers -- whether I am being too one-sided in my accounts.

But then I decided 'No' -- everyone who reads this blog, I know, also reads the daily newspapers, watch the TV news, listen to the radio, attend seminars and lectures about a vast range of issues, join discussions where the poverty, the disease, the corruption, the discrimination, the intimidation, the cruelty, the inhumanity, the silent Chinese invasion of the continent.. is the focus point. Everyone who reads this blog already has a substantial font of informed knowledge and opinion about the continent. But not everyone who reads this blog has had the privilege to travel in person to all the countries -- and particularly to all the regions where we go through or the outlying and remote villages we visit. So my reasoning was that what my readers want to read is not what they readily get in the media. What they want to read is what I see and hear and smell and feel - my personal experiences and my personal impressions.

And yes -- I do see the poverty, the filth, the desperation, the hardship and the suffering. But, as I mentioned, before leaving Nici had sat me down and made me promise that I will NOT get downhearted or depressed about the suffering, the abuse, the cruelty, the ugly side of this continent; she made me promise that I will NOT go into a slump every time I see a child or an old person, or a beggar homeless and starving and covered in flies; she made me say out loud:"I canNOT save every maltreated animal. I canNOT change the lives of all the street children in Africa. I canNOT eradicate singlehandedly the prejudice, the unfairness of it all." And what that promise did was to not blind me to all those things -- for yes, they are there and I do see them, but to rather look for all the good, the beautiful and the wonderful -- and believe me, it has not been hard to find those aplenty. Even in the most dire circumstances you can come across the smiles and the joy and the sheer pleasure to be alive. When I found it hard to find anything beautiful and positive in my surroundings and amongst the people I encounter, such as in Marrakesh and in Mauritania, I wrote about my observations - candidly and honestly. And when Yaya took us around his city of Djenne and I saw where he had grown up and how he had taken himself out of that environment and into a competitive world where he has no problem proving himself to be as good, if not better than most of his contemporaries in Europe or the States, and I saw the ancient city through his eyes and the conditions and the children who came up to him to greet him with joy and the groups of young boys who clamoured around him to be in the presence of their role model and the old people who came to shake his hand and show their beaming pride in this young man from their community, and I heard him speak of the economic situation of the city and the traditions and the folklore and the medical and educational facilities and opportunities -- then I had to write about the wonderful impression this beautiful city had made on me. All of that far outweighed the dust and dirt and heat. I wrote what I saw. I relayed what I had experienced.

And I never presume to speak for anyone but myself -- my observations and my impressions are mine and mine alone.

Perhaps this would be a good place to make mention of the matter of bribery in Africa.

I have quite a few friends who have travelled on business through certain parts of Africa and their warning was: You are going to be asked for bribes and 'cadeaux' (gifts) as far as you go. Old people have their hands out, children have their hands out, every official has his hand out -- everyone wants 'gifts' and unless you pay or give handouts as far as you go, you will get nowhere.

What a sad picture this paints of an entire continent.

But then you get a person like our leader, Mark. "I don't pay bribes", is his categoric response. "What about border officials? They as for a 'cadeau' to stamp passports. How can you refuse to pay? They are the ones with the power."
"I don't pay anything because I don't need to. Their job is to stamp the passports and that is what I expect them to do. And when anyone asks me for a gift or for whiskey of for money I just say to them: I am a guest in your country. You should be giving me a gift. Where is my gift? Usually the official is so taken aback he just smiles and backs off.
And time and again we witnessed exactly this -- not once did Mark pay a single official or policeman -- and believe me, every border post we went through and every single police or army roadblock -- and we lost count of those but they were in the region of one per every 5 kilometres - where we were stopped, our papers examined, the truck's papers scrutinised, each passport paged through again and again -- at every one of these the official in question asked for a gift, for whiskey, for money -- and each time Mark's had the same reply: No-- sorry mate, I don't have a gift. But what about you, do you have a gift for me? And each time it worked -- we were waved through en went on our way. At one roadblock the police officer wanted payment for stamping the passports and Mark refused as there should be no payment for this service. He had no choice but to accept that we would not be giving him anything and let us through the barricade.
The first time I was approached by a child with an open upturned hand and the question:"Cadeau?', I smiled and returned the question: "Cadeaux? Where is my cadeaux?" This encounter ends each and every time with a smile, a giggle and a happy little discussion about gifts and who should be handing them out and who should be receiving them. If it is a garibou - a young Quran student with a tin, I would have him indicate where to find a place I am looking for and in return I would have a coin or two for him -- so that he would be 'earning' his payment rather than losing his dignity by begging for a handout.

