I had a nice short trip with Idi Thiam to visit some Moor villages. Claudio Elian went along, and it was his first time in most of the places and among the Moors. Idi’s grandson, 10, was along and was a lot of fun. Also along were three men who live in Kayes but come from some villages: Ould Baba of Hamo, Dade of El Gelita, and Salek of Taskaye. We left Sat morning, had lunch in Daba 1, spent one night in Daba 2, left early, had lunch in el Gelita, spent one night (with rain) in Taskaye, left early again, got held up for 3 hours by the flooded wadi at Nyakalel, finally ate at Hamo, broke down at Medina, and made it home to Kayes about 9 pm Monday. They wanted to give condolences to an old man whose wife, an aunt of Salek, had died recently. They also wanted to discuss a lot of village problems and politics with everyone and held some informal meetings in the Dabas and Gelita for that. Claudio, Mamadou and I, and a guide, visited the croc pond of Gelita, but found only one dead croc above the dry falls. Great pix tho ;-) I was able to read or play quite a bit of Fulani scripture to Idi in the car and in the villages since he wasn’t really involved in the village discussions. As several of the men also speak Fulani they heard the Psalms being sung on the car cassette player, too.
( see more photos on Picasa at: http://picasaweb.google.com/malibowers )
