Sevare-Mali, Bobo Diallasou-Burkina Faso (August 9, 2005)

Dogon country wore us out. After the tactical and scenic drive down from the escarpment we wanted to find a hotel and recuperate. We had business in Mopti (see Sean's Mali AIDS test article), so we drove past the Peace Corps house in Sevare (c.p. flea circus) and headed for the Catholic Mission on Mopti's riverside. Before we had even pulled into the parking lot, young men were chasing our car shouting at us. Tuuli pushed through their numbers to communicate with the Mission's receptionist. Sean and I stayed with the Stingray in the company of fifteen unusually pushy, high volume men seeking our resources in various ways, many of them vying on behalf of other hotels. It was the most unrelenting and frenetic crowd we have dealt with on this trip. Tuuli returned to our commotion with news that the Catholic Mission's roof had collapsed the night before and could not afford us lodging. The men were very excited to hear this. Everything got louder and more uncomfortable. So we re-entered the car and returned to the flea factory at Sevare. This was the first time that backtracking has been required on our trip; it made that infested transit house seem a bit more homey, even though it had filled up with a new cast of characters.

It took us a few days to recuperate from the exertion of our daily hikes and the strain of Dogon's occasionally questionable food and water. During that time we conducted some interviews and finished our features on Mali.

When it was finally time to put Mali behind us we set out on the road to Bobo Diallasou in Burkina Faso. That trip was punctuated by thieving and manipulative, smug and opportunistic Mali border police who created a whole imaginary threat blizzard out of the stapled dangling paper visas we had purchased on the other end of the country. Under threat of forced return to the capital (500km away) we capitulated and gladhanded the cocky ringleader the rough equivalent of twenty bucks. This prompted a pure "finally, you have understood" grin of self-satisfaction. Otherwise Malian roadside cops had been a professional and welcoming crowd.

It occurred to me that it might be worthwhile to offer a highly compressed overview of the countries that I am going in and out of so that they seem a bit more differentiated and meaningful. I will try to register them between the poles of corrupt and brutal failing military state and charming well developed nation on the way to first world status. Otherwise, I would probably not have drawn attention to the state of these nations until they proved exceptionally depressing or sensational.

Mali, then, which I am departing, is a vast country with language groups and cultures scattered so far away from one another that real interaction and unification is only likely amongst the most wealthy section of the population (who have in common their immaculate French, their ability to travel throughout the country and the possibility of their fleeing Africa) or when national athletic teams are triumphing, which in Mali's case is infrequent. Mali is proud of its unique manner of facing its own fragmentation. It is an unusually federalist country with a government that boasts of its decentralization. Local leaders are given the power to make many of the decisions that affect their people. This aspect of life in Mali has also changed the way that resident NGOs function, disrupting the ones that typically issue nationwide edicts from impressive national headquarters in the best landscaped suburbs of capital cities. Such organizations are forced to cooperate with many different and autonomous branches of Mali's government; for some this constitutes nothing more than a headache and a logistical nightmare; others have found it rewarding and educational. Mali's infrastructure is solid and improving; but the huge tracts of land separating its densely populated regions still offer ample room for nighttime banditry.

In contrast, Burkina Faso is a fairly successful version of a socialist state, clearly revolving around and favoring its capital city. Like many nations, it has a dodgy past—the current president stole leadership from his predecessor (who is still adored by the populace) before executing him—but the people of Burkina Faso (referred to as the Burkinabe) seem willing to forgive him and it seems that they have good reason to do so. The infrastructure is solid (roads have toll booths, national parks are well kept, water and electricity are reliable) and, at least in the southern region, the land is incredibly fertile and the people are working hard to keep it in production. The stability of this country has contrasted starkly with the painful disarray of its southern neighbor, the Ivory Coast—previously a sunny success story in an otherwise dismal reckoning of African states. As a result of its reliability and consistent and predictable management, Burkina Faso has been attracting many of the powerful corporations and financial institutions that had previously based their African headquarters in the Ivory Coast. Burkina is doing everything in its power to perpetuate this trend and is visibly growing and modernizing.

I can not help mentioning, before returning to a more personal narrative, that I am not trying to say that either of these countries have laudable policies with regards to dissidence, marginalized populations and the rights of women. There must be numerous people struggling, threatened but doggedly, for difficult and progressive changes. I do not mean to make it sound as though everything is in tip top shape simply because the stable rule of entrenched and unchallengeable parties has begun to create the conditions for legal accumulation of wealth.

Anyways, we arrived in Bobo Diollasou, Burkina's second city, on a Sunday afternoon. We always seem to enter big cities on Sunday, which is growing bothersome because they are the only places where the weekend has any meaning. However, this keeps us on track. In Bobo we camped in the parking lot of a hotel and got soaked by midnight rains. We had to stay an extra day to let our things dry. Bobo was laid back; but we are not going to miss it.
* posted by Nathaniel at 5:05 AM