a slight change of plans. make that a MASSIVE change of plans.

Many of you have probably heard about the recent events in Mali. On November 24th, two French geologists were kidnapped in Hombori, a town near the border of Burkina Faso. They are the first foreigners to ever be kidnapped in Mali south of the Niger River. Hombori is only about a five-hour drive from Djenné. A day later, on November 25th, armed men took four tourists from a restaurant in downtown Timbuktu, killed one of them when he refused to get in their car, and took off into the desert with the other three. If you want to read more about it, here's the BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15895908.

Needless to say, this is a disaster for the entire country. Timbuktu is obviously not the secure city that everyone has been told it is. It will take years for tourists to begin to trickle back north. Even Djenné is in the red zone for some consulates. Campements, tour companies, restaurants, museums, maybe even Cultural Missions throughout the whole country will be forced to close. Even Bamako - far to the south and safe - will get hit hard. This city is only a base for tourists as they begin their journeys north to Djenné, Hombori, Mopti, Gao, Timbuktu... There are rumors of postponed elections and civil war in the future. It's a crazy time, and it's the beginning of a very hard period for the Malian people.

Our excavation is off. Pete realized that five minutes after we heard the news, when he called one of his friends in Timbuktu and he told us how bad the situation was. Camping in the desert two hours outside of the city would be the worst possible decision right now. So we have spent the past five days trying to figure out what to do with ourselves now.

Pete is staying here, hoping to do some reconnaissance south of Bamako to find another site he could potentially write his dissertation on. Wade is trying to get a Mauritanian visa so he can drive up to Morocco with Chris, one of our friends from the Camel who has a van. From there he'll make his way to Paris, and then fly home. Kirsten is trying to figure out whether she could still do the survey in Djenné. The only financially possible way of doing the survey is to camp in the countryside outside of the city, right where she's working. But doing that is not smart or safe right now. She may be heading home soon as well. I've become a pseudo "assistant" for Matt, the owner of the Sleeping Camel, who is giving a three-week tour of Ghana, Togo, and Benin. He offered to let me hop on the bus, and we leave tomorrow at 4:00 am! I'm so excited, I can't believe how lucky this is. Matt is the man.

So yeah, that's the situation as it is right now. Mali - and Malian archaeology - just received a sharp kick in the pants, and it will take a while to recover. I only hope that the people who live here - the people we've grown to love and respect - will make it through the next few years okay.

I will continue to post when I can, and let you know what's going on with everything and everyone.

Lots of pretty pictures!!

For those of you without Facebook, here are a lot of the pictures we've taken so far!

https://picasaweb.google.com/117608836200317731246/MaliPartIBamakoDjenneEtPaysDogon?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLb06Zqr-I72aQ&feat=directlink


Happy Thanksgiving!

Trekking in Dogon, finishing in Djenné, and returning to Bamako

Well, I’m officially the worst blogger ever. The month since my last post has been exciting and fascinating. We’ve made enormous progress at the museum, we went on a five-day trek through Dogon Country, and yesterday we took a delightful eight-hour bus ride to arrive back in Bamako to meet Pete! I am once again sitting at The Sleeping Camel, our home away from home. I can’t believe how fast time has gone by.

            The trip to Dogon was absolutely phenomenal. We went with two of our friends from Bamako, Lauren and Evan Orenstein, who are medical students from Emory University working for a year at the Center for Infectious Diseases. Also on the trip were five Peace Corps volunteers from Senegal, and the ten of us made a very entertaining spectacle for the locals as we scrambled up and down the cliffs and boulders of the Bandiagara Escarpment, led by our very large and very jolly guide, Hassimi. The whole expedition was rife with adventure, mishap and hilarity. To begin with, the night before we started the trek, I dropped a very large car battery on my foot (don’t ask), and crushed the life out of my right big toe. Luckily, trained medical students were readily available, and my toe was soon disinfected and bandaged and ready to be stuffed into one of Evan’s shoes, which was about five sizes too big for me. It made for some quite entertaining hiking.

On our way to and from Dogon, the ten of us plus Hassimi managed to compress ourselves into a single red station wagon. Lauren’s entire upper body was out the window, one of the Peace Corps girls was folded into the trunk with the luggage, and Kirsten was sitting on the gearshift. We called it the “clown car”, or “the car that is positively overflowing with toubabous”.

