Segou Music Festival

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For the last few weeks the 100 or so of us Guinea volunteers have been waiting around near Bamako. At first, Peace Corps seemed extremely concerned about our mental health and would bend over backward to appease us. They sent in counselors from Washington who hold daily group discussions. When someone said they wanted to bake cookies, they bought us an oven and all of the ingredients. There is now an brand new oven sitting outside a mud hut. When we said we felt like watching TV, they bought us a TV with a zillion channels. When a group of us expressed interest in attending an expensive music festival, we were each given an envelope full of cash to pay for it. Awesome.

So last weekend we were driven by the busload to Segou, a town about four hours north of Bamako. There was a huge festival all weekend featuring Malian singers, bands, artisans, dancers, drummers, marionettes, masks, and boat races. About 75 of us went, and we stayed in a walled compound full of brown dust and rows of tents. Segou is hotter, drier, and closer to the Sahara than Bamako. Each afternoon the temperature hit 105 to 110 degrees, and the sun was always strong. At night it dropped into the 80s, but warmed up quickly as soon as the sun came up. I couldn't stay in the tent after about 7:30 am or I think I'd catch on fire. Our deodorant melted and if you tried to put on lotion it would scald you.

Segou is known for the traditional art of making bogolan, or mudcloth. Cotton is pulled into thick threads by hand, then woven into strips about 4 to 12 inches wide. The strips re then sewn together to make various sizes of cloth - from hats to bedsheets. The name "mudcloth" comes from the technique of dying the fabric. Dyes are made from natural elements such as soil, leaves, and tree bark, producing beautiful earth tones. Most bogolan is still made with traditional symbols and patterns, but some Malian artists have created beatiful contemporary pieces of art with the same technique.

We spent the days looking at local pottery and fabric or watching drummers, dancers, and puppet shows. Each night the festival had a "giant concert" in which several of Mali's most famous musicians played to huge crowds. A stage was set up on the Niger River, and the crowd gathered on the sloping riverbank. The performers were amazing. There were great combinations of modern and traditional sounds and the artists sang everything from love songs to anthems for women's rights. We spent several late nights among the hordes of happy Malians dancing to the music on the banks of the Niger.

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