Beaching it in Ghana, back to the USA, lessons learned in Africa

We got back to Ghana and it was sooo good to hear English again. We had to barter for a taxi. Janine was so fed up with the bartering system at this time she lost it. She said that she knew how "these people" were because she had worked in Katrina. Both Julia and I tried to explain to her that this is just how the system works and she was sick and tired of feeling ripped off. We went to the bus station to go to the beach and we finally had cell phone service. She walked away from us and just cried on the phone. She was probably expressing her frustration about Africa and Julia and I to her parents. She was entitled to this given that this was her first trip out of the country and it was so dang intense. We got on the bus and made it to the closest town to the resort. We had to arrange another taxi to take us to the resort and they told us $20. Janine wasn't going to take it. After about a half and hour of negociating with other taxis we finally took it. She felt insulted by the driver and was crying again. We finally realized how out of the way and how horrible the road was that we realized that it was a fair price. The resort was full and so we ended up sleeping in tents on the beach. It was a perfect place to de-stress and relax. Janine met a lot of knew friends and I read my book on the beach. We went swimming and got sun burned...it was what we needed. It was so romantic on the beach that Julia asked me what I thought about two friends making out if that would be awkward afterwards. A little shocked because I think that kissing causes emotions to flow just like saliva told her that it was probably better that we didn't. Ironically Julia and I been kind of physical throughout the end of the trip and the idea of kissing her went through my head before she brought it up. We stayed 2 nights at the beach with all of the other Europeans who were in Ghana. We went home and I called my parents on the way back to Accra. They had recieved sporatic emails and I knew they were probably worried as they usually do. It had been an adventure of a trip. I was sad to leave but it always feels good to come home.

These are just a couple of thoughts that I learned while I was in Africa that I wrote along the journey:
You can't control everything in life, sometimes you have to go with the flow if you are powerless in the situation.
It is better to have less expectations and treat every good thing in life as a gift.
It is important to greet people
Making friends is a good survival tool. People you can trust will help you through difficult situations
Everyone should be vulnerable sometimes to see who you really are and know what it is like when you have no control
It is scary to be in situations where you if you get hurt and there is no way to get help
It is easy to judge and make you feel better than others, but it makes you unhappy. it is just as easy to laugh at the situation and relax. Realize we are all human

Crazy Burkina!

We got to the border and we went through with little problems. The Burkina border control were so nice and friendly. In order to try to get a better transport to Ouagadougou, we told the tro tro that we wanted the extra money that we paid to get to Ouaga back. We went to the "bus" station were a line went...to our surprise it was a nicer tro tro but not the buses that we were still expecting. We waited another couple of of hours for the tro tro to fill up. We got the front seat with the driver. I think it was because we were white because we were the last in line and the told us to go to the front. We were so tired at that point that we took it and I didn't realize the special treatment until we were driving. We had our lunch which consisted of tuna on a baguette which was so good. On the way the driver got in an arguement with one of the passengers and he actually stopped the tro tro to fight with him. Luckily one of the other passengers calmed them down. The driver through out the drive was cursing under his breath at these guys. He tried to hit them while he was driving. He tried to get me on his side but I had no idea what he was saying. We finally got to Ouaga and our stop was the same tro tro stop where we caught the tro tro to leave Ouaga to Mali. We then took a taxi to the Catholic Cathedral and stayed in the nunery that night. I met up with my friend Rasmane that I met the time before. I was so happy to see him because he was a familiar face that I knew I could trust. I spoke to him in French. He told me that our other friend had left for Spain to work and that he was hoping to go to the US. I told him to keep practicing his English and to let me know what happened. We then went to dinner Julia, Rasmane, and two guys that we met on the street on the way to ATM at the cathedral. We then went on the back of the motos to an out door concert. Rasmane told me that the guy with Julia was known as a "bad boy." I thought this was ironic that we felt more comfortable with our muslim friend Rasmane than the Christian who was with Julia. I told Julia, she still insisted on riding back with him and we went back to our hostel. I was pretty disappointed at that point that we only had one night in Ouaga and I couldn't take the girls to the crocodile pools and that I couldn't hang out with Rasmane, but the next morning we had to take off to the airport. I bought a batik from the nuns for my parents. The Christian guys brought their stuff to sell us the next morning. I specifically wanted to buy from Rasmane as I know that he worked part time in a shop and bread store. He went along with the Christians as I knew that he had to be loyal to his country men before the Americans. I refused to buy because I wanted to wait for Rasmane. We went to the airport and Rasmane was waiting there for us. I bought a big batik of an elephant from him with couble the money than it was worth. He told me he didn't have change, and I told him that I didn't care about the money. I think that he understood that it was more about our friendship than money. We continue to email once every couple of months short messages and he wished me a Merry Christmas which I thought was ironic and great. We left Burkina and headed back to Ghana.

from Mopti Mali and on the road to Burkina Faso

We went back to the hostel Sevare got cleaned up and went to see Sek. We had Sek buy us tickets to go a longer route to Bobodialasso Ouagadougo because the girls didn't want to be on anymore horrible tro tro rides. He promised that it was going to be a good bus. We then went to the Bisap cafe one more time and invited our friends from the hostel to come. The bill ended up being $70. Julia paid for it which was very nice of her. We then went on a hike to get to our bus. It wasn't the air con buses or even ones with personal seats. It was an old bus with a wooden bench in the back and rusted holes in the floor. Janine broke down this time given that it was going to be another night sleeping in the bus. She just sat down and cried. We had already paid our money and there was nothing we could do. I went to go buy water and I had to go all over town to find cold water because I had a feeling that if these girls didn't get cold water that bad things were going to happen. I felt bad for them. After going and feeling water bottles in 5 different shops I chose the coldest and came back. Things were better when they came back. They were very sweet but still pretty frustrated. I chose a window seat in the back and the girls sat by the windows also. We rode for a while and the bus was not too full thank goodness. At sun down we got out and prayed. And during the trip we stopped because of bus problems and i would pray that the bus would run. I slept some on the bus ride. Julia came back and slept and cuddled with me. The large Malian woman in colorful balck green and yellow and red sitting on the bench would push Julia if she got too close. We didn't sleep so well. We got to the Burkina border and had to wait for 3 hours. So I got out and slept in the dirt next to the families that were traveling with us who had their mats and the girls slept on the bus.

