In Bamako we started to notice, that our plastic water bottles (PET- or Polyethylenterephthalat bottles) were items of value. Our “mama”, who cooked the best food around, used old bottles for her ginger and hibiscus juices. In Mopti you could buy used plastic and glass bottles on the market (for me as tourist for 100 CFA), and they were valuable presents for children. Giving a PET-bottle to children caused serious fights. Since then, we have often been asked for our water bottles, and we started to store them more carefully to give away. We are causing plastic waste in rural Africa. On the other hand, we could be sure, that people here would use them as long as they functioned, and it made their life a bit easier: the bottles are light, they keep the water, and they can be closed easily. They are simply the most efficient storing system for liquids.
Igor explored the Guimini alone early in the morning, and he met an old man who wanted to sell him a wooden mask. Igor started to bargain it for PET-bottles, and he would have got it for 20 bottles.
Stefan, Manuel and I went with Mamadou, who introduced us to the different religious communities: there are Christians, who were drumming last night because of Christmas, there are Moslems, who like to join the festivities of the Christians, because it is always nice to celebrate (and vice versa). And he showed us some of the old, animist cult places, the forbidden areas only certain people are supposed to enter, told us about old prophecies about the new culture to come. He found, it was really important for his people to keep all the old stories (and write them down), but at the same time find their way to the new millennium.
Mamadou turned out to be only 18 years old, and he was about to study mathematics and chemistry in Mopti. Over his door, he had mathematic formulas written, and in his room there were heaps of books.
We asked, why people here were so much friendlier than in Sanga, and did not ask for “cadeaus” all the time. Well – almost no tourists stopped here, only a few passed by from time to time. The village was really remote, with only a few old rock habitations, there were no structures for tourists at all: no hotel, no restaurant, not even a shop. We had found the place we were looking for: what happens to the trash far away from our “civilisation”?
In an interview with Mamadou we found out, that the women collect all the trash one time in the month to put it inside a huge hollow baobab tree. There it turned into humus for the fields. “And what happens to the plastic?” – “There is no plastic”.
About the plastic and paper waste we saw here and there, he said, that it was brought by tourists. It was only a few pieces, and some of our shareholders get nice dividends from a village, that is a bit cleaner now – at least we hope so, because the children were waiting for us to empty our waterbottles, which ended in a battle as usual.
Before we left, I gave the cap I bought in Thailand for my “Asiatopia”-performance with Doris Jauk-Hinz to a man who accompanied us the whole day, and he gave me a carved crocodile – the holy animal of the Dogon.
Mamadou went with us to show us the way out. Driving slowly up the huge sand dune, after about 5 km of driving it became clear, that it was impossible to make it: the sand was too deep and soft, it was really steep. After a surprisingly long backside-debate, we were definitely stuck. It was clear, that we had to go back, but where to go then? It had been possible to go DOWN the sand dune, but up? While still discussing, about 30 people - children and adults came running out of nowhere, and started to cut branches from the bushes to build a track of green leaves on the red desert sand. Then they pushed us up to the top of the dune – our truck of 11 tons! We had no more presents, so they got the rest of our plastic bottle prototypes (big battle again), and about 15.000,- CFA (approx. Eur 25,-). Their routine with this task showed, that it must be a big part of their income.
Survival in Dogon country is quite a task: sometimes it does not rain for a year, and then nothing grows, the animals die, people have no food. We saw wells built by the Chinese, and wells built by GTZ (Gesellschaft Technische Zusammenarbeit, Germany), as well as wells by different US-organisations.
In the late afternoon we arrived at the beginning of the corrugated iron road safely and said “good bye” to the Falaise.
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