Saturday, July 30, 2005
Djenne, Mali
As we headed into the interior of Mali, it seemed a bit daft to pass by the town of Djenne without paying it a visit. The town, a well-known and highly recommended World Heritage site, is located on a small island on the banks of the Niger River. While Djenne is best known for its imposing mud mosque, the largest in the world, which towers over the market, what I mainly remembered from the town following a brief visit nearly three years ago was the residential district. Narrow passageways linked flowing two story structures built entirely out of mud that seemed to be growing from the earth itself. Paths merged into walls while senseless alley ways suddenly opened into austere courtyards where children played in this bizarre mud labyrinth. Sharp angles had no home in this sinuous town that could just as easily have been shaped by divine floods as created by human hands. With only fond memories of Djenne, we crossed the river on a dilapidated ferry and rolled into town.
The persistent and unrelenting hustlers on the far side of the river, previously lacking throughout Mali, should have alerted us to the hassles to come. Before we even got into town, a group of youths were frantically chasing the car, frantically shouting about every possible sort of information we could have needed. In the span of seconds we were offered an endless variety of options that we had presumably come to the town to enjoy: hotels, drumming, historical guides, mud cloth making lessons, restaurants, art boutiques, donkey rides, meeting old men, holding babies, miniature bicycles made from coke cans, Rasta necklaces, you name it. All we had hoped to do was park the car in a tranquil area, stretch, relax and maybe later wander the backstreets a bit.
We pulled into Chez Baba, a backpackers lodge in the center of town. While the friendly owner was the only person in town who I encountered that understood the concept that relentless pestering does not often guarantee a sale, he did warn us that we should give in and pay a guide for services we neither needed nor desired. What we would really be purchasing was protection. The only other option was to be constantly harassed by this distasteful racket the young men of the town had created to extract money from tourists that had not yet paid their dues. Not willing to encourage this scam, we sat in the veranda of Chez Baba until most of the youths left and then made a break away from the market and mosque where the guides generally gathered. This ploy worked and we were soon wandering the side streets of Djenne. As an additional protection against future harassment, we found a friendly young boy who was more than happy to walk around town with us for the conversation. Satisfied that we had not given in and had done our part in not encouraging the racket of guides, we were able to see much of the Djenne I remembered. However, while the town was beautiful and the people friendly, the constant threat of annoyance generated by tourism that lurked beyond the safety of our hotel kept us, sadly, from fully enjoying the splendours we had come to see. We wasted no time leaving Djenne the next morning, eager to rejoin the more authentic Mali that all of us missed.
As we headed into the interior of Mali, it seemed a bit daft to pass by the town of Djenne without paying it a visit. The town, a well-known and highly recommended World Heritage site, is located on a small island on the banks of the Niger River. While Djenne is best known for its imposing mud mosque, the largest in the world, which towers over the market, what I mainly remembered from the town following a brief visit nearly three years ago was the residential district. Narrow passageways linked flowing two story structures built entirely out of mud that seemed to be growing from the earth itself. Paths merged into walls while senseless alley ways suddenly opened into austere courtyards where children played in this bizarre mud labyrinth. Sharp angles had no home in this sinuous town that could just as easily have been shaped by divine floods as created by human hands. With only fond memories of Djenne, we crossed the river on a dilapidated ferry and rolled into town.
The persistent and unrelenting hustlers on the far side of the river, previously lacking throughout Mali, should have alerted us to the hassles to come. Before we even got into town, a group of youths were frantically chasing the car, frantically shouting about every possible sort of information we could have needed. In the span of seconds we were offered an endless variety of options that we had presumably come to the town to enjoy: hotels, drumming, historical guides, mud cloth making lessons, restaurants, art boutiques, donkey rides, meeting old men, holding babies, miniature bicycles made from coke cans, Rasta necklaces, you name it. All we had hoped to do was park the car in a tranquil area, stretch, relax and maybe later wander the backstreets a bit.
We pulled into Chez Baba, a backpackers lodge in the center of town. While the friendly owner was the only person in town who I encountered that understood the concept that relentless pestering does not often guarantee a sale, he did warn us that we should give in and pay a guide for services we neither needed nor desired. What we would really be purchasing was protection. The only other option was to be constantly harassed by this distasteful racket the young men of the town had created to extract money from tourists that had not yet paid their dues. Not willing to encourage this scam, we sat in the veranda of Chez Baba until most of the youths left and then made a break away from the market and mosque where the guides generally gathered. This ploy worked and we were soon wandering the side streets of Djenne. As an additional protection against future harassment, we found a friendly young boy who was more than happy to walk around town with us for the conversation. Satisfied that we had not given in and had done our part in not encouraging the racket of guides, we were able to see much of the Djenne I remembered. However, while the town was beautiful and the people friendly, the constant threat of annoyance generated by tourism that lurked beyond the safety of our hotel kept us, sadly, from fully enjoying the splendours we had come to see. We wasted no time leaving Djenne the next morning, eager to rejoin the more authentic Mali that all of us missed.
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