Stranded in the Sahara with the Tuareg Family and back from Timbuktu

We headed out to the Sahara from Timbuktu. I had my turban that I had bought from the Fulani nomad in Mopti that had saved me and the 5 others on the wooden benches in the landcruiser on our 24 hour journey to Timbuktu and now I was finally putting it to use as the Tuareg used their turbans: protection from sun and sand. Julia, Janine, the French couple, their guide, Alkedi, and I headed out on camels into the desert with our Tuareg guide. We had a blast making jokes and singing Bob Marley on our way. We went through the sand dunes at sunset to finally the encampment were there were 2 huts: one for Tuareg family that we stayed with to sleep and another for food preparation. They laid out a blanket and we ate dates and drank African sweet tea (I should say that we made Janine drink our tea because we weren't supposed to drink the tea as mormons.) The french couple went off to do what couples do. And the girls and I and the two guides from Timbuktu went out into the desert to look at the moon. I brought my harmonica and we danced and played in the sand. The French couple's guide kept touching Julia inappropriately and I had to explain to him that was not right. He apologized when he saw that she was angry. However, I don't think that he understood that this was inappropriate behavior the way he acted that night. We went back to the encampment and rested on the mat outside when all of a sudden a dust storm came. Sand was everywhere and you couldn't see anything. We ran into the hut. They put up the walls to change the canapy of a hut to an enclosed dwelling. Sand still got in so we went under the blanket. It started raining. Under the hut, we had spagetti with camel meat in a big common bowl because the Tuareg food always made even the locals sick. It was pretty good. After we had finished eating, they gave the rest to the 5 kids of the Tuareg family. If we would have known that they were going to eat, we would haven't eaten as much. However, there was still a lot left. The storm finally stopped and we took a mat outside to sleep under the stars. The two guides came with us. During the night there wasn't a lot of sleeping as one of the guides kept putting his hand on the girls stomaches and touching their breasts. They would wake me up and I would switch places with them. He would then switch places also. Finally we told our guide who yelled at him, then our guide slept by the girls and started touching them. Finally everyone went to sleep at about 2am. The french couple slept on their own mat and had to wake up at 5am to catch their bus. We were thankful that their guide would be gone, but to our surprise when we woke up to the sun at 6am our guide had left also. We were left stranded with a Tuareg family in the desert with no idea how to communicate with them or how to get back. We noticed the father was still asleep in the hut. We watched as the mother and the children pounded the millet that the father had brought back from Timbuktu. We made friends with them and Julia had toys for them. Which they loved:plastic frogs, an eraser, a bouncy ball. The children looked like their ages ranged from 10 to 18 months. The 3 year old that we gave the eraser to started eating it. We took it a way and I gave him a plastic spoon from our MRE which he thought was the best thing on earth. We played catch with them with their toys. The little boys ran naked in the sand and we all laughed and had a good time. Julia swung one of the boys around and the parents became concerned and told the children to go away. Finally the father woke up and we had breakfast of bread and coffee for Janine. he then sold Janine and Julia jewelry and we went back on the camels which had huge ticks in their ears. The tuareg father tried to chase away some goats that were eating the follage in the desert, and the goats trotted away with their tails in the air. We finally got back to Timbuktu and we met a guy who was waiting to take us back to our place that we were staying. We then met up with Abdulye who gave us a tour of Timbuktu. The sun was blazing hot, but we saw the university that had been built in the 1200's and a library that housed books still from that era. He then took us to the houses of the Europeans that somehow had gotten into Timbuktu during this time by pretending they were muslims. Most of them were killed when they were found out, but some were kicked out or escaped back to Europe. Their families had bought their houses centuries after and put up plaques. We went to one more tent where one of the university students who was Tuareg to visit his family was selling things to help provide for his family. His family still made the 72 day trip from the salt mines to Morocco to sell salt. It was pretty impressive and it would be pretty cool to make that trip, but it is pretty dangerous also. I had some tea at that point because I was dehydrated and tired of making excuses to have Janine drink all of our tea. It was a herby sugar that heated your throut as it went down. It was pretty good. I was also happy for the caffiene at that point. We came back to the house and our friend was making dinner. There were two men from Algeria that were in the house. I was a little afraid because of reports that Al Qaida had infiltrated parts of Mali north of timbuktu. However these guys turned out to be great guys. One of my happiest moments was sitting out under the stars and talking to the guy from Algeria and our friend from Mali in conversation completely in French and understanding about 85 % of the conversation for about an hour. (Most of the conversation was about food which was easy vocab) Algerian made food for US oil companies and loved the US. He made us an amazing dish with mayo, vineager oil, melon, beans and fries. It was great. We also listened to Malian jazz and had a dance party with the girls and did some yoga. It felt so good to be able to finally communicate some. That night we slept under the stars and we were so tired from the past couple of days that we slept great! We woke up the next morning to go to the airport. We got there before it opened because our tickets had too eary of a time on them. It was good because feeling guilty that I hadn't gotten anything to remember this awesome visit to Timbuktu I got a bottle of Sahara sand that I smuggled into the US for my dad and bought my mom a Tuareg bracelette and got a camel skin bag for me. We flew back to Mopti on a flight that took 45 minutes. We were shocked because it took 24 hours to drive and was so crazy. And we sat in air conditioning for the first time in weeks. It felt so good. However, I appreciated the crazy experience to get to Timbuktu and thought that it was worth it for the memories. The girls thought that I was crazy. I just felt that it made getting to the legendary Timbuktu more real.

