Mangoes, mountains and Mali
Trip Start
Oct 04, 2011
1
39
64
Trip End
May 01, 2013
Siby, Koulikoro, Mali
Saturday, January 28, 2012
I scanned the street. An old chap in smart traditional brown earth dyed garb, with a distinctive elf-like hat stood in the middle of the road en-sheathed in a pal of acrid smoke grinning and looking, to all intents and purposes, extremely pleased with himself. In the crook of his arm an ancient gun; still smoldering. "C'est une cérémonie," languidly explained another coffee drinker. Firing guns on the main road at 10.30am on a Sunday morning? We quizzed each other, now what exactly a sort of ceremony is that?
Sibi, enclosed in escarpments, falaises and hundreds of mangoes trees is a 35km weekend break form Bamako and about the same again from Kourmale and the Guinea border. Perfect to escape the full time work of visa acquisition and excepting the occasion muddy elf with a gun is relatively peaceful. That, and the weekly Saturday market which see the place transform into the bustle of cries, shouts of selling, whirls of colours, profusion of sacks, carts, stacked lorries, batteries, radios, tomatoes, fish, chillies and of course mangoes which characterise an African market in this part of the world. Under a multitude of rickety stalls women sell bright fresh salad, boys rest on hand carts, donkeys look doleful and children run errands for stacks of firewood, cigarettes, yams chips and the rest.
We ate salad in the shade of a big mango tree resting on its trunk with the old boys and reading whilst children yelled or sang "Toubabou," in our vague direction. Tranquility, however, was only a short stroll through the rubbish by the side of the road and into the mango groves and rocky escarpments beyond the village. Playing cards on a choice piece of rock a well meaning "ça va," from a man running down hill in flip flops with half a tree on his head was all we heard in a hour.
Back in town upon the wooden benches of a coffee stand our game continued until a man, dressed somewhat foolishly for such a dusty place, in white trousers, shirt and floppy hat took an interest in our game. Attempting to explain the rules of a card game can be hard enough in English let alone in French like mine but we stumbled on and from then the game was abandoned. "I'm collecting my brothers lorry from the customs in Guinea," he explained. "Are you going to watch the match tonight?" I asked. Thinking a minute he responded; "Alor, non"
After finding us a enterprising little cinema, established with a better picture than anything I have found in Bamako, set up with wooden benches, like pews, in a half finished building, a reed mat covering the door he soon changed his mind. Secretly he paid our entrance and his. Mali faced Ghana in the African Cup of Nations. All was expectant. I leaned over and whispered. "We are following Ghana," I said conspiratorially "The first time we met was whilst working there." "Voilà!," said he, and then in loud clear French "There is no trouble here that you are following the Ghana" the heads of a few fervent Mali fans turned, i caught the glimpse of broken teeth in the dark, mutters of Ghanabes were audible. Mali lost by 2 "super buts" but no tempers flared at us as the cinema began to empty prematurely.
Later over a beer and after shuffling out to buy us a massive brown paper heap of sizzling meat our new friend picked his bones and the grizzly of mutton from his teeth and proceeded to our surprise "Before I met you," he said "I thought all English people were mechant" "Naughty or badly behaved" helped I in translation for Sarah. "Not that, no wicked" he roared, now in English. Hooligans; racists; poor language learners; holders of negative images of Africa; a queen that spoke no French (so he believed but I bet she does) and a incident in a swimming pool in Benin in the 1980s seemed the basis for his anti-Brit beliefs.
I tried to put him straight, our reserved nature, our island mentality, our shyness at accepting favours. "Les éttiquettes Africaine et les ettiquettes Anglais c'est ne pas le meme chose." I tried. "Where you live together; we apart; where you offer food, help, accommodation out of politeness and hospitality we refuse out of our own politeness; where you greet and chat and approach; we stand back and give space."
"C'est une bataille de culture," he agreed. By midnight we stumbled back to the stand were he hoped to catch a ride to the frontier and his lorry bed for the night as firm friends. "I am glad to have met you," he said "And that is a good thing." He thought a while as if considering something of weight and then followed "But your Diana, they kill her for having Arab Boyfriend".
Rob Spackman 29 Janvier Bamako
