“…I had but little hopes of subsisting by charity in a country where the Moors have such influence. But above all I perceived that I was advancing more and more within the power of those merciless fanatics, and from my reception at Ségou I was apprehensive that in attempting to reach even Djenné, I should sacrifice my life to no purpose, for my discoveries would perish with me. The prospect of either way was gloomy.”
-The Travels of Mungo Park, 1799
My friend and I were in Bamako and needed to get to Mopti in a hurry, but with a few stops in between where we wished to make them, and when. I let out word at our hotel that we would hire a car and driver for a single day outbound. When the jalopy pulled up in front, I winced but checked its tires and dipsticks. OK they seemed. The driver was a young kid, he gave me a line that it was his “friend’s” vehicle, that it ran well, we could leave whenever I wanted and we’d be in Mopti by nightfall even with our planned stop overs.
We set off to the east towards the town of Ségou- a name familiar to any high schooler ever assigned to read but didn’t Maryse Condé‘s novel of the same name- where we planned to buy kola nuts to give out to the Tuareg chiefs in the Gourma region’s elephant country under the Boucle du Niger, the Niger River’s Buckle where it turns sharply north then immediately south again.
After Ségou we made sure to see Djenné, famous for its mud mosque but a bit off piste. But oh boy, the pneus and the chambres à air, they kept popping, puncturing, deflating and flattening, and we kept stopping at every roadside fix shop on Mali’s RN6. A dollar here, a dollar there, an hour here, an hour there, and we were way behind whatever schedule you try to keep in Mali. I came up with a few choice curses from way back, most beginning with the word maudit- in fact, not so bad. The driver just shrugged.
Just when we thought we were in the clear to fly down the Route Nationale, the muffler started dragging, grinding on the tarmac and sparking up enough to start a fire. We pulled off and the driver looked underneath, shrugged some more, I told him we needed wire to hold it up. Pas de fil, pas de cable, said he.
I untied my bootlace and handed it over, he crawled under and tied it up. We got to Djenné just after dark, the mosque’s facade was dimly illuminated as if by magic fairy bulbs, we got beds in a fleabag for the night, and at dawn found the mosque’s plaza multi-colored with marchandes wearing the most wildly electrified m’boubous under the Malian sun.
We got to Sévaré, Mopti’s crossroads, by noon. The driver wanted to be paid for the extra day, I told him it was his fault we were a day delayed but I paid double anyway, plus a tip. Just before he pulled out, on the hunt for return Bamako fares I guessed, I asked for my bootlace back. He shrugged for the last time, ducked under and handed it over, and burned the little rubber left he couldn’t afford to lose with a tire screech and the muffler’s sparks flying out behind like from a roman candle. At least my boots fit well again. I’d need them later in the boucle I guessed, and I was right.
Djenné Mosque