Dogon Country Part 1

Pays Dogon lifts me out of slowness. The houses are quiet and square; yellow gray granaries are topped with woven grass hats that twist and lean like drunken dwarfs. As we wind through walled avenues, children attach themselves to us, small grimy fingers easing into our sweaty palms. The old men have creases in their faces; each wrinkle seems to tell the story sun and dirt. One old man with a wide straw hat strikes up a conversation with Yann as he shows him how to create fire out of flint to light his pipe. Everything is small and mud coloured except the tall baobab trees that rise out of the dry earth.

In this country we walk- shedding sweat, gathering dust and becoming more and more awed by the ancient complexity of the towns traditions and their apparent timeless harmony with nature. We pick our way down cliffs, swirled with granite, punctuated by the vibrant green of trees that only show during the few months of rain. Below us stretches a plane that helps me understand how people once believed the world was flat. Wandering troupes of goats and cattle gather where the waterfalls flow.

It is the morning after the rain. Before the clouds came we pointed out stars in an endless sky; I found the direction of the North Star by looking at the Big Dipper. I lay on the roof with Yann, watching sparrows dart through the sky. The sun rises slowly in the east, levelling layers of colour into a brightening sky. I do Yoga, pray, feel peace.

Now I am looking into the cliffs, at the houses that make this country famous. At the top of a steep, rocky incline stretches a row of tall rectangular structures. They are the base of a cliff that rises imposingly another 200 feet into the blue sky. I see small squares of darkness that are windows and yawning gaps that seem to form caves. All of the buildings seem too small to be houses.

The story is that in the 11th century, the Dogon people began a migration, fleeing from Islam in Segou, to finally arrive here in the 14th century. They found the cliffs already inhabited by Pygmies, a race of very small people who seemed to fly to their tiny dwellings in the cliffs. Eventually, the Dogon pushed the Pygmies out and began building their own communities in the cool, dry rock. Over the centuries, the Dogon people have developed a distinct cultural identity, which they maintain today despite heavy tourist traffic and an increasingly challenging environment. This culture is evident in their burial rituals, their elaborate dances, their secret dialects. I am particularly impressed by the circumcision ritual, which all adolescent boys must go through. They spend several months secluded together, learning a secret dialect. When the time comes, after several rituals and dances, they present themselves to the blacksmith. The blacksmith tosses a lime into the air and tells the boy to watch the lime. By the time the lime has fallen, so has the foreskin. I imagine a green lime spinning into the great blue sky, symbol of change.
Our daily trek starts in music when we stop to watch the women pounding mil (like couscous) and Karité (Shea butter) in a communal mortar. The morning is filled with a rhythmic pounding as all across the village, women circle around carved wooden bowls on pedestals with tall walls. Most have babies strapped to their backs in bright indigo fabrics and hold a four foot long staff, carved thin in the centre for better grip. One woman starts by raising her staff high above her head, then hurling it into the bowl, as hers comes out, the next woman’s’ staff falls into the empty space, and finally, the third woman throws her staff in. The pounders fall rhythmically into the bowl, and as the women notice us watching, they grow playful, singing and clapping their hands as they throw their staffs ever higher into the air and pound them ever more violently into the bowl. As often happens in moments like these, I am first touched by the romanticism, the familiarity and simplicity of this daily ritual. The women, their babies, clapping their hands, singing to hold the rhythm fills me with a sense of nostalgia for some past that may never have existed where I come from. Even so, a part of me recognizes how hard these women work for so little. There must only be two or three handfuls of grain in each bowl and the women spend several hours each morning pounding out lunch or creating the butter we pay loads for in the west. After I have tried my hand at the pounding, to the great amusement and delight of these women, I wave goodbye and begin to make my way up to the cliffs.


The Dogon are known to have astronomical knowledge that surpasses and surprises modern day scientists; unfortunately the old hunter who was going to show us has drunk too much local beer, and asks us to come back another time. Instead, we look in awe at the hanging stuffed monkeys, leopards, snakes, beetles, and other unidentifiable animals. He will use these to heal villagers and perform rituals

One coach

Fily stands in front of the classroom. His hands are spidered together, his voice gentle and convincing as he tells his students why he believes in AIDS. He has just asked his class to defend their beliefs in the existence of nonexistence of the disease. After listening to his students express themselves, and summarizing their arguments, Fily steps up, and stands quietly in from of the room, telling why he believes in AIDS. The transpiring young faces lean towards him like lilies, eyes fixed on him, waving fans of hands pause as his words strike into their consciousness.

Fily once played football with a man who was big, strong, fast. No one had believed this teammate when he told them he was HIV+ until he began to grow progressively weaker and skinnier, and finally passed away. Fily finishes by talking about how AIDS has slowly progressed in his country. “I’m first here for myself. I believe in it. Second, I’m here for my family; I’m here for you; I am finally here for Mali.”

110° heat. 100 flies. 50 students. One coach. In this hot, dusty classroom, someone is making a difference.