Niger River, Discoteque weddings, and Bednets

Our ride to Mopti was in the back of a van with 20 other people. I sat by a woman holding a 2 year-old baby that loved to play with my arm hair. It is interesting how people in Asia and Africa have been so fascinated with my body hair! We were met at the stop by a friend of Mohammad's brother who showed us the hostel where we were going to stay at. It was really nice with fans, but we wanted to sleep on the roof like we did in Bankass. However, they were having construction and so instead of paying the $10 to sleep in a room with a fan, we paid $3 to sleep under bednets and on mattresses in a courtyard that had no air circulation. Bednets are so dang warm and I slept without my permethrin sheet that night. I might have opened it up some too (which might explain why I got malaria when I got home.) We finally did our laundry in the courtyard with buckets and shampoo and soap. We left them up to dry. We were the only people staying in the hostel because it wasn't tourist season. I felt a little guilty that there were 20 rooms open and we slept in the courtyard, but the 20 year old guys running the hostel were so laid back and friendly that we didn't feel bad. When we got there, they offered us some of the rice made from the tomato and onion soup balls. The way that you eat is to wash your hands before and there is a common bowl that everyone eats out of on the floor. They share their food with anyone that they come in contact with and it is a sign of community to eat together. However, the rice can be very hot and you can burn your fingers!

The inn was in a smaller town outside of Mopti and we took a taxi to get to Mopti. When we first got there, we met Sek Dolo, who spoke excellent English and became our tour guide. Everyone told us that Mopti was an aggressive tourist town with people wanting to be your tour guides. We thought that Sek Dolo because of his English skills would be a welcoming factor since we didn't speak French and were vulnerable. However, we were still wary of tour guides since our last encounter with James Brown. The tour guides know each other pretty well and they travel around the country with the tourists, so Sek knew James. We got everything aranged for our flight from Timbuktu to Mopti. I wanted to save money and drive at least one way (which to the shegrin of my companions turned out to be an adventure in itself.) But we decided because of time to fly back to Mopti. Because the flights only left on certain days, we decided to go to Djenne the next day to see the giant mud mosque city. After we arranged everything. We went on a canoe ride of the Niger river. There were naked people everywhere enjoying bathing in the river and waving to us. There were children trying to escape their mother by swimming and crying. It was a little comical, but I felt bad when I knew that they were going to get a beating when she caught them. We toured different villages of the Toureg, Bambara, Palani, and the Boso people which all looked different with their tribal clothing. Sek explained that Palani wore vietnamese style hats and were nomads tending sheep. The Boso were fishing people that lived by the river. The Bambara did agriculture and the Toureg were also nomads but rode camels and lived in the desert. The river brought them together and they lived in peace with their villages overlapping. They also had mud mosques that they would have to remud every couple of years. Because of the plastic in the mud from people throwing their garbage in the river, some of the mosques would have wrappers sticking out of the walls. The view from the river was so beautiful. We got back from our river tour and went to use the internet. We walked around the city trying to get a taxi, and I argued with a taxi driver to get the price down to get back to our inn. Because my French wasn't so good, I thought that I was saying 2000 and the driver understood 10000 cifas. I made sure to qualify and it was so frustrating that we got out of the cab. We ended up going with them for 3000. That night Julia was beat so she went to bed, but Janine and I went with one of the guys in the lodge to watch a Bambara band from the capital. We sat in an arena on the ground with 1000 other people. It was all in Bambara and we didn't understand a thing. They had huge gourd guitars which they would twirl around really fast and I thought that they were going to hit each other in the head. It was pretty cool, but I was also beat and so I kept dosing off. Our friend caught me and so we went back. I felt bad because of my tiredness to make him miss the program but he reassured me that it was alright and he would go back if he wanted to. That night as I mentioned before was horribly hot and we didn't sleep very well. Especially Juila, she got up a couple of times in frustration and tried to move her bed. We slept in, and missed the time we were going to meet Sek Dolo aka "Joy Boy" his nickname because his name was too difficult for foreigners to remember. I went to a phone in the town to try to call him. A small boy ran and hid behind me crying, he was afraid because he was going to be beat by his father. He was in pure terror. I felt sorry for him, but my friend tried to reassure me that this was normal and sent the boy on his way. I called Sek, but he had already left. We took a taxi and we met him, he said he was worried but that everything was alright. He took us on a walking tour of Mopti, where we went to the market and tried different fruits that we had never seen before. He also showed us the marriage water jars that people would travel for days to buy for newly wed couples. We then went to the Bissap Cafe, which sold Bissap tea, it was made from red leaves and was sweet. It was really good. Then Julia played a guitar on the roof for our own personal concert with the guys who worked at the cafe. One guy filmed her and said that he was going to sell her songs in Mali. She was flattered.

Afterwards, we went to the taxi station to see if there was a car going to Djenne. I think I mentioned before that to travel anywhere, a car has to be filled to the brim with people before it leaves so that there is enough profit to make the journey worth it. Nothing has a schedule. We bought our tickets and then one of Sek's friends told us that there was a marriage party going on in the discoteque. It was about noon and we decided to go and see. We started dancing with all of the people. A group of 10 year old boys were trying to show me how to dance, I then started dancing with some ladies ranging from20-50 years old. In Mali, people would dance to how they felt the beat and no one felt that they had to compare to anyone else. They danced to express themselves without fear. It was really fun. They ended up filming me for a lot of the wedding video. We were boiling because it was midday and no ventilation. We were so sweaty. After the dance party we went back and got some apple soft drinks and loaded up with water and went back to the taxi station. We with 11 other people in the station wagon were on our way to Djenne.