Travel is useful, it exercises the imagination. All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength.
It goes from life to death. People, animals, cities, things, all are imagined. It’s a novel, just a fictitious narrative.
And besides, in the first place, anyone can do as much. You just have to close your eyes.
It’s on the other side of life.
- Louise- Fedinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night
Journey to Sikasso
So off I went. Thanksgiving was around the corner, so I guiltily told my village I’d be gone for a few weeks and headed to Kita, in time to take the night bus to Bamako. Our excitement at the empty bus waned to terror as - who knew we’d freeze to death in Africa? - the bus whipped on without windows through the cold night at 80mph; the four of us huddled in our flimsy clothes during the torturous scathing wind of the 4 hour trip. Finally the wind stopped, and we cautiously lifted our heads from inside our shirts to find ourselves in the cold brightly lit bus station, smelled like nighttime latrines. From there we were hustled to a busted bus company to Sikasso, spiked our Gatorade, and stumbled out of the steaming bus in the raw afternoon light 8 hours later ready for a nap.
The party was huge as peace corps usually goes, kids throwing off their Tabaski fete best, guys leaving behind the long dress-outfit called bubus, ladies their heavy head wraps , all to assemble for American style confusion, turkey tubs of squished potatoes Malian beer. We’re quite a site, walking through the markets, girls in pants and Northface backpacks past rice sacks of dried caterpillars and raw amber-like gum. Sikasso is on the Burkina Faso/Cote d’Ivoire border, and you can feel the intensity of mixed nations; young people scouring their borders wondering if there’s something different over there. Scary night at a club, as I as leaving a man with overwhelming testosterone insecure misplaced anger grabbed me to dance, wouldn’t let go, he slapped me after I fought him how dare a woman humiliate a man the other volunteers and I yelled while the Malian prostitutes laughed and the Malian men put their fingers to their lips and told me to shut up. You don’t understand, we shouted, we get to choose. He followed us back, freaked us out in the deep night to yell “I sorry!”, told us he was just embarrassed and lost his cool but I couldn’t even look at him; in fact every Malian man filled me with animal rage. A lesson learned, of course I am never alone and it could have been worse but even so, as comfortable as I feel here it is still a man-fueled place and a woman who doesn’t know her place learns. A sad comfort at being an alien here, the not-a-Malian-woman, and I know my defenses go into overdrive but I don’t know where to place American feminism into cultural integration.
Rest of the trip though calmed down and we piled into a station wagon to camp out by the waterfall. Too tight a squeeze so after we passed the gendarmes I sat on top, the great immense windy bush in front of me, speckled with mud straw houses. Sat under then cascade with Kristin and a box of Don Simone, ran unclothed at night in the freezing water and danced around the campfire, warm at night with three of us in the little tent. Good people.
Journey to Senegal
Left for Bamako and the next day Senegal for their All-Volunteer Conference, where three of us were invited as guest-speakers. I gave a power point on cervical cancer training and screening, got a terrific response, heard about some interesting projects – visual aid ideas, ameliorated porridge, rural libraries, community lead total sanitation techniques, simple cheap technologies like garden pumps and peanut grinders. The Senegal volunteers of course welcomed us into their world as the incredible community-love of volunteers goes.
And after, lovely, lovely ocean! The three of us found a car to take us to a beach town on the Atlantic Coast north of Dakar, Popenguine, where we found a house on the beach and were quickly befriended by a 60 year old French café owner Agnes and her 30 year old Senegalese husband, Malike. Ate lutte a la crème, a delicious Senegalese fish dish, and wine and crepes with ice cream. Found some djembe players and Owen and them energy-drummed and the beat called others in the island and we danced and swirled our arms and drank shots of sweet home-made orange-cinnamon rum – yumrum we declared – “To Universal People!” and more Senegalese musicians and artists came and Kat and I jumped and twirled more. We met the artist Gade, pronounced god, he told us it meant “the gatherer.” We went to his house to see his expressionist paintings made from cola nuts fermented and oxidized and talked about the citizens of the universe and gazed at his baobab trees sculpted from the soft clay of the cliffs nearby. We hung out at his house most of the day with Senegalese hippies; many of them live with him in Switzerland or help run the small art therapy program he operates. Went down to the beach and played with the café owners and their dog Pussy, tried to understand their strange but genuine love. Watched the sunset and waited for a car to take us to a club but it took too long and we sat at Gade’s wide round porch – what are we doing Owen asked? Watching the stars…
Hiked to the cliff in the morning on no sleep, the vistas over Popenguine were exquisite. Finally got to the shore and tried to make our way along the base of the cliff with the rocks and soft clay yellow ochre and burnt sienna and pale grey and alizarin crimson; we smushed and crumbled along in my too-big market flip flops (lost my Chacos in the waterfalls). The ocean sprayed us and licked the colors and it was so wildly passionate but soon the sea crashed at our feet, sending walls of cold sea water and I crouched to protect the camera bag. Now soaked, we realized there’s nowhere to go it seems – the waves are crashing vehemently on our disappearing path; maybe there’s a path on the Cliffside but as we ascend the rocks crumble ominously with each grip and all we find at the top is more climbing and prickly plants. We watched down below as a couple of nicely dressed African women try and the ocean crashes helplessly on them, soaking their leather bags and absconding with a shoe, leaving them hanging on. They make it past though, and we decide we need to try our chances on the shore. We climb down slowly dooni dooni, a boulder falls when I move my foot but we make it and saunter along the cliff walls and we’ve made it to the smooth beach again.
