Carnival

                                                                        

Most – no, this year  ALL- of my Notting Hill friends escape for carnival. Whenever I am in London and have possession of my flat, I cannot help but revel childishly in Carnival. I see all the floats pass by my window on Ladbroke Grove. This morning, at 6.45 I was awoken by the very first steel band accompanying the first revellers of J’Ouvais, the traditional first wave of Carnival. I confess to shedding a little tear of joy and excitement at the appearance of the paint- splattering participants. In 1988 I partook of J’Ouvais in Port of Spain, Trinidad with my then husband John. We flew over  from Tobago in a little plane just for the evening before Carnival, when no one sleeps in Port of Spain. The whole city  vibrates as everyone dances, jumps, shouts and throws paint, chocolate, flour, sugar and anything else at hand in a first orgiastic expression of carnival fever. (picture below of a 'blue Devil, a traditional J'Ouvais character). At eight  the following morning we flew back to Tobago, and the flight crew had to cover our seats with plastic in order to let us sit down, we were so encrusted with carnival debris .  

Another year I took part in all of Carnival at Port of Spain and danced with the legendary band of Peter Minchall, Trinidadian Carnival designer extraordinaire. We were ‘the Desert Storm’, and dressed in far too voluminous outfits. Minchall’s aesthetics always won over more practical considerations- we were to dance through  the streets of Port of Spain for ca 18 hours after all, but that was of no interest to him ... Onlookers stood ready in the streets and gardens of the city with drinks, sweets and SALT as we danced past – it is amazing how one craves salt after 12 hours continuous dancing !

Traditional carnival behaviour includes the 'wining',  which is, to be honest, more or less simulated sex while dancing with total strangers. It is all part of carnival and actually quite innocent- at least I have always found it so. During carnivals in Port of Spain the 'wining' is extreme, but it always goes as far as one wants it, and no further. If one has had enough, one just leaves, and 'wines' somewhere else. But when I 'did' Carnival in Rio one year in the early 2000's, I found that Brazilians seemed to be much more easily chocked. I 'wined' like I used to in Port of Spain, and my dancing partners definitely thought, quite mistakenly, that I was 'up for it'. I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes  at such provincial attitudes and suggested they should get out more and experience carnival at

Port of Spain..

Some years ago my brother Anders used to stay with me often in my Notting Hill flat when he worked in London. He was with me one Carnival for the whole experience including the J’Ouvais madness; then onto the time honoured Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues, run by the son of blues legend John Mayall at the Globe in Talbot Road where we parked ourselves for the duration of Carnival, to the rythms of Rock Steady, Ska and early Marley, as well as fabulous jazz/blues live offerings.

Alas, this year as I directed my steps once again  to the legendary Globe on Talbot Road I was profoundly disappointed to find that just this year there was a break- no Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues until next year for ‘Family reasons’ ! Oh, NO! 

Today the rain is pelting down on the Carnival revellers as they pass by my Ladboke Grove window. But no one seems to mind. I am casting my eyes over the sea of humanity gyrating to the strains of Soca- that life giving sound from Trinidad that doesn’t really live outside the frame of carnival. How much fun there is to be had at carnival, and I am very grateful that I am able to suck it in. It would be very easy to turn one’s nose up and say’ No, thank goodness I am escaping to the country side!’ but Glory hallelujah I am still childish enough to love carnival...

Hippie Chick

Mostly one doesn’t know what people think  of one. It is always interesting, of course, to hear reports... like the other day when my friend Nicholas put his foot in it and it became clear that our mutual friend Alice Walpole- who is now in Baghdad, but who was the British ambassador to Mali last year- had described me in a certain way... He back pedalled but I insisted that he told me: how had she described me? And there it was: I am a ‘hippie chick’ according to Alice.

