Dogon Country

I have just returned from the most amazing vacation. I haven't taken a vacation since meeting my parents last July in Egypt and haven't even done any traveling around Burkina since Anna visited in November so was really ready for a break. I feel the need to mention I wasn't all that excited about this trip though because the idea of visiting the beaches in Ghana where several groups of friends have recently gone seemed much nicer than traveling closer to the Sahara Desert and hiking around in the heat for 4 days. I agreed to go though because I've heard Dogon Country in Mali is one of those must-do places and I figured I'd never be back. Boy was I in for a surprise!

My vacation started in village with a visit from my Japanese friends, Yoshi & Miki. Yoshi is leaving next week so wanted to see my village one more time and Miki had never been here before. My friend had made dolo that day so we enjoyed a few calabashes and visited lots of folks. The next day we headed to Tenkodogo for a small going away party for Yoshi. I then continued on to Ouaga for a night before catching a very early bus to Ouahigouya in order to sit around for 4 hours or so waiting for a bush taxi to Koro in Mali. I went with 6 other health PCVs though we lost one after the first day since she was sick and couldn't handle the hiking. Our bush taxi made 5 stops along the border for customs, visas, etc before arriving in the town of Koro. We had lunch then piled into an old station wagon to drive several more hours to reach the Bandiagara Escarpment. This is basically a small mountain or cliff that is a 150 km long. Originally the area was inhabited by the Tellum people who the guidebooks described as pygmies that mythology says could fly to crevices in the escarpment where they built houses. Our guide Oumar who works with PCVs from all over West Africa strongly disagreed with this though. Their houses are still visible in the sides of the cliff and reminded us a lot of the cliff dwellings in Arizona if anyone has seen those.

The Dogon people arrived in this secluded area about 500 years ago in an attempt to escape Arab invasions and converting to Islam. They again attempted to escape conquering by the French and Christian missionaries. They were unsuccessful on all fronts though their geographical location has allowed them some protection from outside forces and ability to keep their culture and animist religion. Some Dogons are now Muslim or Christian but many continue to practice animism and fetishes and black magic are a big part of their culture.

We visited about 8 villages along the escarpment located both at the top and the bottom of the cliff. Most villages are small with only several hundred people. We also saw several abandoned villages because water had become too difficult at the top of the cliff.

Every day we hiked for several hours in the morning climbing up, down and along the cliffs. We then rested several hours in a village during the hottest part of they day before hiking several more hours in the late afternoon. We slept in small villages on the roofs of people's houses. We walked about 10 to 15 km a day which I know isn't so far but these were difficult routes that often involved climbing rock to rock on a steep path. We found it was more difficult to go down then up because it seemed so easy to make one misstep and go tumbling a hundred meters to your death. Did I say how much I loved this adventure?

In my village in Burkina, houses are made of mud or cement bricks so it was interesting to see how things were done differently in Dogon. Here we have dirt and can make mud easily but there they have lots of rock so use that to build houses and walls around their compounds. It was fascinating to see how well built they were when it seemed one little tap would knock them all down. Because many people farm on the side of a cliff, they have also developed ways to prevent erosion and better use the local resources. I'm not an ag person so can't describe them all but one way I noticed was to put stones around small plots where they would grow crops to prevent the topsoil from blowing or washing away.

Dogon Country is north of my village and therefore closer to the Sahara so although rainy season has started here it was still hot season there. This means it was very sunny, hot, and dry. Not such an exciting change after having it cool down by me. There was a huge storm, their first real rain for the year, our last night though so the next morning we saw lots of flooding. We had slept on a village at the bottom of the cliff so didn't see the effects of the rain at the top but did see huge waterfalls formed by rain running off the cliff sides. We also had to cross a river that had formed over night. We jumped rock to rock and formed an assembly line to carry our bags across. Our station wagon to return to Koro broke down as well after having to cross two small rivers. This meant waiting two hours on the side of the road for another vehicle. Gotta love African transport!

We spend 4 days in Dogon and only saw a part of this amazing area. I would love to return in the future to explore even more. Maybe I will try to return in rainy season to see the changes in the landscape though it does seem even scarier climbing around wet rocks!

Pictures will be posted in a few days when I'm back in Ouaga to pick up my mom who will be visiting for a month!