Mali

Thursday, 1/8/2009 - Exploring Timbuktu

We were awakened at 4 am to something that sounded like a monkey being slaughtered. What was that? We convinced ourselves that maybe it was Tina's alarm next door (it actually wasn't, and we have no idea what it could have been) and we went back to sleep until our alarm went off at 4:30. We had all told Bahini that we wanted to leave bright and early. Timbuktu was a long drive - the UK group left at 5 am yesterday to get there. Toward the end of the ride you have to board a car ferry, and I had read in some woman's blog that if you miss the last ferry of the day, you are out of luck. Since most days we had been running on "Mali time", being slightly late for everything, we made a concerted effort to convince Bahini that it was best to get the earliest start possible.

Bleary-eyed, we finished our packing and met in the lobby at 5. The lobby was completely pitch black except for the glow of a small television with the sound turned off. A cell phone on one of the tables lit up and started ringing. Nobody answered it. Several dogs started to chase each other around the lobby and bark until we shooed them away. We still had tabs to settle up from last night's dinner, but there was no one from the hotel around. Time was ticking away. We contemplated leaving our money with the room keys on the check-in desk. Tina asked Bahini if the cell phpone that had been ringing was his. "What cell phone?" he asked. Tina aimed her flashlight at the phone and suddenly a figure emerged from the darkness, totally startling all of us. It was the desk clerk. He had been there the whole time, sleeping in the shadows! He had slept through his own cell phone ringing, us talking, the dogs barking...unbelievable! He groggily walked over to the desk and started fumbling through paperwork to find our bills.

We paid our tabs and then we finally were able to hit the road at 5:30. As we passed the turnoff to Kori-Maounde, we all gave a thought to the village. As excited as we were to head on to the festival, we also felt a twinge of regret that we wouldn't be going back to the village today. We looked up and could see the stars as we contemplated the journey thus far. We saw sunrise from the road, and soon we started to see rock formations which again reminded us of Monument Valley in Arizona. The early morning light was very beautiful as it illuminated and exposed the landscape. The dirt on the sides of the road was very red. We passed neatly stacked mud bricks being made near little roadside water holes. People take advantage of the last of the water before it dries up until the next rainy season.

We saw several tanks driving down the road (not something you see every day, and definitely not something you dare to photograph). We wondered if they were security for the festival, or if they were headed north to the areas with frequent Tuareg rebel insurrections. There had been some State Department warning about instability in "regions north of Timbuktu". None of us were particularly worried about it (though we took the advice of the State Department and registered our itinerary with them), but it was a bit unsettling (and yet strangekly comforting) to see such large artillery heading in the same direction that we were.

We stopped in Douentza for breakfast at 8:30. We pulled up to a small walled-in oasis and Bouba parked the car next to an entrance in the wall. We entered and were in a courtyard which contained several trees, an eating area, a kitchen, and some outbuildings. Locals were sitting outside near the road. We sat at a table with a mudcloth tablecloth under the shade of a roof. I had been very sleepy in the car, so I welcomed the morning Nescafe. Bring on the caffiene! We had bread for breakfast. Bread is always fresh-baked and it became something that we looked forward to each morning. We each got little individual baguette breadsticks which we savored with our morning coffee.

One of the girls came back with the news that this place had a "sweet toilet." This was quite a treat - actual plumbing can be hard to come by - so we all took advantage of the opportunity. We had also all heard that sometimes water can be hard to come by at the festival, and that sometimes there is even a bottled water shortage in Timbuktu when there are a lot of tourists descending on the area. We didn't want to take any chances, and bought three cases of water at the restaurant. Bouba strapped them to the roof of the car. Bahini bought us omelet sandwiches for lunch. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the sound of an egg sandwich which, by lunchtime, would have been festering in the car for about 4 hours, but I tried not to think about it too much.

