Continued round the butte looking for Dogon villages. Spotted two clusters of stone-walled buildings high up on the hill wall and saw some movement through binoculars so we set off on foot.
More mountain goats than explorers, we climbed up through small stone terraces with three or four millet plants in each. Soon accompanied by locals, we found ourselves amidst stone buildings and people of the Housa tribe, big-eyed children and women wearing their hair plaited with leather down each side of their faces. Everyone was very friendly, shaking our hands, and their initial shyness of our cameras gave way to curiosity when we let them look through the lenses.
I think they see few tourists-and they were as fascinated by us as we were of them, no-one asking for cadeaus. Had a wonderful time, following narrow passageways between and under buildings. Suddenly aware that we couldn’t see any of the others, and worried that we would be late back, Jim, Per, and Hawk and I scrambled down the hill, one boy leading me to make sure I was okay, only to find we were the first back. Couldn’t face the hike back up again so we stayed at the truck with the throng. Ben gave out fruit crystals and tried to get them to form a good old British queue, but pandemonium ensued. Myrta wrote each child's name on paper and helped each child try to copy her writing.
The others returned, having visited a second, Dogon, village, but very similar to the Housa one. Nikki gave some flour and rice to the lovely man who had taken them to the second village and waved goodbye warmly.
Unable to go further around the butte we backtracked to the asphalt.
We stopped for lunch near some tiny grass huts of the Peul tribe and instantly attracted an audience of women and stunning pubescent girls. One girl, with budding breasts, lots of beads around her neck and a sarong around her waist seemed very aware of her beauty and posed quite openly and confidently. Most of the women were bare breasted and several were suckling babies; one had a head dress and necklace of French francs coins. It was a challenge to put our cameras down long enough to eat lunch. The villagers stayed with us and Myrta tried to find out the young girl's age, but for the first time on the trip the language barrier was solid. They never asked for anything and thanked us for our gifts of meat and baked bean tins and some leftover chunks of bread.
Further along the road we came to our first Dogon village, and it was just as we'd imagined it, with small grass-roofed mud buildings standing above the rest of the village. Kelvin parked the truck and we headed into the village, leaving Jim on guard in the crows nest, enjoying the people swarming about him.
As we walked through the village, women approached us with backaches, headaches and babies, assuming/hoping we might be able to produce remedies. Despite their ailments, the welcome was warm, everyone smiling. Rescued Nikki trying to teach a local how to use her camera to photograph her with two women pounding millet; took it for her before wandering off like the Pied Piper trading children behind.
Found my way to the local well where a great drama was in progress, a lad being lowered into the well to try to retrieve Nikki’s dropped sunglasses. All sorts of rubber implements were recovered before the specs appeared – minus one lens. Kel was really amused by the whole thing and got a Band-Aid for one of the rope pullers who caught some skin.
I ran out of film in my zoom camera so was "limited" to wide-angle shots of the crowded well: this gifted me wonderful views of multiple faces and weird hairstyles against a background of mud buildings and mountains.
Here, too, the people were fascinated by our cameras and stuck their variously gummed up eyes against the viewer, one lass squaling with delight when she recognised someone through the lens.
Walked through the chaffing area, ankle-deep in husks blown of the women's grains, my boots quickly thick with husks and burrs. Photographed some women grinding beside some open fires, and they came out to me, very pregnant and complaining of backache and wanting to see through my camera. Loved every minute of it, the town seemingly unspoiled by tourists and enjoying that feeling.
Kel had planned a shortcut/longcut to enter the town of Mopti a back way to circumvent the SMERT money hassles. Turned off the main road and came to Douentza, where we were turned back from a road lined with green army tanks. Couldn’t find the road we wanted and ended up picking up two locals to guide us. What a road: no overlanders have ever taken this route before, through the rubbish tip and between buildings and trees, passed a pile of timber and garbage that looked like a hollow bonfire but, it turned out, was the village idiot’s house. Passed another tip on a narrow pathway. Finally made our twisting and turning way onto a barely visible track through a shallow valley with rocky outcrops and tall trees, a change from the masses of thorn trees. Dropped off our guides and headed into the wilds, pulling off to camp beside a millet field.
Here we were joined by some locals, one of them a proud, regal old hunter, armed with a beautiful long barrel rifle, with a worn stock, like something out of the 19th century, and a splendid knife at his waist, who took Jim off to examine his Fox traps. Another milked a goat into a cut gourd and offered it to Ton, who drank it. Another split mammoth logs of knotted wood with several precise strokes of his hatchet. He spent hours with us working so we fed him with tea and macaroni which he shared with his friends, suspiciously lifting a forkful and smelling before eating. Three helpings suggested they liked it. A pretty little girl with a necklace of four pearl buttons raced away with a plateful for her mother and returned quickly. This chatterbox then sat arm in arm with her father.
The villagers left but returned with food for us, a millet maize porridge with the smell and consistency and taste of dried dog chow with added hot water - salty, peppery and revolting. As many as were brave sampled it before we gave it back to them. They laughed at some of our reactions and I’m sure understood what we thought.
Today has been one of the highlights of the trip so far. I'm both exhausted and revitalised by what we've seen.
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