Sleeping in the dirt...finally Timbuktu

When we stopped in the small town after 12 hours in the land cruiser, I asked the guy sleeping on the 3 foot bench by me when the car was going to leave again. he told me 6 am. My little French had gotten us that far. He got out of the car and with the rest of the people pulled out mats to sleep on. I was worried about the girls and told them what was happening. After 12 hours in a dirty, exhausting road, they had had it. Julia was angry and said that they had to take us to somewhere we could sleep. I again asked my friend where we could sleep. he and his friend said that this was it and made some room on his mat. I explained to Julia and Janine that this man had made room for us. They could squeeze on the mat and I would sleep in the dirt of the street. We laid down, but Julia had had it. Frustrated and tired and very deserving of a breakdown, she went over to the driver and started yelling at him in English. I got up from the mat and tried to dispell the situation. Remember I don't speak French, but I asked them in diplomatic and apologetic way if they had an extra mat for us to sleep on. The owner of the bar where the car parked said he would loan us an extra mat but to stay close so that he didn't lose his mat. I thanked him and gave the mat to janine. Poor Julia was crying from frustration and emotional overload from fatigue and our inability to communicate. I tried to explain to her that the driver didn't know that we were going to stop here, but that this was Africa and sometimes we can't control our situation. We had live with what we had. She came over to the mat that was in front of the bar. She laid down and said that she couldn't sleep there and wanted to move the mat. I explained to her that the bar owner was kind enough to lend us the mat and wanted to make sure that we didn't walk off with it. She said that she couldn't sleep there and so she would go talk to him. At this point trying to avoid another English break down, I went over and asked him if we could please move the mat because of the light. He reluctantly agreed and they moved the mat. At this point I had my own breakdown. Frustrated with trying to communicate, trying to keep Julia calm and happy, and tired from the trip, I explained that I didn't want to insult the guy who offered us his mat and went and slept over on the other mat. I told the girls that if they didn't feel safe that I would sleep on there mat, but I would be about 20 ft away. They probably sensed my frustration let me go. There was a horror movie playing at full blast through out the night and I slept at most 2 hours because of the noise. The next morning I woke up at 5 am with the rest of the group. The sky was dusty and mystical making the world seem to be dream like with the strange colors that were brought out by the way the light shown through the sand in the sky. I thanked the guy who let me sleep on his mat. I went to find a shop where we could get some food for breakfast. The bar owner said that the stores opened at 7am but they said that they would try to find the store owner. I bought some baguetes and apple soda which I knew would make the girls happy. The car was about to leave as I came back with the food. The girls were a lot happier after the sleep. But we all fell asleep on the road. We picked up some Tuareg nomads along the way and 24 hours after we had started the journey, we arrived in the famous Timbuktu. It was nothing that I expected. It was a larger village with mud houses and there was nothing spectacular that I could see about it...at first. I looked in my Lonely Planet for a place to stay, but when we got there, there was a man that had offered his house where we could stay for cheap. His name was Alkedi and he said that we could stay in a room on the roof or sleep outside. We checked it out and we were so tired that we agreed. There was a French couple in their young 20's there smoking and playing cards. We came to find out that their names were Victor and Axemnya and they had come on vacation with a guide from the capital of Mali. Janine slept and Julia and I played the card game "ass hole" with our new friends along with a tall friend of the our host who cooked and was the happiest malian that I ever met. He made some awesome omletes and rice with my favorite tomato sauce. We had a great time. We took a bucket shower and took a nap. We went to a hotel to find a friend of Yacuba from mopti who was a guide. His name was Abdulye. He wasn't there but they said that they would pass along the word to him On our way back to the Alkedi's home we met some kids selling Timbuktu T shirts. Janine had expressed before hand that she really wanted shirts, The kids say they were the only ones that would make them by hand. And they charged us $10. (Later we found them at the airport for $6). We explained to Alkedi that we wanted to spend a night in the Sahara desert with a Tuareg family and he explained that he could arrange that, our French friends decided that they would come with us. So that afternoon, we took off in our turbans and loaded on camels and took off into the desert.

On the road to Timbuktu

When we got back to Mopti, Sek was waiting for us and he was plastered. He was also there with his friends. The girls were pretty angry that he would show up like that. He was with one of his friends named Aisha that he tried to sell to me. We went to see where the 4x4 taxis to Timbuktu and we ended up having to walk through some gray water. The girls were already tired and this pushed them to the edge. We also met some girls from North Carolina that said that they were going to Timbuktu the next day with us. We told Sek that we would see him the next day and headed back to our hostel. When we got back, Yacuba, one of our friends said that his family had some bisap tea for us. I went back with him on his moto to go get it. He also took me by a brothel and asked if I wanted to get a girl. I tried to explain to him that it was against my religion and he then asked if the girls I was with were single. I made up excuses for them to try to keep him from trying to hit on them. We got back and slept. We got up the next day and went to where the landcruiser taxi was going to leave to Timbuktu at 8 am. We met Sek there who apologized for the day before. The girls from NC were cursing up a storm because one girl had left her nalgene in a taxi and they were stopping every taxi in the city to find it. They also then decided that they didn't have enough money to go to Timbuktu. So instead of leaving at 8 we had to wait 5 hours for the car to fill up to go. Janine and I ended up buying turbans from a Fulani man because they said that you needed them for Timbuktu and were a lot more expensive. They ended up being the best purchase of the trip.

