Sailing to Timbuktu aboard the cutlure boat Kankou Moussa
by Perdita Houston
It was a December mid-afternoon as we caught our first glimpse of the Kankou Moussa, a river boat three decks high, and as majestic as a Mississippi sternwheeler, minus the wheels. German-built in the 1960s, our vessel was freshly painted white with bright blue trim, fully fueled and inspiring our confidence. The quay was crowded with local gawkers drawn to the boat's rare and sparkling vision and curious to see who would board her: Mali's painters, photographers, film-makers, writers, a historian, a host of musicians, and those of us fortunate to join them on a cultural cruise up the great Niger River to legendary Timbuktu.
A small gentle man who identified himself as the boat's jatigui, or chief, led us all aboard, helped us identify our luggage, and find our staterooms. His welcome was gracious and reassuring; we were, he said, to let him know if we needed anything during the voyage. His reddened eyes revealed that both he and his crew had been up all night with last-minute painting, decorating, and organizing. The boat was a treasure of Malian handiwork: colorful woven mats, bogolan cloth, Dogon indigo curtains, baskets, and hand-woven blankets that served as bed covers. Traditional pottery, placed carefully in a corner, or a traditional hat hung on the wall, welcomed the eye in a simple yet elegant way.
From the upper deck balcony we watched pirogues slide by, slender canoe-like boats of all sizes, poled or rowed by adolescent boys and piled high with vegetables or baskets with mysterious contents. It was late afternoon and the local public transportation system was carrying villagers home after a day of marketing. The quayside crowd doubled in a few minutes.
Those who were bringing supplies aboard had to push their way through onlookers; porters carrying three live chickens in each hand, baskets of fresh fish or legs of mutton, cartons of bottled spring water, huge niams, and dozens of enormous watermelons. The last three porters appeared through the crowd balancing huge rolls of hand-woven reed mats, dozens of them rolled up, on their heads. The mats were to be the carpets on which we sat during rooftop concerts or discussions on history, art or art policy, during our three-day adventure.
The quayside crowd shouted, waved, and began to sway to inaudible rhythms. It wasn't until the music began that I understood the attraction. Six fellow passengers, musicians, were setting up on the boat's roof: loudspeakers, drums, electric keyboard and guitars, saxophone, flute-all preparing to cast off to a Malian jazz concert. Half an hour before sunset, with a hoot from the boat's horn and irrepressible music from its roof, we cast our lines and shipped out. Onlookers danced and waved, enjoying the spectacle of our "culture boat" as much as its music.
As we entered the channels of the great Niger, we, like a giant whale, had our pilot fish: a dozen or so pirogues that wanted to get a closer look at our floating party. As the sun dipped, a sailed pirogue floated past, silhouetted by the multi-colored sky, a symbol of the quiet and freedom we would experience in the days ahead.
Suddenly it was night. And quiet. At this season, the sun drops quickly behind the horizon and the darkness took us by surprise. The settlements along the riverbanks are invisible except for the silhouettes of huts lit up from time to time by a cooking fire. The only noise was human sounds, the tinkling voices of children at play and the humming of family gatherings. The night breeze rose swiftly and our African night was suddenly cool.
Dinner began with a ginger drink garnished with fresh mint leaves and roasted Malian groundnuts. Couscous, mutton, vegetables, and fruit were served on white table cloths covering a horseshoe arrangement of tables. Passengers leaned together, attempting to learn about each other.
Our conversations ended when a fellow passenger, the encyclopedic historian, Bakary Kamian, introduced his intent to take us on an historical journey to past empires and their kings who had, like us, crossed these regions of Mali. We were held rapt not only by the man's stories, dotted with dates and precise details, but with his formidable memory. Never, for an instant, did he hesitate in his account. Caught up in the legends and tales of what was then known as the Sudan, a vast extent of desert and savannah that swept across the African continent, the elderly historian transformed before our eyes into village storyteller in the oral tradition of Africa. His tour de force made one realize how underdeveloped human memories are in our developed world. His dinner comments served as an introduction to the Byzantine politics he would explain at length the next day.
Before going to bed, I climbed the stairs to the roof from where I could marvel at the immensity of the black sky, so rarely seen in total darkness. The stars hung nearby, closer to earth than seemed possible. Had we risen to meet them in some way? The dark silent emptiness was comforting. The soft voice of the Cameroonian singer and guitarist, Ray Lema, rose from below and was carried outward to the immense plains on either side of the river.
At 3 a.m. I woke suddenly to silence. No engines pushed us forward. I pulled back the window curtain and saw two huge phantom-like palm trees within a couple of meters of my window. Had we drifted onto a sand bar? Was there trouble? I could see nothing but those two magnificent trees in the vast emptiness of the night.
