Arrival in Mali

Sunday, July 13, 2007

After a frenzied morning of resituating luggage and saying farewell to my twin sister who had only just arrived home from six weeks in the Yucatan, I climbed into my checkered cab. A congenial face smiled back at me from the rearview mirror, a Somalian who was quite interested in my present journey to Bamako, Mali.

Upon checking in at O’Hare, not quite certain if my luggage had been weighed, I proceeded to my departure gate. It was an uneventful flight, which is to say that the flight itself was typical as far as flights are concerned. It was prior to departure from the terminal that my soon-to-be-bad-luck would begin. Once boarded on the plane we were informed of an hour and fifteen minute delay. Thus for the ensuing timeframe I read a little of my only book and anxiously waited to be free from the restricted confines.

My arrival in JFK, too, was without incident and monotonous, the dizzying walkways and escalators in due course revealing the Air France counter. With another three hours until Chieck Cisse would arrive with my passport I found a seat within eye-shot of the ticket counter. I met up with University of Florida student, Stephanie Yelverton, and we became instant friends, laughing and passing the hours. She had made small bracelets with beads to give as gifts in the country and I was quite surprised when she handed me a brown and gold beaded bracelet complete with an elephant charm, for the three elephants I foster with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

Once the Cinderella hour had arrived I was eagerly re-acquainted with my passport, with the newest addition of a Malian visa. Once through the terminal with our group we went to our gate to wait once again for departure, this time to Paris, France. Aboard the mammoth aircraft, seat 44L, I had the misfortune of sitting beside a man with the worst body odor imaginable. He soon realized he had sat in the wrong seat and no sooner was I able to breathe a sigh of relief than another man sat beside me, quite amiable and pleasant, with a heady French accent.

It seemed my misfortune was to confront me yet again, and now aboard the aircraft we sat in the black of the runway for yet another hour and thirty minutes, at least. This meant two things, my friend next to me was missing his connection to Morocco, and I had to wait in an aircraft once again. I slept rather objectionably in the limits of the seat for the following eight hours.

Now, I have arrived in Paris, France, actually walked on the gravel of the runway before being whisked off on a bus to the main terminal. No, no sighting of the Eiffel Tower, much to my disappointment, unless you count the pewter counterparts in the souvenir shop.

My next flight departs in about three hours and by the end of the night I should be refreshed from a brisk shower and sleeping, with any luck, in a comfortable bed. My thoughts are an untidy heap at the moment, a hodgepodge of remembered last minute phone calls to loved ones and the excitement and frustrations of actually traveling to your destination. I have a feeling that the next four weeks will pass in the blink of an eye and so many weird and wonderful sights are just several hours away.

I wish I had some magnificent descriptions or powerful imagery to call witness to at the moment, but travel can be such a test in patience and ultimately exhaustion ensues.

An eternity has passed since my arrival in Paris and after boarding my final flight to Bamako, Mali we waited, once again, forty-five minutes in the plane for take-off. Beside me is a man, a musician from Mali who speaks only French and the challenge commenced rather quickly as we attempted to learn information about each other. His jacket reads, “Mundial On Tour,” with the website www.mundialproductions.nl written beneath. He says to me, “Vino good, good,” with a thumbs up while we eat the cold provisions provided.

It is always difficult to arrive in a foreign place at night because you always get an incredibly different impression. My only comparison is Cambodia – from the airport, the mosquitoes, and the arrival at the hotel. The airport, one building, was a frenzied fight to the one small strip of luggage rotating around and around, carts moving left and right, pushing into you. Once I found my luggage, had my passport stamped, and passed my luggage through the security machine I was outside in the dark. We waited for everyone to perform the same unusual routine of arrival and boarded a jalopy old bus where our luggage was stacked immediately on the top. Only one person had the misfortune of not receiving their luggage, Patricia Kuntz, who happened to be my companion traveler from O’Hare to JFK. She thought her rather intelligent maneuver of having the luggage go completely through American Airlines to O’Hare and transfer to Air France through Bamako would be efficient and easy. It is regrettable that she will have to hope for its arrival, if not her time here just became rather disastrous.