We then got back into the car and continued on our way. The road, though no longer paved, was in pretty good shape for a while, though there were sections that were washboarded. We passed some really spectacular cliffs, and men in turbans herding donkeys with packs on their backs. We passed a sign which said "Bambara Maoude" and there was nothing in sight but a solitary cell phone tower. "Can you hear me now?" we joked, as we stopped for a photo. The soil was getting sandier as we drove. We started to see mileage markers to the river at Timbuktu, on alternating sides of the road every 5 km.

The road got progressively worse, and for a while we were following other cars which were kicking up quite a bit of dust. We joked that we were in the Dakar Rally. Bouba insisted we wear our seatbelts on this part of the ride, though he had never mentioned it elsewhere. We passed some graters which were doing some work on the road. It must be a constant battle. We bounced along, giggling and having a great time. We were on our way to Timbuktu!

Shortly before 1:00, we arrived at a spit of land where Bouba parked the car into a line (we were #8) to wait for the ferry across the Niger. It felt like we were at the end of the road, literally. Ahead of us was nothing but the river, the lifeblood of the area. Canvas tents lined the riverbank; the Bozo were a tribe of fishermen who lived here. That was also Bouba's cultural heritage.

We were so excited to be here. We were pretty much at the doorstep of Timbuktu at this point. The name had so many connotations... It seemed like we were on the threshold of a grand adventure. I tried to take a photo of Pam, Tina, and Susan in front of our car, and three young girls jumped into the picture. Their mother then harassed me for money "because I had taken their picture". Give me a break, lady. I know you're hard up for money, but using your kids like that is not cool.

We wandered around taking in the scenery. We admired the traditional cylindrical mud ovens which are used to bake bread. Bozo men mended their fishing lines. Donkeys and chickens wandered around, and piles of firewood sat on the shore next to wooden pirogue boats with brightly colored paint jobs. We watched as undulating swarms of birds flew around on the opposite shore, looking deceivingly like a plume of smoke. They re-arranged themselves in flight almost the way a school of fish do. It was literally a swarm of birds. We could see the blue ferry boat in the distance. Susan was walking around with a dried fish which she eventuallly gave to Bahini and his friends. She was joking that she was going to eat it, but we didn't buy that for a second. It seemed to be some kind of inside joke between her and Bahini.

Bouba taped a sign to the car window, identifying our car as "Saga Tours Desert Festival #1." Woo-hoo, we're number 1, we joked. After the ferry docked and emptied out, the cars backed in, one by one. Every car in the line managed to fit, with no room to spare. Bahini talked and joked with his guide friends, while we spoke with other passengers on the ferry, one of whom happened to also be from Boston. We observed that other cars on the ferry were piled high with firewood and sleeping mats. We knew that Saga Tours would be providing us with everything for our night of camping (except for sleeping bags, which we had brought from home) once we arrived in Essakane tomorrow. It was a pleasant ferry ride, but the direct sun was hot.

When we got to the port on the other side of the river (a place called Kabara), we got into the car and Bouba drove us down tree-lined streets toward Timbuktu. Bahini broke out our omelet sandwiches. Any initial misgivings from this morning were gone; the sandwiches were delicious and we ate them ravenously. After 15 kilometers, we reached the outskirts of Timbuktu. We pulled up to the Hotel Hendrina Khan, and before we could even get out of the car, someone immediately came up to us calling Pam's name. "Miss Pamela Bracken?!" Now that's service! We were brought into their lobby, which had two enormous sectional couches, to fill out check-in paperwork.

As the porters led us outside and into the next building to our rooms, we noticed Ed and Chris from the UK group in the courtyard. We did a double-take. They were supposed to be at the festival today; they were an entire day ahead of us on the itinerary, since we had spent an extra day in Kori-Maounde doing our service project. We asked them what was going on and they said they were not allowed to go to the festival. What?? They explained that the British government had feared for their safety, and had advised against continuing north of Timbuktu and, specifically, to the festival. Their tour company's insurance was nullified, and refused to bring them any further north; they would do an alternate itinerary instead.