I was later told that we had anchored at the "parking lot" of these two palm trees in order to enter the immense inland sea known as Lake Debo through a series of winding channels with the benefit of sunrise. In the pre-dawn darkness lily pads floated past, egrets took flight, and I watched families lighting breakfast fires at camps along the river's banks. I treasured the silence, the rare African phenomenon of the absence of sound. The first pirogues were noiselessly poling out to a day of trading or fishing. The silence was so complete, and surrounding. The cackles of daybreak were an hour away.
As the sun mounted the cloud bank that hovered over the horizon, we discovered a world of marshlands, grasses of different shades of green, light, dark, darker. We were caught in a labyrinth of channels, most, I suspect, leading into the lake, and all reflecting a morning silver from the rising sun. I knew then that our boat was guided by a genius, for never could one guess from which riverlet we had come. The way out was necessarily forward. And, always, just when you are convinced there could be no human in such a measureless space, a pirogue emerged from the reeds and floated past. The fishing people, known as the Bozos, are nomads, their homes and villages abandoned or revisited with the seasons of rising or descending waters.
As we dined on a breakfast of coffee, tea, fresh bread, butter, honey, watermelon, and sardines, we readily discussed-in no particular order-geology, bird life, Saddam Hussein's latest antics, cultural tourism, and alligators sadly turned into shoes and handbags. As the inland sea surrounded us, we lost sight of land. Few pirogues were visible and small waves were whipped up by the breeze.
Lake Debo is reduced by two thirds during the dry season and is the largest body of water in all of West Africa. Smack in the middle of the Saharan expanse. Softened by the expanse of water, the light was no longer the crushing brilliance of the West African sun and tufts of green emerged from the water to provide occasional pillows for weary birds. Marshes stretch out along the lake's perimeter, providing spawning grounds for young fish.
Looking out "to lake," I saw chicken feathers flying from the deck below: lunch was being prepared. A trip to the kitchen revealed a series of logs, emerging from the kitchen door and from the stove itself. The wood brought aboard for the stove was far too long, but there was no saw or hatchet aboard the Kankou Moussa.
Bakary Kamian held us rapt in the tales of ancient battlefields, now pastures, and pointed out formations or hills where conquering kings were laid to rest. A map on the wall of the room that was alternately our dining room, exhibition hall, and conference center showed us that Lake Debo was about the size of Austria. The historian's pointer traced the routes of trans-Saharan trade, of nomadic herders, of roving fishermen. He described Djenne, the beautiful island city that was founded 300 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, and told us of the accomplishments of Kankan Moussa, the Malian king who wrote a book on protocol in 1324, carried 12 tons of gold to Mecca on the backs of thousands of camels-enough riches to depress the currencies of Egypt and Arabia combined-and in 1360 sent a diplomatic mission to Morocco accompanied by a giraffe. He informed us of the Bozo river peoples who had enjoyed special status with whatever kingdom was in power for it is they who ensured the transportation of goods and people for armies and commerce. And he detailed the organizational genius of Sekou Amadou, who distributed land and pasture rights in 1820. He listed the ethnic groups, explained the influences of Moroccans, Ghanaian empires, and of Libya and the Saharan salt and slave trades. He told of the short- and long-lived empires and described the demise of each.
Writer and poet Albakaye Ousmane Kounta, himself a native of Timbuktu, introduced us to the traditional tales of griots and legend. He read from his books of poetry and, whether we understood the words or not, each of us was captured by them, for his ease with language turned them into irresistible rhythms. There was talk about how one million slaves per century were sent north across the Sahara. If you were born a slave in a home, he said, you were the most trusted member of the master's household, second in command. But, it appears, most slaves where obtained through conquest and were then sold throughout the Middle East. Or you could become enslaved as punishment for a crime such as murder or theft, or to put an end to a family's local ridicule.
Our learning period continued for two-and-a-half hours, interrupted only by waiters offering a sweet milk-like drink made with the juice of the Baobab tree. The legends of Mali were interrupted, however, when the boat's horn hooted our arrival at Akka, a large permanent village where our cooks would go ashore to buy vegetables and, probably, more chickens. A crowd quickly formed on shore and from my rooftop perch I could see the beauty of the village architecture, pure lines decorated with whimsical arabesques, all unchanged for centuries. The mosque was of unusual beauty. As I took photographs I wished that this town would never be invaded by corrugated iron roofs or plastic.
The silver-sun on water-followed us all day. It wasn't until late afternoon that we completed the lake crossing and entered river channels once again. Single palm trees stood on slices of land that emerged like fingers from water's edge. Tiny hamlets, some abandoned, looked like vacation villages on the far banks. From time to time, I saw spots of white herds of goats or sheep, a tree plantation established to try to control riverbank erosion.
We had entered a strange region where to the right side we saw bright green, irrigated, rice fields and to the left, the ubiquitous Saharan sand dunes. Villages bearing no trace of foreign influence, stood as sentinels along the river. Pirogues under sail slipped by and the elevation of a village suddenly lifted 15 feet above the shore, homes strewn up the hillside like a tower.
