Travel: Starry nights — and trinkets — in Dogon Country

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

“Buy from here, good price”   

~Alpha, our guide for Dogon

Dogon Country. ©BY GARRETT PALM.

The storage sheds of the Dogon. The heads of the households each have their own. They're raised up to keep mice out. ©BY GARRETTT PALM.

By Garrett Palm

Exhausted from working in the Saharan sand and sun at the Festival in the Desert, the majority of us volunteers boarded a penasse outside of Tombouctou to return to Mopti. We quickly fell asleep. The idyllic ride back was the same as on the way up: Sunset over the water, moonrise, villages on the river banks going to sleep and waking up, Bozo fishermen throwing nets into the water from their pirogues, and kids yelling “toobob” from the shores and waving. At Mopti, a large group of us split to trek in Mali’s Dogon Country.

The Dogon Country follows the Bandiagara Escarpment, a 150-kilomter sandstone cliff that reaches up to 500 meters in height. Trekking there is not tough; your bags are transported by donkey cart to the next village seven to eight kilometers away. You have to leave early in the morning because, even if it is winter, it is in the Sahel, the shores of the Sahara. In winter the nights and mornings are cold but the days are still hot. As usual, no matter how much SPF 50 lotion I applied, my Scotch-Norwegian skin on my Greek nose burned.

The Bandiagara Escarpment. ©BY GARRETT PALM.

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Travel: Sandbar soccer in Mali

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Correspondent Garrett Palm explores a river town in Mali, Africa

A pair of youngsters aboard their pirogue along the Niger River in Mali. ©BY GARRETT PALM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Click on the image to see a Flickr slideshow from Mali and the Festival in the Desert.

Mopti (marked in red), near the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert, in the heart of Mali.

Story and photos by Garrett Palm

More:

On our way to Tombouctou to volunteer at the Festival in the Desert we stopped at Mopti. a port on the Niger River where goods and people are transferred from trucks and buses to penasses. There are no blacktop roads to Timbuktu. so the river is often the easiest way to continue north.

Penasse port in Mopti. ©BY GARRETT PALM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

We had an hour in Mopti to ourselves. Our security guards said the town was free of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) members, so they let us wander. Corbin and I teamed up to find something to do. We had just finished seeing the sights with the rest of the festival volunteers — the mud mosque, the port, and the marché. Up the river the sun set on a sandbar in the middle of the broad stream. We could see children playing soccer.

“What about that?” I asked. (more…)

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Travel: World music in the African desert

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

“Garrett! Do you remember me? I am your first friend in Tombouctou!”

~Salek, Ishmael, and Beekeepa, separately

Intercultural jam session. © BY GARRETT PALM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Editor’s note: Correspondent Garrett Palm recently traveled in West Africa, volunteering at the Festival Au Desert. This is the third installment of his story.  Read part one: Travel: Green tea and music videos in Mali, and part two: Travel: Along the Niger River. More photos at Palm’s Flickr feed.

Festival in the desert, Africa

Tuareg gather at the Festival in the Desert. © BY GARRETT PALM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Story and photos by Garrett Palm

Arriving at the port of Korioumé outside of Tombouctou was a shock. The boatmen all told us different times for our arrival. We pulled in a few hours before any of their guesses. The plank of wood over the muddy bank bowed under our weight, after 30-some hours of being well-fed with capitaine, a local fish straight out of the river, served with beet and potato salads.

One other penasse pulled to shore at the scraggly port, consisting of a few mud huts. Three other Westerners waited for their driver (they were early, too). I approached them to ask where they were from — Southeast side of Portland, Oregon. I called over the other Portlander on our boat, owner of a world music record label. They were part of a group of eight from Portland, including a family with two young kids in kindergarten and first grade. So far, every American I met in Africa was from Portland.

Why does Portland have its people everywhere? Brooklyn, where I recently lived, is full of Oregonians. We all love our home and talk about how we miss it, so we weren’t driven away by boredom. Portland just produces people who are curious about the world.

The moment we got off the penasse the hard sell began. Craftsmen came straight to every white face, holding up  jewelry or hats,  asking what you think a good price would be. There was some of that in Bamako, and more in Mopti, but it was non-stop in Tombouctou. The vendors do not accept “no, merci” for an answer, no matter how many times you repeat it. (more…)

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Travel: Along the Niger River

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

“In my next life I want to come back as a Bozo fisherman.”

~ Corbin from Vancouver

A Bozo fisherman at sunset on Lake Debo.

Editor’s note: This is part 2 of Garrett Palm’s travel report from Africa. Part 1, Green Tea and Music Videos in Mali, is online here.

Garrett most recently reported from the Festival Fringe in Edinburg. Follow his Tumblr, Life is a slow Harold, and check out his Flickr feed for more photos. You can also follow his African adventures on Twitter.

Story and photos by Garrett Palm

At 5:30 a.m. we started walking from our guest house in Bamako to the Palais de Culture just as the city started to awaken. The air was clean and only a few taxis were on the street. Vendors were setting up their meat and produce stands, while others lit camp and cook fires on the sidewalks.

Our diverse group of volunteers — heading for the Festival in the Desert — was already starting to form what seemed like unbreakable cliques. There was one other North American, Corbin, from Vancouver. The rest were European, aside from one Russian and one Iranian. As soon as we got to the festival the lone Russian and Iranian immediately searched out others from their countries. Several members of the Malian security forces accompanied us. I never quite got what branch they were with, but they had some big guns.

The waterfront in Bamako, Mali.

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