Les route D'Guinea

Photos

There is a road south of Bamako that continues on to Guinea. It's characters and personality are rich, rich red, and full of texture. The road is not exactly one you'd see where I'm from in America withbut miniature lakes huge dips and ridges and a snaking safe passage around them forming a curving undulating narrow path around the wild terrain that is the road. I jokingly and in bad Bambara said the road itself was the wilderness supposedly boardering it. The bumps and shaking of the groaning vans crawling slowly along the road sound are wild and crazy. You feel a bit like your ridding some obstacle course in an old beat up van the driver smashes into parts of the terrain driving slowly and the road forces him to, but way to fast for human comfort. It's humorous in retrospect I suppose, though a disturbing prospect. This road is one of the main roads that ties Mali South of Bamako to Guinea and links all the villages in between. In all fairness the bad sections of the road described above are truly small sections of the road, but the can consume hours of your trip as memories of pavement and speeds above 30 miles an hour coast into the distant memory.

For all its wild, strong and exciting character the road is beautiful in a very deep way. I love roads. I think it comes from the family trips we took traveling across country by car from Seattle, Washington to Kalamazoo Michigan. We would travel over five days across the country by car and later by train and the trips left an impact in, well I guess my soul. There are a few things my memories that have left indellible marks in my heart and mind like tatoos. Traveling the long roads and rails, photographing the beauty of nature and people may shortly find itself to be my highest passion and lifelong occupation. My Mother's Mother, once she was older maintained her good health by walking long distances across the town my mother grew up in. Then Grannie kept walking in poor shoes until she developed health concerns, eventually falling, complications ensued and I don't remember exactly of what but she passed a bit later. As a family we would go on walks when I and my little sister Karis were young, picking up all manner of seeds, leaves, observing nature through her seasons and taking in the beautiful world all along the roads of my hometown. So you see the Southern Bamako red road with its seemingly endless and unchecked green fields and wildernesses speak to someone inside of me.

The fields and trees as far as the eye can see lining the road, or rather the roads veining them are something like fiction. I imagine driving in the rural areas around Tallahassee that the forest stretches without end. I imagine that were I to walk out into the nature around my town that I could walk forever and not hit the other side. Its an important thing to imagine because it ensures that somewhere, even if only in fiction, the unregimented, unrestrained pure and beautiful world is wide beyond ones ability to master it. In my imagination the world is still big like when I was a child, every part of it hasn't been crossed and colonized and there are still places where you can wander in openness and freedom. So the story this African road shares with me is that there actually is an endless wilderness still left and that somewhere humanity can exist without constriction. Obviously the story is fiction. Yet it's good to know such fiction can still be written.

Anyways, the bus ride is great and wack at the same time. We hit Degela and one of the coolest guys ever, John Wu, Mali code name Soloman Coulibaly leads me to his home there. Over the next few days John interprets for me an unraveling story of magic and legend that exists at the edges and in the history and childhood experiences of the people of several of the villages South of Mali.

The houses in the villages here are earthen, there is no electricity, the people are warm and quite busy going about the work that sustains them. Most people are farmers, but many people also hunt and do other tasks like repairing the many bicycles, and motorbikes people use for transportation. Degela is filled with green and while the earthen floor in the center of the village in worn earth without small green growing things, just outside of that area green is everywhere.

One of the first people we interview is the Degela Donsoba (chief hunter). Donsoba tells a story of the origins of Donsoya (hunting tradition) which take leave of normal reality a bit and I didn't get much of what he said. I'll have to translate it later. We do make out that there are special plants taken before a hunter goes to sleep through which they may attain visions of future events. Quite cool I thought. they call such plant knowledge here Jiridon. I was not able to discover which plant and the specifics of the method as it is reserved for donso, but Donsoba told me to return when I am a Donso and he'll tell me. Another cool.

We visited a man in charge of a magic wishing tree that fulfills peoples wishes traveling from all over the region to address their desires. Then John met a member of an old educational system at the core of the preIslamic cultural heritage who said he would show me a bit of it. In brief conversation John also mentioned a guy the next village up who spoke about a hill people by sometimes invisible little people with backwards feet. Okay... The people who had heard the story though it quite a bit odd, but I having spent quite a few years looking into West African culture was familiar with such tales though I hadn't expected to run into them in Mali. Wokolo in Mali, Kontomble in Burkina, Mmoetia in Ghana, and I believe Azili in some part of Benin or Togo, these little people are discussed by quite a few people who swear to their existence having met them, regularly meet with them etc. A Native American friend in America mentioned that Natives speak about the little people quite often when non-Natives aren't around and a judge in (I believe the Phillipines) was fired a while back when he said he received counsel from magic little people apparently part of the local beliefs. Similar creatures are spoken about in Haiti and I think a number of other place though I'd have to find some notes. As we began to talk about Mali's stories about Wokolo it seemed a whole magic world opened beneath a thin veneer of simple everyday village life.

These villages are in fact over a thousand years old. There are stories routed in the mind, developed so long ago, but continually experienced, and ways of life crafted around across all those years. I wondered how a thousand year old place still holding strongly to old traditions might differ from the cities I've live in. I began to get some of my answer in these villages south of Bamako.