The girls sat on the middle seat of the landcruiser along with two other women and a child. I sat in the back of the landcruiser where they had fashioned 2 wooden benches where I sat with 5 other people. It was packed in the back. Our hips were touching along with our knees. There was no way to stretch. I also had my backpack to keep water close for the girls and I. The reason I sat in the back was to save $10. I think the girls $10 was well spent. We traveled on road for about an hour. We then would drive on the river banks of the Niger river. We kept the windows down to air circulation and to keep from dying of overheating. However, the desert sands would come in. Julia had a bandana that she put over her mouth and put on her sunglasses. Janine wore her turban and sunglasses. I shared my turban with the other 5 people to cover our faces from the sand that was blowing in. The 5 people would speak a mixture of French and Bambara. I would try to listen but ended up just giving up because it was too much effort. We ended up driving for about 3 hours along the river bank and through the desert at times (which I could never figure out how the driver knew where we were going becuase there was no road or points of reference in the desert). We stopped for some food at a small adobe village of about 20 houses and that had a barbeque place (it was a grill with lamb). I was so happy to get out to move my legs. We just laughed at how we looked especially Julia because she was by the window and had turned a dark reddish brown from the sand. The other people ended up buying some of the meat at the stand. It smelled so good. We at our MRE's. We finally headed back into the landcruiser and some of the people that continued to share my turban offered me some meat. It was so good. Nothing better than freshly killed meat on the grill! We headed down the road and came back to the Niger river and we picked up a man that had a turban and a large blanket. He came in the back and one of the city guys would make fun of him and would make him angry. He finally got him to sit on the blanket. I never felt so jealous in all of my life that he had that blanket to sit on as my buttocks had fallen asleep so many times and I had to lift up my butt every 20-30 minutes to allow blood to flow back into the tissues. Every time I would stand up, everyone would have to readjust. I tried at one point to straighten my leg and it got stuck in the maze of legs in the middle and I couldn't get out. While we were driving, our landcruiser got stuck in the sand. And we all had to get out. I was so happy to breathe and move again. All of the muslim men prayed. I knelt by the river, not to pray but to wash my face and to stretch out. It felt so good. The thoughts of schistosomiasis and other parasites went through my head as I was dipping my head in the river but the joy of being "clean" and cool was worth any risk. They got the car unstuck and I wasn't too excited to continue on the journey. When we got back into the car, the old man that we picked up offered me his prayer beads probably having seen me kneeling down. The others reprimended him saying things like Euro and Dollar. They must have said that I didn't believe in God or that I wasn't going to heaven. The old man didn't believe them so that he pointed at me then pointed at the ceiling and then shook his finger no. Not thinking that getting into a philosophical discussion on God with people I couldn't communicate with was the best, I just shook my head yes. I couldn't tell him that I did believe in God but I did my best. The younger man than continued to make fun of him and they ended up yelling at each other. They finally ended up laughing with the other people. We followed the river for a couple of hours passing villages and nomads with their flocks. We had to forge the river once and the water came up to the doors. I thought that the car was going to stall but we made it through. We then started going through the desert and left the river for good. Darkness fell and I know that the only way that they found the way was by the stars because there was no other landmarks. We stopped once more to pray. It was a beautiful scene: the middle of the desert, the moon light making the sand glow with its reflection and the people kneeling. I kneeled this time to and prayed to God to thank him for this moment and for this trip to be safe and over soon. We all headed back into the landcruiser and we ended up reaching a larger town. At the edge of the town, we had to stop for security. The guy from the city told the older man that this was the stop and the old man got out with his blanket. We started taking off and two of the men in the back started laughing and looking at the old man. Thinking that we had left him, I tried to communicate (which was impossible to find out if we had left him.) We ended up stopping about a 1/2 mile further in the town center. We stopped here for about an hour. The girls went and bought cold water and apple soda. It was so good because we were so thirsty and dehydrated. I don't think that the people in this village had seen very many white people because they were fascinated by us. They laughed as we started dancing to the disco version of a Kenny Rogers song. The little kids were afraid of us. Julia thought it would be fun to run after one of them until one of the ladies in the village was concerned. It was a pretty good time. We were so excited to be out of the car and moving. However, it was already dark and we were wondering when we were leaving. Unable to communicate, we were at the mercy of the unknown and the driver to get us to our destination. After about 45 minutes we headed back into the car. There were only 2 of us in the back at this point and we laid down on the crowded benches and fell asleep. We finally stopped again about an hour later. At this point it was 1 am and we had been traveling for 12 hours. After about 1 hour at this stopping point I noticed that everyone had left and were no where in site, I woke up my neighbor and asked in my broken french when we were leaving. A little annoyed by being woken up, he asked the driver who said 6 am. I told the girls who were sleeping in the middle seat.

