NY Times article about Djenné

This article in the New York Times about Djenné is well worth reading.  I recommend the video too, which fleshes out the author's opinions and adds some great imagery.

The article does a good job of capturing Djenné, and the world heritage sight designation is an issue which we heard about from local residents when we visited.  But I think the article it is a bit off the mark.  I've only spent two days in Djenné and I've lived in Mali for just four months.  But that won't stop me from taking issue with the Gray Lady.

The article and the video imply that Djenné is stuck in a time warp, their hands tied by UNESCO.  The implication is that the open sewers, the requirement to live in mud-brick buildings, the trash, the rotten odor in the air are all confirmation of a unique problem.  The truth is that Djenné is the same as --and possibly better off than -- other places in Mali.  The entire country is plagued with open sewers, trash, odor, and people living in structures you would be embarrassed to let your dog sleep in.

For example, walk out the door of my house most evenings and the smell of burning garbage is the first thing you'll notice.  Then exit my walled courtyard, step across the 4-foot wide smelly open sewer, and cross the dusty dirt road strewn with trash.  Here you'll meet our closest neighbors, a family of about 10 who live in a 1/4-constructed house half-sealed from the elements by corrugated tin and plastic tarps.  The women who live here walk about 200 meters each day to fetch water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking.  Now turn around and you'll see a lean-to against our property's perimeter wall.  Underneath this pile of bricks, tin, and a plastic tarp lives another family.  In Djenné at least the homes are fully constructed and most have running water.

The video also talks about falling river levels due to climate change.  For the record, the river reached higher than normal levels during the last rainy season.

I had the opportunity to travel the countryside around Djenné.  We saw countless little villages that might be called "mini-Djenné's".  In this region everybody lives in mud brick structures -- even when UNESCO doesn't require it.  Each town has it's own beautiful mud-brick mosque as well.  None of these towns get money from UNESCO.

For example, here's one especially large mosque in Djiafarabe, another island city near Djenne:

And here's a picture of a typical small village near Djenné (taken as I sped by in a car).  Note the beautiful tiny mud mosque in the middle-left:

Something that became especially clear to me in my recent travels is that Mali is a very poor country.  Djenné is part of this, but in my mind is no worse off, and in fact is probably better off in many ways, than other towns in Mali.

Video

Rebecca and I traveled for three weeks over winter break.  Here are four videos.

Camel Racing at Festival au Desert just outside Timbuktu:


Some scenes from Dogon Country:


Golden Monkeys in Rwanda:


Gorillas in Rwanda:

Greetings

It's hard to overstate how important greetings are in Mali.  When passing someone on the street in Bamako a "Bonjour, ca va" will suffice.  But if you see an acquaintance you must inquire about how they slept (early in the day at least), their family, and perhaps their children, parents, and siblings.  All of this is reciprocated and is in Bambara, the predominant regional language.

In rural Mali greetings are even more important, and in Dogon Country, where I recently spent 6 days, I saw this up close.  For example, in these villages which are typically about 300 people, the women may walk up to 500 meters through steep and rocky terrain to get 3 gallons of water which they carry on their head in a pot.  They've likely made this same trip every day since they could walk.  But everyone they see is greeted for about 5 seconds with a chorus of what sounds like "say-oh" being repeated back and forth about 10 times.  As we were walking with our guide, Oumar, he would also greet most people -- whether it be someone farming on the side of the path, or someone driving by on their motorbike (very rare).  But in that case the motorbike stopped, they greeted each other, and the rider continued.

Thanksgiving weekend trip

We took a road trip over Thanksgiving weekend.  Our first stop was Ségou, about 4 hours from Bamakao, where we spent the night at the Espace Bajidala Guesthouse.  Ségou is a nice little town on the Niger.  They host one of Mali's best music festivals every February and we're going to return for that.

Segou Waterfront

Rebecca at a Bogolon cloth workshop.  Ségou is famous for its Bogolon cloth.

 Sunset along the Niger on the outskirts of Ségou.

Our next stop was Djenné where we stayed two nights at a beautiful guesthouse on the river.  To say Djenné is magical is not much of a stretch.  It is an island city in what is called the Niger River's inland delta.  Djenné is famous for its mud architecture and especially its mud mosque.  We had a fun tour of the city with our guide Sory.  We also made time for our driver, Mr Mustafa Traore, to pray at the mosque which he had never seen before.  He seemed to really appreciate this.

 

Walking through Djenné

A women's collective celebrating a completed round of fundraising with dancing.

Our guide Sory explaining to Hans and Rebecca the significance of the ancient tomb to the right.

The mosque pictured from a nearby rooftop.