It seems that one of the things that makes Blacksmithing and hunting different in these regions is this age. Rather than the old things being left behind for a space aged access to information, things, and exciting new possibilities, old things are worked into and reshaped creating an amazing dimension to life. You have spirits and magic little people, sometimes visible or not, you have sacred geography and immense secrets, quite mind blowing in their unraveling. You have knowledge also. Imagine one of several thousand years ago you figured out how to do something. Then imagine from then till now your family was educated into that knowledge base, expanded, developed and enriched it. Well that it the context in which people live out their lives and vocations. Farmers reportedly make it rain, Blacksmiths resist fire and the sharp edges of steel, hunters resist the dangers of wild animals historically lions, elephants, crocidile etc. And people find ways to live in an area unguarded by police, large cement buildings and fences. People find ways to stay safe when there is the constant threat of warfare on the horizon. I would later learn there is a warrior tradition here, martial arts and people skilled in the use of weaponry and hand to hand combat like one imagines certain periods of Asian history to have been. And like the warring period in Japan when samurai, war and danger raged across the land the region has seen war and warriors like Europes medieval knights, Japan's Samurai, and the worlds history of such things. So people found ways to survive, and though we in the west know little of the remarkable knowledge developed in this part of Africa to do such things I've heard a bit. Believe you me, it belongs on the world stage with all of the great triumphs of human accomplishment. I've heard and seen some remarkable things. I thing what benefits me greatly is that I have no desire to write them off as complete make believe having seen some of there demonstrated truths and real life usefulness.

Sabalibougou, Bamako

Here's my Flickr page, full of photos though none yet of the Tuareg Numuw and Sabalibougou

It's been a while since I was really able to sit down and write and I feel a bit like I'm telling the story backwards, or at least in a strange retrospection. Where my writing a voice on a radio telling a story sometime in the past I'd tell you settle down into your couch, close your eyes and listen to my tale. Bamako is a city much like any other major city. A ton of people all rushing about during the day trying to make their fortune. In so many ways it feels like if the cities and governments were abandoned by the current governmental and industrial leadership and the regular people took over and began to make their own nation. Everywhere things are placed togetherin an organized, disorganized fashion, shops are small so all the inventory is placed out on the sidewalk, so people walk in the street and the busses and motorbikes take turns trying to run them and each other over. There are a million bright colors on products and people, the houses earthen and sometimes made of dirt. Now when I heard of mud brick houses I though of an earthen sunbaked ceramic. I have learned that actually in Mali mud brick is dirt in the shape of a brick and rubbing it the wrong way, rain etc. makes it fall off, and come down just like you might imagine a dirt wall to. People live inside of these things, though I can't imagine how the fare the rain storms. But what is lovely is this means that everyone has a domicile and people don't have to live outside. Incredibly Black in my opinion. Okay, no place to live? Well we're going to find you a place even if we stitch it out of trash bags, we'll make a way. Beautiful. Until you look around the concrete and dirt houses, colorfully stylish people and things and see the endless parade of trash and putrid festering things on the ground. God save us from the contagion one foot roared to the rest of my body today as I accidentally disgustingly placed it in some sort of putrid water substance. Trash is everywhere in the city. My friends the Tuareg smiths live on the other side of what looks to be a river basin, water fall, hilly settlement overlooked the Niger basin, with a beautiful view. This scenic breath taking wonderful place to live is offset by the fact that the most scenic part is also a sprawling trash dump. It actually looks like a landfill on top of a resort quality area turned foot traffic highway. The animals eat things out of the trash, the water is frightening colors and everywhere Black folk are living, smiling, I saw not an ounce of crime, stress, and everyone employed in some hustle making it happen. The city is fast paced but with an African familial and social rhythm that contrasts it. I love the market as I've said before and it loves me. It's style is bewitching. I love my people always, but hear where people aren't afriad to just be as they are (or are less afraid than I'm used to), you find a reason to smile and stare everywhere you look.

I work in the quarter of town with the landfill at it's center called Sabalibougou. I love the winding road in from my area of town. The read earth on the sides of the road, the careening sway of the overcrowded transportation system called the soutrama, the craziness of the soutrama experience... I love it. I ride to work and then hike through the market, then the frightening disgusting, brilliantly beautiful dump, up the hill, around some corners and up another hill to my friends shop in his yard. Mohammed has like six of the small anvils they work in this part of the world and a crew of six to three people given the day. He has to gorgeous wives, beautiful children and lovely shade situation hooked up over the work area, delicious food and what seems to be a good degree of peace. Working with the Tuareg smiths is great because their work is incredibly rich in design and style. They make many a knife and sword, which is of course right up my alley. They work completely by hand and so by the time you've finished a product it is truly a wonderful thing. There are all these techniques for embedding curved metal into blackened ebony, indenting shapes into the metal and applying one metal to the next, bronze and coppers on steel etc. They create incredible leather boxes which I may as well photograph because I sure can't afford.

the Tuareg smiths speak Tamasheq and a little Bambara, along with French. I speak more Bambara than French, no French and no Tamasheq. So we communicate with very few words and hand guestures. One of the Tuareg smiths is deaf though so Mohammed being his close friend is quite used to a kind of sign language I've grown accustomed to. So in this way we hand craft art. Being a bladesmith (novice, beginner, all that) I of course was interested in the Tuareg knives, handles and knife like designs etc. Mohammed asked me, so do you want to make a bottle opener, or a box first? Of course my response is the bottle opener handle with a knife blade. I go buy my hardened car spring steel I know from back home and go to work. I sure learned something over the next few days. There seem to be many things you can do in life. However, the reason some people do certain things and not others is because it just makes good common sense. The Tuareg smiths work with smaller hammers, and small handles, smaller anvils and sometimes no fire. The point is that the work is for sale to turists. My knive making education and learning experience comes from a group of smiths who live in hugely forested areas in rural Southeast America where hunting culture is the culture. My knife making education has been in outdoor knives, hunting, survival, etc. I still wanted to work like that in Africa but with a little fire, tiny anvils and hammers and a completely different work set up I learned a bit of common sense and a bit about going with the flow. At least I learn that it'd be a good idea after I finished my knife. It was beautiful to.

The Tuareg women work in leather, and make delicious food. Their designs are excellent drawings etched into leather which become bags and pillows and all sorts of leather things. When you see the tuareg leather work, metal and many decorative things you really have to marvel at the creative mind. It's not that they are doing the impossible, or working in gold, it's just that their work is beautiful, especially when light shines on it. It looks like something good is inside of it.

