Timbuktu At Last

July 14, 2007

Timbuktu is a fascinating city. It is probably about 1,000 years old. It was once the center of the Muslim empire. It was an extremely important trade center. Now it’s just so much sand.
In about the twelfth century, it was a Muslim center. There were several mosques and a university that had as many as 25,000 students. Mali at that time was rich beyond belief. They were in their prime gold mining years and could see no end to their good fortune. The Tourags rode their camels across the desert to Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Niger, and Burkina Faso. They brought back salt from the salt mines, precious metals and spices from the coastal nations, and whatever else they could find that might be worth something. All these things were brought to Timbuktu where they were sold and traded for dispersal throughout the country and throughout the world.

The Tourags are the ones that named the city. When the French occupied in the nineteenth century, they renamed it Tombouctu. This is how it appears on many maps today. The correct way to spell it however is: Timbuktu.

In the fourteenth century, Morocco invaded. They cleaned out the university, hauling all the manuscripts and books back to their homeland. They left behind a shell of a building which has never fully recovered. Some might say this was the beginning of the end for Timbuktu. Trade continued to happen, even as the gold reserves fell and salt became less precious. The Tourags found new commodities such as slaves to bolster their economy. They were an essential link in the slavery train; capturing West Africans and bringing them back to the city for sale to Westerners. When this trade became illegal in the late nineteenth century, things took a serious downturn.

The people are resilient, however, and continued to survive as they always had; living in the desert, raising livestock, caravanning their camels to the salt mines, and trading with surrounding countries. In the early seventies they were dealt a debilitating blow. It came in the form of a drought. It was so severe that it forever altered the course of the Niger River so that it no longer meanders through town. The Tourags began to have great difficulties maintaining their nomadic lifestyle. Their livestock died, their oases dried up, and they were forced to come back to the city to live. This was untenable for them so they turned to the government for help. The dictator at the time turned a blind eye.

This began a period of turbulence. The Tourags started raiding farms up and down the river valley. They stole sheep, cows, and anything they could use to survive. The government responded with force and the ensuing war lasted many years. Remember that the nomads never really considered themselves Malian. They speak Arabic and have more of a Middle Eastern look; they are not black Africans. They raided villages and sold off the inhabitants into slavery. Traditional Malians would say that the Tourags are arrogant and proud. At any rate, the war was no good for anyone.

In the Nineties a democratic government took over for the first time in history. One of the first things the new president did was to install a Tourag into his cabinet. Halis would say this was just for show as the man had no actual power, but it was a significant move nonetheless as it was unprecedented. It also helped to ease the tensions and create a common ground for peace talks. The result was the burning of the weapons that I previously mentioned. There is still a great deal of animosity between the Bombara people and the Tourags, but they live together today in relative harmony.

In the meantime, the desert has encroached upon the town. It is slowly recapturing the place, taking it back into the sand from whence it came. It is a typical Malian village; mud brick structures, open sewers, plenty of donkeys, and lots of trash. The main difference is the sand. In other places in Mali, the ground is hard packed red dirt. In Timbuktu, it is sand everywhere. When you gaze out over the rooftops, it is difficult to see where the town ends and the desert begins as the sand never stops.

For Halis and 35,000 others, it is home. He would never live anywhere else. He is fiercely protective of his village and his way of life and refuses to consider any other way. It is an admirable stand, even if I do not fully understand it.

MJR

Endings, Adventures, Transitions

July 13, 2007

Last Friday was the last day of school. We spent the weekend packing and hanging out with friends. We felt it was our obligation to finish up the booze we had purchased so we enlisted our friends to help us. Our plane left Sadiola on Monday.

We packed all the way up until we had to leave for the airport. We got there with plenty of time as the plane was delayed by three hours. We turned around and went home to catch forty winks before trying again. We had a full load; Anna came along to say goodbye, Stephen needed a ride, Mohammed got to ride the plane with us (he’d never ridden a plane before), and Reg was needed to take the car back. There were several others who showed up to wave us off.

We arrived in Bamako around seven. We were greeted by Shaka, a driver for the school. He took us to the bank and then to the Director’s house. The school director is currently out on leave as the Bamako school has been out of session for a month. We relaxed in his mansion, getting up early to head back to the airport.

Tuesday morning we hugged Mohammed goodbye and climbed back in the van with Shaka. The lady on the phone told us we needed to be there by eight to get our tickets to Timbuktu. We had arranged a tour with a fellow named Halis (Hah-lease), but we had to take care of our own plane tickets. We showed up at eight only to be told that the plane wasn’t leaving until eleven and we wouldn’t be able to do anything until at least nine. We called Shaka and asked him to return for us. As we hung up the phone we were greeted by Halis and were told that we should probably hang around. We called Shaka and told him never mind. We then learned from Halis that we would need about 500,000 fcfa to pay for the tickets and the tour. As I only had 200,000 in cash, he urged us to go get more money. We called Shaka and asked him to return (there are no banks or ATM’s at the Bamako airport). We bought tickets one way with no assurance whatsoever that we would be able to get on a returning flight the next day and then Shaka arrived. I headed out with him to the crowded streets of Bamako. The first two cash machines wouldn’t take my card and the third one was broken. We left downtown and blazed back to the airport with Halis bellowing in my ear to hurry up. We screeched up to the front of the airport where Halis was waiting. We raced inside, following the pilot directly to the plane. We boarded, they shut the door, fired the props and took off for Timbuktu. I had no money and no return ticket. Things didn’t look good.

Timbuktu is home to 35,000 people in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Once there, I was able to get money, no problem. We went to Halis’s restaurant/guest house where we were fed a top notch meal of rice and meat. We loaded back into the car and took a tour of the town. We saw the mosques, the old university, and several museums. We also visited a monument that was built to commemorate the day 15,000 guns were burned on that site. It was the day the Tourags and the Malian government signed a peace treaty and burned their guns as a sign of peace.

The Tourags are the nomads of the desert. They speak Arabic and look Middle Eastern. They ride camels and live in the desert. They live in the villages now only because changing times have forced them to do so. Halis is a Tourag. We ventured off to another spot where there were three camels waiting. We climbed aboard and rode into the desert.

We rode ten excruciating kilometers (our butts will never be the same) to our campsite. The fellows cooked us up a lekker meal, after which the women played great music until we fell asleep under the stars. We were awakened by the wind in the middle of the night. The sand was blowing everywhere. Carrie and I kept hearing the words of Halis, “the rain always follows the wind.” We wrapped ourselves up and waited. One drop fell, then two, then three, then it stopped, the wind died, and the stars came back out. We awoke with the sunrise, cleaning sand out of every orifice and reveling in the beauty of it all. It was magnificent! We journeyed back to the airport by car and flew back to Bamako.

We arranged shipment of our boxes, had a nice swim in the pool, and dozed off to sleep early. We awoke at 1:00 a.m. to go back to the airport for our plane to Casablanca.

So, here we are; in Morocco. We are staying in a town called El Jadida. It’s a pleasant little place, if a trifle worn down. There are some tourists, although we have yet to meet another American. Everyone is friendly and the food is great. French is one of the primary languages so we have one more chance to practice before heading off to South America. We have had some challenges with the hotel we are in, but overall it has been a good experience. I would recommend Morocco as a lekker travel spot.

I am sad to be leaving Sadiola, but I am also happy to be out of Mali. Life on the mine was weird and separated from the reality of the country. The reality of the country is that it is dirt poor. The people are incredible; they are happy, generous, and unfalteringly honest. I believe I shall never meet another people like the Malians.
MJR