Homecoming

I’m home! (That is to say, I’m in Douentza.) On Tuesday, I met my friend Salif at Amandine for a drink, and then Jeremy came to meet us. We went together to the bus station to inquire as to whether buses would be leaving for Douentza the next morning; we were told they would.

Jeremy is a real nice guy, a couple years older than me, who will be doing research on archiving texts in Timbuktu. It’s good to be making some new American friends in the absence of Jeff and Abbie. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy t he company of my Malian friends—I do. But sometimes you just need to speak English with someone who understands where you’re coming from.

I was beginning to despair for Mission: Douentza Wednesday Morning, since it was past 9PM and I had heard nothing about my bag. However, just when I’d given up and started to brush my teeth, the expeditor called and said he was outside SIL with my suitcase. The departure was back on.

Since I was going to have to be at the bus station at 6AM, I tried to go to bed at a decent time, but the monsters of jetlag woke me up at 1AM and continued pestering me until circa 3AM. When my alarm went off at 5:40, the last thing I wanted to do was get up, but get up I did, and I called Jeremy to see if he and his taxi could swing by and pick me up so I didn’t have to walk through the penumbra with more bags than I can carry searching for one of my own.

We made it to the bus station on time, only to be told that in fact, there was no bus going to Gao (via Douentza) that day. I was taken aback, but the ticket guy quickly added that there would be a bus going to Sevare at 8. We said fine, got aboard a nice new bus with TVs playing African music videos, and were off.

My first daytime bus ride went well. We got to Sevare in only 10 hours (I feel like it usually takes 12) and were comfortable while getting there. It was very nice to have Jeremy’s company. We split a nice fried egg sandwich in Segou (they know how to make a good egg sandwich there) and no one got left behind due to ill-timed peeing or anything. When we got to Sevare, we began asking around about transportation to Douentza. I figured if we found something, all the better, but if we didn’t, we could either spend the night with Minkailou, Seydou’s brother, or if worse came to worst, a hotel.

People had all sorts of different ideas about the state of transportation: there was nothing going out, there would be full-fledged buses leaving from the station, we’d have to take a private taxi, we could go and catch a mini-bus. This persistent but friendly taxi driver named Daouda finally told us he would take us to where the minibuses left, we could inquire there about possibilities, and if there was nothing, he’d either take us to Douentza for $120 (yeah right) or he could take us where we needed to stay. We piled our stuff into his old, beat-up taxi and went up the road to Gao to the sanctioned mini-bus stop.

The mini-bus hustlers (for lack of a better word) told us yes, there should be something, but no one was sure at what time. It was only 7, so we figured we could wait it out and eat some greasy chicken and fries while we were at it, which is just what we did. Lo and behold, around 8, a mini-bus came up going to Douentza, and we got on, getting to ride shot gun, no less.

It took 3 and half hours to get to Douentza from Sevare. I’d forgotten how bad the roads are. We had to go around 30 miles per hour much of the way just to avoid the various potholes. Also, our wheels destroyed many a small creature (toads, rock dassies, and saddest of all, something that looked like a little fox), which, sitting in the front, I was unfortunate enough to see.

It was 11:30 when we got in, but Seydou came to the highway to meet us. We got back to the house (how good to see it!) and pretty much instantly went to bed. Unfortunately, despite how tired I was, jet lag and heat kept me up a while in bed. Turns out, we’re in a little heat spell, but hopefully that should break soon.

Jeremy left for Timbuktu today. I’m glad we were able to make contact. Now, if I’m in Timbuktu, I can look him up, and he knows he always has a place to stay in Douentza (which goes for any others of you who happen to come through here, by the way).

Back to the grind. Back to “Toobob, donne-moi cadeau”. Back to this hot, dusty town. But back to my things, and my friends, and greasy donuts for breakfast, and the chattering of the robot birds. It’s even good to see all the goats.