Life goes on...

 

Life goes on in Mali for most of its people as if there hadn’t been any coup d’etat. And I suppose for most people it won’t make any difference. For the poor- by far the greatest part of the population- who struggle to put enough food on the table for their families every day life exists from day to day and nothing changes, only the clemency or the severity of the seasons. Above is one of the many enterprising market gardeners who attempt to make a living on the side of the road in Bamako.

 The Djennenke  (the population of Djenne) are suffering the severity of a particularly abundant rainy season just now. There has been unprecedented rainfall and many houses have fallen. However much I sympathize with the Djennenke in their plight, I can’t help feeling selfishly relieved that I am no longer in charge of a mud hotel… The rainy season was always a nightmare, because in happier times the beginning of the rainy season used to coincide with the ‘Spanish Season’, when southern Europeans tend to take their holidays. My guests would be slipping and sliding on the forecourt of Hotel Djenne Djenno trying – often unsuccessfully-to reach their rooms or the bar without falling over in the slurry descending from my mud walls which were disintegrating in the onslaught of the Mali tempests. 

                                                                                   

The picture above  illustrates quite graphically what happens on mud walls if they are not cared for- the Museum is falling apart. It was one of those gifts from Western coffers- the EU. Noone here actually wanted a Museum I believe. It is a very European idea. The locals said 'yes, thanks, sure we want a Museum if that is what you want to do.' It has been there for about ten years now. There has never been any exhibitions there and it is virtually unused. It is now a problem because it is huge and it needs to be looked after with a yearly mud plastering but since no one is really interested in a Museum it will now stand there and disintegrate. The gate below is the entrance to the area which houses the Campement hotel and the Mairie. This is falling apart because since the disappearance of the tourists all the impetus has gone out of maintaining any of the beauty of Djenne’s  architecture. 

                                                                          

  

More or less all the communal buildings are neglected - this the Post Office in a sorry state of repair:

                                                                               

The Mosque and the Library are the only ones that are receiving that all important  yearly mud plastering.                                                       

The problem about the rainy season here is that no one goes out. I am sitting here alone in my ‘suite’ at the venerable Campement Hotel. I have had my dinner, brought to me by Papa, my old chef at Hotel Djenne Djenno who knows what I like to eat- this evening he brought the  coleslaw I taught him to make with some grilled chicken and tomorrow he will bring me ‘GadoGado’ a Dutch Indonesian inspired dish that my  Dutch friend Birgit taught him to prepare. It is lovely to be able to see ‘my’ old staff. I am not about to go slipping and sliding around town so this will be an unusually ‘stay in’ visit to Djenne.

The local people I speak to are mostly the people I work with at the library or old friends of Keita’s. They are nearly all in favour of the coup d’etat and  the removal of IBK, even the members of his own party. Tomorrow I will try and venture down the slippery alley where my old friend Yelpha the Imam lives to see what he thinks about it all…