We slept last night at the Palace of the Chief of Cassa, a pretty amazingly nice compound. It was also right beside the mosque. Cassa is a Muslim village. Tim and I figure that the further north along the escarpment you go the more Muslim influence you find. So far today this seems to have been proven right.
We were given a tour around the village by Babocarr, the chief’s third eldest son who is a student at the university in Bamako but was home due to some illness or another. Cassa is the absolute nicest village I’ve seen here so far. Its got just beautiful landscape, great architecture, and a sense that the people are genuinely glad to see you.
there is one more thing I wanted to mention. There is a pretty disturbing fact of life out here that I’ve been faced with for the past 2 days or so; malnutrition. Most of the towns we’ve gone into over this last while have had a lot of kids that are malnourished. And I probably wouldn’t have probably even noticed it if it weren’t for the drastically swollen bellies. These children are dying because all they can get to eat is millet, and maybe some sauce. The cous harvest isn’t even in yet so they literally only have millet. I doubt these kids get a chance to eat meat at any time other than festivals or special occasions. I know that a lot of them are going to die, and soon. This isn’t so different than Gambia either. The child and infant mortality rates in this part of the world are staggering, and virtually everyone here has touched by the death of a child. It’s really sad… and there’s really nothing I can do about it. I guess I just wanted you all to know.
The night was kinda difficult. Tim, Joe and I are all to one degree or another feeling congested and sick. I’m sure it’s a whole combination of things. The land elevation, the dust in the air, the hiking all day, and probably most significantly the drastic change in temperature from day to night. The nighttimes here are definitely the coldest temperatures I’ve been in for at least a year and a half. It’s really not fun having lots and lots of mucus in you while you’re trying to sleep. We all opted out of the roof last night though and slept much warmer in a room. There really is no point in killing ourselves before we even get to meet the Tourag rebels.
Today’s been a very cool trek through some beautiful landscape up here on the plateau. I wish my head wasn’t so zonked out with mucus, I know I’m missing some good stuff by being so distracted. What I have seen here has really stunned me though. We left Cassa and walked pretty much the whole way up to Conron, the village we were planning on lunching in through some amazing rock formations. The winding path crossed between these huge solitary boulders. Massive, round rocks littered across the area, somehow not connected to one another at all. It really would have been a great place for an ambush. Honestly around every corner I expected to see a cadre of mountain trolls or a horde of masked bandits revealing themselves to prey on us. I really would’ve loved to film something along that path. Maybe even a gunfight, or something with cowboys and Indians.
Anyhow, we arrived in Conron quite early. It’s another Muslim village and had two really nice mosques in it. One that was absolutely huge and stunningly beautiful for such an extremely isolated mountain town. This is about the end of where Goldfish knows people. The local dialects even make it difficult for him to tal with people; but so far we’re still managing. He really does go above and beyond as a guide. After our break we decided to continue on to the next village, Vagala for lunch. One of the chief of Cornon’s sons showed us the way up and down climbing the short toilsome hills (cliffs) and valley’s in the area. For a small boy though he sure walked fast. But then again, I suppose this is his turff. After lunch we’re climbing the final cliff (apparently) and continuing on the plateau to Sirroli where we will encamp for the night. And then it’ll be onto our last day. We’re going to take a shortcut that Goldfish has heard about but never taken before tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll cut the long final stretch out of Dogon country and into Douentza down to a manageable day of hiking.