Christmas in Mali!! - Part 1

Believe it or not, Christmas came to Mali!! A very lovely Christmas, in fact. Per tradition, I didn’t start listening to Christmas music till the day after Thanksgiving, and then it was All Christmas All the Time for the next 6 weeks. Good thing I have quite the collection!

I prepared for the holiday by decorating my hut. Under Moose’s watchful eye, I made as many decorations as I could think of: a chalk drawing of a Christmas tree, complete with all my fam’s favorite ornaments, snowflakes, stockings for Moose and I, a “candle” in the “window” like at my dad’s house, and even a Papa Noel made with cotton fresh picked from the fields by Yours Truly. When I told the head doctor I had made paper snow to hang in my hut he cracked up and slapped hands with me in appreciation. This is the kind of snow my mom likes: pretty without the cold! And the night that my dad went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert in Cleveland – the only show I’ve missed in 10 years – I started my TSO playlist at the same time his concert started, and Moose and I had our own private concert for the next hour and a half.

      

   

Thanks to my mom, I was even able to decorate tiny stockings for each of the San volunteers to hang in our house. Our newest volunteers had their site visit 2 weeks before Christmas, so when we all gathered to meet for the first time we had a Christmas themed party and everyone dressed up in “ugly sweaters” or Christmas colors.

Cooking Latkes.

Stuck in San for several days after the party, Chrissy and I even threw a Hannukah party on the first night of Hannukah. Sort of. None of us are Jewish so I had to pry details about what we were supposed to do from a Jewish friend of mine. The whole reason for the party was we wanted to make Challah, so of course we did that (which we later made into grilled cheese sandwiches with precious Real Cheese…so good!!!). I made a Menorah (I know – best you’ve ever seen), we played Hannukah music (Chrissy provided the Yiddish Klezmer, I provided the South Park Dreidel song), and I made everyone watch the movie Eight Crazy Nights, which, sadly, was barely Hannukah-themed and pretty terrible. Oh well, we tried! Chrissy even made latkes for breakfast the next morning.

My awesome Menorah.

For the Christmas holiday itself, Chrissy and I had planned a hiking trip up north a few hours to Dogon Country along with our friends Michaela, Christina, and Heather. (You can – and should – read about the Dogon people in this Wikipedia article). Dogon is the traditional Christmas trip for Mali PCVs, so lots of volunteers went there over the course of about 2 weeks on various hikes of varying lengths, although we didn’t see any other groups while on our own hike. We had decided on a 4 day hike: Dec 23-26, and we’d hired an English-speaking guide to lead us around.

Michaela and Christina met Chrissy and I in San and we headed north from there. It wasn’t a great start. I had decorated surprise, personalized Santa hats for everyone and left them at the San house and had to sprint back to grab them before the bus left. The bus ride should’ve taken 2 ½ hours but instead took 6 hours because of multiple break downs, one of which was fixed with a black plastic bag. We had intended to pick up Heather in her regional capital of Sevare and continue on to Bandiagara-our starting point-that night, but we arrived in Sevare so late we were forced to stay the night. We didn’t have reservations at the house though, so we all had to call our bosses at 9pm for permission to stay. We all started to realize we’d packed too much – me especially (I know, I know) – so the next morning we got up early, walked 20 minutes to the bus station, and after the hour long ride to Bandiagara had to stop at the PC house there so I could dump some of my stuff before we left. I also realized I’d forgotten my toothbrush, so with sort-of directions in my head, I took off sprinting for the nearest butiki. I found the butiki and the toothbrush ok but got lost on the way back, and it took me twice as long to find my way. Before finally leaving, our group decided we needed a “Buddy System” of responsibility. There were 2 flaws with this plan, though. First, there were 5 of us. Second, no one wanted to be responsible for me! We ended up doing a Circle of Responsibility instead. Chrissy, trooper that she is, took over for me. (It’s cool, she’s used to it). I was in charge of Christina, she in charge of Heather, she in charge of Michaela, and she in charge of Chrissy. 

Our guard, Ibrahim, had met us at the bus stop, driven us to the PC house, and gone off on some errands while we (I) got ready. When he got back I gave him his Santa hat, and he was so excited! He immediately took his baseball cap off and put on the Santa hat, and like the rest of us, only took it off to sleep over the next 4 days. 

Ready to go!

To start the trip, we drove an hour out of Bandiagara towards the Bandiagara Escarpment. (If you haven’t read that Wikipedia article yet, now would be a great time). The escarpment is a cliff almost 100 miles long, and for centuries the Dogon people and their predecessors have built their villages above, below, and into the cliffs, much like the Native Americans of the Southwest. Ibrahim had planned out the whole trip for us, and we started in a village called Djiguibombo, stopping on the way there to have a quick “history lesson” as Ibrahim called it, about the surrounding area. As soon as our car left the village, Christina realized she’d left her phone on the seat. Whoops. First fail of Circle of Responsibility (::blush::). We took a tour of the village, and we quickly realized just how different Dogon is from all of our respective areas in Mali. Not only does it look much different, but the Dogon people speak different languages than Bambara. For the first time since coming to Mali, I couldn’t communicate at all. When I first moved to homestay, I’d already been taught how to greet, how to say my name, how to ask someone else their name, how to count, and how to say yes and no. I now realized just how far you can get with that basic vocabulary, and how limiting and frustrating it was not to be able to communicate at all. We were immediately mobbed by children who wanted to hold our hands and walk with us, and we couldn’t say anything to them. It was so unsettling. And of course, we kept resorting to Bambara out of habit.