If everyone did the same, perhaps we could stamp out this deplorable indictment against the officialdom and population of this continent? It IS possible, you know!

Dogon Country - A dreamlike experience

Sangha, Ireli, Yaye, Tireli, Pegde, Banani, Amani -- names that evoke images of powder soft dust, splashes of vivid pink and purple and black dancing and jumping and twirling bodies, frightening masks and bundles of fetishes dangling, stone houses and mud granaries, women stamping corn, crocodile totems, baobab rope and elusive stars, tortoises that tell the future, cemeteries in cliffs, sleeping on rooftops, walking up mountains, trekking through the groves of baobabs, asking the jackal to give answers to your questions, hauling water out of a well, reading history on carved doors, watching donkeys and goats drink from the croc pool, cow masks, ten metre high masks, old men chewing kola nuts, climbing climbing climbing to the sky, drinking millet cream, shells and beads and bronze, eating mangoes, goats butting heads and eagles soaring, graceful women carrying loads on their heads, cows pulling plows, old men talking and young boys dancing

The Dogon Country is magical and mysterious -- wedged between the encroaching desert plains and the towering cliffs of the escarpment. the earlier ancient Telem tribes's round houses are lodged in between the rocks high up where the eagles live, the later Dogon tribes' mud covered houses and granaries built lower down, all masterfully camouflaged to keep them safe and secure against the onslaught of the modern world. Each village has a market on a given day -- and that day is called after the village -- so Monday is Tereli, Tuesday is Yaye and so on -- a five day week in the Dogons. Each village is home to certain families -- as it has always been and as it will be for all time. Each village has a totem -- the animal that led them to that place originally, showed them where to find the water and still protects them against bad spirits. I cannot help but wonder about the crocodiles that live in the pond of Amani. The animals come to drink, the children come to fetch water, and never ever has a crocodile attacked anyone from Amani. Beware strangers, though. If you are not from this village, the crocodiles will eat you. I am sceptical about this -- these are big and mean looking crocs. But our guide assures us they have never attacked anyone from Amani -- their own village and I have to believe him. In Erili the old woman shows us under the large rock where the tortoise lives - the tortoise that brought the people from Erili here back in the 14th century when they arrived in the Dogons. Is the tortoise really 600 years old? In the Dogons anything is possible.

In Terili the village honours us with a masked dance -- fifty or more young men come running from up high in the village down into the flat dusty area under the baobab trees at the bottom where the well is. The elders are dressed in their indigo cotton robes and Fulani hats and look on -- two of them take the drums from the younger men and start beating a rhythm - the mask dance master gives the signals to them and they change the rhythm to tell the different masked dancers which have to come up and perform. Each dance reflects the mask -- the hunter and the sable antelope perform a slower copy of the hunt - hunter and prey circling each other gracefully. There are dancers on high stilts, balancing not only themselves but their elaborate masks as well. The four young men with the ten metre high towers above them come forward and dances wildly, throwing their heads forward to have the tips of the masks almost touch at the front in the dust, then at the back -- their neck muscles straining taut under the enormous stress of the weight of these heavy wooden structures. One young man accidentally allows his mask to touch the ground behind him. As quick as a flash almost all the masked dancers surround him and then, as quickly disperse again and as if by magic, the offending culprit has disappeared -- no one knows, nor will ever know, which dancer had committed this faux pas.

The women of the village stay at a distance -- they are not allowed near the masks; this is men's business. At the end of the performance, a group of the dancers run at where the women are, and women run off screaming. The children think it is the best thing they have experienced -- since the last time they had the pleasure of being part of this age-old tradition.

Later that evening we all talk about our favourite masks and which one we would like to have. We look in the little shop at the many different and beautiful masks available. My favourite was of course the cow mask -- but no one has one for sale like the one that had been sued in the ceremony. Much later, as we are sitting chatting under the stars and over a glass of hathe , I express my disappointment that I cannot have the mask that was used in the dance. Suddenly, there stands a young man with the mask in his hands. It is mine - at a price. A fifty-year family heirloom that will have to be replaced pretty niftily before the next masked dance - but I had expressed my wish to have the mask, and the mask is mine. My cow goes with me down the Wrest Coast of Africa...