Needless to say, the group was not pleased. In fact, three of the 16 had decided to go on anyway, even though they needed to pay extra to hire a separate driver and guide, and they had to sign a waiver saying that their tour company could not be held responsible if anything happened to them. Our hearts sank. Would we be prevented from attending as well? It seemed very unlikely that the US would not agree with the UK on this one...the State department is usually quick to issue advisories and warnings. The rumor was that Al Qaeda (who have a presence in the so-called "Islamic Maghreb" region) had made threats about kidnaping westerners. We were willing to take the risk, but was our government? Would we be prevented from getting to the festival after coming all of this way?

This weighed heavily on our minds as we followed the porter to room 17 and we got settled. We noticed that there was a prayer rug in our room, as well as a sticker on the wall with some Arabic writing and an arrow pointing toward Mecca. We desperately wanted to go to the festival. Who knew what the actual potential danger might be, but we knew that the US has had a travel warning in place against Mali for the past 10 years. No place is 100% safe; you could get killed in your own house. We were so close to the desert and the festival...we couldn't come this far and then be turned around! We both felt very nervous.

We met up with our group to tour the town, and we told them what the UK group had told us. Bahini hadn't heard of any such thing, and we called Assou to ask if he knew anything. We wanted reassurance that we would still be allowed to go. One of the hotel staff overheard and in fact seemed to get quite defensive, as if we were accusing his country and the Festival of being unsafe. We tried to explain that was not the case at all, that we were worried about our own government's perception of the situation, not the situation itself. But after talking to Assou, it seemed that noone was going to try to divert us from our itinerary, (not yet anyway). We hopped into the car and tried to clear our minds of this distraction so that we could fully appreciate our city tour of the famed Timbuktu.

As we left the relative oasis of the hotel with its trees, we drove down dusty dirt roads and past buildings which were made of mud and stone. Although the river was only 15 km away, this place felt as dry as a bone. Bouba let us off in front of the Djingereber Mosque, which was built in 1325 upon the orders of Malian Emperor Mansa Musa. The late afternoon light was gorgeous, and the mud mosque cast long shadows. One of its towers had a smooth mud facade, and the other was built of small stones. They had the ubiquitous loud speakers which blasted the afternoon call to prayer while we marveled at it. Across the dirt street was the Bibliotheque Imam Essayouti, a Quranic library, with elaborate latticed wood windows with keyhole shapes cut out of them. A man saw us admiring the building, and kindly invited us in. We thanked him, but declined because our tour was moving on without us.

Bahini was teaching the group about the history of the city, but Craig and I found ourselves to be distracted by the news we had received from the UK group. Craig was also having trouble hearing Bahini above the noises of the city, the call to prayer, etc., so the two of us ended up being a little bit separate, trying to take in the nuances of the city on our own while following along behind the group. There was so much to process that we couldn't focus on what was being told to us.

We were struck by the fact that we had had pretty low expectations for Timbuktu as a destination. We had heard that it was quite often disappointing for travelers: it was very isolated and it took a lot of time to get to, and that there wasn't much payoff. We had heard that it was dirty and long past its prime, and that it was more the kind of place to visit just to say you had been there. Now that we were here ourselves, we were mesmerized by the place, and we couldn't imagine why it had this reputation in the travel community. Everything that we saw seemed enthralling. It was such a unique place, and had a timelessness about it that few places have.

Houses and buildings rose from the sand like sand castles. On some structures, you could see where layers of mud had been washed away by past rainy seasons. We became aware how quickly, without prpoper maintenance, the whole town could dissolve back into the earth from which it came. We saw one structure which was reduced to a pile of rubble, and a tent had been erected on top of it. The "roads" were little more than dusty alleyways between buildings. Pipes stuck out of walls to allow rain runoff to drain off the roof away from the building, and we could see ruts in the dirt roads from washouts past. We became aware that in times of heavy rains, these roads must become rivers. There was so much to absorb and process.

The word "tombouctou" means depression or hollow in the Songhay language. The city of Timbuktu, surrounded by desert on all sides, was founded 10 km north of the Niger River in the early 12th century by Tuareg nomads. Aside from the odd lamp post or television antenna you almost felt as if you were in a city from the Bible. At first people here seemed more standoffish and less exuberant than those we had seen in Bamako, Segou, or Bandiagara. But it turned out they were just lost in their own little worlds and when you spoke to them, they did a double-take. When they realized that you were addressing them, they would spin around and give you a firm handshake, and a big smile.

