Travels

Its been nearly four weeks since I was last in Tobré. I’m excluding the one night I spent there en route, since I was only there for about fourteen hours. Here’s why I’ve been gone so much:
1. I was a volunteer trainer for In-Service Training for first year TEFL volunteers. One thing you don’t hear about when you sign up for the Peace Corps is how you will get sucked into doing things like this.
2. I then went to a town called Nikki, which is the seat of the Bariba kingdom, for the annual Ganni ceremony. This is when all (or almost all) Bariba kings make their way to Nikki to celebrate both the birth of the prophet Mohammed, and ironically, the Bariba people’s historical defeat of Islamic proselytizers. I’ve given up trying to reconcile these opposing reasons for celebration. The celebration involves many Bariba princes prancing around on their horses.
3. After passing through Tobré for a night, I went to Park Pendjari, the one place in Benin to catch a glimpse of big African wildlife. Our group was able to see elephants, antelope, warthogs, hyenas, buffalo, and for a moment, lions. It so crazy to see these animals in the wild. I kept having to remind myself that I was not just at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. When you stop to think about it, its incredible that animals as enormous as elephants just roam around.
4. For Pendjari I had to go down to Cotonou for the annual Peace Corps All-Volunteer conference. Basically a vacation. We are put up in a three star hotel (air conditioning! hot water! delicious food! swimming pool! internet!), and spend the day talking about all things Peace Corps. The last night is a fundraiser dinner for Gender and Development efforts in Benin, more widely known as the Peace Corps prom.
5. The morning after the GAD dinner, four other volunteers and I climbed into the first of many taxis, to go to Burkina Faso and Mali. And here’s where the real stories begin…


THE TREK
One of the many benefits of being a PC volunteer is the opportunity to travel around. Since I’m a teacher, and I have to plan my schedule around classes, its been difficult at times to take advantage of this benefit. But for the break in April, four other volunteers and I went through the trouble of requesting vacation days, and headed of to see Burkina Faso and Mali.

Since a day-by-day account would end up being monotonous and lacking in direction, I’ve decided to bullet point the things that stood out the most, in no particular order:
1. Hiking in Dogon country. This is the southern-most part of Mali, where the Dogon people have been living in stone villages on top of, and next to, huge rock escarpments, for hundreds of years. The villages are all about three kilometers apart, but getting from one the next usually requires scrambling up a cliff. We spent four days trekking in Dogon country, with an incredible guide. Everything was incredibly breathtaking: waking up to see a sheer cliff, with an entire village balanced on the edge of it. Looking at how people have figured out how to survive on a giant rock, growing millet and onions in the cracks and crevices. Listening to the lilting greetings people threw at each other as they passed.

The Dogon way of life is in a precarious situation, due to many factors, including desertification (you can literally see the where the desert is creeping closer and closer), population growth, and the presence of tourists. Its overwhelming to think about how I have been able to see first-hand this dissappearing way of life.

2. Getting an idea of what medieval London might have smelled like in the mud city of Djenne. This is home to the world’s biggest mud mosque, and the city itself is made completely of mud. The toilet systems in the mud homes either empty into miniature mud septic tanks OR into the streets. Delicious. Despite the insulting smells, the city is interesting, and completely different from anything found in Benin. Upon arrival we were swarmed by teenaged boys, offering to be our guides. When we declined, one followed us, yelling in English, “This is not your country! You have to be cool here!” This however, was the most trouble we had, and generally things in Djenne are calm. Its completely Sahelian, completely Muslim. People from all over West Africa send their children to the famous Koranic schools of Djenne. Perhaps the best description of Djenne is what it is called in guidebooks: a cleaner (!), less spoiled version of Timbuktu.

3. Gliding along the Niger river in a pirogue at the port town of Mopti.

4. Figuring out ways to entertain ourselves in crammed, long, frustrating taxi rides. Some ideas: ipod speakers, befriending all the women in the car, sleeping, finding new ways to wear your bandana, buying whatever street vendors shove in the windows at check points, counting the freckles on my arm, sleeping, and sleeping.

5. Getting kicked out of a hotel because we WEREN’T prostitutes. Ha.

6. Enjoying delicious cafeteria food in Ouagadougou. Cafeterias are pan-West African eating establishments that serve a trusty menu of omelettes, Nescafe, spaghetti, tea, bread, and occasionally homemade yogurt. The yogurt in Ouaga was indescribably delicious.

7. Making unexpected friends wherever we went. Amongst them: Celeste a drunk man who helped us find a hotel, food, and water late at night. Serena, a woman selling potato salad, who insisted that we meet her entire family. Two Fula girls in the Djenne market, both named Binta, who couldn’t believe how soft our hands were. Of course, our guide in Dogon, Oumar, who swore like a sailor and kept us entertained.

8. Listening to beautiful Malian guitar music. A sweet relief compared to the Ivoiran and Congolese dance music favored in Benin.

9. Bargaining. ALL. THE. TIME. For EVERYTHING. And getting suckered into buying things I absolutely did not need.

10. Enjoying the company of the other volunteers I traveled with. We were able to enjoin the hilariously frustrating times, process what we saw, and appreciate the entire experience together.

11. Coming home to Benin, where everything is cheaper, friendlier, and more familiar.