Kangaba - Stearcus Accidit

On Day 5, we were intending to head to a place known as Camp Kangaba, where we would have the opportunity to learn to play traditional instruments, such as the djembé and kora, and learn bambara and local dances. So we made our way to the bush taxi terminal and asked to head to Kangaba, about 100 km south of the capital. Negotiations completed, we climbed aboard a 20-person minivan in 38 degree weather. Needless to say, this was not your average Greyhound. I guess you could say that seating all five of us across one 5 foot row of seats made us all feel really close, if not a bit sticky. Yesh.
But the ends justify the means, and we headed out finally an hour late, Maude and I gripping Vanessa for dear life as the side door (this term is used loosely: a door implies a functional lock and at least two pieces of metal, this one guaranteed nothing) slid open violently at each stop in town. You see, as she was seated closest to the door, it required her to press most of her hips against the door so we could all fit.
A small note to consider: we also had two sick girls with us. Maude had come down with a classic cold (which unfortunately, doesn’t live up to the “cold” criteria at all in this heat) and Laurence had herself a violent case of traveller’s stomach flu. So being cooped up in a hot, noisy bus, where we couldn’t see ahead, did little to soothe the girls’ symptoms. Luckily, the meds and rumble of the truck knocked out Laurence, and Maude was able to find a more comfortable position to sit in for most of the trip. Either way, it was a wonderful exercise in claustrophobia management.
Three hours of sweating and gravol chewing later, we were out of both water and energy. In heat like this, after a while, your mouth feels as though its coated in a thin film of gluey mashed potatoes, and any room temperature water you drink ceases to quench your thirst; you simply don’t feel its effects. The bus at last came to a halt, and after some awkward exchange in French-bambara, we understood we were in Kangaba. Our understanding was that the camp coordinator was expecting our call and would pick us up in the town terminal. We piled our backpacks into a heap and placed the call as the locals politely observed the five white strangers who seemed to drop out of nowhere into their quiet village.
Then two funny (or rather not so funny) things happened:

1- The man expecting our call had his phone turned off.

2- The locals had never heard of a camp Kangaba, but insisted that the place we were in was indeed Kangaba.


Leyla and Vanessa spotted some locals who seemed highly atuned to our situation and went to seek information, since the sun was setting quickly and we really felt as though we were in the boonies of the world. (I believe the wording “anus de la planète” is closer to our thoughts at that moment)

While the girls were gone, we sat on an old wooden bench kindly brought out by a phone booth owner by the name of Ladji Kébé. Side note: in Mali, phone booths are owned privately, and are a sort of shack where one can obtain phone, fax (if you’re lucky) and photocopying services. They’re scattered across the country like Tim Hortons, and are rarely hard to find. Rarer ar the ones with reliable service, however.
As we waited, exhausted, staring at the dusty road despite our best efforts to seem hospitable, the little children of the area were tentatively pointing, giggling, sometimes looking directly at us. One little girl seemed to be pondering whether or not to touch my hair, which by all accounts probably reminded her of a donkey’s mane in that moment, both in color and texture.
Ladji Kébé, as it turned out, was a very educated, open man who took great joy in reading classic French literature and philosophy. He was self taught and because of this, his interpretations of Diderot and Montesquieu offered an entirely new slant of the subject. He explained how he has been using stories by Victor Hugo and Jean de Lafontaine to teach morals and values to the village children; this fascinated me, because so few children are educated, and primary education teaches you to “know”, not necessarily to think for yourself. I promised to visit the next day to discuss philosophy and our education system. He asked me if I was a university philosophy teacher, because he thought I spoke well; I told him my husband is and taught me many things (you cannot say you have a boyfriend in Africa, it doesn’t work. You NEED to be married to be left in peace. Based on an evolution in my interactions with locals, I now also have a daughter named Simka, she’s a bit overweight - btw, that’s my CAT I’m talking about)

The girls returned soon after and explained to us what had happened. A man named Hervé, a white man, had visited Kangaba and fallen in love with their traditional dances and instruments. He purchased many and learned what he could, then set up shop ten minutes south of Bamako, in a place he named “Camp Kangaba”, which obviously has left the inhabitants of the real town infuriated and has left many travelers looking for the camp stranded.

But hey, we had the real deal, so why not stay?

