Road Trip!After our first week settling into Maria's home in Kati, we spent 5 days on the road visiting Djenne and Bandiagarra in the north of Mali. Maria gave us her LandCruiser, and we were lucky enough to get to travel with Brahima Ouologuem. Ouloguem (pronousned Wiligem) and I worked together at Plan International in Banamba in 1985-86. When my folks visited in 1987, he accompanied us on a similar trip to the north country. Ouologuem is Dogon, and in addition to speaking Bambara and beautiful English, he also speaks Dogon and Fulani, two of the dominant languages in the northern part of Mali. Now, he works as a language teacher with Peace Corps, especially with volunteers in the Djenne, Mopti, Dogon part of the country. Luckily, Ouologuem was free, and so agreed to join us (and drive us!) on our trip north. I guess he's become the official Pollack-family tour-guide. He was the perfect guide!
After two nights at hotel Djenne Djenno (check out the hotel's website: http://www.hoteldjennedjenno.com/?page_id=10,) we drove up to the cliffs of Bandiagara, and Dogon country. The Dogon live only in this one part of Mali, which is very remote and protected by cliffs. As a result of their isolation, and their tenacity, they have stayed very indepenent, with a very strong animist tradition and unique cosmology. The land is very rugged, and extremely rocky. As a result, where the houses in Djenne are built with Djenne's incredible mud, the houses in Dogon country
are built just of rock! No adobe bricks. Just stacked rocks! Dogon villages are collections of beautiful rock huts, and small mud graineries. Incrredibly picturesque. Since Ouologuem works with Peace Corps volunteers in the region, we got to stop and visit a volunteer named Kate in her village. We found her down at the village well, measuring. It turns out that her main project has been to deepen the well, not an easy task in the rocky terrain of Dogon country. She is finishing her second year, and enjoying every moment (believe it or not, she is 30 km on a dirt road from Bandiagara, and said she wishes she was placed in a more remote site... afterall, her village is on the tourist path to Sanga... and you know what those tourists do to the price of chicken...) We then walked with her down to the small river that flows next to the village. The Dogon are famous for growing onions in small plots alongside these small rivers, which are dammed up to provide water for a good part of 
the dry season. We went to see the volunteer's Malian counterpart, who was down in the onion fields, and got an up-close look at the onion fields. Very cool. Here's a picture of the volunteer, Kate, some village kids who tagged along as we showed up, and her counterpart (next to me with the t-shirt on his head).
The first day we drove 7 hours from Kati to Djenne. Djenne is the oldest city in Africa, situated in the Niger River delta, and home of the largest mud builing in the world (the Mosque of Djenne). We stayed at a great hotel on the outskirts of town, called Djenne Djenno, and spent a day touring the town. Unlike most Malian towns, Djenne is full of 2 and 3-story mud buildings. Their clay is so good, and they are such skilled builders, that they live in this very urban environment --16,000 people together on a pretty small island. It's amazing 
being surrounde by multi-story adobe buildings. Waling around felt very biblical. This is a picture looking at Djenne from the roof of our hotel.
being surrounde by multi-story adobe buildings. Waling around felt very biblical. This is a picture looking at Djenne from the roof of our hotel.The other exciting piece of the Djenne story was finding and visiting Jean Louis Bourgeois' house in Djenne. I met Jean Louis in New York in 1987, when he and Carrollee were finishing their book, Spectacular Vernacular, about adobe architecture in Mali and Afghanistan. Over the years, we've become good friends, and Jean Louis even introduced us to our little piece of sagebrush in Taos -- he has a gorgeous adobe on the mesa! In the past 10 years, Jean Louis has been going regularly to Mali, an was given a piece of land from the Chef du Village, and has built a gorgeous Djenne-style home. 
It wasn't too hard finding him, as our guide (whose surname is "Boss") is a grandson of the village chief, and knows Jean Louis very well. After a wonderful walk through town, we went by Jean Louis' home, and met his guardian "Cisse," who gave us a tour. It is situated right on the river, with incredibly beautiful roof-top sleeping. That will definitely be our home for our next trip.
It wasn't too hard finding him, as our guide (whose surname is "Boss") is a grandson of the village chief, and knows Jean Louis very well. After a wonderful walk through town, we went by Jean Louis' home, and met his guardian "Cisse," who gave us a tour. It is situated right on the river, with incredibly beautiful roof-top sleeping. That will definitely be our home for our next trip. After two nights at hotel Djenne Djenno (check out the hotel's website: http://www.hoteldjennedjenno.com/?page_id=10,) we drove up to the cliffs of Bandiagara, and Dogon country. The Dogon live only in this one part of Mali, which is very remote and protected by cliffs. As a result of their isolation, and their tenacity, they have stayed very indepenent, with a very strong animist tradition and unique cosmology. The land is very rugged, and extremely rocky. As a result, where the houses in Djenne are built with Djenne's incredible mud, the houses in Dogon country
are built just of rock! No adobe bricks. Just stacked rocks! Dogon villages are collections of beautiful rock huts, and small mud graineries. Incrredibly picturesque. Since Ouologuem works with Peace Corps volunteers in the region, we got to stop and visit a volunteer named Kate in her village. We found her down at the village well, measuring. It turns out that her main project has been to deepen the well, not an easy task in the rocky terrain of Dogon country. She is finishing her second year, and enjoying every moment (believe it or not, she is 30 km on a dirt road from Bandiagara, and said she wishes she was placed in a more remote site... afterall, her village is on the tourist path to Sanga... and you know what those tourists do to the price of chicken...) We then walked with her down to the small river that flows next to the village. The Dogon are famous for growing onions in small plots alongside these small rivers, which are dammed up to provide water for a good part of 
the dry season. We went to see the volunteer's Malian counterpart, who was down in the onion fields, and got an up-close look at the onion fields. Very cool. Here's a picture of the volunteer, Kate, some village kids who tagged along as we showed up, and her counterpart (next to me with the t-shirt on his head).Unfortunately, our trip in Dogon country was a bit slowed-down by Alex's stomach. She got a bug, perhaps some sour milk in Djenne, and just was feely crummy most of the time. The one day we explored the area, she had a terrible fever, and was feeling miserable. (In fact, one of the old ladies in the Dogon village took one look at her an said, "she doesn't looke well!" So, rather than hike the cliffs, we settled into our hotel in Bandiagara for some quiet downtime at our hotel, the Cheval Blanc. That allowed Maya and I to play some Dogon mini-golf. We have some cool video clips of that, but the blog site is not letting us upload them. Sorry...
So, that's a bit about our road trip in Mali. It was wonderful driving through the countryside, seeing villages enjoying a very successful farming season. It's amazing, but once you get outside the magnetic pull of the cities, the villages look really healthy. Adobe homes are well-plastered, gardens are well-tended, and people seem engaged in a variety of dry-season activities (shi-butter making; gardening; brick-making, etc.). The harvest had happened back in October, and was very good. We saw lots of people busily thrashing and winnowing the millet. Lots of millet stalks piled-up on rooftops, to serve as animal feed during the dry season. And we saw a ton of beautiful mango (delish!), baobab (leaves for sauce; bark for rope), and shi (oil) trees. It was easy to imagine how simple and good life can be, as we drove by at 110 km/hour. It was nice to be with Ouologuem, who would share stories of Peace Corps volunteers, who live in a number of the villages we passed. Perhaps some of that might have sunk it with Alex and Maya, though it's hard to tell. Nonetheless, it was a great road trip.
Blog ya later.
Madu (Seth)./.
