speaking of rivers.
last week i floated on the Niger River in central Mali with my nine new friends. the Niger is a big, lumbering desert river that seems to cut the Sahara desert in half. glassy, flatwater bordered on both sides by desert and desert, there are small fishing villages dotted along the waterway. the Bozo people (no jokes, please, that is really the name of their ethnic group) are notorious for their enduring river/fishing culture. they fish from small wooden boats called pirogues, the helmsman working from the rear while another person balances precariously from the narrow bow, working the fishing nets. other larger boats, the pinasses, offer transport for villagers up and down the river. the Niger is a busy place, yet remarkably peaceful. there is something about the light on the water and the welcoming waves of local villagers. something special. something that helped me to digest our experiences in the village and all that led up to it. on another day, the hum of the boat's motor and the quiet lapping of water might have sent me to a sweet doze, but on this trip, the Niger called me to internal attention and i took that time to consider a few big questions.
we had just come from spending a week in Kansongho, a small Dogon village up on the plateau. i had visited this community in July as a representative of the Tandana Foundation. upon returning home from that trip, Anna and i decided to propose a volunteer vacation to the region, hoping that other folks might agree with us that it is a special place. a few short months later, after sending out e-mails, making phone calls, and sending out invitations on facebook (crazy facebook), our group met in downtown Bamako, Mali for the first time. there was no way to know in those first moments how beautifully our group would come together in the coming weeks. but come together, we did. and we were not alone. the people of Kansongho and the very place itself stood not as symbols, but as lively, important parts of our whole. the Tandana volunteers had come to help. how could we know in advance how much we would receive?
done in a direct shot, the journey overland from Bamako to Kansongho is long and grueling, so we decided to break it into a few days, giving everyone a chance to find their feet on African soil and prepare for our time in the village. on the way, we visited the ancient port city of Segou where we stumbled upon an impromptu evening of live music that still has me tapping my toes. one of my favorite evenings of the trip, our night in Segou seemed to be an omen of the wonderful things to come. one by one the musicians and dancers pulled us off our chairs and we danced in the warm African evening. later we traveled to Djenne, home of the world's largest mud brick mosque. we showed up just in time for market day, a swirling madness of vegetable vendors, fishmongers, hardware booths, goats, chickens, calls to prayer. we stayed the night in Djenne to work with a mud cloth artist the following morning, so we had a chance to also see Djenne without the market craziness. it turns out that what had been a mob the day before, became a sleepy little place where we could stroll side streets and make new friends along the way. Thanks to Christopher Lindstrom, we made a great contact in Djenne, a local man named Hamadoun who hosted us with great friendship and graciousness.
our next stop was Bandiagara, our jumping off place before heading into Dogon country. jumping off. jumping in.
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