SUCCESS!

We are now the proud owners of an Order du Mission!! We went to the DNPC this morning, and within two hours we were holding the precious document in our disbelieving hands.

Those two hours were spent waiting in Mamadou Cissé's office. Cissé was a student of Susan McIntosh at Rice University, and is now working for the DNPC. An all around awesome guy, who helped us a lot throughout the whole bureaucratic process. What follows is a pictorial documentation of our experience this morning:

A very entertaining poster illustrating the evils of the antiquities trade that was hanging in Mamadou Cissé's office. We were bored. We took a picture of it.

Me, lounging on the floor, examining a pile of pottery from Cissé's excavations at Gao (a city to the northeast of Bamako). The pottery was really nice - similar to that of Timbuktu, where Kirsten and Wade have worked before. Among the other artifacts were over 11,000 beautiful beads of various types.

WE GOT IT!! The Order du Mission, perched atop the pile of pottery. Yeah, we're nerds.

The three of us with Mamadou Cissé, standing triumphantly in front of the DNPC, holding our beautiful Order du Mission!

Taken on the way back from the DNPC - a typical Bamako street scene.

Mission accomplished. We leave for Djenné on Monday. One more crazy weekend in Bamako!

Making progress...

Today marks our sixth day in Mali, and our second day of negotiations with the directors of La Direction Nationale du Patrimonie Culturel - or, lovingly, the DNPC. This is basically the cultural ministry of Mali, and they are the people who can grant us permission to do our survey. We need to get an Order du Mission from them before we can pile our stuff into Bou's Land Cruiser and make the day-long trek up to Djenné. Yesterday was extremely promising. We had an appointment in the morning, and we were joined at the DNPC by Monsieur Fané, the director of the Mission Culturel du Djenné. He has worked with many of the archaeologists coming through the Djenné area, and he knows Pete and Doug well, so he came and helped make our case to the powers that be. Amazingly, unbelievably, it appeared as though we were going to be able to pick up the Order du Mission that afternoon! We returned at 3, excited by the possibility of getting started so soon. We met with another one of the directors, and he told us that he wanted us to meet with somebody else tomorrow morning - possibly the Secretary General of Culture, but three beginning French speakers do not a fluent speaker make, therefore many things are lost in translation. Nevertheless, we returned to the DNPC this morning, in hopes that if we made ourselves look as presentable as possible, and sound as competent as possible, we would emerge with a brand spanking new Order du Mission. No such luck. Today they wanted us to bring them more paperwork and documentation of our project goals and funding sources. Apparently we will get the priceless permit tomorrow. Cross your fingers for us.

Apart from dealing with confusing bureaucracy, these past few days have been absurdly fun. The hotel we're staying at, The Sleeping Camel, is run by an Australian guy named Matt and a British guy named Bill. They have a whole bunch of British, French, and German expatriate friends who come here every night to drink Castels and hang out. Our second night here, we started playing guitar with them and singing horrible renditions of John Denver songs. Instant pals. The Germans arranged a "sausage fest"here, to which we were invited, and we spent our first African Saturday ingesting copious amountsof beer and handmade sausages. This was followed by a nap (I could really get used to this lifestyle), and an exciting night at the nearby club, Jet7. During the less insane moments, we've been having a great time lying around reading, and getting to know the Sleeping Camel regulars.

Wade, in repose at The Sleeping Camel.

Our section of the dormitory, completely covered in ten months worth of clothing and supplies.

One of the expats, fortified by many Castels, lovingly gave the hotel a new moniker.

The Fortress (aka the American Embassy), which we visited today in order to register as resident American citizens. It's a gigantic complex - a fact that is not evident here because a burly Malian soldier with a huge machine gun started yelling at me when I took this picture, so I opted to run away rather than take a better one. Apologies.

We've also been making regular expeditions into the heart of the city, exploring and getting a feel for its people and culture. We live across the Niger River from downtown Bamako, so we cross a very long, very busy bridge every day.

On Le Pont des Martyrs, the bridge between downtown Bamako and Badalabougou. At rush hour, this bridge is positively jam packed with cars, vans, bikes, and any other type of vehicle you can think of. One night I almost got knocked off the side into the Niger by a gigantic bag of rice on the back of a motorbike. This picture was taken from inside Bou's car on the way back from one of our many visits to the DNPC.

The view of downtown Bamako from the bridge. The big building is the headquarters of the Central Bank of West African States. 

It's the rainy season here! We're nearing the end of it, but we still got a taste of West African downpour. This is the view from the inner porch at the hotel. The vegetation here is lush and brilliantly green now, but there will be no sign of rain from now until June.

