I bought a pith helmet.
Does that statement need explanation? Is it a little too colonial? A little too Heart of Darkness for our modern sensibilities? Well, like everything, there's a story behind it, and here it is.
After two weeks scrambling around the canyons, waterfalls, and plateaux of Doucki, I was exhausted. However, I still had one major challenge before me. In order to meet up with friends in Kedougou, Senegal, I had to take the mountain road down from Mali-ville in northern Guinea. All the guide books said that it was only 50km from Mali to the border post at Segou, and Kedougou was 12k farther along the road. It's possible to hike in 6 to 12 hours, say the guidebooks. All downhill, with shortcuts through the bush and amazing scenery, as if any of these writers had done such a thing. But, exhausted by two weeks of hiking, I got it into my head that this would be a good idea.
I was wrong.
I stopped off in Labé, Guinea to get some supplies and have a rest before I attempted an all-day hike in the middle of hot season. (See any problems with this idea yet?) It was here that I bought the pith helmet, but the shape of the hat, which I found in both Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, didn't really sink in until I was well on my way into Senegal.
The story is this. I hiked about 30k down from Mali through some amazing scenery. The weather wasn't bad, rather cool because of the elevation, and at the end of the dry season, the trees had lost their foliage, making the trip a bit eerie in the ashey haze from the harmattan winds. The beginning of the hike was like a nice, autumn day. But after 30k, things began to unravel. I came off the mountain onto a middle plateau, and the heat and the sun really started to pick up. I'd seen no one for a few hours of this trip, and around about 1:30 in the afternoon, a guy on a motorbike drove by and stopped. "Where ya goin?" Senegal! "Oh, you've missed your road. You can still get there on this road, but it's another 30k." Well...damn. "Jump on, I'll give you a lift...idiot (which is what he must have been thinking at the time)."
It was a good thing I got a ride, because another 30k of hard hiking lay ahead of me, and I did not have the resources to complete the hike. When we got to Loungha, the Guinean border post, he said that he had some stuff coming along in a camion (a huge truck) and that I could catch a ride all the way to Kedougou with them when they came through. Now to explain things a bit, the road from Mali to Kedougou is barely even a road. It comes off the highest part of the Fouta Djalon plateau and is a twisted mess of unpaved, rocky, on-in-four grade track. This guy had done it on a motorcycle, and the 50k had taken him about 5 hours. It was even worse in a truck.
So I waited around this border town until 4:30 in the afternoon. Just when I thought I'd had enough and it was better to spend a little money on a moto into Senegal, I heard the roar of a big truck. Here was my camion. After about two hours in customs (i.e. bribe negotiation) we were on our way. Since I didn't have any money to pay these guys, I was in the back of the camion, which is kind of like a dump-truck when you get right down to it. There was a car seat back there crunched in between two enormous truck axles. Looking at these, I could only help thinking, "If this truck flips...I really have no escape plan," but, I settled in, my head and shoulders just peeking out from the lip of the truck bed and off we went. As we drove away from the border post, waving to the customs officials, I realized what a sight I must have looked. Here I am, dirty, sweat-streaked, in torn clothes (all my clothes are torn now, the shirt and pants I was wearing have each been patched about six times), sitting in the back of a camion like I'm Teddy Roosevelt on my way to the inaugural ball. But, like any good fool, I was smiling, ragged, and looked a mockery of any kind of civility. At that moment, I felt as if the only thing I needed was for Jambe to bring my hammock and my pink gin sundowner. My pith helmet is made of grass. My clothes, patched with bright African pagne fabric are a laughable embarrassment that will be completely replaced when I reach Dakar. My hair has gotten long after four months traveling, and like my first year in Niger, it's become rather sun-bleached. Charlie Chaplin could not have conceived a more ridiculous scene. Arriving in Kedougou, tired, hungry, dehydrated, beat up, and sore, I couldn't help thinking how appropriate it was that I entered Senegal, the last leg of my trip in sub-Saharan Africa, totally wrecked by four months on the road, but grinning like a happy fool nonetheless.
Showing posts with label Colonialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colonialism. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Colonial Treatment
Okay, now for a funny one.
I visited Dalaba, Guinea last week, one of the smaller cities in the Fouta Djalon region. The Fouta is an area in West Africa unique to Guinea. The high plateau is called Le Chateau de l'Afrique Occidental because most of the area's major river systems (including the Senegal, the Gambia, and some tributaries of the Niger) are sourced in these highlands. It's an area that can boast some of the best hiking in West Africa plus the unique culture of the Peul people, who dominate this area and are almost single-handedly responsible for the Islamic faith in the region. It's become sort of a recipe for my favorite places to travel: combine awesome scenery with a unique culture and I'm there. So far I've found it in Boukoumbé, Benin with the Somba people and in Dogon Country, Mali. Now I have the Fouta Djalon in Guinea to add to that list. Next up? I could only hope for Niger's Aïr Mountains or the Andes' Incan ruins. I'll settle for the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau next week.
But for now I'll focus on the Fouta. I went to Dalaba for the hiking, but also for the climate and the colonial architecture. Dalaba sits high up on the plateau, making the days hot but dry and the nights cool, even bordering on cold, a rarity in West Africa outside of the desert regions. As a result, Dalaba became a sort of rejuvenation center for the French colonials during their time here. Unfortunately, the only colonial architecture left behind is the old governor's mansion, the Sili Villa. Luckily for me (and you), I got a personal guided tour of the colonial mansion and can share that experience here.