One day working at Mohammeds place just chilling out either dodging the rain, sun, breathing in the good life Mohammed mentions the fact that the hammers and tools are not just simple tools. They have have a sacrifice don't on them, blood poured out, and a cow feasted on by I can imagine a host of happy Tuareg folk. I'm not sure the celebration it was tied to, either the opening of the forge site, the blessing of the tools for the work ahead... dunno. Thing is, Mohammed told me he wasn't involved in the magic because God didn't want it. So you can picture me wide mouthed when he spoke about the ritual. Well sure, makes sense to me I'm familiar with sacrifice, and that a blacksmith should seek blessing for his tools and hold a feast in that honor is something I could see. I guess I just associate sacrifice with African ritual and Islam the beautiful religion of this region, these folks, and this household with... well not. Especially when a person says no don't do this or that because God says not to. Certain groups define Islam more closely to standards one might find in the east and the Tuareg are one I know. And yet here I was working with blessed hammers all the time and didn't know it. Cool.

Later on that day I heard drumming and singing. Thinking it was a recording I ignored it and upon heading home for the day only on a whim did I follow my nose-ears to the sound. And low an behold... a possession ritual. The music was a haunting beauty, stringed instruments sang and whinned along with the singer an instrument himself. Calabash rattles where being played, djembes which I thought interesting and while the music wove its song story a woman danced carrying the spirit. They were dressed in the ancient cloth of the region. Sort of like being drapped in heritage I guess. It's called bogolon and it's nothing to look at, but something about it is rich. It's hand woven so maybe that's the pull. The women, spirit person walked around, I'm not quite sure what she was doing other than dancing and being present, but it did feel refreshing. I certainly didn't expect to see people that involved in their ancestry here. I know Africans navigate Islam, defining it for themselves and creating their own way of relating to God and the world. And yet I also know the large religions have actively killed people for dancing with their ancestors, following the ancient traditions. Certainly comming out of Mohammed's blacksmith shop and them regularly making their prayers to the east I had not expected to run into this ceremony. I wonder who these people were, why were they still dancing and singing in this way and why Mohammed smiled when I asked where was the music coming from saying yeah go check it out. African complexities I must say.

I wonder at the meaning in the Tuareg designs and much of the design I see here in Bamako and Mali. layered on top of an endless succession of tradition and culture is todays religion Islam and todays culture interest, America. The long trail of the meanings of things is sometimes lost as cultures transition into a new period. I like the roots of things it seems. I like the full story, the deep whys, because something there seems to wish to speak. It's as if something wants to say hammer's are alive, the remember the fit of your hand, the history of your work, and the memories of yesterday are still on todays air. Can you taste them there when you breathe? It's as if beneath the surface the world is alive with stories waiting to be told, the trash to be cleaned from the lanscape, and an endlessly beautiful song revealed, resplident and brillant like the Sabalibougou view near Mohammed's shop.

Photos and Thanks

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10253487@N03/

I've wanted to express my many thanks to all the people who have helped me in this undertaking for quite some time. Internet access has been spotty and electricity increasingly a fading memory. Once I get back I intend to post better thanks, improve my websites and post more of my videos, writings and eventually artwork in regards to this trip.

One group of people I would like to thanks both now and later is my Mt. Zion church family in Seattle, Washington. I have not lived in Seattle in 10 years, but I grew up there attending Mt. Zion and growing up there. In effort to make this trip possible I appealed to Mt. Zion to provide a bit of financial support and they absolutely did. The support I've received from Mt. Zion, including my upbringing there is obviously more than I could put into words. I remember choir rehearsals, My father's choir rehearsals, sitting on the deacon board on Sundays with my father and in the balcony when I got older. I remember the Brotherhood breakfasts, the songs, sermons, on and on. I've have endless new memories since my time in Florida, and now a new and equisite bunch from this trip, but good memories linger in the mind like the scent of good food and I am appreciative of them and the folks that people them. Thank you again to everyone at Mt. Zion who helped to make this trip possible for me. Thank you if you wanted to and couldn't at the time. Thank you if you couldn't but I knew you when I was a child because the wealth of memories is a real and tangible one as well.

Thank you if I've forgotten to thankyou and know that I will be posting a more extensive version of this at a later date on a better website once I get somewhere with an internet speed past 2... Here is a link to some photos I've been taking while visiting villages, meeting people and studying blacksmithing in Mali and the cultural foundations that undergird it.

Mali south of Bamako, near Kangaba

Here are some photos from the some of the villages!

Just south of Bamako about two hours or more there are several wonderful villages I just returned from visiting. Going to each place I was lured in and swallowed by the endless beauty of the countryside. Truly I can imagine just bicycling around Mali for months at a time. It's the same beautiful countryside as in the American South where I live, but unchecked by powerlines, roads, and cities just over the horizon. It's like if the South just stretched out. Past burning crosses, lynchings, urabanity and modern agriculture on into pure beauty where there's just really kind black folk, with lots of beautiful clothes, or just beautiful selves. Then inside the village the stories... did you know there are magic little people with backwards feet who live near and in villages in Southern Mali. Just like in Ghana! There are also tall people who are sometimes invisible, magic spirit snakes and roosters, sacred trees, woods, hills and caverns. My goodness... an enchanted world, full of real hardships, smiling children, snot with no tissue, and bathing in the clear blue open air.

I'll have to write a bit more about my trip when I get the chance because I'm on a boomerang trip right back and leaving town tomorrow. I've found some Blacksmiths who say they'll teach me about there culture. I'll be living with them for a few days, visiting Degela and it's sacred trees and woods, going back and smithing again, and then catching and annual warrior festival where people sit on hot coals, stick pokers through their tongues and show themselves to be unconquerable on every level. I can tell you in short that what separates Blacksmithing in this region from what I've learned in the States is the endless history, the rich folklore, and non-western ways of learning. People refer to folks who died a thousand years ago as if they were around yesterday, thousand tree old trees are part of daily life and animals and little people something like elves show up in dreams, nighttime, and while you are wide awake to give life altering knowledge, power, or possibly a fright! The richness is encrusted onto the things people do here and blacksmithing is no different. It is a thick layering of magic and wonder where fiction lives, and life is not stuck to the ground thus the imagination may fly and you may just find yourself witnessing the impossible. Everyday and everywhere I hear claims of superhuman possibilities, even witnessed an interesting thing myself. Maybe I'll tell you about it in a few.