As we wandered through the streets of brick and sand, children would smile at us and say "Ca va." We came across one boy who was learning to ride a bike. A friend was holding the bike steady. The friend got so excited to see us and shake our hand that he let go of the bike and it fell over, sending the rider to the ground in tears. Oops, that wasn't what we had intended!

We passed some traditional earthen bread ovens, and noticed little red birds flitting around the city. There were also very large pigeons which we mistook for hawks at first glance. This historic old section of town consisted of permanent buildings as well as tents. I could see the city reflected in Craig's sunglasses. Street names were painted on the corners of buildings. This city just had such a mystique about it, as if you had stepped back in time. It was utterly unlike any place we had ever experienced. Craig saw some people down one alley playing bocce, and they waved him over, though he politely declined and then caught up with the rest of us. We wish we had time to spend with all of these friendly people!

A young man seemed to be following us, and he asked Craig and I if we wanted to buy some Festival au Desert T-shirts that he had made. He took some hand-stenciled shirts out of his backpack and tried to sell them to us. We said no thank you, but he continued to wander around with the group, talking to Bahini. After a while we realized that he was our local guide! We thought it was quite an unorthodox way to introduce yourself to your clients (by trying to sell them something) and we were not incredibly impressed. We were still lagging behind the group, on sensory overload from the city, feeling like we had to keep moving even though there were so many sites where we wished we could linger.

Kids were playing hopscotch in the dirt all around town, and we tried to avoid stepping into the middle of their games as we wandered around. We saw the house of Rene Caillie, the first European to reach Timbuktu (in 1828) and live to tell about it. The lovely texture of all of the mud and brick buildings was accentuated in the waning daylight. It was wonderfully surreal. We could see the nearly full moon in the bright blue sky above the city, and thought of how nice it would be shining down over the desert for our upcoming nights of camping!

Next we peeked into the Mosquee de Sidi Yahia. It was a more modern-looking mud brick building with elaborate doors with metal embellishments. Originally built in the 1400's, its design was updated in 1939. We admired it from its outdoor courtyard and peeked into one of the doors. We passed an internet cafe with signs boasting Orange and Malitel phone cards. The cell phone ads looked very anachronistic - as if the 21st century had crash-landed into the midst of the 12th.

We saw many libraries throughout town. After our trip, I learned more about the rich literary heritage of Timbuktu from John O. Hunwick and Alida Jay Boye's book The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: Rediscovering Africa's Literary Culture. Timbuktu was located in between the salt mines of the Sahara and the gold mines of West Africa. Two-thirds of the gold in the world in the 1400's came from West Africa, and at the time a cup of gold dust traded for a cup of salt. Arabic became the written language of the traders and travelers who passed through Timbuktu. It was the "Latin of Africa" and was used as a written language even when not spoken. Scribes used Arabic script to write in their native tongues. By the mid 16th century, there were 150 Islamic schools in Timbuktu, and the city had a very strong academic reputation.

The single most profitable trade items in Timbuktu at the time were books. A book was worth more than a slave. However, during the French colonization of the late 1800's, Arabic manuscripts were seized and destroyed. People would bury their manuscripts in the sand to hide them in the hopes of preserving them. Eventually, French overtook Arabic as the spoken and written language of Timbuktu, and soon the ability to read these manuscripts was lost among the majority of the population. It is thought that as many as one million Arabic manuscripts survived colonial rule in Mali, with more turning up (being literally dug up from the sand) all the time. The libraries house these manuscripts, and many worldwide institutions are coming forward to help with their preservation..

If we had had more time, I definitely would like to have visited a library or two. I have seen photos of the manuscripts and they are quite beautiful. In fact, two weeks after we left Timbuktu, they held the inauguration of a new archive and library built to conserve manuscripts in a partnership between South Africa and Mali.

