Bandiagara Day 10 (25/07/09)

This morning Liz and I slept in a little and got up planning to go to Mopti for the day. However, shortly before we were expecting to leave we got a call from Badry asking if it would be ok if we went to Sanga instead (Ogo’s secretary was only going to be here for one more day and really wanted to see the falaise (escarpment)), no problem. I’m beginning to learn here the time and plans are really rather amorphous flexible things that could change at any moment. We headed over to the clinic and found out that the group would be Djigeba (driving), Iesha (Ogo’s secretary), Tolo, Dembele, Liz and me and we were all going to go in a pickup truck (yes it has a back seat, but we were fitting 4 people in it). We had to go back to the house so Iesha could change her shoes into something more suitable for hiking (she had sandals on). After a brief stop we got on the road . . . or at least it started out as a road.
The road to Sanga is more or less a dirt path with some occasional pavement (or what was once pavement); honestly the road reminded me a bit of the Appalachian Trail near Annapolis Rocks and I’m amazed that the car made it. There was some severe jostling in the back and some near knowing of heads. I was very glad we hadn’t eaten a large breakfast or it might not have been pretty. As we got further away from Bandiagara the landscape became surprisingly green (though we’re not talking about the green fields of home) and I realized that I had missed seeing green things. The rains seemed to have done a lot of good out here; I saw many people cultivating and the stream and tributaries to the Niger seemed to be flowing with a little more vigor. There were sometimes large puddles that the truck had to navigate around and there were often kids along the road selling some kind of fruit and yelling “toubob” upon seeing Liz and me in the truck. They said that Sanga was an hour away, though I imagine it’s not that far, you simply can’t drive that fast due to road conditions (though I think the driver was pushing it with the speed he was going). Closer to Sanga (and within Sanga itself) the houses were built of shaped rocks and mud (they looked much more stable and strong than the mud houses of Bandiagara). On the edge of Sanga we picked up Kene Dolo, our guide for the day and passed through the cities arched entryway. We drove through Sanga until we got to the edge of the village of Banani then got out of the truck and began our walk/hike.
Kene explained to us the divination table (which I managed to understand in French only because I read a Dogon book in Bamako), which realize on a visit by a fox (tempted with peanuts) to predict the future health, farm season, marriages or pregnancies of people seeking advice. We continued on into town and took a path that headed down the escarpment. Along the way we saw baobab trees, women pounding millet (we even gave it a shot), and many children who asked for gifts (unfortunately I didn’t bring any with me). We took a long and rock path down the escarpment (when we got to the bottom I could believe we had climbed down all that way) and wound up in another section of Banani; the village has 4 quarters, one each for the mother and 3 sons. Apparently the Dogon moved to the village after the founders had refused to convert to Islam and fled to the cliffs for safety. They took over the housing of the Tellem people (no one knows where they went, but they’re the ones that built the original houses in the cliffs) and then added on more living spaces as need. Once fighting and slave raiding ended the Dogon began to spread out onto the plains (with colonization it became safe to leave the security of the cliffs). Anyways, once we got to the bottom we passed through more of the town and eventually ended up down by a stream in the furthest reaches of the village; here the truck was waiting for us having taken another root. This was apparently the end of the short tour (which was good because Iesha is a bit of an older woman and though I was impressed by her managing of the decent I believe she was pretty tired by the bottom). We got in the truck and began driving back up the road towards Sanga and away from the escarpment. We dropped Kene off at his office and had a quick drink (it was past lunch time and I think everyone was a bit hungry), then we headed back towards Bandiagara. Somehow on the way back Tolo managed to fall asleep despite the rather rough ride.
We got back hot tired and dirty; I wasn’t particularly hungry, but we all ate lunch before heading for a rest. Later in the afternoon at around 6pm Liz and I headed over to the teams house to play frisbee with Tolo and Dembele, but when we got there no one was out. We waited for a minute until one of the guys that takes care of the house saw us and went to get Tolo and Dembele. Tolo had been sleeping and Dembele had gone to the clinic. We played frisbee for about an hour with Tolo and one of the younger guys that runs errands for the team. it seems we were quite a spectacle as a group of kids gathered to watch. The little boys were helpful with the younger guy threw the frisbee over a fence (which he did often; he didn’t seem to get the concept of keeping the frisbee parallel with the ground when throwing) and a group of girls watching would break out in squeals and laughter whenever the frisbee came within 5 yards of them. We played for a while and the guys even got a good bit better, but as it got dark we stopped and Tolo went in to pray. We walked back to the house together for dinner.
Tonight I think I ate something made from the same recipe as playdough (except without the coloring, so it was the most unappealing shade of gray), it was called tono and was made from millet. We also had peas, but I nearly broke my tooth on a piece of bone, so that soon became unappealing. Dinner’s saving grace was the green bananas we had afterwards. I must admit that I am looking forward to coming home and eating recognizable food again.