Dogon Adventure

There are some things you do on vacation not really because you want to do them, but because someone else talks you into it, or because you know it is the thing you are supposed to do while there. I’ll admit it. That was pretty much me and the idea of trekking for three days in an area of Mali known as Dogon Country. Dogon consists of a series of villages built on or at the base of a 500 meter high escarpment jutting out from a vast area of flat land. The Dogon people settled here a thousand years ago, and life here has not changed much since. Villages consist of two kinds of buildings – mud huts with mud roofs for the people, and mud huts with thatch roofs for the millet. Villages house a few hundred people and are separated by a few miles, most of which is filled with millet fields or other crops. With few exceptions, there is no electricity, no modern plumbing, no modern conveniences (except strangely good cell phone service). Wells, where they exist, are outside the village walls, so all water must be carried in. Your doctor is the village medicine man. Anything you need that you don’t grow, make or kill is bought at markets which rotate from village to village. This means walking miles with your goods for sale, and back with whatever you bought. This is mostly women’s work. Dogon women learn at an early age how to carry large loads on their heads, including very large buckets of water, without toppling or spilling a drop.

A tourist market has cropped up, where people pay money to walk from village to village, tour the village and spend the night sleeping under the stars. This is what Laura wanted to do. Really, really wanted to do. Me? Trekking 3k to 7k at a shot in 100+ degree heat for 3 days? With no “real” toilets or showers? Wearing the same thing for 3 days to keep our packs light? Yeah, not so much.

Not only did I do it, I am glad Laura talked me into this. It was an incredible experience.
It started on Thursday morning, when our guide, Seydou, picked us up. We drove about 45k, then switched cars where we drove another 20k up a slow incline. We arrived at our first stop – the village of Djigubombo. We walked around, talked to the elders, and learned about the village. For the next 2 days we walked around 20k – not a huge distance, but throw in extreme heat, and walking conditions that ranged from dirt road to sand to steep paths made from huge rocks, and it was a challenge for me. We covered two villages per day, stopping for lunch and a break from the mid-day heat & sun (or, in one case, a swim under a waterfall), then going on to a second village where we spent the night. It gets dark by 6pm, and by 9:00 we were heading to bed, to sleep on a rooftop under more stars than I have ever seen. (Mosquito nets provided by the villages, luckily.)

Our last night was spent in the village of Benemato – my favorite. It sits on top of the escarpment, and getting there was no easy task. A steep succession of large rocks created our path, and it was hard climbing for me (easy going for Seydou), but the view from the top was worth it. A vista point slightly outside the village provided a view of more land than I have ever seen from the ground. It was perfectly flat and went forever. The view of the village from above seemed surreal. It is really hard to believe people still live like this when there is a modern (comparatively) city so close by.

Laura and I made it back to Mac’s Refuge – our home away from home in Sevare – around 5:00 Saturday night. The only thing I could think of was shower, shower, shower. Then shower some more. I was dirty, smelly and tired. But very glad Laura persisted in getting me to experience Dogon Country.