We passed by a small machine shop of some kind. The workers there were on a tea break, sitting on the stoop of the building with their teapot on a metal stand heated by charcoal. They noticed Craig watching their tea ritual with interest (thinking back to the delicious tea we had enjoyed in Kori-Maounde), and waved us over to join them for a cup of tea and a chat. This was unbelievable - everyone was so incredibly friendly. It made the so-called security threats seem even more incongruous. We wished we had more time in this city to fully get to know some of its inhabitants, but once again, our group was getting ahead of us, so we politely declined and quickened our pace to catch up with the group.

We saw some modern day graffiti on a door: "TUPAC" This jolted us back into the 21st century, as we pointed it out to Bahini (who had previously told us that was his nickname). We approached the market section of town, and started passing little shops, such as the hole-in-the-wall barber shop amusingly named "Las Vegas Coiffure." A box of telephone wires sat exposed at the bottom of a telephone pole. We went into a pharmacy to look for contact lens solution for Tina, to no avail. To this day I don't know how she managed to wear contacts for the entire trip. I was happy I had left them at home. My eyes were getting dusty enough wearing my glasses.

As we walked down the street, there was an outdoor market to the left. Bahini turned right and led us over to Sankore Mosque. Its walls were made of smooth mud, with the moon in the blue sky behind it, for an extra surreal effect. The mosque was built in the 14th century and was the site of the so-called "University of Timbuktu", a prestigious center for Islamic study in the 16th century.

Bouba was waiting for us here with the car, but we weren't quite ready to go yet. We wanted to explore the market. Tina had to use the restroom, and was brought into someone's private house to use their facilities. We watched kids playing pickup games of soccer in an empty lot. We watched as little boys rolled oil drums through the street, and people rode past us on motorscooters. Bouba left with instructions to pick us up later. We backtracked down the street toward the open-air market.

We saw people selling everything from fresh meat to fruits and vegetables to clothing. Several of us had wanted to buy a tagelmust (Tuareg turban) to protect ourselves from the sun and sand at the festival. We soon found a stall with plenty for sale in a variety of colors, textures, and qualities. The man selling them was a tailor and offered to make us custom clothing. It was a tempting offer, as the traditional Malian outfits (called a forkiya and consisting of a long tunic top and a pair of loose-fitting trousers) looked incredibly comfortable and cool, but we wouldn't be in town long enough for him to complete an outfit. We marveled at all the different swatches of fabric, in various colors and African patterns.

The turban fabric was knotted on a wooden pole and hanging for display. They were all solid colors, but were different in weight, thread count, and weave. Pam picked out an orange turban, I picked out a green one, and Craig picked out blue (a color reserved for men in the Tuareg culture). In fact, the Tuareg are often called "blue men" because the indigo color of their tagelmust rubs off onto their skin, making them appear blue. The seller wrapped our heads in the cloth, and then "discussed", as they call it, to negotiate a price. Buying something is never simple - transactions take time, as you need to go through all of the applicable social protocols. Pam was good, and negotiated us a price of 33,333 CFA apiece, plus an extra 500 CFA for him to hem the cut edges. We knew we would never be able to wrap these ourselves, but in Mali we learned there is never a lack of qualified people more than willing to help you.

We started to talk with El Hadj, a friendly university student studying English. He was very friendly and we told him that we were headed to the festival tomorrow. He was on school break from Bamako, visiting his family in Timbuktu. He spoke very good English, and we enjoyed chatting with him.

We wandered through the streets some more and as the afternoon light started to fade, the buildings picked up a rosy glow. We wandered the alleyways for several blocks. We ran into some children who were playing in some runoff water in the street. They all came over to us and wanted to shake our hands.

we got into the car and Bouba took us to the Flame of Peace sculpture, which shares its origins with the origins of the Festival au Desert. Throughout history, Tuareg nomads have come together for various large festivals (including the Takoubelt Festival in Kidal and the Temakannit Festival in Timbuktu). While congregating at these festivals, decisions were made, information was exchanged, games were played, and Tuareg songs and dances were performed. As nomads, the Tuareg have been marginalized by their government, which caused uprising and rebellion as recently as the early 1990�s. In 1996, the Malian government made an agreement with the Tuareg to better represent them in the government. To commemorate the occasion, on March 27, 1996, Tuareg rebels burned 3000 guns in a ceremony known as the �Flame of Peace�. A large marble-faced monument of the same name was erected in Timbuktu.