We made our way back to Dakar. At the bus station I hop over the driver’s seat of the bus I am leaving and as I get out the door the driver sees me and yells in Wolof. I ignore him, but how dare I, so he grabs my wrists and struggle as I yell; finally he lets me go I fall down to the ground and I stop myself from throwing the pile of rocks I have in my hand. Again, I am not alone but still even in the bright day sunlight I feel pained at his need for masochism and I still can’t understand why. Then comes the limp of desolation – how sad this misplaced anger, my helplessness, that evil energy. I walk off with my friends and the woman next to me hands me a scarf to wipe the dirt from my knees and I put my sunglasses on cause my eyes are filling up. But there’s too much love around me right now and all I find I can do is love the hate, that’s the only way to understand this I think.
Journey to Morocco
From Dakar I boarded a hazy 3am flight to Morocco to check on the same medical issues I had just talked about in Senegal. I boarded on autodrive and landed in Casablanca as the sun began to rise and the driver dropped me off in the mosaic covered Peace Corps office in Rabat. Went to the clinic to check out my stuff, thankfully everything was clear, and I was amused at having the visual inspection procedure done to me (I have a damn beautiful cervix, thank you) So I had the rest of the time of my medical evacuation to discover Rabat. Walked into my room to find a large curly man, another PCV in the other double-bed, bearlike and cozy and we immediately talked flowing encompassing spirit-energy, made up each other’s creation stories. Met some other Morocco volunteers and again felt immediate connections; we all have this common value system and passion, not easily shocked by cross-cultural oddness and American eccentrics, and genuinely interested in each other. Some of them invited me to the Moroccan-American ambassador’s house for a dinner party. We lit the Hannukah candles for the last night (he’s Jewish) and talked about the difficulties of development work. Spent days in the Medina, wandered around the spiced narrow markets eating olives, it reminded me of Jerusalem’s Old City. It smelled like coriander and dates and coffee, loud and wonderfully chaotic. Meandered through the Kasbah, the city-fortress on the sea painted bright blue and white with windy little corridors and beautiful wood doors.
On my last day another Mali volunteer was med evaced, we did some shopping in the market, and at night we caught dinner with some of the PCVs. As we walked back a group of Moroccan teens commented on her head wrap and dark skin and grasped her backpack. Freaked us out and were weighted down with the ugly feeling of pity. But remembered that this stuff happens even in America and people can be strangers everywhere. Flew back to Mali on another nighttime flight, grinning on the way to the airport at this quickly tilting lifestyle (do I ever want to give it up?), later though as I wrote I fell quiet as I sat and watched how small and far away people seemed; the vibrating sound of a mother shushing her child made me tired, glazed men with briefcases, all sad and waiting but so much alive. Arrived as the darkness was beginning to clear; the intense energy of the night, in its soothing questioning strangeness was disappearing in the Mali morning.
I’d be brimful of courage then. I’d be dripping with courage, and life itself would be just one big idea of courage, that would be the driving force behind everything, behind all men and things from earth to heaven. And by the same token there would be so much love that Death would be shut up inside it with tenderness, and Death would be so cosy-comfortable in there, the bitch, that she’d finally start enjoying herself, she’d get pleasure out of love along with everyone else. How wonderful would that be! What a production!
-Celine, Journey to the End of the Night
