Bamako-Douentza, Part I

Saturday June 7th

I had to get up at 7:30 to get ready and meet Hamadoun Ouguelem, a Tommo-So speaking linguist in Bamako. He was very boisterous and nice, though sometimes understanding Malian French is a little hard. After not sleeping very well and a discussion with Jeff about all the various health problems that could happen, I found myself not feeling very well. I seem to have picked up a cough before I came (my suspicion is that it was given to me by my loving brother), and I was even losing my voice. So I went and lay down for a couple of hours.

Abbie was going to go to the market for me to pick up some things, but it turned out that most of the buses going back that day were full from all the Dogon heading north and the only tickets we could get were on this sort of fly-by-night bus leaving at 3. Jeff was concerned that they wouldn’t be able to take all of our luggage, so we just needed to get over there.

Though in hindsight, I’m not sure what the big rush was, since we just ended up going and sitting at a restaurant for two hours having sodas and food before even heading to the bus area. We got there around 3, paid to have our luggage taken, then proceeded to stand there in the heat, surrounded by people selling stuff until 7 when the bus actually left. Now, unlike India where people hawk things and won’t leave you alone, Mali has been great. People come over and try to sell you watches, juice, cloth, but they do that to everyone, and when you say no, they leave you alone. What a concept! Despite the heat and me worrying about running out of clean water, it was all right.

The bus was full to capacity with a ton of stuff strapped to the top. Of course, no air conditioning. In fact, the only windows that open are little slits above the big windows. So it was hot as hell in there, but once we got moving, there was a slight breeze. The bus would make all of these eternally long, inexplicable stops, and it was dark by the time we were actually moving any distance.

It was beautiful for a while, though. A million stars in the sky, lightning on the distant horizon, ghosts of unknown trees passing on the flat landscape. And then we broke down.