What I've Been Up To

Hello folks. I don't even know where to begin. I've been in Bamako quite a while now and have had a welath of experiences. I've gone from unable to speak to anyone in full sentences to regularly understanding the gist of conversations when people are speaking. I still need a larger everyday vocabulary, but I can communicate now. I've grown an appreciation for sign language. Enamored as I've been of them/us throughout my years, I've long vauled the wisdom in the sign language developed between Native American nations for communication when people did not speak the same language. Here amidst people who work all day with their hands, people selling things who are quite motivated to communicate, street vendors, and a deaf Tuareg blacksmith the language of the hands clarifies anything lost in verbal communication. My Tuareg friend like myself doesn't speak Bambara, but his sign language is clear as day, full of humor, and indicates specific metallurgical knowledge quite plainly. I've found myself continually at the market amidst the sellers of magic supplies, the sculptors of wood, and workers of metal. There is jewelry of many different shapes and sizes, metal covered with intricate designs, twisted, polished, texturized, silver, bronze and created metals. Tiny crucibles for melting metal and making different shapes grab the eye. Bronze pipping is for sale under rows of umbrellas that form a ceiling shielding the colorful flurry of people and the constantly moving artisans from the brilliant sun who still manages the peek through splashing sloppily on the worn brick ground along with all manner of water one avoids touching. The pipping turns into amazing medalions once designed, cut, polished and applied to a bit of ebony and dye leather. There are artists and vendors here from all over Africa and the rich environment is a feast for the eyes, a standing death threat to the unwarry pedistrian via vehicular assault, and a wonderful sea of colorful creativity, and a Blackness engaged in the living and doing. I imagine what if our engagement in society where I live could exist like this? Life would be amazing.

Artisana, likely misspelled here, is like a thriving creative heart in the big market in the downtown area. I love it. I came to Mali intending the study smithing in rural villages where rich philosophy was lived out magically, blacksmiths making tools for farmers, occasionally holding red hot metal in their hands inspecting the work. Well the tradition here is a thousand years old and one night while sleeping I spent quite a while discussing with some person in the dreamworld the similarities between the Mande creation story and the Ausarian Resurection of ancient Egypt. Many people throughout Africa, in their histories, speak about living in and around the ancient Nile Valley civilization. My maternal (mitochondrial is the scientific term) DNA matches with the DNA of a people in the extreme North of Cameroon called the Masa 99.2%. Reading what little I could find on these people I read one article said they shared more in common with the people of the Upper and Middle Nile valley than the neighbors in northern Cameroon. Anyways we all know the ancient Egyptians did architectural and other things we simply cannot explain. Some of us know that throughout the non-modernized world people do things we know to be impossible with regularity. At any rate this remarkable Mande smithing tradition with it's long and trailing roots called me in Tallahassee, Flordia and said... well, holla at me. I was like, uhh... fsho. Now I'm here and certainly on the trail of the magic blacksmiths of Mande, but I've stumbled upon something else similarly mind blowing. Artisana Artisana is filled with African masks and sculpture, some ancient, some new. Ancient swords and flintlock pistols of African manufacture, yet looking for all the world like they were found on a pirate ship cover the walls of a friends shop. Muskets, spears, masks covered in dust, some covered in cowries and beautiful cloth and applied metal are old yet seem quite alive. The high walls, every table space not in use, floor space and shop windows are filled with art work. The smiths work endlessly carving more and I wonder where it possibly can all fit. Beautifully ornate Tuareg silver jewelry fill some shops, crafted by a people historically desert nomads, camel ridding, indigo wearing, rainbow colored intricately designed leather bag wearing people of the Sahara. They also make boxes swords, knives, and a whole list of objects I'll photograph rather than desribe. There are smiths from Morocco who do more delicate work like making gold teeth, Mauritanian smiths, Fulani jewelry makers and so on. Also Yoruba barbers, Ghanian vendors, and the list goes on. So the magic I've discovered before even the Malinke Numuya (blacksmithing) is the beautifully rich diversity of African art being endlessly created here in the heart of the city.

A remarkable writter named Amadou Hampate-Ba of Malian descent spoke about a relevant peice of Malian philosophy from one of her ancient schools. Here in Mali there is a quote: "The Blacksmith is the first child of the world." Hampate-Ba spoke about the Malian conception of the smiths and the artisans in several writtings a friend recently put me up on. Hampate-Ba says essentially that the Komo school and historic Mali in general said the world was not simply created in the past, but is still being created. Thus in Mande genesis theory God did not simply make a world and let it go, but God made and is at this moment making a world as in the begining of time. The world is made in many ways, but one of them is through humanity, and thus the artisans traditionally saw artwork, tool making, basketry, weaving, pottery, and the making of the various things needed by society as a sacred duty, and themselves vessels through which the divine created. In fact the forge where the smith worked, and the loom of the weavers was part by part said to mirror the divine process through which all life was created. At artisana sometimes I think, okay, given the prices on this artwork, some of it just can't be afforded by everyday Malians, and I don't see thaaat many turists. So... well in America at some point someone would say, okay guys stop working, I'm not paying you until I get some sales because we've got too much merchandise. But I think about that idea that these artisans are actually creating a world through their work. Whether the shop keepers are holding the idea in mind today I don't know, but for sure production goes on, the artists stay working and the heart of Bamako is rich in form, line, and shape in a wealth that it seems can only increase. Outside of Artisana and throughout Bamako countless shops sell the tools and more functional work of the Malian artisans. When considered with the endless doors, and windows, dressers, tables, beds, clothing, etc. The Artists of Bamako truly are part of the creative process by which their world is made. Kinda deep right...

