Delusions of Grandeur.

I am the sort of person that always ends up in the very last seat on an airplane, squashed in by the last window, next to the loos.

Having had a fascinating, turbulent, revelatory but nevertheless rather trying year I decided I deserved a treat and booked myself Club class for my BA flight to Sweden to see my mother and my stepfather. (well, it was a special offer...)

My fellow travellers were mostly well groomed women with expensive blonde hair and handsome husbands with the sort of golden glow that settles on people who have spent a critical mass of hours in the sunshine of Marbella or Barbados. They had Louis Vuitton luggage or similar and I was grateful that I had decided to check in my little trolley bag, which would otherwise have exposed me as the impostor and fraud I undoubtedly am. It was bought in a bargain stall on the Mile end Road and has since been impregnated with axel grease, baby vomit and chicken shit during innumerable journeys on the local bus between Bamako and Djenne.

There was also a young black man in the seat in front of me. He pulled his hood down and slept all the way through with an insouciance that impressed me. In my excitement I had to restrain myself from shaking him awake. I mean, did he not realize that there was on-tap champagne to be had? I then decided he was probably some hip hop star whose flights were always taken Club class. 

Our air steward had been studying Anthony Hopkins in ‘Remains of the Day’ and had perfected his respectful, dignified and servile manner: “Yes, Madam, Certainly Sir, May I suggest, Sir...” to which he had added a touch of conspiratorial jolliness, with some winking thrown in: “Oh go on Madam, why not have another glass of Champagne, it is Christmas after all!”

And of course I had another glass of Champagne. And lapped it all up shamelessly. 

I  mean, I’ll be down by the loos again, undoubtedly, for my next long haul flight to Mali in March...

La Divina Commedia

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Plans were forged tonight. I used to have a Tuesday 'Salon' (so they called it) in my Ladbroke Grove flat, but I am loathe to return  to the past and will not start the Tuesdays again, at least not in the original form.  Nevertheless a new idea took shape tonight. Venerable members of the Ladbroke Grove Tuesdays turned up for Mulled Wine. Anthony G came first and we talked of Dante. Then he told me of last year's reading group who had done Milton's Paradise Lost. Then others came and we decided to throw ourselves into La Divina Commedia in the New Year. This will happen chez moi. Details to be communicated to interested parties.What fun to be in London!

A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM LADBROKE GROVE!

Ladbroke Grove.

Although I arrived back last Saturday, my full return to London has been gradual and a little reluctant in my mind. My foot is still sore and has been keeping in me inside, where I have been working on necessary stuff to wrap up what was achieved and decided in Timbuktu and Djenne. Darling Kathy came over with groceries. I have seen people walking below in the street carrying their Christmas trees, and today I decided to brave it and limped over to the corner florist and bought myself a big tree.

 I then went through the time honoured traditions which must be re-enacted every year at the decoration of the Christmas tree. This  includes playing the Messiah and drinking Amontillado while I turn my attention on each little decoration one by one  before putting them on the tree. The most venerable of all is the little green bell that comes from my grandmother’s home which I have been putting on nearly all the Christmas trees of my life since I was able to walk; then come the  red and grey Santas made from yarn with cotton wool beards that I made with my mother as a child; there is the garland of flags which I painted for a Christmas in the highlands of Papua New Guinea; there are the 2 ‘Coeur de Lion’ small heart shaped Camembert lids which served as nearly our only decorations on the tree that wonderful Christmas a long time ago in the garret in Cambridge Gardens with Martin;

 there is the long red bead chain I picked from a tree in New Orleans (left over from Mardi Gras). And this year there are the little angels made from old spray cans from Mali which join the rest of this flotsam from my life.

Here we are, Keita and I, putting them up for our last Christmas together in 2015.

Christmas is wonderful of course, but there is no denying that it can be bittersweet now and then for those who have lost someone close. I have lost Keita, I have lost the hotel. The new chapter has only just begun and its unknown course lies before me like the virgin pages of a new sketchbook.
Later: Oh! come on, Sophie, in that you are not so unique. Everybody else's future is made up from blank pages too. It is called the human condition.

 Hurrah for the second series of the Crown! Off to J in a minute to blanket- watch the last episodes with wine and TV supper on our laps... Fabulous.

