With relaxing and enjoyable pinasse trip on Niger river done I have spent another easy day in Mopti sharing my time between hard labour of catching some more sun by the hotel pool with the beer in my hand and admiring the view of Mopti bay in Bissap café. But as all good things come to an end so was with my stay in Mopti. It was Friday, the day I was supposed to catch up with Almou and the rest of the family and finally go for some relaxing to the village of Teberemt. It was really good hooking up after 2 weeks.
Slightly less pleasant was the drive as we had an old battered Toyota 4×4 with no A/C so were driving with windows down for the next 10 hours. But even that one wouldn’t mind if we weren’t packed up to the top. 6 adults and two kids plus all the luggage. And everything made really uncomfortable by the sorry state of the road between Duentza and Gossi. Bad. Some serious potholes. And I mean serious serious. The ones that shake your whole body real bad. And we kept running into them as there was so much dust in the night sky you couldn’t see your nose in front of you. But… there’s always a but right… Everything was made much much better with a help from 10pm picnic in the middle of Malian bush under the night sky.
Once in Teberemt and with greetings and usual chitchat done we had all the time on our hands to relax. And it was only thing we could do. As daytime it was hot as hell. So all we did was searching for a hideout from sun and catch a nap and wait for the evening and cooling down. And that we did a lot. Followed by easy talks and nice meals in the evenings. As they were mostly using tamasheq – the Tuareg language – they did most of the talking and me I did most of the listening 😉
But life was great. Easy and relaxing. And five days of it were just about tops what two city boys could bare in total isolation of deep deep Malian bush village near Burkina Faso’s border. As much as it was nice to enjoy life without electricity, running water or phone network it was also time to go back. So we have packed our things and hit it back to small town of Gossi where we have spent another day and a half before finally hitting the road back to Bamako. And of course repeating the whole driving experience – from 6 adults plus 2 kids to over packed and naturally conditioned car to those huge holes in the middle of something that used to be called a tarred road.
And it was on that long and seemingly never ending ride to Bamako that I have realized how lucky I am. Not only am I running into very nice people everywhere I go but I am given a rare privilege of an insight into private life of Tuareg community – be it in cities with Tuaregs adapting to modern times or with more traditional ways of living in places such as Teberemt, Gossi, Timbuktu or Essakane where traditions are still hugely important and are part of daily routine. A privilege not granted to many. A privilege I really appreciate and respect. And enjoy.
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