Mali Misery

Timbuktu – city of 333 saints and much sand.

We arrived in the small hours of the morning and docking this huge boat in the dark was a masterpiece of skill as the last half an hour’s approach to this tiny port was spent chugging very slowly along an extremely narrow man made canal.  It was eerily quiet and we appeared to have only about 3 inches to spare on each side of the boat.  Finally the boat had to make an elaborate three point turn to enable the gang plank to be lowered to the bank where the canal opened out to a small area just large enough to accommodate this huge ferry. In the darkness we could just make out families awaiting arrival of friends.

After several frantic phone calls, we learnt that Amelia’s car had been written off on the way from Gao to Timbuktu; we were not told the fate of her driver. Eventually five Touaregs arrived in one of the ‘Festival in the Desert’ vehicles to transport us to the place where we were to stay.  Amelia assured me that our host Agmar, a Touareg nobleman, despite spending much time miles away in the desert with his ‘tribe’ also had a fine establishment here in Timbuktu.  One anticipated a splendid dwelling.  One was sorely disappointed. To begin with, when we arrived all the family were asleep and we had to climb over several bodies to a room with just the one bed.

Next morning we were shown to the room that was to be ours.  It fronted onto the small courtyard (of sand) as did all the other rooms.  Our view through the door was of the family loo; a room with a hole in the concrete floor. The empty kettle, on the ground beside the loo, was to be filled from a tap at the other end of the courtyard in order to ‘flush’.  This tap was the only place to obtain water.  But our room was O.K. and we had two beds, a table, sofa and resident wild birds.  Amelia set up her computer and began to download all the photos she had taken on the boat.  Difficult - in the dusty conditions around us with sand right up to our door and working on a wonky table with computer and camera wires dangling everywhere.  She was positioned in front of a locked door that led off to another room; we were assured that no-one would need to enter that room.  Oh yeah?

We had just settled and were making this our temporary home when suddenly in burst the man of the house accompanied by three young children, a ten year old carrying an automatic rifle and assorted baggage including one bag which obviously contained more rifles. With much noise and joviality they requested access to the locked room and so Amelia hastily shut down her computer praying that vital information would not be lost in the process. A short while later an army officer arrived – introductions all round.  More joviality and noise.  We now learnt that Agmar’s brother sleeps in this second room, so remaining where we had just established our territory was not really an option.  So – an alternative was found – a small room situated around the corner outside the compound but backing onto this establishment.  This was a garage really, with a corrugated iron door, no window, fronting onto the street next to the communal rubbish heap.  Mattresses, blankets, bags and the computer were carried there for us and we were brought lunch (rice with a lump of something black-grey in colour).  Thus began two days of a miserable existence. Oh, and two days of shared space with a resident mouse.