I've also fallen in love with the fabrics here. Everybody is wearing the flyest outfits ever. It's so Black I just smile and laugh all the time. People poor, maybe dirty from the work and the wear of the day and the days, are decked out in the flyest laced fabric, embriodery and designs. The drape of the fabric falls over the lean shoulders and tall forms of the old and the young with a wonderful elegance. The actual fabric having patterns woven into it, colors printed, or batik dyed into it is full and baggy like my folk in America like, but not as heavy and it breathes. I've long though sagging and the baggy style of 90s young Black men clothing emerged logically from the hammer pants and African influences in the Black clothing of the 80s. In fact cothing here with the long shirts men wear sometimes reaching shins and ankles, the huge low crotched pants achieve African American style without the sloppy look of trying to make clothes do something they were barely designed for. Visually it's quite evident we are trying to do in America what I see here. The younger men wear tighter clothing, Western style, with some styling themselves more toward the East, possibly more conservative, longer cloth. The pious, the African fashion forward, the western and the African traditional from all over the West of the continent all splash together in a rich color and style explosion. Everything I see on old folk, young folk, whoever, I'm like man, I gotta get that. Course I can't find everything I see that's ill, but I sure try. Plus fabric, at least what I buy ranges from $6 to $8 for a fit, and about $8 to have the local clothing making brothas at the neighborhood shop put in together. A far cry from the $100 the cheaper African clothes can be in Tallahassee, FL. Glad I brought wack American clothes here I'm going to give or throw them away when I come back and stuff my bags with fly African goodness. There's this great fabric I want to get that's kinda more like the Nigerian lace material, but man... they man $50 for it. 50 bones? I had to keep walking. I was thinking, wow that's crazy expensive. When I thought about it though, $50 cloth, $8 construction... It's still killing the American prices made with muuuch cheaper fabric. I keep walking though, I have to buy metal and kola nuts, travel around the countryside and learn to discover magic secrets and mysitc languages from animals in my dreams like the hunters of Mande.

All in all, short of getting sick and a few other wack experiences, which get two thumbs down, I'm loving it all. I miss my Tallahassee family though. With my parents it actually kinda cool because in planning this trip and recent months I've spoken more with them than in years. But I also think about seeing them and Seattle my beloved city by the sea. My love for my country has deepend. I've always loved our countryside Carrabelle, Pacific Northwest forests, the California cost and all the little towns, rural areas and big cities. I truly have loved travel since my parents packed my little sister and myself into a car and took us on long trips driving across country back to their hometown in Michigan. I think about taking a year to photograph the country ridding trains, and back roads. I think about big city nights, and eating at great restaraunts, and my friends whom I miss like a part of my heart everytime they leave Tallahassee for some other place. I want to see... well maybe I shouldn't name names cause I'd be at it all day, but obviously little baby Tuka-Tuka, my ATL folk, my folk building a brave new world for our people in Tallahassee and the list goes on. I miss comic books and my car, Wafflehouse and my cooking, 7th week yoga class and art school, he endless beauty of Saint Marks, the sanctity of Gurudev's ashram in Salt Springs and road trips. I want to do everything when I get back, I'll probably gain a few pounds, but then chisel it to Ninja perfection with my weekend Ninja workouts at Tom Brown park I'll hopefully be back to (Laughter). Oh and then Akoms, and ceremonies in the ATL, I'm so there when I get back. I love everybody like when you just recieve your netcheck! One.

Dakar, Senegal when I first arrived

This is video from the first morning I arrived in Senegal! One is from a bit later. They are rooftop scenes which I liked a lot. There's sadly no sound because I forgot my video editting software in the US. Anyways you can listen with your imagination. So think bird chirpping and calls to prayer and random phrases in Wolof, which since you don't speak it, sound exacly as they sounded to me!

The Bitter Skin, of Sweet Fruit

I’ve spoken about the beauty of Senegal and Mali and how remarkable their cities are. They are lovely. Truly, I am taken aback, floored by the majesty of the places I’ve been. As I said I was caught unsuspecting by this aspect of Africa.

Often when I’ve thought of Africa it’s been in regards to the fact that she is my mother. African Americans are African purely and beyond the shadow of a doubt. Yet so often we are completely unaware that we are actually an island, small populations of our people living isolated from the titanic land, and sea of peoples and nations from which we’ve come. My perspective has been that I, and we, need to reconnect with this place that we’ve come from. I’d been given the rare opportunity to see the immesurable wealth and ageless knowledge of Africa by professors who had learned about these things and this exposure engendered my perspective. Africa and our cultures there proposed solutions to many of our problems as African Americans and I looked towards Africa as a teacher, toward her knowledge as an obligation, a lifeline, and potentially salvation for our people in the west who are loosing themselves.

Upon arriving in the place however I have been amazed at the fact that she is Spain, Hawaii, and the Carribean. She is an alluring, hypnotizing, amazing beauty, a get away, Mexico for spring break etc. I didn’t know, nor did I have a hint of this fact. I thought Mali was the desert. The whole section of Mali I’ve been in is lush, warm, and the flora is much like my home in the south, with a few more tropical trees and plants sprinkled in. The people are Black people without the stress, domination, and existence largely on the margins of another society. So swag is up, bright colors are in, children play in the streets and the law rather than the niggardly exception is cool, polyrhythm, and ease. A paradise, if not for everyone, certainly for Black people. All these things are true, but let me tell you, the beauty is not without her scars, and my struggles to do my work here have been daunting to say the least. Let me tell you now a little bit about the otherside of this lovely adventure.

