The house we were taken to was built around a central courtyard, paved in the same antique style. It was pink-ocher, two stories, with an external staircase. Awa took us to a room on the ground floor furnished with cushions and a low table. She said she would bring us some food, and left, her kid trailing after her.
What’s wrong with this picture? Two Americans, one of them a blonde, arrive in an isolated African village. We should be mobbed by curious people. There should be kids staring at us through the windows. But people seem to be going about their business with only the most blase urban-type curiosity about us. It was like getting off a bus in the Port Authority terminal in New York. Even more spooky: no Tshirts, no shorts, no rubber shoes. Western charities dispatch huge bales of used clothing to Africa and somehow it gets into every corner of the bush. Except Danolo, apparently. Everyone we’ve seen so far is dressed traditionally, the women in robes and headdresses, the men in a kind of sarong, with the older men affecting an off-the-shoulder cloak, all in what looks like hand-woven cloth. No plastic either. I have never seen an African household without a plastic basin or jerrycan, or some utensil recycled from tin cans or telephone wire. Here we have pottery and local ironwork. All the adults have parallel keloid scarring or tattooing on their faces. Never seen that in Mali before. It’s Yoruba, and old-fashioned Yoruba at that, the mark of civilization.
Awa came back with food. Fried fish lumps on a bed of something like couscous, but not, flavored with a sauce that’s got coco in it and other stuff I don’t recognize. It was pretty sophisticated cooking amp; also nothing not native to ancient Africa?no rice, no manioc, no yams. With it we got a thin, bitter beer. The meal was served on pottery decorated with rouletted and combed designs, not all that different from the Ife ware displayed in the museum in Lagos. This kind of stuff should not be in Mali. OK, pottery is conservative, but still. The beer mugs were brass, also with parallel marks, beautifully made, museum-quality stuff. W. said they were fattening us up for the cannibal feast. He was enjoying himself, the situation amp; my confusion. He said, This looks like the real Africa. Oh yeah amp; scary because of it, although I don’t mention this to him. There shouldn’t be any real Africa anymore.
Another woman removed the food amp; utensils. Little later, three elderly men wearing white robes and carrying carved wooden canes came in and removed W. He was quite jolly about it: See you in the pot, Janey.
Hour or so after that, Awa and another woman, older, who introduced herself as Sekli, led me out through the village to a high mud wall barred by a wooden gate. The gate and doorposts were heavily carved in the combination of abstract and naturalistic characteristic of ancient Yoruba art.
We got hustled through the gate too fast to really study it, noted the ram’s head, amp; on both doorposts figure w/ crested coiffure, club, and horn prob. = Eshu-Eleggua, had the horrible trickster smile too. Inside found several houses, w/ beautifully made high-peaked roofs of finely woven oiled matting amp; carved wooden verandas. The center of the compound was Pavement Culture pave, concentric circles around a rough-looking standing stone, with paths leading to the doorways of the several structures. The woman gestured for me to sit down and wait, then left.
Unpacked and checked the Nikon, the Sony camcorder, the Sony microcassette machine. Discovered the camcorder battery was dead. Discovered the cassette recorder had somehow picked up water on the trip, and the batteries were all split and corroded. Unpacked the solar charger, walked outside, unfolded and set it up in the sun. Loaded the Nikon and took some pictures of the compound. Something was wrong with the film advance. Opened the camera. A long loop of exposed film popped out. Trashed that roll, put in another. Carefully threaded it, closed the camera. Sighted on the group of women, pressed on the shutter. Nothing. I figured a piece of grit must have slid in there when I had it open. Hung it around my neck, planning to break it down later, blow it out. Grit always a problem in this part of Africa. Checked the solar charger and noticed that the little red charging light on the Sony was off. It was on when I plugged in the cable, I thought, but maybe not. Getting a little confused now, I sat down and checked the cabling, which was fine, but when I looked at the little control board on the solar charger I saw that instead of five volts, the transformer was set to twelve, which meant I had fried the Sony battery. I cursed, yanked the battery out of the Sony and stormed toward my hut, meaning to get the spare from my bag.
But I tripped on the rough pavement and went down on my face. Sony and Nikon both totaled. Blubbered like a baby, not because of the smashed equipment, but from fright, ashamed of it, couldn’t help the fear. Dejr vu. Chenka all over again. I’m supercareful person with equipment, there was Something going on. I sat down on the doorsill of the little house and shivered and snuffled miserably for a while. When I looked up he was standing there, a small old man in a white robe and sandals, carrying a carved black staff. I hadn’t heard him approach. He said something in Bambara that I didn’t get. I held up the smashed camera and said, in English, You wouldn’t by any chance know if there’s a certified Nikon repair facility in this town? He said something else I didn’t get, and then I really looked into his face for the first time.
Hard to describe this. In the faces of some nuns, some Hindu holy men, you’re supposed to see a look of unearthly goodness, the sense that what is staring out at you from their eyes is not an ego like your own but a fragment of divinity. Seen it myself in a nun or two, can’t vouch for the Hindus. This was like that, but not the same. It was as if a piece of sky or a wild animal or a tree had achieved consciousness. Or the moon. Original participation, not just at the height of a ritual, but all the time, in the light of afternoon. I could feel my heart knocking. He came closer and said something else and I caught dusu be kasi (the heart is crying) and the interrogative particle and I figured he meant to ask me why I was unhappy. I shrugged and indicated my broken things, although that was not the reason my heart was crying. And he asked me if I spoke Bambara and I said only a very little. He nodded and came over and sat down on the doorsill next to me.
Had he turned into an ostrich I could not have been more surprised at what he did then. He said, Perhaps you would be more comfortable then, if we spoke in French. My name is Ulune Pa. This is my compound you are in. What do you call yourself, Gdezdikamai? Close your mouth, so that flies do not fly into it.
I said, Jane, my name is Jane. What was that name you called me?
He said, Gdezdikamai, explaining what it meant. And lifted a hand to touch my hair. We have been waiting for you, Jeanne Gdezdikamai.