While we were hiking down the escarpment to get to the first village, we met a group of women coming the other way. These women are incredible – they climb nimbly up and down the giant cliffs, balancing heavy buckets on their heads and carrying sleeping babies strapped to their backs. Often they’re pregnant as well. I have nothing but respect for these women, who can work so hard and endure so much, and still greet you with a happy smile. But this particular group was not smiling. One of the women was carrying an extremely sick four-year old girl on her back. Hassimi mentioned that Lauren and Evan were doctors, and the women crowded around as our two friends examined the nearly comatose girl. They decided that it was either meningitis or neural malaria, and insisted that the women needed to get her to a hospital within the day, or she would probably die. Lauren and Evan gave them some money to pay for gas so they could hire a motorbike, and the women hurried off to the nearest village. It was inspiring to watch our friends do what they could to help, but it’s also terrifying and unutterably sad to realize that there are thousands of other children just like that in this country who never get that aid, and never make it to a hospital.

The ancient inhabitants of Dogon Country, the Telem, built granaries and houses into the cliff faces – hundreds of feet above the ground. Hassimi told us that a thousand years ago the cliffs were covered with strong vines that people could climb to reach these dwellings, but as they appear now, it seems to me as though the traditional Dogon explanation is the best – that the Telem people had wings! We were able to climb up to the more accessible areas and explore the ancient cliff villages, many of which have been restored and cared for by the locals who live in villages farther down the cliff, nearer the farmlands.

 

Every night we slept on the roof of a village campement (kind of like a hostel), and for the first time in almost two months, WE GOT COLD. Whoa. We actually used blankets. To wrap around our bodies. How crazy is that?? The sad part is that it probably got down to about 75 or 80 degrees, but we’ve gotten so accustomed to 100 or 105 that anything lower than that seems absolutely frigid. I’m kind of scared about being in the desert at night. It’s supposed to get down to 50 or something there! We’re gonna freeze.

On the third day, we hiked up through a gap in the escarpment, through a lush, green valley. After a steep ascent, we arrived at what seemed like the village on top of the world. The village is in three parts – one for the Christians, one for Muslims, and one for Animists. It is right at the top of the Bandiagara Escarpment, and sandy plains stretch out endlessly below you as you sit on the edge of the cliff with your feet dangling off into space. As we sat marveling, Kirsten and I discussed ways that we could possibly return to Dogon to do archaeological work. It is a fascinating, stunningly beautiful place, the people who live there are friendly and helpful, and I can imagine living and working there happily for a long time.

The journey out of Dogon was a hilarious disaster. We piled onto two 2-wheeled donkey carts pulled by gigantic cows, and set off across the plains. One of the cows was terribly sick, and occasionally spewed diarrhea back onto the cart. The other cart’s harness was faulty, and as the cow was pulling us up an embankment it broke off, sending all of us tumbling over backwards into the dirt – right at the feet of a village elder. The sight of six toubabous flying off a donkey cart probably made his year – he was still laughing by the time the cart had been righted and we set off again. Several more mishaps later, and we arrived back at the clown car, which by then seemed like a luxury vehicle.

We returned to Djenné in high spirits, ready to finish work at the museum. The last two weeks were a whirlwind of activity. We created a mock site surface using dirt, potsherds, and other artifacts from Djenné-Djeno and other surrounding sites. We hope that this, along with the explanations we provide, will help the visitors and residents of Djenné to understand what exactly they are seeing when they walk over an ancient site in this area of West Africa. Our other display is a model of an excavation unit. We covered two walls with mud in layers of different colors and consistencies, reminiscent of the stratigraphy found during an excavation. It looks really cool, if I do say so myself. There are pictures of it below, courtesy of Wade.

On this past Sunday night, we went to our favorite local bar with Samaké and Maji, saying goodbye to Djenné by ingesting homemade honey beer and Nigerian imported whiskey served in small plastic bags. Wade and I walked home, but Kirsten got a ride on the back of one of our friend’s motorbikes. While turning a corner, her bare toe clipped a rock in the road. Apparently the toe gods really don’t like us. At two in the morning, three hours before we got on a bus to Bamako, we were using our now expert skills in toe first-aid to stop the bleeding and bandage it up. Now Kirsten and I are wounded warriors together!

The bus ride on Monday was long, hot, loud, and incredibly dirty. We got off in Bamako looking as though we had just spent the day in a coal mine. But it was all worth it when we reached The Sleeping Camel. Good food! Beds! Wifi! Our friends! Life is so great here. Pete arrived on Monday night, and has already wreaked havoc. We went to Jet7, our favorite club, last night, and danced to Michael Jackson until about four in the morning. We’re planning a big Thanksgiving feast at our friends’ house tomorrow. Kirsten, Wade, Pete and I will be the only Americans among about six Brits and Australians, but they’re excited for any excuse to eat a ton of food. We’re hoping to find a large chicken or pigeon or something that could pass for a very small turkey… 

We're here for about a week. Doug is coming on Monday, and Pete hopes to begin the two-day drive up to Timbuktu on Tuesday. We'll see if Pete can get his Order de Mission by then - we all know how problematic that can be :D

I'll try to post again before we head up to the desert! Until then, have a great Thanksgiving everybody! We miss y'all over here.