I don’t know I’ve experienced a situation this uncomfortable since diaper days. I can’t talk. I have been in Bamako a week and almost everyone around me speaks not a lick of English. I know greetings and can say hello, and I know a list of words. I am an eloquent person. If not then I love eloquence and he’s a good friend of mine. I was more a fan of his work with Barack Obama during the election than after the election, but still. We’ll he died on the plane ride over. I can only communicate with one word at a time almost all day. So lets think about what that means. Any thing that is conceptual? You can’t talk about it. Like for instance please can you tell me where to buy toilet paper. Or I’d like to leave the house now, but will be gone a few hours, and though I can’t communicate I have to get out of here or I’m going to crack. I cannot go anywhere I can’t walk because I can’t tell a taxi how to get me back home, nor do I understand the words for like $1, $2, $3.

Do you feel me yet? I’m functionally a baby. Okra is in all the food. Okra is an aquintance of mine, but not nessecarily my best friend. Ya dig? Okra is great for you though. It’s a laxative. So today trying to examine the rocks around here which seem amazingly to all be iron ore, the Okra attacked me and I barely made it home. Yikes. At times children laughingly talk to me knowing I can’t talk back and don’t understand, people watch me as a passing oddity and I feel very much at home, yet not quite able to get in the front door. There is a truth I am well familiar with that one must be reborn again and again to truly progress on the path of knowledge. I believe the bible says that one must become like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven is all around them yet they do not recognize it, the kingdom of heaven is within you and you must be born again to enter the kingdom. I’m not quoting here, but paraphrasing. I’ve experienced the truth of these things in my life, but this time I’ve truly become a baby, incapable of the most basic things. As humans growing in a linear progression from child to adult maybe only the old truly recognize how much we take for granted in the all powerful, all encompassing cycle and circle, or life.

Of course this means my work is stalled until I learn the language. The language is actually Malinke, Bambara and French, so I should say I must learn the languages. I haven’t the slightest problem with the idea, in fact learning languages is supposed to make you smarter, and I love expanding the mind. But how do you learn a language when you can’t be taught because no one around speaks enough English to teach you. Hmm interesting. This simple fact, so obvious as the be completely missed when I was planning my trip, transparent like air, has now become incredibly thick and humid as certain Tallahassee summers. My homeboy Ayinde encouraged me to learn as much as I can the other night. I appreciated it. So let me tell you, I’ve learned to differentiate the sound of words so that I here speaking sometimes now rather than Charlie Brown noises. I’ve learned that people are often saying words I know and can respond to, but because they speak them fast, mumble them, say them when they are not looking at you, say part of them, or some other thing I may only understand that communication has be elicited and given up on a moment after the fact. In fact, at times I thought people were just mumbling something, when they were actually mumbling something, barely looking at my while walking me, but to me. I’ve also learned that language teachers and translators get paid US money, not the Mali money I was led to believe. I’ve had a hard time finding anyone who can speak English enough to teach me because, well the dollar isn’t what it was and people need money to live their lives. After all the costs of getting here, I don’t have enough to pay for anyone who isn’t essentially volunteering their time, and everyone here is on the grind. Eventually I’ll make it to the university and ask some younger people, who would be more likely to volunteer, but that will be after I learn how to say turn here, and I live in Kalabancoro.

So can anyone say doldrums. Can anyone say floating adrift on a windless sea for a week, unable to leave the neighborhood, without a bit of breeze to fill the sails. So I learn my numbers and the names of rocks and trees, body parts, and the days of the week just like any good second grader, and nod in my head to my beautiful, wonderful lineage of masters and Gurudev, yes this posses a great opportunity to loose the ego.

You see the ego… is firmly rooted, in our sense of power with our ability to poop, choose the food we eat, leave the block, and have some sort of fashion sense. On the bus trip over we sweated hours on end, but didn’t get to bathe for two days and one night. The lovely drivers chose to stop near water and when inside somewhere and slept while we sat up waiting for 6 to 8 hours and mosquito hell, amidst stampedes of donkeys, and other night monsters. During that time my ego couldn’t even hold on to its ability to bathe itself. Imagine the fright and wonderful new flavors and smells on that baking bus without windows that opened yet open mosquito-highway doors.

So it seems I’m being reborn. I wonder what type of person I’ll be in this incarnation. This degree of being forced to de and reconstruct has to be an entrance to a remarkable wealth of new vision and opportunity right? How often do you get to be transformed at such a deep level that you experience being unable to bathe and speak again? I’m telling you, I’m coming back with superpowers! If I’m not flying and bulletproof, I’ll at least be able to hold hot metal in my hands without being burned. Lol!

The Artisans of Bamako

I came to Mali seeking a Blacksmithing tradition established it seemed before the dawn of time. I would speak with people who still remembered ancient things about land and nature; how to extract steel from stone like rain from the heavens, an old magic. I would connect with something timeless and make art inspired by history... buuut on the way there I found these young boys out here doing some really creative work in the city. Bamako's artisans really look to me as if the prisons, crack-game, weed industry, and just plain idleness had been lifted high in the sky like a carpet, shaken mightily and all the young black men fell out and became artists. Everywhere young men are working metal with torches and hammers. Boys plane wood and make doors with creative designs in them, huge beds, furniture, you name it. Even more amazing is that almost every house has their work decorating it. All the houses have the doors these young men have made, the stylized window bars, etc. The tools made are sold right down the street and bought and used by everyone. Just imagine if the Black neighborhood actually produced its own things, they all had unique creative flair, and the same neighborhood bought all of this work so that it looked like a standing art gallery. I am inspired by the creativity and ingenuity. They make ventilated doors, which you cant see through, but ar can move through while locked. Perfect for a place that is always hot. I could list things and be here all night, but I wont. I'll do it another day. Till then take a look...