We haven't had the opportunity yet to take many pictures while wandering around the streets of the city. This is mostly because if we paused for a second to get out a camera, we may get run over by a motorbike or a herd of goats. There's no end to the fascinating things to see, smell and taste in Bamako. There are people everywhere, wearing bright, beautiful clothing (that Kirsten and I are very jealous of and are planning to obtain, no matter how ridiculous it makes us look). Children run every which way, trying to sell you bananas and sim cards, or simply wanting to shake your hand. Being white here is bizarre, and unbelievably eye-opening. Your skin defines you as a "toubab", a white foreigner, and you are automatically seen as both a novelty item and a potentially rich customer. There is no blending in here. It is at once terrifying and fascinating to walk down the street and be so obviously an outsider.

Today we met with Dr. Samba Sow, a colleague of Wade's dad's boss, and the director for the Center for Vaccine Development in Mali. He has offered to be our guardian of sorts, somebody to turn to if things get rough. We can't believe our luck. It's nice to have friends here.

All in all, it's been an eventful week here in Bamako. With any luck we will have the Order du Mission by tomorrow, but we probably won't leave for Djenné until Monday. Several more days to prepare and hang out. 

The expats are arriving for another night of revelry. There's talk of karaoke tomorrow night. John Denver is rolling in his grave already.

Bienvenue à Bamako!

We made it! After a very long, exciting journey, we finally arrived in Bamako at 1:00 this morning! I'm writing this post while sitting in the compound of our hotel, The Sleeping Camel. Wade and Kirsten are sitting across from me, emailing various people. Right now we are trying to figure out logistics and budgeting for the next several months. Will we have our own apartment in Djenné? Will we hire somebody to help us get food and cook? How the hell are we going to do our survey? We have many questions to figure out.

The trip here was exhausting and exhilarating. The flight from JFK to Casablanca was only about 6 hours, which surprised me. It didn't seem nearly long enough to arrive in such a different place. Wade and Kirsten have been here before so they're old hats at this, but the second the plane touched the runway in Casablanca, my mind started screaming OH MY GOD I'M IN AFRICA. That's still echoing around my brain right now.

We arrived in Morocco at 6 am, and our flight to Bamako was at 9:30 pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. We took the train into the center of the city and wandered through the crazy, confusing maze of streets and construction zones that is Casablanca. The city seems to be a mix of everything on earth - Arabic women walk past Asian restaurants housed in Parisian-style buildings with European and African customers. There are cars and motorbikes everywhere, honking and spewing large amounts of exhaust fumes into the air. You can buy anything you want on the streets and in the markets, from dried figs and cactus pears to DVDs and henna tattoos.

A typical small street in Casablanca

On our way to Hassan II Mosque, the second largest mosque in the world after the Grand Mosque in Mecca. You can see the minaret (the world's tallest at 689 ft) from many places within the city, and it looks a lot closer than it actually is because it's SO FREAKING HUGE.

Wade and Kirsten in front of the mosque

Kirsten next to the mosque, which overlooks the Atlantic.

Wade at the fortress in Rabat, the capital of Morocco, an hour train ride from Casablanca.

Me at the fortress in Rabat, overlooking the Atlantic.

The beach at Rabat

We explored Casablanca and Rabat until about 5 pm, when we returned to the airport. Naps on the trains  constituted our first sleep in about two days. We got on the plane, and three hours later woke up in Bamako! When we left the airport our driver, Bou, was nowhere to be found, so a very kind policeman helped us find a ride to our hotel. We crammed all of our stuff (seven big duffel bags - 10 months worth of stuff for Kirsten and Wade!) into a tiny white car, and Abdullah drove us through a nocturnal Bamako. It was amazing to see Bamako at night. The archway that is pictured in the last post was lit up neon green, and bright billboards advertised Coca Cola in French. Small stores were still open, and people were sitting out in the cool night, drinking beer and talking. Several nightclubs were in full swing, and we drove close by one to get to The Sleeping Camel. Finally, at long last, we arrived and collapsed into bed, pulling mosquito nets down around us. Countless hours later, we were in Mali.

Today we finally got in touch with Bou, and went out to explore the city a bit. Bamako is a bustling, energetic, beautiful mess of a city. Pedestrians wearing gorgeous, brightly patterned clothing mingle with tightly packed traffic on small, unpaved roads lined on both sides with shops of all sorts. We exchanged dollars for CFA, the Malian currency. A dollar equals about 470 CFA, so prices are in thousands, which takes a bit of getting used to :D We also got sim cards for our two unlocked phones, so we now have Malian phone numbers! In case you need to call us, our numbers are +223 732 87 255 and +223 732 87 268. Those numbers will also be on our blog profile. I believe you can use Skype to call them. 

