Dogon Country, Mali

This week I went on one of the most amazing and challenging vacations of my life. Being a PCV in West Africa, you constantly hear about Dogon country in Mali. All I knew about it was that it was some type of mountain formation, and a lot of volunteers hiked it. I really wasn’t all that interested in hiking mountains for a week, but I got invited by a fellow volunteer and figured, hell, why not. So, I was off… headed for Mali.

As I was sitting in the taxi, sweating because it was the middle of the desert, we drove over a hill and I got my first glimpses of Dogon country. I immediately realized why volunteers come here and realized this was going to be an incredible trip.

The Dogon people, up until very recently (1960’s) lived in mud houses built into the side of mountains. At about that time, the forest at the base of the mountains was disappearing and the pygmy people who lived in the forest migrated to the DRC, which allowed the Dogon people to move out of their cliff houses to the base of the mountains. Luckily, their houses and mountain-side villages are still intact today.



The Dogon people were 100% animist. Today, they are still mainly animist, but there are also Catholics and Muslims as well. During the trip, we got to see a lot of their ‘fetishes’ (black magic). When we first arrived in Dogon, we saw an amazing waterfall. Our tour guide, Oumar, informed us that the waterfall is cursed. The Dogon believe the waterfall is sacred, and therefore do sacrifices for it. Last year, despite the warnings of the Dogon not to swim in the waterfall, tourists did swim there. According to Oumar, when the tourists got in the water, the water turned boiling hot, which scalded and killed the tourists immediately. This is not the first or only story about the sacred waterfall killing naïve tourists.



Oumar, our tour guide, is from Dogon. He not only speaks English, but knows everything there is to know about Dogon. He was an incredible guide and made our trip what it was.



Because I knew nothing about Dogon before going there, I was not anticipating how challenging the trip would be. I thought we would just saunter along the mountains for a few days, passing villages and seeing the mountains houses. This could not have been more wrong. We hiked into the mountains and to the mountain peaks. If this were America, you would definitely have to sign a death waiver, or have special mountain climbing certifications to do this. It was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Day 2 of our climb, Oumar points to a crevasse at the top of the mountain, and says, “You see that gap up there? That’s where we’re climbing today”. I thought he was fucking with me, but a few hours and 3 blisters later, I was sitting at the top of the mountain looking down on the village we just came from.



Never in my life have I been so scared that I couldn’t move… until this trip. At one point, we reached a ladder carved out of wood resting between two rocks. Once again, I thought Oumar was fucking with me when he said we had to climb that ‘ladder’. I put one foot on the ladder, and made the biggest mistake ever… I looked down. I looked down into nothing-ness. There was nothing below the ladder! At this point, I really didn’t think I could make it. I thought I was going to have to turn around. Luckily, that fear lasted about 5 seconds and I was able to push myself through it. Then, thankfully I was at the other side.



I could continue writing about this trip, but instead, I want you to see the pictures. I uploaded the rest onto my snapfish account and they’ll do a hell of a lot better explaining this trip then I ever could, so enjoy :)
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3567594022/a=1579671022_1579671022/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/