Lovely Farafina (Africa)

Well folks at home, what can I say? Africa is remarkably beautiful. I was truly unprepared. Dakar is a city by the ocean like my own gorgeous Seattle. Brilliant green trees and plants pop out of every nook and cranny, as Black folks here seems love to decorate with flowers and greenery. In Dakar the greens splash across sandy streets and alleyways, contrasting against its yellow tan. In Bamako a slightly darker and brighter green strikes out against the purple-red earthen streets and against the blue sky snatching ones breath away for just a moment. The streets in neighborhoods are narrow sometimes without sidewalks and always peopled by Black folk going somewhere, busy doing something. The architecture is cement block in Dakar, with building painted in different colored pastels. I think of pictures I’ve seen of Morocco, Spain and some places in Mexico but on dim. In Mali the houses are cement block, but have been painted earth tones, with the brightest crops I’ve ever seen growing where regular plants grew in Dakar. The business sections of both towns are busy. Bamako is more dirty and quite creatively put together, with Dakar truly looking like everyone moved out of San Francisco and Africans from all over West Africa moved in. The weaving patterns of traffic just make you smile at our people because no one is coloring, or driving for that matter, in the lines, everyone is one their own rhythm, but it all fits together seamlessly without a crash, bump or disturbance. In Dakar it’s the Karabit and the taxis, the former painted with rainbow colored praises to Allah, streamers and several young boys standing, hanging out of the back. The taxis are all yellow and black, each with some sort of magic charm hanging from the back. In Bamako young men and some women all ride these little scooters everywhere. The flow of it all is Amazing, I’ll record it for you all, but you’ll have to wait till I get back to see that one. Technical difficulties.

Everywhere Black people are employed and busy. No one is idle. Funny enough though, many people look idle, just chillin’ somewhere, but you better believe they are working to. I am in love with the approach. Everyone is up earlier getting it, working, but everyone is moving at their own pace, and everyone is cool with it. People jump on a bus and don’t pay. You might go several blocks before the young teenager in charge asks quite off handedly for your money. Some people still don’t pay it, just chillin. But it gets done, there no hustling there, people pay their money. Everything is like that. So things have this interesting rhythm, I might sing the call part of the song, and you might say nothing back, moments later you sing out a beautiful response and I call immediately again. You respond, then I hang out for a second, and sing back. The feeling generated is total ease, so people are working all day, but many look like they are having a grand ole time. The educated people get better jobs working for larger businesses. The rest of society is in the streets, every street, selling, buying, making something. Innovation is as rich as the colors in African clothes. People are making every type of tool, ventilated shutters for doors, ironwork to protect windows, keeping and slaughtering goats and selling barbeque all day long, millions of taxis, an endless sea called suguba (Bambara for the market), finishing wood and making furniture and so on. Random horses, herds of cattle, and goats stand, make their way, or are herded through city streets amidst cellphones, laptops, past internet cafes, banks, and Black people in every manner of fly African clothes, Western clothes, and stylish blend of the two, dirt covered or otherwise. Dirt is everywhere but so are the water pots used for washing off and cooling down and people do so frequently.

Everyone is Muslim it seems, but that is saying nothing. You have Peul and Fula Muslims likely a more traditional type, amongst Maurits, Tijan people, the Bifal(forgive my likely incorrect spelling). Some people are strictly Muslim while others will tell you about every manner of traditional African society, tradition you name it. The magical charms or fetish can be seen here an there, amidst people wearing village clothing, and then quite modern western people who may or may not pray any of the five times a day depending on their schedule. Yet I’ve seen most everyone wash themselves and center themselves, face the east and pray to God. On friday, it seems to be their sunday. People will go to the mosque, but I’ve seen them line the streets with beautiful prayer rugs, all men at certain times, all women at others. You can see all these different people from different walks of life with beliefs different enough to be called different religions stopping their busy day to pray together on sidewalks, in stores, wherever there is space. Some families pray together, maybe on their rooftops which are often set up for people walk use, becoming a mosque for twenty minutes of quite family prayer. I’m not Muslim of course. But I love it, it’s a perfect example of the fact that no religion owns God, and God will be okay, what is important is that people find a common ground upon with to find peace and be human.

I stayed in Dakar for a few days and then traveled to Bamako by bus. Considering the all day plane ride and the two day bus ride I feel a bit like a world traveling wind. They say there is a wind, it’s called a trade wind to be precise, that lifts sand up off the ground in the Sahara desert and drops it the United States. It is always blowing. If I remember correctly there is a storm that happens in the Pacific ocean for months of the year every year that gives Seattle its clouds. I feel something like these huge winds. Certainly those huge winds have stolen my every refinement of speaking reducing me to little more sophistication than that of my sweetheart Tuka tuk (Kiara’s 7 month old). While there are ups and downs the world is filled with beauty and its only been a week. I came to Africa to study, learn things we had lost I could take back to my folk back home as we try to build community and family from ashes. I also came as an artist and student and all those things I’ve spoken of. I’ve found though, a surprising subtle sweetness, more pure fresh cool water on a hot day than honey and wide as a river.

I've arrived in Africa, Dakar, Senegal!

Fri, Sept 4, 2009

Hello everyone, I’ve arrived. I got into Dakar, Senegal at around 4:15am. We got off the plane by going down these steps which were attached on the tarmac and boarded busses which drove us to the baggage claim area. I was taking little photos here and there, sketched a scene rather quickly and then we got off and got in line to pass through customs. I’m not sure it’s called that, but anyways. Standing in line I wrote something like being in a French speaking country is like being halfway awake, you understand bits and pieces of things around you, but not enough to get the jist of what’s going on. My turn comes up and the officer checking passports, Mr. Konate asks where am I staying. Somewhat confused by everything since I left Tallahassee I ruffle through my papers and grin, “uhh actually I don’t have the address, just phone numbers”. Now mind you he speaks English pretty good, but not so good that he understands everything I say and I don’t understand everything he says. He looks like well you are supposed to know where you are staying but uhm… ok. I’ve come to Africa, beautiful land of our ancestors… with not one dollar bill, and apparently no address for where I’m staying. Mr. Konate tirelessly aided me across the next maybe 30 minutes figuring out how to use the ATM to get cfrs, or francs, explaining the currency in relation to the dollar, looking for my welcome wagon, which was not there, calling the numbers I had, the first two not knowing anything about me and barely understanding, calling Tom and his wife my contacts in the US for the family I was staying with and reaching Djibi who would then come and pick me up. Whew. I wasn’t really worried, but Mr. Konate was like, translation into Southern American slang; man you when you come to Senegal you gotta have an address, goodness, or maybe greeeaat-day.