Hittin the guy on a bike and Djenne mud mosque

After the wedding discoteque party, we piled into a station wagon with 11 people on the inside, our baggage on a welded luggage rack on the top with the driver's assistant on the top to go to Djenne. We had to wait for the station wagon to be full before we could go so it took about 4 hours to get enough people to go. We were so sweaty from our dance party and packed in like sardines that I felt bad for the other people that were in the car that had to smell us. Luckily on this ride the windows were rolled down. It was 4 hr ride from Mopti to Djenne. I fell asleep for part of it. We got to a large river and we had to take a ferry across with the car. The girls bought some more bracelettes. I met a man named Ali that wanted to know if we wanted to sleep in his house or on his roof top in Djenne. He was very nice and I told him that we would check it out when we got there. He was going to charge us $2 a person. He said that he would meet us at the gates of Djenne. We got to the other side of the river and all of crew piled back into the station wagon. While we were driving there were two men on bicycles on the road and one of them, an older man in his 50's had a boom box blasting malian music in his hand. Our driver honked to have them get out of the way. Right when he were about to pass them there were a pile of stones in the middle of the road that we later deduced was to get people to slow down because of construction further down the road. One of the men went to the left of the stones and the othe guy with the boom box went to the right Our driver slammed on his brakes and we skidded on the dirt road. We ended up hitting the guy with the boom box who fell off his bike. To avoid hitting the guy, our driver veered more to the right crashing into a ravine. The guy on the roof rack went flying along with the luggage, fire wood,and a marriage pot. The car was high centered and facing down in a 30 degree angle. Shocked by what happened, we watched as the guy that was thrown off of the roof dust himself off, the guy on the bike stand up with his pants torn, and our driver get out of the car to yell at the guy on the bike. We all piled out of the car. After the arguement stopped, both were embarrased by the incident. All of the men that were in the station wagon, the guys on the bicycles, and I picked up the station wagon out of the ravine and put it back on the road. We picked up the luggage rack and tied it to the roof with some rope, and put the luggage, the sticks, and the wedding pot back on the roof with the driver's assistant We all piled into the car and proceeded to go to Djenne as if nothing had happened the only reminder was that the stationwagon did not run the same after. The girls and I just sat in amazement and laughed at how crazy the situation of the guy that we just hit ended up picking up the car. We knew we were definetely not in Kansas anymore.

We got to Djenne and met Ali. It was an amazing city. 2-3 story houses made in mud. There were labarynth of narrow streets that could only be traversed by foot. We followed Ali to his home. I thought it would have been a cool place to stay because I really like staying with the local people. Julia had read in a blog about staying on a roof top and waking up to see the market and the huge mosque. We decided to find the place that Julia had read about. We went from hostel to hostel and finally decided to stay on the roof top of one of the fancy hotels in town. It was close to the mosque but didn't fulfill her expectations. We went to a woman's coop of the town and Janine bought some cloth. We then went to bed and met an American guy that had been traveling after his study abroad in Sierra Leon. We slept on the roof until the rain started pooring down. We came down and slept under an over hang by the eating area. The hotel didn't want the other guests to be bothered so they told us we could sleep in one of the conference rooms but we had to be out by 7am. We decided to sleep under the overhang and I was too tired and lazy and didn't put on my bug repellant that night. I am pretty sure this is when I got bit my the malaria mosquitos because the next morning I woke up to many bites. During the night the rain was so harsh that we ended up going into the conference room and turned on the fans because it was so hot.

The next morning we awoke to see the empty courtyard in front of the mosque busy with hundreds of stands. We went around and saw the different spices and things that they were selling. We also went and saw the mosque which was beautiful. They told us that there was a debate in the town on how to mud the mosque. The older generation wanted to keep the yearly traditional couple of weeks of mudding that required everybody's participation. The younger generation with the suggestion of a rich French man wanted to mix the mud with some cement so that they only had to mud every couple of years. It is a pretty daunting task, but it brings people all over the world to see it. The mosque is in movies like Sahara and is a world heritage site. And it is part of their culture. We went through the market, Julia got angry with me because both Janine and I told her that she probably shouldn't give candy to all of the children. We had different reasons: I didn't want the kids to keep following us and asking for more, and Janine didn't trust them. Julia didn't like this and took off through the market. Janine went back to the hotel, and I ran after Julia. We finally made peace and I told her that we should go wonder through the narrow streets. I said that she could give her candy there. It was interesting to talk to Julia and realize how different lives we lead as we walked through the streets. I won't divulge what she said because she probably wouldn't like that on the blog. But through our talking I got to understand why she thinks the way she does about life. One of her ex boyfriends told her that she didn't live in reality because she came from a very wealthy family. I told her that it was just a different reality that most of us don't understand with problems and expectations that I will never have to face. We then tried to find Janine to go get ready to leave. We bought our tickets for a station wagon going back to Mopti. We had to wait around for a couple of hours. While we were waiting a bunch of people eating rice out of a community bowl asked me to join. I couldn't communicate with them but we laughed as we ate. I tried to contribute with a smashed cereal bar. I don't think they liked it very much and I felt stupid afterwards because it was pretty gross. I sat at the taxi station while the girls went to go get water for our trip back. The taxi was ready to go and they weren't in sight. I freaked out because I could barely communicate with anyone and I tried to explain for them to wait. The taxi was running and the people were waiting and I was about to go to try to find them when the emerged from the market. I was so relieved and happy to see them. I worried so much about the girls because they were so independent and I knew they spoke even less French then I did and being women alone. We finally left and we were tired. Luckily there were no problems getting back. On the way back, our taxi driver stopped to pray and we all got out of the taxi. He also saw some people who were stranded because they had no gasoline. He gave the liquor bottle of gas that he had to them. I was very impressed how he lived his religion.

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.