Now we are enjoying sweet sweet Internet, and connection to the modern world. Well, sorta. It's the rainy season here, and it just started pouring. And the power went out. Welcome, once again, to Mali :)

Wade's and my survey planning session, complete with liquid sustenance. Castels - the drink of choice in Mali.

WE BE LEAVING TOMORROW

These last few days in the US have gone by in a blur. Saying goodbye to everyone has been a bit surreal. We're actually going! We're taking our first Malarone pill tomorrow morning! We have a 6:45 pm flight from JFK to Casablanca, where we'll have about 12 hours to explore the city before hopping our flight to Bamako. We'll get into Bamako at 1:00 am, GMT, where we'll meet our driver, Bou. It's nearing the end of the rainy season in Mali, and the weather forecast for when we arrive is, according to BBC Weather, rainy and hot. I believe that this is the archway outside the airport that will greet us when we arrive:

Bamako, which is farther south than Djenné and Timbuktu, is near the edge of the Sahel, and is therefore more humid and tropical. It is the largest city in Mali, with about 1.8 million inhabitants. We'll be staying there for a week or two, working on getting research permits, buying sim cards for our two cell phones, adjusting to the time difference, and improving our French/Bambara skills, which are sadly lacking. After that week or two, Bou will drive us to Djenné!

I feel as though we're about to jump off a very high, very awesome cliff. This is it. We packed up our stuff, had our final American dinner with our friends from the archaeology department, and watched an absurd movie about man-eating lions in Africa. We're ready to go.

Our next post will be written from Africa! Wish us luck :)

Preparations in New Haven

Hey everybody!

In case you didn't notice the name, this blog is going to document the work and adventures of a team of archaeology students in Mali, West Africa. Kirsten Forsberg, who graduated from Yale University last May, received a Parker Huang Travel Fellowship to do archaeological research and survey in the area of Djenne, a city on the Bani River northeast of Bamako, Mali's capital city (see map).

Accompanying Kirsten are Wade Campbell, another recent graduate of Yale, and Helen McCreary, a current junior. Kirsten and Wade have been to Mali before, when they worked on Douglas Park's excavations at Tombouze, near Timbuktu.

So, what the heck are we going to be doing? Haha, good question. We have many plans. Will they all be successful? Who knows? Here's a basic list of what we'll probably be doing.

1. Survey in the desert to the east of Djenne and Jenne-Jeno (the ancient site a mile outside of the modern city, which is the site on which our professor, Rod McIntosh, wrote his dissertation). Survey means, in a nutshell, exploring an area extensively and systematically, using various methods to find and record the locations and types of new sites that could be investigated in the future.

2. Observation of preservation work done on the main site of Jenne-Jeno. The annual floods in the area have caused major erosion damage, and measures have been taken to curb the destruction of this UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

3. Working with the Mission Culturelle de Djenne on their ongoing projects. This includes possible curation and maintenance of a new museum for the city.

In late November or early December, we will be leaving Djenne and traveling north to the Gorbi Valley, in the Lakes Region a few hours up the Niger River from Timbuktu (near Goundam, on the map above). There, we will be working for a month and a half on the excavations of Peter Coutros, a second-year PhD student at Yale. Several others will be joining us there, including Doug Park, who received his PhD in Archaeology from Yale last May, Jamie Inwood, another second-year PhD student, and Rod McIntosh, our professor and advisor, who is one of the founding fathers of West African archaeology. We're all going to be camping out in tents in the Sahara desert - it's gonna be quite a party :)

For the past several weeks, we have been planning and preparing in New Haven, CT. It's been an interesting process - many people to email, many supplies to get, many transportation and housing plans to be made. We're getting close! We were originally slated to ship out the morning of September 18, this Sunday. But Air Maroc called us this morning to tell us our flight had been cancelled, and we were rebooked on a flight leaving the evening of September 20. Two more days to see everyone here, and to pack! And believe me, there's a lot to pack. Sleeping bags, tents, water filters (SO IMPORTANT), mosquito netting and permethrin, Malarone (daily anti-malarial pills - also, obviously, important), first aid materials and medications, Camelbacks, books, harmonica... the list goes on. The picture below shows only the tip of the iceberg.

We leave in a week. Wow.

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Over the next several months, we'll try to discuss more academic subjects (ie. what civilizations left all these artifacts and clues behind? How did the volatile climate of the Sahel affect these ancient civilizations and how does it continue to affect Mali's modern residents? What research has already been done in the area?). Until then, here are several resources for more information:

General information about Mali:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2828.htm

The Wikipedia article on Djenne:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djenné

Google Maps image of Djenne and the surrounding area:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

A wealth of information on West African archaeology, from Rice University where Susan McIntosh teaches:

http://anthropology.rice.edu/research.html#Urbanism

Doug Park and Pete Coutros's website about the ongoing research in the area:

www.saharanresearch.org