Tourists Suck

Its November now and the weather is starting to cool off (finally) and the nights are actually almost chilly. That also means that its tourists season in Dogon Country. Every week more and more toubobs flood the streets of Bandiagara Mopti and Sevare. They load up their big SUV's and take tours of the cliff dwelling and Dogon villages. I'm slightly torn on tourism. It brings a lot of money to the area, but I also feel like a culture that has been around hundreds of years longer than the United States is selling out for a cheap buck and in a way dying out. And MAYBE it should. How long CAN you live in houses made of rocks in places that don' t always have adequate sources of drinking water and food supplies. But they have made it this far and I tend to think if we left them alone they would make it another 1,000 years without problem. But the modern world closes in and people want crap they can take home so they can say Mali is "fascinating." So Pays Dogon becomes Disneyworld for 3 months and every kid I meet says "Toubob, Don wa cadeau" or "white man give me present!" But it seems Mali is on my side because they decided to close the airport for a week so the could do some contruction. Take that Toubobs!
Aside from my complaints Mali does have sites that really are incredible. I got the chance to see some because there were these US AID guys in town who are actually working or starting I should say a project to develop tourism here . I hopped in their car only because at the end of the day they were going to Sevare and I wanted to go to Sevare and their nice SUV is better than an overcrowded station wagon, but that doesn't necessarily mean I endorse their project. I guess I really know how to stand by my convictions. I was however able to see some of the cliff dwellings that the Dogon carved out in the 11th and 12th centuries. Very cool and I do have pictures. I think I will go to Sevare for Thanksgiving because there is an American there named Mac who owns a small hotel PCV's stay at and he is cooking an authentic Turkey Day dinner. Complete with Pumkin Pie! Maybe ice cream. But anyway Sevare has fast internet and I will get photos of my house and the cliffs and my village up.

Care packages have started coming in and you would think it was Christmas around here. I think about every PCV in the area has gotten one this week. Those are a BIG moral booster. Village life gets rough and knowing there are people back home who haven't forgotten you and are good enough to send you chocolate and Playboys can help you get through those patches.
I'll admit it has been a rough 2 weeks for me. Harvest has been going full swing which leaves very few people in the village during the day. Some days I go out and help where I can and try and get an idea of how harvest works, but a lot of the time I not in the fields. Since all the men are working and the women don't speak Bambara... I'll just say it is hard and leave it at that. I know it doesn't sound like it would be difficult, but it gets to you.

Pretty soon harvest will be over and I'm not sure what the village will be like after that. I know a lot of times once the work is done the younger men move down to Bamako and other bigger cities to find jobs and make some money. There is kinda a mass migration sometime around now. I'm not sure when exactly it will happen.

So tomorrow I'll head back to my site. The way I usuually go is right at about 100 kilometers from Bandiagara. I usually bike the first 50 and take a car the next 35 and bike/car it the last 15. Today I got 25K out of Bandiagara and got a flat tire in the middle of the bush. Since being here I have become a pro at fixing flat bike tires, but my tire had 2 wholes and I had 1 patch. So here I am. Try again tomorrow. Thats that. I'm out of time.

Take Care.
Brax

AKA
Amasagou Togo