Africa - Day Two

Paris airport is as expected: expensive. Boutique stores with overpriced designer everything, including a basic cup of coffee, seemed an incongruent overture to our Mali destination. I passed on the urge to spend my mortgage payment on a Cartier necklace or Hermes handbag. Instead, I helped Gillian study her World Religions homework, which seemed much more aligned to our trip. I quietly reserved the right to revisit Paris. Soon.

We would be travelling to Mana, a small village where residents who were Muslim, Christian, or, to a smaller extent, Animisme, came together and did something westerners haven't quite comprehended: they live harmoniously with each other. I was familiar with the first two religions but it wouldn't be until we arrived at the village a couple of days later that I would be introduced to the third, a religion that believes souls live in all forms of life, including animals. Their unfamiliar welcoming ritual kept many of us up that first night in Mana, unclear and not-a-little concerned about the goat they had sacrificed in celebration of our arrival (so not necessary), the brush fires they had lit uncomfortably close to our quarters and the drumming and chanting that continued until dawn.

I also discovered the Animisme don't like having their photo taken, an abrupt lesson I learned at the nearby hospital in Oulessebougou, when I succumbed to the prodding of Karen J., a nurse travelling with our group during a vaccination clinic visit. The haunting image of the Animisme man sitting in the hospital's courtyard was seductive and she wanted the photo. I snapped without permission. And he let me know in no uncertain terms that my camera had captured his image, therefore his soul. He was not impressed with the freckly white woman wearing too much sunscreen and Shape-ups. I quickly buried my camera in my bag, thanked Nurse Karen for the oh-so unique experience and justified in my own mind that a soul was a small price to pay for losing a full night of sleep the evening before. I kept that last little nugget to myself mind you.

The flight from Paris to Bamako was about six hours and I was still loving the luxury and service of Air France. We arrived in Bamako at about 5 p.m., still light enough to see that there wasn't really much to see outside, at least in terms of vegetation or remarkable landmarks. There was however a noticeable military presence all around our plane and we were being held on board. Greg reassured us it was a heightened presence, not normal at all. (Um, good?)

I waited patiently, feeling safer on the plane than off and downplayed the whole scene to Gillian. "It's nothing," I said,"a couple of soldiers with machine guns," consciously under reacting the same way I always did Sunday mornings when Gillian and her sister Veronica would tell me too much about what went on at the teenage parties the night before. My advanced poker-face skills muted Gillian's concerns and before long we learned our hold up was because the Mali Prime Minister had arrived on the landing strip at the same time as our plane. Being very nice Canadians, we gave him the right of way.

We arrived at the guest house in Bamako at 8:30 p.m., a full 24-hours after the journey began at Pearson International Airport. The house was in a gated compound with a security guard on 24-hour duty. It was basic refuge, spacious but not particularly inviting. It wouldn't be until daylight the next day that I realized how pallatial these accommodations were in comparison to the rest of Bamako.

A stack of foam mattresses was piled in the corner. We would each get one and some floor space for the night. With a headcold coming on, I was eager to unpack my sheets and pillow and sleep for a few un-interupted hours.

Some lessons before bedtime:
1. Absolutely no drinking from the taps
2. Any water being used needed to boil for 20 minutes beforehand
3. All dishes, especially cutlery and glasses, would need to be washed in boiling water with Javel bleach
4. No eating fresh fruit or vegetables, especially from street vendors no matter how appetizing they looked; all of it would need to be washed in boiling water and Javel bleach before being edible (The irony was delicious)
5. Cold bottles of Coke were 50 cents
6. Men and women would be sleeping in separate quarters (I was fine with this rule but pitied the married couples who were on the trip together and hoped they had been given the heads up prior to the bus ride from the airport)

I took out my headlight and a roll of toilet paper and placed it next to my floor mat in case I needed to visit the loo in the middle of the night. Beside me on the floor: Vanessa and Sheila, both public health nurses experienced in international relief work; Barb, a senior project manager with Bell and Cathy, a Board member with Hands Across the Nations. We had all given up our comfortable beds to help a village in desperate need of life's basics: health, water and education. Seemed a fair trade to me. It wasn't home, but it felt good.