le pays dogon

sévaré, mali

picture me caked in mud, riding on the back seat of a moped with a stupid grin on my face, and there you have my past three days in pictoral form. it's not just that i witnessed an ages-old culture in practice, albeit one staring down the barrel of history's cruel six-shooter. it's not just that the creations of man and nature were so breathtakingly beautiful. nor is it only because the people i met, from the guides to the villages elders to the fellow toubab trekkers, happen to be salt-of-the-earth, sweet people. there's just something about dogon country that has it standing head-and-shoulders above any experience i've had thus far in west africa.

my three-day, two night trek took me to a very small-n sample of the entirety of dogon country, which stretches for well over two-hundred kilometers. i don't want to say i got the gist of it, but i'll claim to have gotten the gist of what i did see. after an early departure and an 80 kilometer moped ride from this town, the daytime primarily consisted of riding between villages. of the four we saw during the first day and following morning, each consisted of about four clusters of one hundred families, surrounded by arable land (though not by appearances) with a small yet prominent mosque in the center. we would drop our bags off at a campement, then climb up about fifty meters to the base of the massive cliff, where the prior village was. each of these abandoned villages lies beneath the overhang of the escarpment, protected from the elements yet amazingly accessible to water. a few generations ago the whole operation got moved below (to the present location) because hauling millet up uneven rock-strewn paths was determined to be inefficient, if not exhausting. between the hours of noon and 4, guides provided mattresses and told the toubabs to chill. in short: don't mess with malian sun.


following thursday's naptime, we abandoned the moped and walked through a chute in the escarpment, then followed a path to the top and the village of begne matou. from here, we had amazing views of the entire escarpment, which basically rises from endless miles of flatland to this enormous, continuous cliff, at least 100 meters tall and level throughout. we visited the small compound of the village ogon, or chief, and saw the various skulls demarcating the hunter's residence. other than that, we pretty much took in the sites of the sunset, the geology, and the village, all the while mindful not to step into warm execretal contributions from donkeys, goats, pigs, or any other four-legged defecators.

each day was better than the prior, with the true magic falling on friday's return. we walked two kilometers from begne matou to a neighboring village at the top of the escarpment, just in time to beat the storm that was heading our direction. before the full cast of thunder, lightning, and massive quantities of precipitation took the stage, we were treated to an eerie, almost pre-tornado atmosphere. the incoming winds shook up the soil and dirt, creating an adobe red sky at 9 am with winds whistling through the narrow alleys between huts and homes. when the rain began to relent, we started our descent through a narrow crevice in the escarpment, at times crawling on all four's down the wooden ladders provided. the rocks were not too wet, but let's just say that many portions of this path had a don't-look-down edge nearby and we were careful, to say the least, with each step we took. after a brief repose at the bottom, we fired up the moped and at times had to wade it across the stream that had been a road just one day prior.

1000 things you must do before you michael jackson/farrah fawcett (just learned...wow!)
i'm not a big proponent of those books or of people who like to give such blanket statements (i.e. you haven't lived until you've tried their shrimp scampi, etc.), but having said that, i think i have a contender. the best part of the past week (including my homestay in sévaré) has been that i've been sleeping on a mattress in the great outdoors, on rooftops while i was in dogon country. i think i can say that one night of gazing at the african night sky is justification in itself for the airfare (and the malaria). with little- to no-light pollution and rarely any clouds, laying flat on your back gives you an all-access, front-row pass to the best views of the inverted compass imaginable. so while i would never say that you haven't lived until you've seen the night sky in africa, i can say that only sailors could claim to have had a better view of the stars.

if you can't play travel scrabble...
riding nearly 100 km on a moped can be exhilarating, but it can also be a bit hard on the tush and may have you wanting for distraction. as pocket board games are out of the question since the pieces would fly off and your prospective opponent is, well, steering the moped, i thought of a different game. the first step is to eat a mango. at least one gap between your teeth will invariably have a piece of said mango stuck in between. the game, then children, is to guess how many kilometers will pass before you are able to free the stubborn mango morsel with your tongue. yesterday, in my case, the answer was the entire journey, plus a few centimeters of the floss in my backpack. i think this means i was disqualified.