Mission Accomplished

Sitting by the Christmas tree in the vast Swedish Residence all alone. I am leaving for the airport and Europe in an hour. Eva has left already a couple of days ago, but kind as always she allowed me to stay.

I arrived from Timbuktu yesterday courtesy of the UN flight. It has been an intense month here. One always has the feeling that at any moment the precarious structure that has been built up over the last ten months with our library project in Timbuktu could collapse like a house of cards. I had some time in Timbuktu before my collegues arrived: Father Columba who was with me when we were evacuated in August, and this time also my friends Dmitry Bondarev and his wife Klara: he a linguist and manuscript expert who has been associated with the work in the Djenne Manuscript Library. Before they arrived, our new staff had time to air their views to me. I was struck by the difference between the Timbuktu staff and those in Djenne. These are much more demanding, and to be fair, are also much better educated. They have worked well and after the difficult beginning they are now well on their way and have digitized more than 300 manuscripts already. I was bombarded by requests for pay rises, for swivelling office chairs, for refrigerators and mopeds and, curiously, for MILK. There is some sort of idea  that the manuscripts harbour bacteria and dust that can only be counteracted by the drinking of milk.

I tried my best to explain that when a project is put together the budgets are fixed and that there is not much lea way for the increase of salaries. Certain things we could help with such as the milk request and perhaps the refrigerator. They became quite stroppy with me, and I couldn’t help thinking of the time I had interviewed them in July, when they were so keen to get their first job that they made no demands at all. As far as the pay rises went, I was pleased to be able to refer them to my collegues who were to arrive shortly...

The negociations that followed when Columba and Dmitry arrived were tough for other reasons also, and there arrived a moment when I needed to bring out the spectre of the project being closed down, but in the end I believe we rode out the storm and we came out on the other side with our feathers ruffled but intact. We made a courtesy visit to Imam Essayouti , an experience which  Fr. Columba describes  as similar to  having an audience with the Pope or the Dalai Lama. It is true, he has a great aura.

We also visited the Imam  of the Sankore Mosque (below) and his family library the Al Aquib, an important library which remains in Timbuktu.

Nothing is easy and everything is extreme in Timbuktu and regarding this project. To get on the UN flight is never certain, culture being Priority number 5 on the list of importance. And yesterday I was on standby only. Fortunately there is my friend Joau, the Spanish UN employee who has the last word at the airport on who gets on a plane and who doesn’t... and somehow he always manages to squeeze me on in the end. 

Back to London now. A different world... I have received continual emails about a Christmas dinner I am invited to in London. These messages keep talking about turkeys and Christmas trees and what games we shall play and films we shall watch, whether there should be Christmas presents (of course!) and whatnot. I have had difficulties  relating to these problems but no doubt the Spirit of Christmas will descend on me once I put my bandaged foot on English soil again...

Northwards on the Niger

Two hundred and fifteen years ago Mungo Park sailed down this river on the fateful journey which put an end to his life and exploration in some rapids in northern Nigeria. What he saw on the riverside must have been quite similar to the spectacle that unfolded before us, the hundred or so passengers sailing north on the fast, small river vessel Modibo Keita (right below) making its way between Mopti and Timbuktu’s harbour at Kabara where it moored yesterday.

                                                                      

The sun bakes the vast unchanging river  landscape where there are three colours only : the blue of the sky and the water, the green of the pastures where large herds of cattle graze tended by their Fula shepherds, and  the burnt umber of the earth and the small mud- built villages which dot the shore, but only infrequently in this sparsely populated region. These three colours have been muted and unified by fine layers of  sand from the Sahara into which this  river flows against all geographical likelihood in a northward great arc.  There is almost no sign of modern life in these villages: no satellite discs, no corrugated iron, hardly any cement buildings.  At night the darkness is complete along the shore. 

Decades ago I journeyed down this river for the first time. My memories of that time are different: a livelier scene with more river traffic, more stops at small village ports when the pirogues made their way to the ship to try and sell their produce-mainly fried fish- to the passing ship. That time the ship was the larger and slower General Soumare, which is still used during a few months a year,  but now the water stands too low. I was lucky to catch one of the last journeys on the Modibu Keita.

