Djenne, Bamako and Back

I was not even away for a week. But somehow everything which needed to be done was done.

The second day saw me racing up the familiar road north in one of those old Mercedes cars, so beloved by the Malians (albeit lacking in air conditioning ) on my way once more to Djenne- I love this road and I know every twist and turn, I know when the horses start- it is just after Bla, which is also where one buys the best salty peanuts by the side of the road. Just  before that, one must cross the Bani river, all yellow like vanilla from the sand stirred up by the many workers that line the shore extracting sand for building work onto their barges and pirogues.

Djenne too is Horse country- although horses here are used to pull the carts on their way to the weekly markets, and no longer ridden. 

                                                    

But this time I received a message from Babou at the library that we (Driver Cheick and myself) were required to drive up to Mopti before going to Djenne, to make a courtesy call at the Governor's residence.  This was something of an imposition, to say the least, because it meant continuing on our journey north for another hour and a half, having already travelled all day. But one is not at liberty to refuse of course. I  therefore ended up in an over stuffed armchair doing small talk with the Governor  who was very surprised that I had travelled all that way without a military escort- that is apparently what the other few toubabs do that come this way. My enforced Mopti visit also meant that I had to stay the night in the Hotel Flandre, Sevare, because even I recognized that perhaps one should not be travelling around after dark on these roads. Nevermind, I had a refreshing swim in the pool in this hotel, which is owned by a Dogon, once a guide, who has managed to keep his place going and functioning really quite well- quite a feat in these days of Malian hardship.

Once in Djenne the following morning, there was a whole merry go round of authorities to say hello to before we were allowed to begin the work at the library which was the reason for my visit: First the Prefect- a new one, quite handsome and relatively young, certainly an improvement on the last one, then onto the Chief of Police, followed by the Gendarmerie... this is all the fault of the French who complicated everything by installing all these different authorities, which are now well ensconced into the Malian bureaucracy. We did not have to visit the Maire fortunately, neither the Village Chief, the latter the only secular authority that existed before the arrival of the French Colonials. 

Having  shaken every required hand, we were finally allowed to start working at the library below

where I had the sad task of closing the Digitisation Project down, finally, after 16 years. When it started, with the Pilot Project for the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme in 2009, the library contained the collections of some thirty families. After the three major projects with the BL that followed, as well as the last five years with hmml.org, the Benedictine Foundation from Minnesota, the library now contains the collections of 204 families from Djenne and the surrounding villages. This is in fact now one of the more important manuscript libraries in West Africa. It will not entirely be abandoned- it will remain operational on a very modest level, until more ambitious plans and financing can be found-once more through the generosity of my cousin Pelle and his wife Nanni, who have also just sponsored the 11th edition of the Djenne Cataract Operations.  

The film 'Dreams of Djenne', by my cousin Elisabet, was finally shown in both Djenne (below) and in Bamako, for the benefit of the staff at Hotel Djenne Djenno and at the library.

I was able to make my customary  visit to Imam Yelpha and his posse- where the well rehearsed  attempts were once more made to persuade me to become the forth wife of Monsieur Yaro, in turquoise boubou beside me below, all provoking the customary giggles.

Once back in Bamako I spent a lovely afternoon with my 'son' Lassi, Keita's second son, by the pool at the Badala Hotel.
                                                

and on the last night, just before leaving for the airport,  I was lucky to catch half an hour of the Hunters' festival at the Palais de la Culture , Bamako- I love the Hunters, or the Donzo, so emblematic of West Africa with their ancient disregard for both Christianiy and Islam, their bogolan clothes hung with mirrors, animal skins and bone, and their smoky wood note music, songs and legends which remembers  the great forests, where lions once roamed...