We decided to decline the invitations to stay with a local family because we needed our space, but more importantly, we didn’t want to inconvenience them with two sick girls and five hungry mouths to feed (the family already included some 9 children). Thus, we made our way to the only hotel in town and settled in for the night.

Hospitality is Mali’s single most defining trait. Everywhere you go, people salute you. When you tell them where you are from, they respond “soyez les bienvenus”, ie, “you are most welcome”. Smiles are wonderful and tea is passed around with great care and generosity. You will never be turned down if you ask for directions or help. In fact, Mali is the only country where I have ever felt so safe walking (of course, never alone, but even Montreal has its dark alleys). If you visit a town, you must not refuse tea or a gift. Ever. It is an insult to them and you honor them by accepting. Nice change from touristy places where everyone’s trying to sell you their crap.

We left Laurence to rest at the hotel as she was in no condition to eat and found ourselves a little cantina in the village square. After much translation, we figured out the simple system: every portion costs 100CFAs (20¢) and you put into your plate whatever combination of items they have that day. On the menu that night: spaghetti with a very thin tomato sauce, couscous with onions, fried plantain, fried perch from the river and hard boiled eggs, a staple in Mali it seems (the eggs are hard boiled then kept in their shells until consumption: this greatly extends their shelf life and makes a handy snack on the road). We took a little of everything but abstained from the fish…somewhere along the line even my culinary cahones had limits.

Total: 800 CFAs for four girls: we ate for 1$ each.

Satisfied, we made our way back to the hotel, showered and tucked in for the night, not knowing what we were doing the next day or when we would head back to Bamako. It caused a bit of apprehension, because two days later we were expected to begin our internship in Kayes, on the other side of the country.

The following morning, Vanessa and Leyla confirmed that indeed, we would need to leave the very next morning, early. 4 AM early. There was only one bush taxi per day to get to Bamako, and it’s first come, first seated. Hundreds of people travel from villages to the capital every day, and that’s the cheapest way to get there…our odds weren’t great, and we couldn’t take a bus from Kangaba directly to Kayes, it doesn’t exist. We therefore did what you do when in Africa: we told ourselves we’d figure it out; at some point.

After breakfast and a hot cup o coffee to wash away a case of angry blues I had waking up, we set out to take a nice walk to meet the French man who lived in Kangaba who had been nice enough to explain the Camp Kangaba mess to us the night before. We never made it there, here’s why:

About 200m down the road from the hotel, a large gathering of women, all wearing their lovely boubous, sat under rich, green trees, sewing and chatting lively. An old man (looking very ragged indeed) and a tall woman in her mid forties approached us and began speaking in very good french. An hour later we were still talking, discussing womens’ issues in Mali such as education, the right to work and women’s rights over their bodies. The reality is that in Mali, with a few exceptions, women are simply too tired to do anything other than housework. With girls’ literacy rates at around 35%, they get married young and have children young, so they never really keep going. A woman’s day begins before dawn. She cooks all the meals, fixes the children’s and her husband’s clothes, cleans the house, then works in the field, cares for the children and (if she has time), takes them to be vaccinated or cared for. Then the evening meal needs to be cooked, so if there’s millet on the menu, she needs to clean, shuck and pound it before she can cook it. Most homes don’t have more electricity, so try to imagine the work this involves, all in 40°C weather. The men (not in all areas, but many) sit in their chairs in the shade and chat, have tea and wait for lunch to be served to them by the women. Visualize African lions if you like: a male that occasionally protects and leads the tribe, and the females that do everything else.

