I am not a fan of Djenne!
This morning started beautifully beautifully well. Woken up by the songs of the little yellow birds in the patio and seeing the white doves flying around the big tree was such a delightful way to start the day. It reminded me so much of when my patents still had a little ryad in the Medina of Marrakesh.
We took our time before this peaceful patio and hitting the noisy muddy streets.
Our first goal was to try and check out the mosque. This kid last night told us he would speak with the Imam to get us at least a few seconds with him to see if we could enter.
Such lies! It seems there is a big mafia around the mosque business, and most probably the Imam is in on it. We had to negotiate with some sketchy guy before someone who pretended to be the Imam would let us in/ I personally insisted that if I were to pay to get into a mosque I wanted to personally give the money to the Imam. Everyone got suddenly really mad and almost aggressive. I said that was my condition. After a few arguments someone who pretended to be the Imam came out and told us to pay him if are wanted to get in. How were we even supposed to know how to identify an Imam?! I don't know why I was so stuck on going into the mosque. Perhaps because the mosque itself was quite disappointing and I was hoping that the inside would reveal its true beauty. I don't know.
In any case, the whole mosque tour moment didn't last long and really got us three extremely upset after the guys behind it and even the religion. Such a shameful thing and the whole village is obviously backing it up.
As we left the mosque, all the pseudo guides and sellers from last night showed up again harassing us to use their services or just walk along with us. I don't think I have ever seen anything like this before.
Both Claudio and I were initially thinking to stay an extra day to enjoy the town, but this morning we decided to get the hell out of here right after the market tomorrow.
While Mike went his way to walk alone, Claudio and I decided to walk away from the town and hide from this upsetting scene. We just wanted to find the nearest bridge and cross it.
And so we did. We walked and walked. Don't get me wrong, Djenne is a gorgeous city. Terribly filthy, just like the rest of Mali, but the people living in Djenne are so desperate for tourism that they jump on ever white person they see passing by and try ad long ad possible to harass them to get money from them.
When we finally crossed the bridge, it was all peaceful. No one on our back. Just people walking around, giving us big smiles and saluting us along. What a change.
We reached the cultural mission of Djenne who is in charge of backing up and developing the archeological sites around the town. Since the beginning of the crisis, the mission has basically been dead. The director of the mission was very nice and welcoming and spent a good hour with us telling us about the sites and the town. Very interesting conversation. He himself even told us that he was very scared of the guides of Djenne as they have been threatening him in the past to not get in their business with the tourists. A real mafia, I swear!
The sky quickly darkened, so we walked back towards the town and met Mike on our way.
We all went back home to nap during the rain.
Lucky us it stopped raining after a couple of hours and still left us a few hours of sun before night. So we all decided to go visit the little villages on the other side of the river, opposite side of here we walked to in the morning.
Because of the rain, the entire trail was deeply muddy. We had no choice though. Half way in the mud and half way crossing the river by foot made the adventure so much fun and entertaining. And well, we were away from harassing Djenne. So we were happy. Lol
Little kids trying their hands at fishing in the middle of the river helped us find the best path to walk through the river where the water was shallow.
On the other side we were met by a few fishermen on the pirogues, kids from the nearby village, and lots of sheeps.
The landscape was magical and the light was perfect.
When we got to the villages, the people were so friendly is was al most shocking. So close to Djenne, yet so different.
We couldn't stop playing with the kids. They kept on calling out "toubabou!" with huge smiles and excitement, yet if we stared at the or stepped towards them they would start running of fear in the opposite direction. It was hilarious. And the adults around were having so much fun watching the kids reactions. The whole thing was really addictive. It was hard to leave one village to go to the next. But we did anyway.
In both villages only one or two persons spoke some French. The rest of the villagers only spoke their dialect.
We magnetically spent the rest of the afternoon in these villages, totally changing our mood from the morning. How fulfilling!
As the sun started to make its way down, we had to go as we were not sure how or where we would have to cross the river again to get back to the town.
We crossed a first stream of chocolaty water too arrive at a sort of large semi flat field where a soccer game was happening. One side line was the river, the other side was the stream. The game was overlooked by the mud village of Djenne right across the river which is perhaps actually just a large pond.
We watched the game for a while and then crossed the water to climb up a little trail between the piles of garbage dumped there by the villagers. Ufff...first crossing the dirty water and then climbing this filth...while wearing sandals was slightly uncomfortable.
The day was long and not all pleasure, but definitely ended on a great note.
I couldnt help but have a big snack after the afternoon activities. And so I made myself a huge banana sandwich. (I think I grew an addiction to this sandwich) this got me full enough for the rest of the evening. So no dinner. Since Djenne is a small town, there is not much to do at all at night, especially in terms of free activities. And being three white men, it also makes it a bit challenging to bond with the locals like I am used to. So off to bed early. Good thing anyway since we've got an early start tomorrow with the market.
What a day!!!
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