I don’t mind in the slightest. Hell, yeah,  I am a hippie chick! We had all the best music- there is simply no comparison.  I am sitting here at home tonight  cutting stencils for the work tomorrow , and I am listening to Jethro Tull- how lovely. Thick as a Brick, Aqualung- have not heard this for years- how evocative and how it transports me far away- well, not geographically as a matter of fact, only to the little village of Blewbury which featured in this journal for the wedding just a couple of weeks ago... that is where I spent some of my early years, indeed as a little hippie chick with my boyfriend, later husband Mike (picture above). And what else did we listen to? Ah, the Doors, Hendrix, Dylan, Led Zeppelin- and Traffic. The latter band used to spend time on the Downs and we ran into them now and then- Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi. They wrote a song called ‘Girl from the Villages’- we thought we knew the girl who inspired it.  And they recorded  the sweetest old English folksong called John Barleycorn which I just remembered and found- What joy to have Spotify!

Later, sure, I dived in and took what was new and good and came along- I became potty over the Pixies and must have been to all their mad London gigs in the beginning of the nineties- and there was Nirvana of course and Mudhoney- whose singer/songwriter I ran into in Bamako a couple of years ago...

And now? A lot of classical  - which I have also always loved.  And all the Malian music of course, which I used to listen to with Keita, who was a great music lover.

Not sad exactly...

I have every reason to be rejoicing: tomorrow I am beginning to paint the floor canvas for Auckland Castle. I have just returned from a lovely short holiday in Sweden. My dear god children have just passed their A-levels with flying colours. Soon there will be an exhibition at the British Library  celebrating the manuscripts of Djenne, and that is perhaps something that I might be proud of. On Saturday some great friends are coming for dinner and we will have fun- for sure.

But I am listening to Kar-Kar  (Boubakar Traore) and nostalgia for the  joyous times in the old, happier Mali is invading my soul. How lucky I was to live there and for a brief few golden years experience such an idyll at my hotel!

Mali have chosen their president, and it is IBK once more, with 67.17% of the votes. But Malians  went to the urns with scant enthusiasm, and only 34.84% of the population bothered at all, as the population  has seemingly lost their belief in the possibility of change, in peace and the return  of better times.

And Aretha has left us today... RIP great lady.

Wedding hat update

Back in England and straight into deepest Oxfordshire and the ravishing little village of Blewbury for the  very jolly wedding of darling Giulietta and Rory. Didn't take many pictures, was too busy having fun and catching up with many people I hadn't seen for twenty years!

Travelled there by train with Jeremiah- here at Paddington (I chose hat no 9, as suggested by Robyn - Gardenia, and her countrywoman Marianne- in post comment on 'Indulge me please' on June 20th and wore Malimali Giraffe Dress)

The lovely bride wore a beautiful lace creation:

 outside St. Michael's Church with David:

                                                    Delicious food and wine in marquee

                                                            then the dancing was opened ...

Leaving Mali

The Mali trip is nearly done. As ever, fraught with difficulty but at the same time spilling over with precious memories and cram packed with life...

 I spent four days in Djenne, this time with my friend and collegue Maria Luisa Russo, who is also working with the manuscripts through the University of Hamburg. Although I may be inhabiting a fool’s paradise, I never feel worried for my safety in Djenne: all is so familiar- my big lovely bed is the best ever- and when I tuck myself in at night making sure the mosquito net is fitting snugly- keeping mosquitoes and creepy crawly undesirables out-  I feel as if nothing can touch me. I guess it wouldn’t provide much protection against a Jihadist with an AK47 though... but somehow I just feel safe and happy in Djenne. I made a visit to dear Imam Yelfa of course (above). 

 Of all my old staff Papa is doing best: he has opened a restaurant at the place in Djenne which used to be called Chez Baba. I feared it would not work, since there are no tourists in Djenne. But there are enough Malians still around who are not from Djenne and who ‘eat out’, like the bank manager M. Maiga whose family is in Bamako. Papa (standing up above) provides him and others with food every night.  Maria Luisa and I took the staff from the library for dinner on our last night. Those who have been at Hotel Djenne Djenno may recognize the chairs and the tablemats! 

But all is not safe and happy in and around Djenne- far from it. The situation in the surrounding villages has deteriorated since my last visit in April. The sudden rise in unaccustomed tribal fighting has multiplied and hearts and attitudes are hardening. The ‘Jihadists’or ‘bandits’ as the Djenne population prefer to call them, are carrying out attacks on the village population and are preventing them from cultivating. People have been killed while they are peacefully out sowing their fields. Therefore the villagers are scared to go into their fields:  ergo, famine will inevitably follow next year. Meanwhile the Dozo are getting better organized and armed- some say the Malian State are providing funds.  But the population itself is raising funds for the militia- if the state protection disappears, they will necessarily find other means to protect themselves.