The next day we got up with the sun in order to make the 3 hour drive to Diafarabé for the annual Traversée Des Animaux.  Our drive through Mali's "inland delta" on dirt roads and paths through the brush was fascinating and beautiful.  We arrived in Diafarabé just in time.  Here's a video of some of what we saw.  This went on for about 2 hours.



The whole town was at this and the celebration afterwards -- the streets were deserted.  Everyone in Diafarabé was very friendly, especially the children.

Rebecca walking with some children and our driver.

 We hit the tree on the right but escaped with just some body damage.

 

Rebecca with Chadal, who owns the inn behind them.  The river is just off to the left side.  Our room was the entire top floor and balcony.

 

The sort of crazy male monkey at the inn.

The much sweeter female monkey at the inn.

 A fairly typical village for the region.  Note the mosque in the middle left.  Also, the two outhouse-sized structures near the foreground are granaries.  All the villages had many of these structures, which are raised about a foot off the ground to keep out rodents.

 We stopped for a couple hours to have our car repaired and this Sotrama came in.  You can see many unhappy sheep on top towards the front and unhappy chickens on the top towards the back.  It is fairly common to see sotramas loaded this high or higher with all sorts of items.

We had to make a roadside stop to change a tire and this friendly group of farmers appeared to watch the excitement.  Communication was difficult since Bambara is their first language and like many Malians, their French was worse then mine.  Also like many Malians they didn't smile for the photo until they looked at themselves on the back of the camera.  Then they grinned from ear to ear.  We gave them a bunch of random food items we had in the car and they seemed to appreciate it.

Tabaski Part Two; The Part Where We Eat

After a fascinating Tabaski morning Rebecca and I began the second half of our day: two Tabaski feasts.  Our first feast was at the home of our friend Modibo, a tailor who works on our property.  Modibo lives in Kabala, about 10km from Bamako's center, with his wife and 6 children.  He calls his neighborhood "la brose" (the brush). Kabala is on this map in the lower left corner:

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To get to Kabala we took a Sotrama for the first time. The image below is actually a piece of art at the Musée national du Mali, but it is a fairly good rendering of what a real sotrama is like.  They are small vans, always green, and almost always packed with people.  When traveling inter-city, it is not uncommon to see them stacked this high with stuff. 

Most sotramas are labeled maximum 18 or 20 passengers, but on the way to Kabala there were over 30 people in ours at one point (though many of them were children).  It was an interesting experience, and for the fare and convenience (about $.60 to go 10km), I'd do it again.  In fact we did do it again coming home from our second party.  (That Sotrama was much smaller, but still had over 20 adults in it at one point.)  No matter how full the Sotrama is, the "conductor" is always calling the destination looking for more passengers.

We arrived in Kabala and made our way to Modibo's house, a one room barren concrete structure -- actually pretty nice by local standards.  Though we were two hours late and the family had already eaten, they treated us as honored guests, reheating mutton on the grill and also serving it in sauce with bread and couscous.  We also enjoyed a delicious tomato salad followed by watermelon and Malian tea (more on tea in a later post).  Below is a pic of Modibo serving us grilled mutton.

Modibo is wearing the traditional attire for Tabaski.  He has on matching pants which you can't see in the photo.

Above Rebecca enjoying a mutton rib.  If you're wondering what this delicious ram looked like the day before, please see Tabaski Part 1.

We were both really moved by Modibo and his family's hospitality.  But since we were running late, we had to make a hasty departure from Modibo's for stop #2: dinner with one of the first people I met when I moved to Mali - Mohamed the furniture maker.

I met Mohamed on the street while walking past his shop.  He introduced me to his good friend, roommate, and "brother", Adama, who became one of my French tutors. Mohamed and Adama invited Rebecca and I to join them, their wives (Fatim and Rokia), and Mohamed's baby daughter for their Tabaski feast.  We enjoyed their company on their rooftop and ate more mutton -- this time in a sauce with french fries and fried plantains.  We stayed until after dark and caught a sotrama home.

Unfortunately our camera was maladjusted and the photos are a bit blurry.

Tabaski was a memorable day and I feel fortunate to have been able to participate so intimately in the festivities.

And for those keeping score, I did mention that we attended three Tabaski parties.  The third party was the Tabaski equivalent of a work Christmas party.  It was held the Friday evening before Tabaski.  All of the faculty and staff and at Rebecca's school was invited to the headmaster's home.  His lawn was set with tables, there was a lively band, a traditional dance performance, and of course plenty of mutton.  A (live) ram was given away to one lucky staff member (all of the staff are local).  He seemed very moved and according to my friends he was quite deserving of the prize.  Every head of family is obligated to provide his family with a ram, and at about 100,000 francs, this is an expense almost equal to a full months salary.