My fellow passengers were a fairly homogenous bunch of relatively prosperous merchants or civil servants from the Timbuktu region on their way home having spent Maoloud with friends and family in Mopti. The tickets for the 24 hour journey cost 38000FCFA (E58) for a seat on the communal passenger deck. There are also cabins to be had at a costly 180 000FCFA9 (E274).  The journey by road Mopti-Timbuktu by local transport costs only 15000 (E 23) but it is beset by dangers from assorted bandits and anyone with a modicum of means will choose the river. There were four armed FAMA (Forces Armee MAlienne) soldiers on board, occupying the top deck as look-outs and checking all baggage before allowing the passengers on board.

I opted for the seat on the communal deck and did not regret it.  With typical Malian bonhomie the  travellers at my table had soon  incorporated me into their little group. Next to me sat Ibrahim Toure, the General Secretary of the Mairie of Timbuktu. He was attacking Hamza Maiga, the administrator of a prominent Timbuktu NGO sitting opposite me, calling him his ‘slave’. Then he turned to me and suggested that he would sell him to me. Would I be interested? He was not worth much and he would sell him quite cheaply. Maiga objected vehemently and insisted that Toure had got the wrong end of the stick. It was in fact Maiga who would sell Toure to me.  They were engaging in cousinage, the  jolly banter between the different tribes of Mali. Only this time the two protagonists were both from the Songhai tribe. But there is a difference well-known to all Malians, based on a legend of what happened between the Maiga and the Toure in the mists of time, which makes all and sundry able to understand and join in with the teasing, which never fails to provoke hilarity among Malians. There are many who believe that this aspect of Malian social behaviour is the reason which has cemented together the tribes of Mali and prevented the types of inter-tribal violence which has marred so many African nations.

(Some journalists and commentators are now trying to simplify aspects of the present Malian situation by explaining, for instance, certain troubles in central Mali as a tribal problem. Ancient battles have recommenced in the villages of the Macina, the inland delta,  which have been deserted by the law and order  previously provided by the state. The pastoral Fulani are set against the sedentary tribes of the Macina,  and this is described as a problem of race. This always makes me very angry.  This is not a problem which has its root in race but it quite simply  an economic problem. If your cattle invade my fields and destroy my livelihood I will take revenge whatever tribe you happen to belong to. It is not because of your race. I know that is a fine point and in practice it looks like a tribal feud, but it is in the interest of Mali to  promote the truth and that is that Mali’s tribes do not hate each other, on the contrary. )

Another member of the jolly band of travellers at my table was Mme Nana, a land owner from the Commune rural  of Dire.  The owner of six hectares of rice, she was a well-to-do lady. She had fled Dire when the Jihadist invaded in 2012, accompanied by her very sick husband. He died in Mopti one week later. She could not get help for him: the Mopti hospital was overwhelmed by the wounded Malian forces, fleeing Gao in tatters. I remember this moment too well. A Malian father and son arrived at my hotel in Djenne from Mopti. They did not speak at first and they did not want to eat. Finally they described the scenes they had witnessed in Mopti as the Malian army arrived, some bare feet, some incoherent and seemingly drugged, barely able to stand and having had nothing to eat for days.  
 Madame Nana continued to Bamako where she lived for two years before returning to her farm. 

The journey was punctuated by three good Malian style meals, all included in the price. There were continual films on the big screens: some produced by the film making neighbours, the Burkinabe whose soap operas of village life never cease to amuse  Malians. These were interspersed with Indonesian video nasties with much demonic goings-on and much blood spurting while  handsome heroes flew  through the air in impossible Kung Fu acrobatics.

At three thirty in the morning we docked  briefly at Nianfounke, the home of the celebrated late Ali Farka Toure, the blues man of Mali. This feels like the beginning of the North, and now we had arrived  within the territory claimed by the insurgents during their ten month occupation in 2012. 

