Part 2- trip out to Dogon

---

The “bus” to Koro wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. It was more of… I wouldn’t even know what to compare it to because we don’t have anything like it in the US. It’s a little bigger than a short school bus, and the seats are very similar, but go all the way across so they fit like 5 or 6 people in each row. And of course no AC. I was sitting next to an older woman and he husband and she didn’t know and English and I don’t know any French, so we had a very exciting conversation with a lot of pantomime. It’s a good thing I was always good at charades. Unfortunately she didn’t like all the dust from the road if I left the window open, and I didn’t like how hot it was with the window closed, so we had to find an interesting compromise but it worked out. Driving through Burkina, the scenery is very different. Its so dry and its practically already desert. Its just a bunch of sand and small trees and bushes scattered around. Occasionally we pass a small village and the set up is really interesting. Each family has like a circular “compound” where there is one main building where the parents live, then there are smaller buildings around them where the children live when they get older and married and have their own families and they all form a big circle enclosed with walls. There are probably about 10 of this compounds gathered together and then a mosque in the center of them all and there’s your village. After seeing desert and then a random village like this and observing the other riders on the bus that we pick up and drop off along the way I have come to my own conclusion about the poverty in Burkina. I’m no economist, but it seems this way to me. There isn’t a lot of begging like you would expect in the third poorest country in the world. There doesn’t seem to be a huge economic stratification among the citizens. Its like everyone is poor, so they’re all in it together and its just the way it is. It also doesn’t seem like there is a lot of national income. Most people are farmers and produce just enough for their family and maybe a small excess to sell along the streets. I would have to look up the numbers, but it seems like there is a really low Gross Domestic Product for the nation as a whole. Ok ok, there I go talking like a Sociologist again… It just further proves, “More money, more problems.”

We kept stopping along the road at these villages dropping people off and picking up more people, we definitely were not on the express bus to Koro. It took 3 hours to go 100 km and I was starting to think we would never get there at that rate. After a couple more hours we stop at another random town (later found out it was Ouahigouya) where the driver tells Berkeley that we have to get off because the bus stops there. We’re really confused because we were told we were going to Koro? Well it turns out that we are supposed to get on this other truck, where we sit in the back with 20 people on wood benches. Fun.
As we are waiting we are approached by 2 “guides” for the Dogon country because if any white people head through this town, its because they are going to the Dogon. They were really clingy and knew all the right things to say, but we were still in Burkina and really far from the Dogon so we decided it would be best to wait until we talked to a few more people before we decided on any guides. They both told us that we needed to buy these kola nuts before we went to the Dogon because it would be our “payment” to the Dogon villagers for walking through their village and taking pictures and what not. We went ahead and bought some, and that will turn into another story later.

We were on this bus/van/truck thing for awhile, but looking back, it couldn’t have been for more than 5 hours. The vehicle kept overheating in the desert and we would have to stop and put more water in it. There was this really cute little boy that was sitting directly in front of me and he kept falling asleep sitting up, so I handed him my purse which made a nice pillow and he laid down on the bench and had a good nap. This father was sitting next to me and smiled at me gratefully. His father was very… mystical is the only word to describe him. He was wearing this purple turban and when we would stop he would get out and pray. I wish I could describe him better, but there was something about the prayers, the turban, and his eyes, it was just very beautiful.

When we got to the Mali border we got our visas completely hassle free. We just paid our 15000 cefas each and sat inside this tent with some immigration officers and they were joking around with us asking us why we were studying in Ghana and not Mali. I told them it was too hot in Mali and they just laughed the laugh that they might as well have said “you don’t even have a clue how hot youre about to be”

A little detail about the truck we were riding in, there weren’t any windows and we quickly learned why everyone was wearing a turban or something over their face. It was so insanely dusty and we were beyond dirty. I really don’t think I had ever been so dirty. There was so much dirt on us when you sweat it just turned into mud.

When we got to Koro we ran into some other kids from school and they were headed up to Mopti where we would be in a couple days, so we wished them a safe trip and just laughed at how small the world really is. We then met Souleman, who later became our guide for the Dogon. He helped us get a taxi to Bankass where we were going to sleep for the night before going to the Dogon country for 2 days. We stayed at this nice new hotel off the main road in Bankass where we had good food and got to sleep on the roof for pretty cheap. I then discovered my 2 favorite things about the desert. Best sunsets in the entire world! We were on the roof putting down our stuff and we all just stopped at the same time and just watched the colors of the sun going down over the village. When I say it was breathtaking and awe inspiring that doesn’t even begin to describe the beauty of it. My next favorite thing? Naturally hot showers! Not even warm, like HOT water, like hot-water in America-hot. The water just turned red from all the dirt on me. We ate a good meal of couscous and lamb and went to bed to get a good night sleep before headed off to the Dogon country!

---