Sanga

The Dogon Country is in southern Mali, immediately south of Timbuktu and on the border with Burkina Faso.  It is a mountainous rather than a desert region, with people living on a high plateau.  At one side of the plateau a cliff face drops hundreds of feet spectacularly down to the plain below.  The Dogon people are very private and don’t particularly see the need to share their culture and community with strangers.

It is said that they migrated there from Egypt in 1480 to preserve their animist beliefs from the spread of Islam. It’s not that they are unfriendly, they will smile and chat. But they are not comfortable with people wandering into their villages taking photographs of them and their houses.  Perversely this makes the Dogon country very interesting.  Over the last five centuries they have successfully guarded their animist way of life, living in stone build houses in the rocky landscape and so it is possible to visit an ancient African culture.  Certainly various Christian and Moslem missions have arrived to try to convert the Dogon but they have not been largely successful. 

So we wanted to go to Dogon country next and we discussed the pros and cons with Mac.  He told us that we could spend a few nights in the old mission house in Sanga, where he had been born. He grew up there with his missionary parents.  They were Americans who had travelled out in 1933 to live with the Dogon people in the village of Sanga and try to establish a Christian community.  In that they were moderately successful, there was a small church in the village run by the locals.  The old mission house was still there and the Christian community had plans to turn it into a kind of a hostel for travellers. Mac said we would be welcome to stay there for a few days at minimal cost.   That sounded good, so he made a few phone calls to people he knew and arranged for a man with an old four wheel drive truck to collect us the next day.

Alu, the man with the truck turned up just after breakfast.  He was a friendly looking guy in his mid fifties, who smiled broadly as we shook his hand.  Alu helped us to load our box of bottled water and our rucksacks into his truck and we said our goodbyes to Mac and the other travellers and then set off.  Steve and Joyce and their thirteen year old daughter Debbie, the Canadian family, seemed to be slowly coming to terms with the poverty and deprivation in Africa and were a bit more relaxed and talkative. We wished them well with hopes that Jeff would eventually turn up so that they could spend Christmas together as a family.

The road to Bandigara, the gateway to the Dogon Country, was quite good as we headed south east towards the mountains.  As we climbed, the desert scrub was interrupted by occasional outcrops of rock and the road twisted and turned, the altitude allowing better views of the yellow and grey dusty landscape.  Bandigara was a small town with the simple rectangular mud brick houses with corrugated iron roofs which were so common in Mali.  Most of the travellers heading for the Dogon pass through here.  Some use it as a base for trekking or climbing, some stop to find a guide. Once we reached Bandigara and turned off toward Sanga we found ourselves on fairly rough mountain roads.  We were now in Dogon country which encompasses the plateau, the falaise (cliffs) and the plain below. 

Our destination, Sanga was high on the rocky plateau.  The rocky road twisted and turned with spectacular views of rich greenery, and intense blue pools and stretches of water, which we later found was onion fields and the results of irrigation.  We quickly realised that the Dogon are cheerful happy people who to love to talk.  Their pleasant sing song language always made us smile and their greetings were long and complex.  The greeting started as the other person approached, reached a crescendo when they passed and tailed off as they went their separate ways.  Alu would suddenly start a greeting, from the car, to a man on a bicycle heading toward us, who couldn’t possibly hear him. No doubt the man on the bicycle had also started greeting Alu.  As they passed Alu wound down the window and slowed down.  The happy melodious rapid fire exchange of greetings flowed backwards and forwards as the cyclist passed, waving.  The greetings continued as we parted, Alu turning round to get the last few salutations off.  All this occurred as we inched along the narrow rocky roads, with boulders on one side and substantial drops on the other. 

At a village a very old looking man with walnut wrinkled skin, sparkling eyes, brown teeth and white hair sat, under a wind twisted tree.  Wearing long brown robes, a skull cap and woven shawl he lifted a hand in greeting.  Alu asked if we could give him a lift and we readily agreed.  As the old man climbed into the front seat he sang out a long series of greetings and salutations.  The rhythm was similar to Wolof but we had no idea about the language, but his lustrous eye contact and smiling face invited a response.  So we chimed back in all the Arabic and Wolof greetings we knew, some of which he understood, most of which flowed right past him.  It didn’t really matter; it was the exchange of mutual greetings which was important.  After several minutes the verbal exchanges subsided into a satisfied silence.  Alu turned round and said.

 ‘He says thanks for the lift.’

We smiled and nodded.  We dropped the old man off just as we entered Sanga in the early afternoon. 

This article is part of a series describing our tour of West Africa
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