Once arrived at the Timbuktu port of Kabara the following afternoon at three, I was immediately called over by the local Gendarmes. Who was I? What was I doing there? Why was I on crutches?  Why was I on my own? How long was I staying? Why was there no one there to look after me and greet me? (I must say, I had been wondering the same myself. It turned out later that a misunderstanding was the cause, not neglect..) I was given escort by the gendarmes to their head quarter in the centre of Timbuktu, where I was interrogated by the chief, as well as a nice Spanish man  from the MINUSMA, (the UN mission to Mali) who asked the same questions. Then they called Imam Essayouti from the Djingareber to  check my story. When he had confirmed that I was telling the truth they finally escorted me to my hotel, where I  had dinner and then slept for 14 hours.

Between Birth and Baptism: Maoloud in Djenne.

The house of the Saignon family where this morning’s Koran reading took place nestles deep in the Farmantala neighbourhood  of Djenne. This ancient mud city has developed organically over the centuries and the mud houses have shaped themselves into formations which correspond directly to the needs of this traditional society. No town planning has interfered with the way these narrow alleyways twist and turn between the two storey mud houses, opening up naturally into shapes (not squares) and open spaces just perfectly formed to hold the majority of the town’s faithful if they all sit down tightly placed together on prayer mats, under the awnings spread out for the communal Koran readings which punctuate the Islamic year.

I have been given an invitation to a Koran recitation by the Saignon family who have deposited an an important manuscript collection at the Djenne Manuscript Library. I arrive early, still European enough to believe that 8.30 am means what it says, even after eleven years in this town. I am classed as an ‘honorary man’ it seems, since I am the only woman who attends the inner sanctum of the space reserved for the men. I am even shown to one of the over-stuffed arm-chairs that has been placed in a line for the local dignitaries (albeit the one furthest away, and in direct sunlight). Nevermind. I appreciate that the honour given me is out of the ordinary. 

The Koran reading is already in full swing: chanting, not just reading.  Sometimes a real melodious and rhythmic beauty can be attained, with two sections of the men answering each other in perfect pitch, but now at the beginning, the men’s voices rise in unison with conviction if not always with tonal purety, awaiting the arrival of the rest. 

One by one they arrive: my friends and my foes, all dressed in their finest boubous. There are so many well-known faces. Some greet me with a bow as they file past. Here is Ibrahim my first watchman; here comes Hasseye Traore the son of BiaBia, the Grand Marabout; now Badra, the town councillor for the Djoboro neighbourhood and Djenne’s most elegant man, today in purple embroidered Grand Boubou. He comes all the way over to greet me. And now Maiga, the Village Chief who tried to close the library down saunters past me studiously ignoring me. Next  comes Alpha, my ham-fisted tailor with his brother Bob, who trained my first horse. Here is old Sarmoye, whom Keita loved. He has a gentle face; the head of the Haut Conseil Islamic in Djenne. And here comes the Imam with his entourage. My gentle Yelfa. Now in gold braided cloak and red Fez as befits his position. Was that me he smiled at as he took his place amongst the elders?

Now there is not a space left on the prayer mats. Incense drifts across the assembly as the chanting reaches a long drawn out crescendo.

I do not understand what is chanted. I know it must be the surats referring to the birth of the Prophet, and I also know that there is material written /composed by important Djenne saints and Marabouts which are chanted here each Maoloud. The assembled men all have photocopied sheets with Arabic writing that they are referring to. Before the event of photocopiers, all these sheets had to be copied out by local calligraphers, which is one of the reason there are so many manuscripts in the library which are more or less identical: each notable family had to have enough copies to go around when it was their turn to host a Fatia or a Koran reading.

I am not the only one here who does not understand the meaning of the words. All these men were  once pupils in Djenne’s numerous Koran schools where they learned to recite the Koran by rote. A handful only continued their studies to the level where they came to understand Arabic. Just like the European congregations in the churches of the Middle Ages who did not understand Latin, the ecclesiastical language, the large majority of the Djenne population do not understand the meaning of what they chant in Arabic, the holy language of Islam.

What does it matter? The important thing is that we all sit there together and there is a sense of communal effort to reach beyond ourselves. Because we don’t understand we are all able to invest this ceremony with the concerns that touch us personally. We can invest the chanting with prayers for our loved ones that are gone; for our friends who are grieving the loss of their loved ones; for all our hopes and all our sorrows in a long, monotonous, melodious and sublime lament or celebration which has no resolution but only catharsis.