Dogon Country

The next morning we woke up to showers in the open air and a breakfast of granola bars. We waited around for James Brown but didn't know if or when he was coming. We sat around and tried to communicate with the inn keeper. He seemed like a good man by the way that he treated us. James Brown showed up in his sunglasses and his flat top around an 1hr after we were supposed to meet him and told us he had hired an ox cart to drive us to Kani Komile, one of the villages in the Dogon Country. Little kids would chase afer us as we would drive through the town of mud buildings on our way out of Bankass. We passed through the savannah and then we started hitting the sands of the Sahara. Even in the desert sands there were mounds of dirt where the people had planted millet plants for their sustanance. We got to Kani Komile which was a small village under neath sheer cliffs. The top of the cliffs there was brush and at the bottom was desert. Lining the cliffs was the reason this place was on the map for tourists: clay buildings stuck to the cliffs where the recent ancestors of the towns had lived, held religious practices, buried their dead, hid from attackers, and where the people still kept millet storage. They had only moved about a generation before; James Brown's father who was the chief had grown up in the cliffs. The problem is that kids would fall down the cliffs and break bones and it was a difficult life. When we got to Kami Kumbile, James Brown didn't show up for an hour because he was coming on his motor cycle and it had broken down. We went on our own walking tour of the village. They had a huge beautiful mud mosque at the edge of a dried up lake. We later found out from James Brown that there is a division among the people between the muslims and the animists who worshiped the earth. The animisits had a holy leader that lived in a hogan all day long. On the outside of his hogan were pictorgraphs of animals and humas. The people would come to him to have their future's read and curing of diseases. The animists would also be buried in these very ornate dyed blankets and would be placed high up in the cliffs. We never figured out how they would get up there. The Dogon culture is very interesting.

While we were on our self guided tour, there was a market and the girls bought bracelettes and I bought some for my sisters. They were also selling all kinds of foods and roots and millet. One of the things that they sold was a round black ball which turned out to be tomato, onion and spices that they would put in their rice. James Brown finally showed up and he took us on our tour. He showed us where the people would be circumcized (both male and female) at the age of 5. I thought that had to be the most unclean and horrible experience of their lives. He said that the government outlawed female circumcision but that it was still practiced. We went to another town of Tele which was known for their art work. I bought a replica of the crocodile mask that the dogon people used in ceremonies. They consider the crocodile sacred becuase in their legend the crocodile helped save the people by leading them to water. In each village we had to meet the chief and we had to bring him and the elders Kola nuts. The Kola nut was used as currency and when people broke the law they had to pay in Kola nuts to the chief. However, everyone eats them as soon as they got them. I thought that they were pretty disgusting, but for them it is a rare delicacy because they don't grow anywhere close to the Dogon Country. On our way to James Brown's home town of Ende we were walking in the desert and the sky turned red. It was because of the wind and the rain stirring up the desert. We went to the chief's house while it began to pour. Waterfalls fell from the cliffs and everything glowed in the red air. We slept that night in the chiefs house after eating with the family the delicious rice made with the tomato and onion spice ball. We were pretty cold as we didn't have any blankets and only sheets. They rain had cooled the desert and it was a stark contrast to the day time blazing heat.

The next morning we went to another village. It was hot and I could tell that the girls were tired from walking. Julia had fallen behind and I had to convince James to wait for her. James let us know that the tour ended in the next town. He said that he was not going to get us back to Bankass as it was not part of the deal. Julia let him have it and James was stubborn and wouldn't budge. Finally we ended up on a bad note with James and Julia told him that she was going to tell people to watch out for him. James said that he didn't care what she did because he was always going to have business. I was disappointed that although James didn't take us back, we did have a good time and know bitter feeling of getting ripped off will always be associated with for the most part was an awesome experience. We got an ox cart to take us back to Bankass. It was a long trip (2hrs) but it was relaxing sitting in the hot sun, watching the people plant their millet to take advantage of the rain that had fallen, and I played my harmonica as the girls read and slept. We got back to the Inn, where Mohammad, the inn keeper was waiting for us. That night the girls went to bed and I hung out with Mohammad and these two guys that had come over to have African sugar tea. Janine came down and I shared some ganola bars as they shared their roasted sheep with us. Janine didn't want any so I had to eat so our friends wouldn't get offended. It was peaceful listening to the cool Malian Jams coming from this guys Iphone. It was ironic because these people didn't have cars, paved streets or even 24hr electricity, but they had fancy cell phones. We ended up telling Mohammad how we were going to Mopti next and he told us that he had another Inn there that his brother ran. He called his brother and told him to meet us. I know that it was good for his business, but it also helped us out a lot to have people we could trust and count on. We slept that night again under the sky of stars and happy to be on our matresses on the warm roof in Bankass.