We rode to the Mande Hotel, which until the light of an early sun I will reserve my thoughts. All I will offer is that the room is faded with hard tile floors, the bathroom quite distinct with a shower, but no curtain or glass, and one towel! The room appears well closed off to the outside for the most part, although there are dozens upon dozens of crawling little bugs that Stephanie and I have taken to stepping on when the opportunity presents itself. I am longing for a shower, a clean pair of clothes, a restful night sleep, and crossing my fingers that the Linksys in the main lobby will actually provide an internet connection, as it doesn’t seem to in the far reaches of my room across the pool and outcropping buildings. I have one more night in this hotel before departing for a one stop in Segou and then on to Mopti. At this point, I am exhausted and nothing else but sleep matters, that and the one bottle of water I have, and hoping to contact family members at some point tomorrow. And yes, there is a gecko in my bathroom! Not to mention the vibrant chartreuse frog that hopped out of the shower drain while I was enjoying the cool refreshing deluge of water for the first time in two days!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

After an enjoyable breakfast of eggs and sausage, not to mention water, we leisurely conversed for nearly two hours in the main lobby before heading out to the covered deck for the introduction to the program. Jerry Vogel and Mary Jo Arnoldi familiarized everyone with the course requirements, especially helpful were my graduate student requirements which entail more analytical journal entries concerning the art historical aspects of the culture and a more developed final paper. Everything seems so laid back and mellow.

After exchanging my money for the local currency and going to the supermarket equivalent for bottled water we were on our way to the National Museum of Bamako. The Director of the museum came to greet us and we toured the three exhibits for nearly three hours. We stopped for a late lunch at Los Byblos Restaurant, an American-style cuisine locale if I ever saw one, even though the menu was in French. Afterwards, it was time to visit the griots house.

We entered the darkened interior of his home, small children playing the yard, and sat on the seats surrounding the wall. He came out with the assistance of two cane-like supports, clad in robes of burnished bronze. He explained in French, with Jerry Vogel translating, that griots prefer the term jeli. Griot was given by the Portuguese who considered them clowns or public informants. Jeli, in the local dialect, means blood. In essence, the jeli are to the society what blood is to the body. They maintain customs as guardians of tradition and it is tradition that gives meaning to culture. As preservers of the peace he pacifies social issues and creates social cohesion.

“You cannot become a jeli, you must be born one,” he says. Since 1236 when Sundiata won the war with the Sosso people a constitution was put in place in which the mission of the jeli was permanently fixed. They are the masters of speech and never learned to write, all history is remembered.

After thanking the jeli we returned to the hotel where it was almost 6:30pm. As the program is quite unhurried I am not certain what tomorrow will bring, nor my activities on a daily basis. And, I think, I’m okay with that! For now, I am hoping that the torrential rain that woke me up last night at 4:30am will not be a common recurrence, though the breeze seemed to cool the room and the long rolling thunder a rather pleasant sound.

We ate dinner at Le Pili-Pili outside in the waning light of day. Jerry Vogel had taken it upon himself to order the meal earlier in the afternoon and soon we were eating fried caramelized plantains, seasoned and grilled chicken, beef kabobs, capitaine fish dishes, rice, and fresh mango, the sweetest, most wonderful I have ever had. The preparation of each dish was incredible and I don’t think I have ever tasted such a wonderful meal. The meal was on Jerry and the program so it was quite a surprise that we did not have to pay for dinner.

We arrived back at the hotel close to ten thirty and I desperately wanted to send emails home so I purchased thirty internet minutes for four dollars and brought my laptop to the main lobby so the wireless connection would work properly. Once I sat down and was ready to send my pre-typed messages home, the computer ran out of juice. My disappointment was short-lived because I logged onto the computers provided and sent a few quick emails on a French keyboard, Stephanie and I laughing at the ridiculous difficulty of getting certain symbols and letters. My messages I am sure were like some cryptic SOS and I hope they were well received. I am charging my laptop tonight so that I may make a second attempt in the morning before heading to Segou.