Poor Maman, my erstwhile waiter and barman and now my guardian and bogolan worker at my house and studio, has been obliged to get into serious debt. His mother, a possibly well-meaning but overbearing person that forced him to get married when he was not ready, has now insisted that he provide 200 000 FCFA so his last remaining brother in the village can buy a gun for the family home in the village of Tabato- and support the Dozo militia. This he has done, because he feels he has no choice. People are wanting to leave Djenne- there is a deep, almost tangible  apathy and fear in the air;   into which IBK’s electioneering visit last week seems to have made no great dent. 

 Timbuktu was calm when I visited- although I had to sort out plenty of internal project difficulties- however, today I got the following message from Halimatou, our local boss:

‘Dear Sophie, since yesterday three vehicles have been burned by gangs of youths in Timbuktu.This morning about 9 am there was sustained rifle  fire in the market and it is still going on (written 13.30 pm)The team had started working but we decided that everyone should leave for home because of the insecurity.  We must all pray for the city of Timbuktu.’

This fighting was also, according to Youssouf Traore, one of our workers, a question of race: the white youths against the blacks- which means the Arabs, and  possibly the Tuaregs against the Songhai and other dark skinned people, I assume- this is a new development too and not normal in the town of Timbuktu itself, certainly! 

And meanwhile In Bamako the 24 presidential candidates are falling over themselves  creating ever greater election promises... here are some of them, a few viewed from the comfort of the Swedish Ambassadorial car:

 

 and finally, for the very last time, I spent a few lovely days with Eva in the Swedish residence. I cannot think what it will be like to come here when she is gone... but she is now leaving after the elections having spent five years here as ambassador. I could never express how much it has meant to me to count her as my friend  and to have spent so many happy times with her - now and when Keita was with us and used to sit in the garden under the mango tree and drink Malian tea with the security staff. He called her 'ma troisieme femme..' God Speed to Eva in her new life in Sweden.

 

                                                                               

                                                                             

Timbuktu done..

 And back in Bamako briefly before setting off shortly for other northward climes... the above is an admirable attempt by someone at the UN to beautify, with a little fountain in a plastic wash basin, the new 'airport' in Timbuktu, which is now situated in a large prefab after the destruction of the airport building a couple of months ago during a Jihadist attack.  I nearly did not get on the flight- it is getting virtually impossible now and I had to plead with my friend the Governor of Timbuktu (see the very first entry to this  journal...) to arrange a place for me to return to Bamako. He did. Al hamdullillah, and here I  find myself, after a challenging visit to the team in Timbuktu as always... More later. The nature is so different: here the plane leaves Timbuktu where not a drop of rain has fallen, and it arrives in a verdant rainy season  Bamako...

More soon...

Uncertainties

An early morning view of the River Niger from the balcony of the Swedish Residence.
I am so lucky to stay here now, although Eva is on holiday- I will see her for the  last week of my stay in Mali at the end of the month  and that will be the very last time in this place which has occupied such an important position  in my universe during  the last 5 years: Eva is now retiring.

I wish I could write freely about my plans and and movements, but alas it would be foolish...I spent last night at the American Club in Bamako where they were having a belated Independence Day celebration. There I conferred with Paul Chandler, a interesting American who knows a lot about Mali and how to get from A to B using unorthodox methods because he organizes music festivals all over the country, mostly in inaccessible places. He put me in touch with various people who will hopefully be able to get me to Timbuktu and back by traditional means, since the UN flights are becoming virtually impossible to board. I spent most of Friday at the airport trying to get on a flight to Timbuktu, but was told to come back and try again after the weekend. So that is what I will do tomorrow morning of course. But failing that, I will get there by other means of which i cannot speak until I am happily back again..and I may not say much while I am there either, since I do not want to draw attention to myself. So please bear with me in what may be a week or so of radio silence. I am in touch with Cat, the new ambassador  at the British Embassy.