In 2001, the Festival au Desert was born after a meeting between Malian and European musicians. The Tuareg decided that they wanted to open their festivals up to the wider world, to celebrate music and culture. In 2001 the Festival took place in Tin Essako. The idea was for the Festival itself to be nomadic, and change location from year to year. In 2002 it took place in Tessalit in the Kidal region of northeastern Mali. In 2003, it was held in Essakane, 40 miles northwest of Timbuktu. The organizers realized that it would be more convenient in terms of logistics to have the Festival in a fixed place (not that Essakane is an easily accessible place in its own right). They built fixed structures such as a stage that could be re-used each year. Tonight was the start of the 9th annual Festival, despite the fact that we wouldn't be arriving there until tomorrow.

As we checked out the Flame of Peace monument and the charred remains of the weapons which had been cemented to its base, the sunset gave the western sky a fiery orange glow. A Tuareg man approached Craig at the monument, unwrapped Craig's turban, and then re-wrapped it for him. He used this as an opportunity to show us his wares, and he produced a small bundle from his robes and opened it to reveal jewelry. We said no thank you, thinking to ourselves that we would have plenty of opportunity to buy our fill of Tuareg wares at the Festival.

As we got back to the car, Bouba was just finishing up his early evening prayers. He got up off of his prayer mat, stowed it in the car, and drove us back to the hotel. We spent some time in our room, showering and writing out postcards. How perfect would it be to have them postmarked in Timbuktu?! We met the group outside in the courtyard. We sat down at a cafe table and had drinks and some very tasty native Malian peanuts. I took some photos of the moon and we talked about the Festival, picturing sleeping out in the desert under the full moon. We had no idea what to expect. It was thrilling.

Then we went into the dining room for dinner. We noticed a name tag on our tablem which said "Pamela Braken, 6 pax." We joked that we would start referring to ourselves as "The Pamela Bracken 6-Pack." Spirits seemed a little low at the UK table next to us, and we still felt nervous that the rug could be pulled out from under us and we might not be allowed to continue. But we tried to put that out of our heads as we enjoyed dinner. It was a prix-fixe menu which consisted of squash soup, peas and onion, capitaine (fish from the Niger), and bread. We saw a menu of the day written on a board and one of the meals was called the "resistance". Since we always seemed to get capitaine in hotels whether we ordered it or not, I made a Star Trek Borg joke: "Resistance is futile; you will have the capitaine." We were all a bit punchy - it had been a long day and we all had the travel advisory on our minds, so we had a very giggly dinner. Craig had a beer and I had a Fanta. I got a photo of Bahini posing with his cell phone, which had a photo of Barack Obama as the wallpaper.

After the others went to bed, we hung out with UK blokes Chris and Ed in the lobby for a while. We were seated on couches chatting when a group of people arrived from Essakane. Apparently they had gone to the festival this evening but were back here in town to spend the night rather than camping in the desert. We wondered why they were back so early...had something happened at the festival? Something terrorist-related? We chuckled relievedly when we heard the real reason - they had been too chilly.

We saw a staircase which Chris said led up to the roof. Craig and I walked up the stairs to the next level, and then up another flight of stairs to the roof. We made a mental note NOT to let the door close behind us and somehow lock us up there. We could see sporadic city lights and the full moon gave a glow to the landscape. It was surprisingly chilly, given how warm the days were. We were glad that we had brought layered clothing for our nights camping in Essakane! We pinched ourselves to make sure that this was all real. So far, the plan was to leave for Essakane in the morning as scheduled, and nobody seemed prepared to stop us. We headed back to the room and went to sleep at 11:48 pm.

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