Women have no right to their body. Aside from the fact that marriage sanctifies a woman’s body to her husband so no other can touch her, her body belongs to him. You’ll always hear two visions of a marriage: the husband will assure you that rape is a grave offence and that no husband can force his wife; most women we spoke to said that no matter how they’re feeling, sex is imposed, if not they may be beaten until they can hardly move, then the husband will have his way anyhow because they give up. There’s a womens’ march in Kayes while we’ll be there; we’ll be joining it. Don’t worry, it’s not risky at all, the government encourages the march, but it’s the one day every year where women march to remind the world how much they actually do. That one day of them not working often paralyzes the harvest for a week.
We were shown by Astan, the leader, how she and others are leading workshops around Mali to teach women trade skills such as fabric dying, soap making and sewing in order for them to earn extra money between harvests. She also teaches them to manage money: this gives women power and knowledge to handle her money with care so she can use it towards medical care for herself (just a basic assistance in birth costs 1000CFAs, around 2$ and a week’s salary for a family) or her children.
She also coordinates the regional HIV/AIDS prevention-education effort, which is an enormous job because in many areas, condoms are still frowned upon and fidelity is considered prevention. One sign we saw showed two figures (one male, one female): beneath then man’s picture, a condom is shown; beneath the woman’s, the word “fidelity” is inscribed. The message feels a little lopsided, especially since often condom use must be insisted upon by women in order to assert themselves.
Astan asked us if we would be having any clothing made while in Africa. We had been considering it, and because the fabric was being dyed in front of us, we each chose our fabric and our color of choice, and the women would deliver it that evening. We set a price at 5000CFAs (10$) for two meters, and of course didn’t bargain. You don’t get any more fair trade than that.
We continued on our way with the old man as our guide (named Kanté, shown below with Maude). He had been a tile maker in Côte d’Ivoire most of his life, but was very educated and proud to show us his town. We met with various officials, including the mayor of a local commune and we were allowed to visit the local hospital, which was to say thee least, rudimentary. It made the M*A*S*H OR look like the Mayo Clinic. A standard desk lamp with an incandescent bulb was used for lighting, there were blood stains on the floor and the room was so small there was no way to have a circulating nurse go around the room without contaminating the field. When asked about the sensitive question of complications related to female circumcision, he became uncomfortable and insisted that he’d only seen one surgical complication in 8 years. Considering labial cysts (which is a nice way of saying the skin of the woman’s excised genitalia becomes infected and abscessed) are the most common and that most excisions are performed with no sterile conditions, no follow-up and in the case of Type III, known as Infibulation (see this site for more information: INSERT SITE ) many if not most women are left with a small hole to let urine and blood through, it seems unlikely that complications are that rare. I don’t know the official numbers, but I do know the doctor we spoke with minimized them. What we do know is that 98% of women are circumcised in Types I, II and III in the Kayes region, so we knew what was coming.

I never disrespect people in their values. If you tell me you believe what you’re doing is right according to your culture, I won’t argue it because it’s YOUR culture. But if you’re a medical professional who has a responsibility towards the health and well-being of his patients, you cannot argue that the practice of excision doesn’t have adverse effects on a woman’s health. Fess up and say it’s cultural. I’ll fight you on medical grounds and maybe then, we can have a discussion. On a side not, he was very nice and expressed a lot of concern in regards to womens’ health and problems in birthing and infant malnutrition. Go figure.

We left the hospital very tired but better prepared for what to expect in rural medecine.


Soon came lunch, then a quick stop to discover kola nuts, a sort of nut renown for their stimulant properties and traditionally given to elders or griots (the Malian equivalent of a bard-poet-shaman) as thanks or as a sign of respect.

Evening was quickly approaching, and we had never made it to our original destinations. I made a quick pit-stop at the telephone guy/ professor’s to say hi and exchange information. I also left him my copy of Emile Zola’s Le Ventre de Paris to read and teach with; it’s a good story to teach african youngsters dreaming of Paris. He thanked me and said he hoped one day I would return with Dave to stay with him and his family. Hopefully, we’ll stay in touch.

Just before dinner we made arrangements to head back to Bamako on the ONLY bus available, at 4 am. It’s first come first served, but the villagers and one of the merchants we very kind when we explained our urgent need to make it back to the capital and together, they arranged to guarantee us our seats, and even pick us up at the hotel so we wouldn’t have to walk the 2km to the town square for pick up. Nicely enough, they never raised their price.

Our night was brief and bumpy. I stayed awake, staring in the dark, anticipating our missing our 4 am lift. I tossed and turned, fully clothed, everything packed, braced for impact.

They knocked on our door at 3:30 AM. Apparently they were even more antsy than I was. We grabbed our things, and then it had to happen, like a landmark:

Another strap on my backpack broke.

The second buckle was gone at this point,, so in Kayes I’ll need to do some serious sewing. For now, it’ll hold with a lot of knot work.

By 8am we were back at Seguere in Bamako, thankfully passed out on our favorite dorm cots. Mr. Nou had let us in early with our two sick girls, we had arranged for our life the next morning at 4:30 AM to get us to the bus station, and we had been able to buy our tickets for Kayes where the bush taxi from Kangaba dropped us off because it was on their way. Three birds with one stone. Phew!

I’ll write more when I’m conscious enough.