Sweaty Bodies in a Malian Tro Tro

After going to the ATM in Ouaga, which we thought would be the last time to have the convience of withdrawing money, we went to the “bus station” for the bus to Mopti, Mali. This consisted of a chalkboard in a 4’ by 4’ room and a large Burkinabe woman. I had to explain in my broken French that we wanted to go to Mali. Finally after 10 minutes of frustrating efforts to communicate (I kept getting the word for “go” mixed up with “have”), I got a paper with something scribbled on it which I couldn’t read. I explained to the girls how I hoped this ticket was what we wanted. I then set out for our search for water for our journey. I was so proud of myself for being able to get us to a store by asking people for bottled water and then saying “I need bottled water” in French. I got back and Janine had broken out the MRE’s for lunch. She said that in the field they didn’t have time to heat them up with the chemical heater, so they just ate them cold. And so did we…meat loaf, tortellini, and chicken. It wasn’t so great cold. The bus stop where we ate consisted of wooden benches under a tin roof. A kind man named, Joseph, tried to communicate with us. I got that he was retired military and that his son was an English teacher. Most of the time I just smiled and nodded because I had no idea what he was saying. I could understand words hear and there but that was it. I did know that when you have friends in foreign countries they usually help you with the next step of your journey and I was glad to have him as he made sure we got on the right “bus.” We also met an older man named Joseph who was from Ghana. He was going to Mali to see relatives that he had never met. His father had walked from Mali to Kumasi, Ghana to look for work and had settled. Joseph spoke no French or any of their local languages either and he joined our vulnerable team. Except Joseph was from Africa, and even though he didn’t speak French, he would constantly try to speak English to everyone. This made me laugh as he would yell at people for not understanding him. Us English speakers got on the back seat of our Tro Tro, which is a van converted into a vehicle that can transport as many human bodies as possible. Our bags were loaded up on top, along with goats tied to rails. This was an awful experience because the tro tro would stop every 100 feet in each village to transport people and good to each village along the way. There was no air circulation when we stopped so we would cook and sweat each time we would stop. Our sweaty bodies were all pressed together and the seats in front of us were so close that our knees would hit. I can understand that I am spoiled in America because transportation is somewhat easy to come by and there is usually plenty of room. Here in Burkina Faso, this tro tro death trap was luxury because it meant that you didn’t have to walk and was supposed to be faster than a donkey cart. Luckily for us, Janine had bought a fan in Ghana and we could try to get air circulating when we stopped. We would go and everyone would be relieved because there was air and then we would stop and I wanted to pull my hair out. At night fall we got to Ouhigouya, a city that was 2 hours on a bus line which took us 5 hours in our tro tro. They “told” us through a man that spoke very little English that we were going to sleep here for the night. They gave us a room for $2 a person which turned out to be a straw mat on a concrete floor with a fan. The rest of the people on our tro tro slept on straw mats through out the building and outside (however, I don’t think that they were charged.) They introduced us to the next tro tro driver who was a tall very friendly and kind man who tried to communicate with us. They finally brought a friend who spoke excellent English whose name was James Brown. He told us he was from Mali and was a tour guide to the Dogon Country which was one of the things that I wanted to see. Happy that he spoke English, from Dogon, and his name was James Brown, Julia and I contracted him to be our guide and he arranged for us to get to the Dogon Country before going to Mopti. Janine was fast asleep on the mat as not sleeping on the bus the night before had made us all pretty tired. Joseph shared our room and tried to make sure James Brown wasn’t going to rip us off.
The next day we awoke to my alarm because they said that the tro tro was going to leave at 6am. We went to the bathroom at the gas station across the street because it flushed! And we got some sprite and water for our journey. Our driver told us 8 but the original driver told us 6 so we thought it was better to be safe than sorry. We didn’t end up leaving until 9. We put our bags on a truck turned tro tro and we waited as street venders, kids begging, and a few naked mentally handicapped people approached us. We were worried because we hadn’t seen James Brown especially because we had given him a deposit for our trip. Finally around 830 he shows up and tells us that we should buy some Kola nuts for our trip to the Dogon country as it is a form of currency and respect there and more expensive than in Burkina (it was still $5 a kilo). After going to the market, we sat back at the bus stop and a man tried to impress us with some magic tricks. They were pretty good. The greatest part was that Joseph knew them and then would respond back to the man with magic. The man tried to teach me something with his ring which I still have no idea what it was. I would put one hand on the wall and then put my hand behind my back and say something and switch the ring from one hand to the other. Supposedly I did something wrong every time as the man would say something in French that I wouldn’t understand and try to correct me. I never understood and he finally gave up. While we were waiting, we didn’t realize the back of the truck tro tro had filled up with people. Janine and Joseph got on and sat on a bench. I let Julia sit on a stool and I sat on a propane tank. Luckily, Janine had some pillows she had stolen from the plane ride to Ghana and I sat on those. They gave some relief but not a lot during our 4 hour ride to the Mali border. My propane tank was in the middle and Julia was by the tailgate and was filthy after our ride because of the dirt flying up. We stopped at the Burkina police station where James Brown had gotten a fine and his camouflage pants that he was wearying taken because they thought that he was posing as military. He put on some shorts that I have no idea where they came from. We stopped at another post which I proceeded to tell them that we needed a visa in French. He would tell me things which I didn’t understand until I finally realized that we were in Burkina Faso still and not Mali by the flag that was above my head. The border guard was understanding and friendly and sent us on our way. We finally got to the Mali border and gave James Brown some money to get us visas because he said he could “talk” and get us across. We gave him 10000 Cifas which was $20 and what our book said it would cost to get temporary visas which he had to renew in Mopti for free. (Ironically it turned out that the temporary visas were supposed to be free and the real ones would cost. We never found out if the money went in the border patrol pockets or in those of James Brown, but we do know that we had to pay again.) We crossed and finally stopped in Koro, Mali where we had to wait for a tro tro to go to Bankass. While in Koro, we saw our first mud mosque and fell in love with these structures. We went and got a mango the size of my head and split it. The girls and some older men just laughed watching us struggle to cut this mango and eat it with a small knife. We couldn’t finish it and we finally gave it to a boy. We went back to the tro tro stop where I had a conversation in French with a man that wanted to buy Julia and Janine. That was the just of what I understood but it was a common theme of the trip. I went and found Janine and Julia trying to teach hand games to woman and her kids that had ridden on our truck tro tro from Burkina. We finally boarded our tro tro 5 hours after we had gotten to Koro and we headed towards Bankass. Julia and Janine sat in the row behind me by the window and I sat in front. Our friend Joseph was on the same tro tro after finding some relatives in Koro that were going to accompany him to Mopti. While we were going, the driver received a call and we stopped. A man came from a motorbike ride from Koro to get on our tro tro. He ended up sitting on my left leg for the next two hours. We finally got to Bankass and we walked to the only guesthouse in this small village of mud homes. We ended up sleeping on the roof on mattresses. It turned out to be the best sleep of the trip. This guest house had outside showers with real shower heads and pit toilets. It felt so good to shower. Janine and I went and got water from a local store. The woman who owned the store gave us all of the cold water that she had and some more warm bottles. She didn’t have change so she gave us a box of cookies. She was tall, beautiful, and kind to us and she had a demeanor that demanded respect and love. I said thank you for the cookies and water and we all laughed as we gave up trying to communicate. That night we had warm and delicious MRE’s and comfortable beds. It was the first good sleep in two days

