Getting schooled on the Dogon

Day: 31
Location: Nombori, Dogon Country, Mali
Weather: Beautiful, too hot to walk mid day
Kilometers: 18 a pied
Hours: 5
Health: tired despite rest
Accommodation: Campement Ireli
Price, room: 4K
Price, water: 1.2K CFA
Shower: no
Morale: 6
Total spend: 75K CFA

AW: We woke up and learned some things. The stones for the houses are broken out of the cliffs using dynamite, and are then chiseled into rectangles by hand. A cut stone of average size would cost 50 CFA, but with transportation etc the real cost is more like 100 CFA per stone. If you showed up and wanted to build a house, you'd need to pick a spot and make your case to the chief. If you have enough money to build a big enough house on the area you've selected, and if the chief approves, you are good to go. Land ownership is purely collective, at the village level, so there is no concept of purchasing a plot. Our guide estimated a house would cost about 1.2M CFA, or $2.4K. It would be really fun to go, buy and cut all the stone, build the house, and then give it to someone to live in.

We also learned that our guide believes himself to be a reincarnation of his grand father. This was decreed at his birth, and he was given a pretty nasty scar on his chest as a parallel to his grandfather who was shot in the chest in some war. Our guide is an animist, combining ancestor worship, reincarnation, spirit of the earth, sacrifices to fetishes, and fortune telling with sticks and jackals, etc.

Arranged marriage happens at age 4 for men, at which point their mothers find a pregnant woman and strike a deal with an agreed amount of millet and potentially money to secure a relationship. If the newborn is male, he will be a close friend. If female, she will be a wife. The interesting part is that the man can get out of it once he is old enough to have an opinion.

Our guide was set up with a girl, dowry paid and all, but when he finally saw his fiancée she was not big enough so he rejected her and found another. He also had one child with a mistress who has since gone to Cote D'Ivoire. We asked if his wife was pissed about this and he responded, "elle n'a pas le choix, c'est mon choix." That's what happens when you have a lot more women than men as the Dogon do. Is it because the men are more likely to leave to seek work elsewhere? Is it something in the Maggi?

The food is good, or rather the dish is good - it is always the same dish. Rice, spaghetti, macaroni, or couscous with a delicious sauce: peanut oil, tomatoes, lots of onions, and Maggi Arome seasoning (read MSG). Those Maggi Landcruisers are among the select group of trucks delivering the things that go everywhere in the country: alcohol, cigarettes, gasoline, beef bullion, prepaid mobile airtime cards, plastic sandals, coca/fanta, and water. For breakfast we ate beignets, which are donuts made from fried millet, eaten with sugar. These are delicious but so bad for you; I think they may be responsible for the massive attack on my digestive tract that would hit in 2 days time.

The hiking was less interesting today, mostly in the sand on the plain below the cliff. The villages were also less interesting - still atmospheric but less visually striking. It took 4 hours to have lunch, most likely by design given the heat of the day. Even though I was already exhausted by noon, this chafed because sitting on a chair made of sticks for 4 hours just seems unamerican.

We ended the night pretty bummed out, for no apparent reason - the trip just started to feel too easy being led around by guides and never having any problems. Can't we just have some problems already?

GB: The adrenaline slowdown really does not feel that good. Not to mention that given how talked up Dogon country is in the guides, this area is intensely touristy, even now. As a result, our constant feeling of being lone travelers in an area forgotten and abandoned by the western world suddenly turns into a tourism jewel visiting societies that apparently don't need you. While they will burn all the cash they can from your hands, they seem prosperous from farming and herding.

That's until I meet a French director filming a documentary on Dogon schooling, who explains 2 things. One, the Dogon are disturbingly poor, affecting health, education, and the lot. Two, tourism is leading to personal enrichment (campement owners) in a world where property rights are very much geared towards collective ownership. As a result he fears the only source of income that can solve one will create two, which could lead to a breakdown of the social structure. Guess appearances can be misleading...

We hike all day, well, 5.5 hours - the rest we sit waiting for someone somewhere to do something for us. Pictures should be pretty cool though.