Dogon Christmas!

Hi all!

Long time, I know. Sorry. Let me start off by wishing everyone a happy holiday and a fantastic New Year. I hope 2010 is off to a good start for everyone.

I spent Christmas hiking through Dogon country. It was a three day, two night hike, with 15 other volunteers and two Malian guides. Our primary guide was my friend’s homologue and he was great. We all took lots of pictures, which you can find on facebook now. I have not had the opportunity myself to upload any of mine, but if you follow this link, you should be able to see quite a few of them. We spent Christmas day at Sam’s site (another volunteer from my stage). We watched the sunrise from her roof it the morning, which was sort of hazy, but beautiful none the less. In the afternoon, we went to the opening of a mask festival. The Dogon people give several mask dances, a very popular tourist attraction. But this festival specifically was to bring together all of the different villages in the Sangha cartier (a circle of Mopti, Sangha is where Sam lives and works) to perform for each other. The parts that we saw were only the opening day, but we were entertained by multitude of different groups of dancers and the opportunity to do some dancing of our own. Following that, we were treated to a wonderful Christmas dinner, prepared by Sam and other members of her village We had cornbread stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, veg, and a roasted goat. We even had millet beer! It was a very nice set up, a sit down dinner for all 16 of us, including two other travelers who happen to be staying at the hotel in Bongo, Sam’s village.

The evening ended with a dance presented by all the women of Sam’s village, which we were also encouraged to participate in. We exercised PC goal #3 by singing Christmas carols to them as thanks for their performance, and general hospitality, They were thoroughly amused.
We started off the next morning, hiking down the cliffs on the side of Bongo, into the valley. We were lead, as I said before, by Sam’s homologue, who continued to finish off the millet beer through out the next few days of our hike. Our days we would spend hiking in the morning, stopping for rest and stories of the Dogon and Telum people. The Telums lived in the cliffs of Mopti, carving homes out of the sides of the rock face. When the brothers of Mali, the Bambara and Dogon people, could no longer get along in the northern part of the country, the Dogon people moved north, running the Telums out of their dwellings and taking over residence in the cliffs. They also changed their language so that their Bambara brothers could not understand them. When you look up into the mountain sides, it is amazing to think that anyone would ever have been able to live there. In fact, the Dogon people, taking up residence in the bottoms of the hills, believed that the Telum people could fly, enabling them to reach their homes over a hundred yards up these otherwise unscaleable rocks.

We stopped each day for lunch at a new encampment, like a small hotel along the route. We ate well, couscous (the rice so nice, they named it twice!) or rice and sauce, or macaroni and sauce. These are pretty common Malian dishes, but they were so well prepared, and of course, we were pretty hungry. After filling our bellies, we’d nap a bit and then set off for our afternoon hike. The afternoons were much shorter than the mornings, which was good considering how warm it was. We’d end our day arriving in another village, at another encampment, a cold beer or soda to greet us.

The first night, we stopped into a Christian village. It was the 26th, and set up right over the 3 meter wall from us was a church celebration. We spent a lot of time watching the dancing, and listening to the singing and chanting. While chatting and taking it all in, Jeremy and I made friends with a woman and her children standing next to us. I have seen my fair share of beautiful babies here, especially working at the health center. But this child was by far the standout. She was giggly and we made gurgling noises to each other, much to her mother’s amusement. We were also given a coconut milk like drink that was being passed around the dancing circle. When we decided to walk around and explore town, we were invited to join the dancing. It was us two Tubabs and at least 50 Malians, and one of our guides and the children dancing were all trying to teach us how to do it. We were joined later by other volunteers from our group, but for once we were less the spectacle than usual. These people were so engrossed in their dancing and their celebrating and their singing, that a couple extra white people seemed to go with out notice.
When we could dance no more, Jeremy and I stepped off to watch. And the children followed. We played chase and acted like kids ourselves. It was a great end to a good day.

Our hike the next day led us up onto the cliffs to the most amazing views I could have imagined. It was tough hiking, mostly all straight up, but when we got to the top, we were all greatly rewarded. I will put up pictures as soon as I can, but don’t wait! Check out the pictures here; they are brilliant. We were told that from the top of the cliffs we were on, one could see all the way to Burkina Faso on a clear day. It was windy up there, and even though the sun was pounding down on us, it was a wonderful feeling. The rest of our hike that day led us to another encampment in a village on the side of the hills for lunch, and then on to our stay for the night in a village pushed up against the bottom of the cliffs across the valley from the mountains we had just climbed. The journey seemed to always be either climbing rocks or traipsing through desert sand, and a good time on either terrain. We spent each night sleeping on the roof of the hotels, under the desert stars. And man oh man was it cold. The last night of our hike, we ended up in a pile of people, a spoon train if you will, just trying to keep warm!

I know Mali is not on the top of many people’s travel lists, but should anyone decide to venture this direction, the Dogon hikes are not to be missed. The pictures and words will never really do it justice.