April 26th, 2005
"East in a 504"
A weary Brian greets you. Two days ago, I spoke to the first
white person in two weeks. It's strange when you arrive in the capital of
My last journal ended as I entered southern
I visited Elinkine, a scrappy little fishing village where I stayed on a lonely
beach, and also stayed in a bitty village called Niambalang. I was in a land
where topless women weren't uncommon, and the buildings were predominantly
circular, with mud/clay walls and grass roofs. Here is where I had that guitar
jam session I mentioned last...15 kids dancing singing and clapping as I sat on
a little bench and played under a mango tree.
I left
En route I met Lamine, and I stayed with his family for two days on the
outskirts of the capital city of
Things got eerier as I headed east. Very dumpy, most everything is built from
traditional materials outside the capital area, it seemed to me. Even tin roofs
struggle to make a scene here. I stopped off in Bafata. A deserted church, a
cracked clock tower, crumbling pastel homes with broken red tiles, a dusty red
street lined with lamps defunct for decades. What made it stranger was that so
few people were about! Where are they hiding, are they peering through holes?
Post-apocalyptic.
Next day,
Yeah, that got old fast.
But I met some interesting people. Foremost was Mamadou, whose family I stayed
with for three days in
At his insistence, we went to a portrait 'studio' on my last day and had a
picture taken together. The background is a cracked picture of a palm tree, and
there's an old oil jug next to us. The expressions on Mamadou and his wife's
face resemble a deer in headlights. Funny picture, hope to post it some day.
It's nice, but staying with people can drive me up a wall internally at
times...have I mentioned I have an independent streak? And it's worsened when
you're with someone who speaks about 10 more English words than my French (which
isn't that many). Time to move on, especially after a drunk guy tried to steal
my flip-flop...
Spent a couple more days in Guinea's 'Fouta Djalon' region (one of West Africa's
few highlands, though it's basically just a 1000m high plateau with lots of
rolling green hills), my only notable adventure being a 25 km round-trip walk
one day in search of a waterfall. To say I got lost doesn't mean much, because
that would imply that at some point, you were NOT lost. Ended up sometimes on
random tracks that petered out, stumbled into a small banana grove and a
vegetable garden near a stagnant stream. Ultimately, found the waterfalls (very
nice), and a building that I wasn't supposed to find, where an official who
obviously hasn't gotten any, in ages, wanted to see my laissez-passer (permit)
which potentially I could've got if I hadn't been lost and missed the police
checkpoint on my way there.
Several miserable rides and waits later (the last of which was a van carrying 22
people, one full-size bed, and several couches, in addition to luggage), I end
up here in Bamako, Mali's capital. Blazing hot from about 8am until about 3am,
I'd say, giving you a very small window of comfort. Luxuries include cheap
fruits, the biggest mangoes I've ever seen (some as large as Nerf footballs,
which will mean nothing to non-Americans), paved streets (main ones anyway), and
new salmon-colored flip-flops (having busted my first pair--yellow--already).
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Foods. New fruits: the cashew (which I've described already a bit...tastes a bit
vegetabley, and if you eat a lot your throat gets kinda sore), kuyfoytai (little
furry brown pods with little furry fruits inside), and neri (long brown pod with
a pasty dry yellow fruit and seeds inside). Boiled green mangoes. In
Drinks deserve their own paragraph. Gunuk, or palm wine. Cashew juice. Bisap
(red hibiscus juice). Sum di cabazera (one of the best concoctions I've ever
tasted...only found it in
Almost all meals here are communal. Several people gather 'round a bowl or large
platter. Mix rice with whatever sauce is on top (with your right hand), and
scoop the food by squished handfuls into your mouth. You eat a bit back from the
bowl so food from your mouth doesn't drop into it. One of my best images is from
Mamadou's house, he and the wife and a few little kids stooped around a dish, by
candlelight, every evening, sloppily shoving food into our mouths. A cup of
water is always communal here as well, so I try to drink before the little kids
to minimize the backwash factor.
Women in
Lots of 2" protruding outeys. How did this come about? They look like miniature
erections and are terribly disturbing.
I get strange flashbacks sometimes. Just last night, I was imagining myself in
From an outsider's point of view, it may seem I'm moving quickly, but I prefer
to think of it as constant, almost like there's a metronome, though it's a bit
more fitful.
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I'm 4350km (just about 3000 miles) from
I don't usually think like this, but damn, what I wouldn't do for a bowl of
Banana Nut Crunch with cold milk and a tall glass of red grape juice.
'...situations in life often permit no delay; and when we cannot determine the
course which is certainly best, we must follow the one which is probably best;
and when we cannot determine even that, we must nevertheless select one and
follow it thereafter as though it were certainly best. If the course selected is
not indeed a good one, at least the reasons for selecting it are excellent. This
frame of mind freed me also from the repentance and remorse commonly felt by
those vacillating individuals who are always seeking as worth while things which
they later judge to be bad.' (-Descartes)
Away Awhile is hosted by Josh Trutwin.