country love

i have been in africa for about 2 weeks now and a lot of that time was spent waiting- waiting for buses to be fixed, for station wagons to get filled up, for meals to be served. I made it to a concert where i got to see mali's creme de la creme of music from the fifth row (for a VIP ticket price of $7)! I have been proposed to multiple times ( as are all the tourists) sometimes with an offer of 10 cows. I have had grilled lamb, shared watermelon, papaya, countless cups of tea with the locals on tabaski. and now finally, i sit and write about the Africa i have seen and experienced during walks and bus/taxi rides.

the bus/wagon weaves through a maze of finished and unfinished road, barely avoiding a cow skull on an occasion, leaving a dust cloud for the followers to swallow. i see a teenager kick a soccer ball at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, his bright yellow Ronaldo #9 jersey shines on as does his smile in the blistering heat. NY caps and Unicef t-shirts are everywhere as is Obama- he makes an appearance on pants, his smiling face embroidered on one leg, on bedspreads, motorbike stickers, even on flip flops- a pair of which i couldn't help buying.
A mother and daughter, with their high cheekbones, hold tattooed hands.
motorcycles, cycles, goats are tied on the roofs of buses along with backpacks from REI. at a police checkpoint, a policeman opens the trunk, hoists a goat by its legs, then drops it back in the trunk and the car goes on its way.

i have been on 2 long bus journeys (8-12 hours), and both have been punctuated by mechanical failure after about 2 hours.
all passengers wait on the roadside praying for a miracle to happen while the driver takes the bus apart. men and women laze around on the languid afternoon under skeletal shacks, precariously balanced on knotty wooden poles passing tea around in a little communal shot glass.
a little girl dressed in her traditional attire, the color of sunshine, plays games on a cell phone. Another girl prances about singing songs as her mother struggles to hold her down to put purple extensions in her hair-an effort to tame her wild hair.
a mother has her son tethered to her breast- no one gives a second look.
a little boy holds a dead bird in his hands, as he would a soft toy while his sister, in her shocking pink dress and braids that end in kaleidoscopic color clips blinks her eyes repeatedly at me.
i play with the 2 year old kid Mambi, who either starts crying at the sight of me, or imitates my every move.
a woman on a scooter calls out to me saying I love you, perhaps the only English words she picked up from an english movie.

i take a walk in the village, little mud houses with corrugated tin sheets as doors all opening to a common courtyard. many men have multiple wives here.
in spite of the chaotic facade, everything, everyone seems to move at a snails pace here- except the african women. they strut around in their traditional garb with a regal air about them. an epitome of grace, a shoulder casually bared sometimes, a baby slung low on their backs, they cook food, grind millet, carry water while the men sit and 'discuss', an african man said to me over a slice of watermelon.

i find a corner in the shade and try to read a book while a woman nearby pounds millet with her daughter making beautiful music, a baby set in a constant hug on her back.

embryonic journey

thoughts, emotions, memories have raced through my being- perhaps the most myriad of them all in a period of 3 days as the buses, wagons, cabs rattled on, like the gypsy tambourines, on dusty country roads of the dark continent.
words lost their magic power in this journey- most of them were misunderstood. smiles worked and i am in bamako, mali after a three day journey- i traveled a great distance on different planes- thanks to the kindness of strangers who became friends.

It’s a day to give thanks and I have a lot to be thankful for.

move to the groove..

i spend a peaceful couple days at Nicole and Curt's. Dinners are home-cooked with conversations about volunteering and environmental engineering. curt has devised a composting system at their house and is in the process of installing solar heaters.

during the day i wander around the local markets, bustling with activity due to the festival, tabaski, on saturday. one day i visit Goree island, a trading post during colonization, and one of the first places in africa to be settled by europeons. i pay a visit to the peace corps office, where nicole works, to get information from the volunteers about the options to go to bamako.

i get a taste of true africa riding local buses and eating street food in dakar. i am ready to move on..

at the mention of the pains of unavailability of information about transportation, someone reminds me of the reasons i chose west africa as my destination- i wanted to get off the grid and go to the final frontier. so i thank him and, with a smile, i board a 'sept-place' to take me 8 hours closer to mali.

its a station-wagon which seats 7 passengers (not counting 3 babies) and double the amount of baggage on the roof and trunk.
the three ladies around me are curious to know why i travel solo. one suggests that i take her baby daughter, ayesha, (an adorable 'bebe' with three braids in her quarter inch hair) with me to mali and back home! i politely decline with a laugh.
after my repeated inquiries of the stop for lunch they offer me bread to nibble on. and time flies amidst stunted conversations of 'elle belle', 'il bon' and posing for photographs.

the path to mali is well-trodden but wrecked with potholes. mile-by-mile i will make it there..

the times they are a-changin

somewhere between the two countries, time changes..
I, completely oblivious,made a reservation for a hotel and aiport pickup in Dakar, Senegal for the day before I was supposed to arrive :) thankfully an apologetic email from NYC works like a charm.

after having spent 2 consecutive nights on red-eye flights, my feet swollen, eyes droopy, i check in to a clean, austere room on the tiled terrace of a pretty little guesthouse. Wine, lattes, espressos are in abundance - the owner being Belgian. Exquisite art from all over Africa adorns the walls here and there is wi-fi!!

i sleep in most of the day and get up just in time for dinner at a friend's friend place. Curt and Nicole have worked in Senegal for almost 3 years now with the peace corps. A lovely home-cooked meal of quiche and salad with Rose ensues. Tomorrow I will be moving to their place for a couple days before i board the bus to Bamako, Mali or the train or the sept-place (7 seater station wagon).

now off to see africa.. stay tuned