 |
With each passing day and even each passing
hour the passengers progressively become more and more at easy with
one another and person space is evaporating. Initially when people
passed each other in the narrow corridors they were very formal about
personal space, by the second day people are stopping to talk, put
hands on shoulders, sharing activities and games, taking photos of new
friends, showing postcards of home, trading addresses, dancing and
generally acting more like an interwoven extended family, than clumps
of strangers.
As non-luxurious as the riverboats of the Niger are, beyond our
floating world is the even more basic world of Bozo village (the
ethnic group of the river), boatmen and fishermen, and Fulani herders
and herds. If the boat never passed this way again I doubt if their
world would change, and other than providing images they don't
contribute to the boat. These were separate worlds passing in the
cosmos. The origin myth of the Bozo says they came from Egypt 5000
years ago.
Most people would label getting off the boat a 100% African
experience, though I expect a version of the same dynamics can be
found on most every continent. In space less than half the length of
the boat - because that is as long as the usable portion of the dock
is -- hundred of people are jostling to off-load and on-load the boat
at the same time. The people try to get off have no place to go
because of the push of people trying to get on. Through this scrimmage
we needed to move our panniers, helmets, water bottle, packs with
valuables, pumps and bicycles - way to many things that are either too
small or too big. To add to the challenge you need to run the gauntlet
of boys who want to be your "guide."
Mopti should be a quaint and charming town; it has a river bordered
by a tree-lined road and a busy shore filled with boats of contrasting
size and character. The market is interesting and "African".
Parts of town have unique and esthetic residential and mosque
architecture. And by in large the people are friendly. So why do I
qualify my enthusiasm? Because constantly getting in the way between
you and a pleasant experience are a seemingly endless stream of
want-to-be boy-guides with every sort of hustle and scam and no
manners to take "no," in any language, for an answer. They
can useful if you are trying to find some place of something. They
know the physical layout of the town, but as presenters of the
culture, instructors of history or interpreters of nuance, their
skills are minimal. One of their many impacts can be to effectively
prevent you from meeting or talking to anyone else in town. In Mopti,
one tends to hire a guide more as a form of protection money from
being harassed by the other guides, rather than for what they added to
the program.
One example of the shenanigans is, in Mopti, the guides insisted
that you needed to go to the police in Mopti to register. As advised
we went to the police. We filled out the form that was presented to
us, our passports were stamped and then the gentleman who runs the
bureau told us that we would have to pay 1000 CFA each. No receipt or
tickets were offered. When we later met the regional tourism office we
were told that this fee had been stopped several years ago.
One tends to want to have a quick look around town and then be
ready to move on. We took a delightful ride east along the river and
back, then around the port area that is backed with boats that are in
turn packed with people and/or goods - it was a weekly-market day. We
wandered through the various sections of the market and headed off to
explore old town and take a few photos of Mopti elegant mosque. On the
bikes we could pretty much stay ahead of the wanaby guides, but we
didn't feel at ease to stop for too long for fear that they would
descend upon us again like a plague of locust. |
 |