  

Before we left Djiguibombo, Ibrahim gave us an outline of the next four days and asked us if we wanted to hire porters to carry our bags. We all decided we were hardcore enough to do it ourselves. Then we started out.

This is 15 minutes after we started:

Uh oh.

Ok, we exaggerated a bit. But we did quickly realize what the next 4 days would be like!

Walking on the Moon.

At first we started on the road, and I felt kind of like I was in a state park in the American Southwest. I wondered if we’d be on a road the whole time and was a little disappointed. Not to fear though, the road was only to get us a few kilometers away, then we abandoned it and walked out onto the moon. Or at least that’s what it felt like. The moon continued for awhile, and eventually the scenery changed as we started to head down the escarpment.

Baller woman.

At one point a Dogon woman caught up with us and walked along side us for awhile. We all had on hiking clothes, big backpacks, sneakers or Chackos, and were struggling. Ibrahim had on flip flops and a small backpack and was always there to lend a helping hand. The woman behind us wore flip flops or occasionally went barefoot, wore a tafe (wrap skirt), and carried a giant bowl of food on her head. So much for our hard-core-ness. When we finally reached the bottom of the 700 meter escarpment, we all collapsed for a water break while the woman calmly passed us by, no water needed. Oh yeah, and it was still in the 90-100s even though it was Cold Season.

It wasn’t too far from our break spot to our lunch village. We were so happy to see those huts! We were swarmed by kids running behind us as we walked in and Ibrahim quickly realized they were raising more of a commotion than usual. Most of the kids had run off but a few stuck around to tattle: turns out some of the kids had stolen stuff out of the net pocket on the back of my backpack. Ibrahim stormed off and returned 5 minutes later with my mosquito repellant and hand sanitizer (significantly diminished) but I never got back the full pack of gum. Bad move, kids, your parents rely on a lot of income from tourism.

We collapsed into our chairs at the lunch campemant and quickly made a thrilling discovery: they had cold drinks! I don’t think a Fanta has ever tasted so good. And our lunch of pasta with tomato-oil sauce was one of the most delicious meals ever. And the naps we took in the lounge chairs were deliciously restful.

We had walked 5km.

After our rest, we shouldered our backpacks and moved on out. Just outside of the village, as we walked down a dirt path that bordered some fields, women working in the fields dropped what they were doing and came running over to dance with us. It was really exciting! That is, until we realized they wanted money from us in exchange for their enthusiasm. Money or kola nuts, a popular caffeinated nut among Malian adults, especially the old people, given to show respect or thanks. (I personally think they taste like daffodils).

This was our first realization of just how much tourism has ruined this beautiful, culturally-rich area. Yes, tourism brings in much-needed money. But at a higher rate than the rest of Mali, the people are taught from an early age that white people are walking ATMs, freely dispensing money and candy to anyone who asks, begs, lowers themselves by acting ridiculous, or even just stands there. And unfortunately, the people learn this for a reason – too many white people have conformed to that stereotype. Over the next few days we heard repeatedly, through every village we passed, from the children: Ça va le bonbon? The only French they know – Hi, the candy? (Candy was the most requested item but can be (and was) replaced with nearly anything: ball, money, gift, pen). And as much as I really loved Ibrahim and thought he was a great guide (I’ll hire him again if I do another hike), he didn’t help in this area – he’d suggested in Djiguibombo that we buy 2 bags of kola nuts to give out as we went. We’d obliged – we’d thought they were to give to the dugutigis (village chiefs) or to people who accommodated us, like the blacksmiths who let us into their work area and told us about their work. That was totally acceptable to us. But Ibrahim wanted us to give kola nuts to every adult we passed, and we finally had to tell him we were not comfortable with this, it goes against everything Peace Corps stands for (sustainable, community-oriented, non-funded development), and we weren’t going to do it. Thankfully, he accepted our decision.

The second half of the day’s hike was only 3km and passed through the village of Kani Kombole before arriving at Teli, whose ancient village built into the cliffs is no longer inhabited but protected as a World Heritage site. After dropping off our bags at the campemant where we would spend the night, Ibrahim took us on an uphill hike into the village, then walked us around and taught us the history of the village and its people. It was strange for me to be in a place like this with no other tourists. I’ve been to many historical sites but they’ve always been overrun with other people. It was so nice to have this place just to ourselves and let Ibrahim lead us where he would, in and out of the rooms and paths. We saw the beginning of the sunset from the cliffs, then headed down to the campemant for long-awaited showers, drinks, and dinner.

The Old Cliff Village of Teli.