I'd had this kind of thing happen before, in Sassandra, Côté d'Ivoire, and, more memorably, in Klouto, Benin. You wander up a disused paved road (probably the only one in town) to discover a mansion, completely uninhabited, with one old man sitting outside as guard or caretaker. For a small "fee" (negotiable, but usually around a couple bucks) he'll give you the history of the house and a grand tour around the interior. The history usually goes something like this: The house was built around the turn of the century by the French governor (or bought by said governor from some citizen who decided he'd had enough and was returning to France). After independence, the state took over the mansion from an indifferent civil servant ("Fine, go. We never wanted you as a colony anyway."), and turned it into a retreat for a corrupt president and his cronies (or in Guinea's case, a corrupt, paranoid president and his equally corrupt, terrified cronies). The house gets used for various autocratic excesses and bacchanals until the people decide they've had enough and there's a coup.
By now, the new corrupt government wishes to distance itself from the past corrupt government and it rightfully does so by moving away from Presidential playhouses. At least in one's own country. It's the 80s now, and wireless transfers make it so much easier to funnel money out of the country and into a Swiss bank account. So the state-owned villa is allowed to go to seed. Anyway, why would you want a villa in your own country when, with all that stolen money, you can have several in France?
So now the house sits abandoned by all save one guard (I think to be conidered a caretaker the property must have some kind of value of which to take care) in the employ of, presumably, the state. He sits, day in, day out, with not much to do except stare at the marble statue of a horse. So when a white guy with a couple bucks comes along, he jumps at the chance to play tour guide.
"This is a colonial bedroom, where the governor had his bed. Take a picture."
Where's the bed now?
"Oh, someone probably used it for firewood. Take a picture of where it used to be. For a souvenir."
This guy was particularly enthusiastic that I take pictures of everything. "This is a colonial bathtub."
It's made of cement.
"I know. That's colonial cement. This is a lightbulb. A colonial lightbulb. Take a picture. And over here is the colonial sink. And here, the colonial toilet."
And is that a colonial turd floating in the bowl?
"Yes... Take a picture!"
Overall the houses are dilapidated shells just waiting for some enterprising individual to rehabilitate them as a hotel or private residence. But for now, they'll just continue to sit in their decay, year after year, with a little old man watching over as it slowly crumbles into dust.
"But colonial dust."
Take a picture.
I visited Dalaba, Guinea last week, one of the smaller cities in the Fouta Djalon region. The Fouta is an area in West Africa unique to Guinea. The high plateau is called Le Chateau de l'Afrique Occidental because most of the area's major river systems (including the Senegal, the Gambia, and some tributaries of the Niger) are sourced in these highlands. It's an area that can boast some of the best hiking in West Africa plus the unique culture of the Peul people, who dominate this area and are almost single-handedly responsible for the Islamic faith in the region. It's become sort of a recipe for my favorite places to travel: combine awesome scenery with a unique culture and I'm there. So far I've found it in Boukoumbé, Benin with the Somba people and in Dogon Country, Mali. Now I have the Fouta Djalon in Guinea to add to that list. Next up? I could only hope for Niger's Aïr Mountains or the Andes' Incan ruins. I'll settle for the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau next week.
But for now I'll focus on the Fouta. I went to Dalaba for the hiking, but also for the climate and the colonial architecture. Dalaba sits high up on the plateau, making the days hot but dry and the nights cool, even bordering on cold, a rarity in West Africa outside of the desert regions. As a result, Dalaba became a sort of rejuvenation center for the French colonials during their time here. Unfortunately, the only colonial architecture left behind is the old governor's mansion, the Sili Villa. Luckily for me (and you), I got a personal guided tour of the colonial mansion and can share that experience here.
I'd had this kind of thing happen before, in Sassandra, Côté d'Ivoire, and, more memorably, in Klouto, Benin. You wander up a disused paved road (probably the only one in town) to discover a mansion, completely uninhabited, with one old man sitting outside as guard or caretaker. For a small "fee" (negotiable, but usually around a couple bucks) he'll give you the history of the house and a grand tour around the interior. The history usually goes something like this: The house was built around the turn of the century by the French governor (or bought by said governor from some citizen who decided he'd had enough and was returning to France). After independence, the state took over the mansion from an indifferent civil servant ("Fine, go. We never wanted you as a colony anyway."), and turned it into a retreat for a corrupt president and his cronies (or in Guinea's case, a corrupt, paranoid president and his equally corrupt, terrified cronies). The house gets used for various autocratic excesses and bacchanals until the people decide they've had enough and there's a coup.
By now, the new corrupt government wishes to distance itself from the past corrupt government and it rightfully does so by moving away from Presidential playhouses. At least in one's own country. It's the 80s now, and wireless transfers make it so much easier to funnel money out of the country and into a Swiss bank account. So the state-owned villa is allowed to go to seed. Anyway, why would you want a villa in your own country when, with all that stolen money, you can have several in France?
So now the house sits abandoned by all save one guard (I think to be conidered a caretaker the property must have some kind of value of which to take care) in the employ of, presumably, the state. He sits, day in, day out, with not much to do except stare at the marble statue of a horse. So when a white guy with a couple bucks comes along, he jumps at the chance to play tour guide.
"This is a colonial bedroom, where the governor had his bed. Take a picture."
Where's the bed now?
"Oh, someone probably used it for firewood. Take a picture of where it used to be. For a souvenir."
This guy was particularly enthusiastic that I take pictures of everything. "This is a colonial bathtub."
It's made of cement.
"I know. That's colonial cement. This is a lightbulb. A colonial lightbulb. Take a picture. And over here is the colonial sink. And here, the colonial toilet."
And is that a colonial turd floating in the bowl?
"Yes... Take a picture!"
Overall the houses are dilapidated shells just waiting for some enterprising individual to rehabilitate them as a hotel or private residence. But for now, they'll just continue to sit in their decay, year after year, with a little old man watching over as it slowly crumbles into dust.
"But colonial dust."
Take a picture.
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