Starting the adventure: Kumasi, Ghana to Ouagadougou

Julia, Janine and I left our school group in Ghana to head for the countries of Burkina Faso and Mali. We were carrying MRE’s, granola bars, tuna and other food stuffs that the group had brought for snacks while in Ghana and had donated to us. We had our Lonely Planet guide book which gave us an idea of what we were going to do, but did little to prepare us for the adventure we were about to embark on. I had been to Burkina Faso with another medical student the year before. Neither of us spoke French, had visas or had any idea what was Burkina Faso before going. I swore that I would never be that stupid again…until this trip. At least we had a guide book, a French-English dictionary, and the phone number of my friend Rasmane who I met the year before in Ouagadougou. This year was very different though, I was traveling with two girls: Janine a military girl who had incidentally never been out of the country before and had a crazy upbringing in the south (which included living on the street for a year when she was 12) and Julia, a singer and a nurse with whom I had traveled to India over spring break. Julia is a sweet girl who has expectations and dreams of how things should be. She and I had some funny disagreements about life. I am like the “Peter Pan” song about a man that doesn’t want to grow up and be responsible, like the ex-boyfriend she wrote the song for. When I would talk about my commitment issues, she would become disgruntled as it was too close to home because I sounded like the ex-boyfriend that she still hasn’t gotten over.

Here we were a strange trio sitting in the bus station in Kumasi, Ghana waiting to start our adventure. The girls had planned an itinerary of what we were going to do and brought the French-English dictionary as if to feel prepared and in control of their journey which was just false security as the fates would have it. As this was my second trip to Africa, I had a sense of the African way of life only could worry to see how my traveling companions would react to the reality that we were about to step into. Our school trip to Ghana was like seeing Africa through a tour bus: we stopped in villages for our study, slept in air conditioned hotels, and our private bus driver left on the time that we were supposed to go. We were about to step into a world of less certainty: a world where buses leave when they are full and not at a certain time, where every price is negotiable and the bed for the night could be a mat in the dirt on the side of the road or a mattress on a roof.

Each bus that came into the station in Kumasi, I had to check to see if it was the one going to Ouagadougou. Finally at 5:00, 30 minutes after the time on our ticket, our bus pulled in. Julia asked if this was the bus going to wogodoogoo which a girl with an accent corrected her saying it was pronounced “wagadoogoo.” This made us laugh saying “typical French person always correcting strangers.” Ironically, this girl turned out to be Canadian and extremely kind. Janine and Julia sat by each other and I sat on the back seat which I had to myself (so I thought). We ate Ghanaian sugar bread and peanut butter for dinner. We stopped in a small town for a potty break. The girls used the female urinal which consisted of a tiled canal, I used the male urinal which was the same thing. I bought some onion crackers to the disgust of everyone else and started talking with a woman selling eggs on the top of her head. She didn’t speak English, but I used the few phrases that I knew in Twi, the local language to ask her how she was doing and that foofoo, beaten cassava with sauce, was delicious. I told her God be with her and we headed for the bus. The two French Canadian girls and a Swedish girl, the other white people on the bus, thought that I knew had to speak Twi fluently (That was only because I said the same phrases over and over with this woman.) I explained to them that I had no idea how to speak Twi. We introduced ourselves and the Canadian girls mentioned that they had been staying with a sister that had married a Burkinabe and was living in Ouaga and the Swiss girl said that she had been studying women in politics in Burkina Faso. We invited (practically begged) them to come to Mali with us so they could be our interpreters. They however were leaving in a couple of days and declined. We got back on our bus. We all eventually fell asleep. I used Julias purse as a pillow and slept on the back seat because my seat couldn’t recline. I thought I had the best place on the bus only to be awakened in Tamale, a city in northern Ghana, where my seat became full of people. I sat next to a man who explained to me in broken English that he was going to Burkina Faso to buy a motorbike and ride it back to Ghana. He had saved up $190 for the bike and found out through a friend of someone selling theirs. Because borders are fragments of colonialism that represented European interests and not divisions of culture or language, the people of northern Ghana are more closely tied to those in Burkina Faso than they are to the rest of their country. This is why he found a bike in Burkina rather than in Ghana. That night we got to the border, Paga, and slept on the bus until the border opened. We had told our French speaking friends about how we had not gotten visas before we came. The Swedish girl was pretty concerned. I explained that I had done this last year at a different border and if worse came to worse, we would just go back to Ghana. When we got to the border our French speaking friends explained our situation. We went to the Burkina police station and a very happy officer who had an English phrase book got us visas. The Burkina people are relaxed and happy. It is just is strange to me that they are the 3rd poorest country (according to some index that arbitrary ranks poorness and my guide book) and can still be so dang happy. We got back on to our bus after everyone had to wait for us, and arrived in Ouaga. We found out that there was a bus that went to Mopti, Mali that day and decided to get there as fast as we could so that we could start our trip. Our Canadian friends got us a taxi that took us to the bank and the “bus” station. We said good bye and begged them to come, which they declined again. We were left to be vulnerable, only relying on my two months of French lessons and the patience of African hospitality to get to our destination, food, and across the Malian border.