Our dining room turned into a workshop where painters and craftsmen worked at their tables. In one corner a coura musician demonstrated the range of his remarkable instrument, and in another, the poet Abdelkaye Kounta read from his books.
As the sun descended, we entered a region of dunes that reminded us that we were traveling on a life-giving 4,200-kilometer river through one of the world's greatest deserts. The sun shed a pink glow, and we talked of development, urbanization, and pollution, happy to be far from it. Our musicians performed another sunset concert, and our triple-decker culture boat hooted our arrival at Niam-fumke, a regional administrative center. It is also the home of Ali Farka Touré, the gifted Malian musician, known around the world. The Kankou Moussa's searchlight lit up the crowd on the wharf that had come to greet the culture boat. In the drifting bright light, Ali Farka stood a head above the rest of the crowd and waved. He, and everyone around him, swayed to our rooftop music.
With the grace of a gazelle, Ali Farka leaped aboard, leading two ewes and a large ram. Each was snow-white and well-fed. The second ewe was a beauty and looked as though she had been made up for the occasion: her lips were black, her eyes surrounded with black, and the tips of her white ears touched with black. They were gifts for the Minister of Culture, Aminata Dramane Traore, our cruise hostess.
Ali Farka joined us for the riverboat trip northward. With a smile as bright as the African sun, he played his guitar accompanied by the four musicians he brought on board. As he played, he swayed once again. It was catching: soon the dancing began and Ali Farka towered above us all. He danced with infinite grace, barely touching the ground with his immense feet.
A late-night buffet was served on a carpet of reed mats. Soon, all attention turned to Ali Farka, who told stories about the relationships of ethnic groups around Niamfumke. Abdelkaye Kounta said Ali should make songs of these stories. Ali Farka, who has never attended school, agreed that it should be done because educated people don't know the history as well.
The next day musicians played the coura, the balafon, and a flute while we ate a breakfast of widjila, dumplings in mutton sauce, a traditional Timbuktu dish, fruit and drank coffee. Tuareg tents began to appear on the river bank, but to our surprise, we could see no camels. This was the season when all healthy camels are in caravans to the north, bringing precious salt slabs back to the villages.
The topic of the morning was the Niger River culture, the cycle of life of its people, flora and fauna and its life-giving rice, fish and cattle. I realized then that I was part of a shared experience; most of my Malian companions had never traveled this river, and few among them had visited Timbuktu. They, like me, were discovering Malian history, culture, and each other.
The city of Timbuktu, once close to the river, now sits eight kilometers inland, hidden by the invading sands. Timbuktu, spelled Tombouctou in French, was settled around the home of a young girl named Bouctou who gave water to 11th-century travelers making the difficult desert crossing. Her well, called a tom, (or its replica) sits in the courtyard of a small museum visited by 20th-century tourists. As we approached Timbuktu's port, called Koriome, we saw a finely dressed crowd of singing Tuareg women, children, and the governor and his cabinet, who stood. After passing through the line, we sped to town in a bus and a few cars and reached the Hotel Bouctou amid swirling dust, more music, more official greetings, cold drinks, and lunch.
We explored the city on foot, following narrow alleyways, relishing the architectural style of each home and shop, peeking into doorways, and smelling the spices. Timbuktu's two famous mosques are of unusual beauty; the 13th-century Djinjariber mosque is a structure of great beauty, a puzzle of columns, sand, and light. Cool and quiet, it is a place of serene reverence. It was almost time for prayers when we reached the Askia mosque, so we only walked around it, praising its simple beauty. We walked past houses where the first foreign explorers had stayed when they reached the "veiled city." The plaque on one house indicates that René Caillie, a Frenchman, lived here in 1828.
A visit to the library known as the Ahmed Baba Center, was, for me, upsetting: 13th-century manuscripts were displayed on tables where viewers could turn their pages. Only the driest of climates like that of the Sahara Desert could have preserved these precious documents on pharmacology, commerce, or history, written in Sonhrai and Peuhl using the Arabic alphabet. The museum's director said they have no funds for shelving. The rest of us exchanged anguished glances. We fear for these priceless documents that could be so easily stolen or permanently damaged by visitors.
As the sun set on this ancient city, we returned to our river boat for our final dinner. For three days the Kankou Moussa sailed up the great winding Niger, opening our eyes to Malian culture, our ears to its music, and our hearts to the people. The culture cruise had bound its passengers to its memory: We exchanged names and numbers and agreed that we were among the luckiest of travelers to have floated through the vast Sahara to the mysterious veiled city of the girl Bouctou.
After dinner, Ali Farka Touré again invited his local friends on board to sing their songs in a multitude of languages. A group of Tuareg youth too poor to own instruments borrowed Ali's guitar and sang their songs of peace and brotherhood long after most passengers had gone to bed.
Perdita Huston served as Peace Corps country director in Mali from 1997 to 1999, and recently became country director in Bulgaria. She wrote "Changing Lives on the Nile" in the winter 1997-98 issue of this magazine.