Outside the airport Dakar looked like the hood back in Seattle, or in Tallahassee. Mad people just walking around chillin’ hanging out. I was like wow, I’m back in the neighborhood. Same, same. As people walked near me, or just passed saying what’s up in French, which I didn’t understand, mumbling “uhh, hi” I pondered the stick up and the hustle. I wasn’t really trying to talk, cause my experience is people be tryin’ to hustle. In the time it took to get my ride situated, though, I noticed something. First all the Black people milling around were working. Entreprenuers. People were taxi drivers, selling phone cards, changing money, everything. Not really on the grimy tip either, they were doing business at 4:00 in the morning. They didn’t have the US come-up vibe I’m used to and I didn’t get one crazy look or feel. I liked that. I like seeing Black people together in a space without the threat of guns, or crime. I see it more these days, but I liked seeing it here and I respected the hustle, working/chillin’ no matter the hour.

Waiting for Djibi to arrive I spoke with a man named Ali. He spoke English better than the officer. He told me he was Mandinka and when I told him I was only in Senegal briefly and headed to Mali he was excited saying good and that it was the center of ancient African culture in the region. He said they learn English in school, and as a few people have told me thus far, everybody speaks it a bit in Senegal. After small talk for a bit a told him I was going to study numu and donso tradition in Mali. I remembered chasseur and forgeron, the French words for hunter and blacksmith when he didn’t understand me. When he got me he was excited again, he said “oh they are mystics man” pointing to his head. “They are mystics, they are going to give you something good.” (I’m quoting, but paraphrasing a bit because I don’t remember the exact words) “I’m telling you they have the old culture. They will stick their hands in the fire…” he tells me as he demonstrates emphatically, “… the red fire and pick up a piece of hot metal and not be burned.” “They will stick their hands in to fire and not be.” “uhh, what? You mean like disappear?” “Yes.” “They will give you a [belt] (I don’t remember the word be used I think it started with a k) and if someone tries to cut you, or stab you they can’t because you are protected.” Now this is a particularly interesting point. Ali is part of the Mandinka diaspora, people leaving central Mandeland for other countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire etc. The kamajor are a hunting group related to the donso and the Mande diaspora. In a book written by an author I forget entitled “In the Land of the Magic Soldiers” a young kamajor fighter described a having a belt that did the same think. He was initiated into the kamajors when Freetown was under attack and was given a belt which he described as tightening when enemy forces were near and protecting from bullets. He described the feel when they hit and bounce off leaving holes in your clothes but not the skin. So hearing this outside of Dakar’s airport early in the morning about this specific type of belt charm, I found a remarkable cross reference. We talked on about a good many other things before Djibi arrived. I learned it was Ramadan etc.

Djibi arrived, thanked Ali for watching out for me and we took a taxi to Amadou’s house. Amadou Diarra is Tom’s younger brother, Djibi is Tom’s wife’s brother, Tom knows my mother who is a renowned teacher loved by everyone. Amadou showed me around his neighborhood and we talked for a while. I shot some brief video. Dakar is apparently expensive with lots of people living here. His neighborhood is cool with small businesses in corner rooms like cornerstores run by people younger than me. We could do this in the hood back home no problem at all. The places are small and barred off and just stock whatever you might need locally. I love the entrepreneurial spirit and function of it. The buildings are all different colors with the beautiful vibrant green plants some of which I recognize from Tallahassee some of which are different. There is trash in random places, but I don’t think it’s more than in Bond community (where I used to live in Tallahasse which I loved very much) and people here seem to feel more agency about their lives. Everybody is walking somewhere. The colorful busses jet up and down the roads, I forget their names. People are all over the place which reminds me of the hood in Tallahassee, everyone is walking somewhere. There are lots of bright clothes and they women have beautiful colors and cloths on, I love it. As I’m typing now someone’s cooking and the scent is wafting in Amadou’s little apartment. I’ve been shooting a bit of video, but I wont be able to post it until I get back. I’ll probably shoot with the camera on my laptop later and see if I can show ya’ll something.

Everything is good, everything is grand, Dakar’s weather is sooo much better than Tallahassee, it is good to be out of the swamp. It is hot here, but for instance, I’m sitting in Amadou’s apartment with just a fan on me and I’m not sweating. No airconditioning and it’s peace. Maaan. I’ve learned some greetings in a few languages which I remember from earlier study. Amadou’s people are from Segou, I guess on his father’s side as his mother is from Burkina. When he said Diarra was his last name I said that’s the lion and he said oh you do know a bit about Mali and speak some Bambara. Some… I’ll know more bit by bit. I slept a couple hours but my brain wouldn’t stop. Everything has been like get up and go explore. So I got up and wrote and now I’m f’na be out. One.

I forgot to talk about the flight. It was cool. I made every connection, bathed in the bathrooms as I could so I was comfortable. 22 hours in transit total. The 8 hours trip to Dakar from NY I flew first class, but I dunno, I’m not super concerned with those things. I liked the leg room, but wackly they told us to close the windows while we flew over the ocean so people could sleep, so I didn’t get to muse about the crossing back over the Atlantic since the last time I crossed it in chains. I fell asleep and dreamed we flew in over the coast and landed in Africa. We hadn’t yet, but when we did my experience was much the same. Peace.

The Long Journey to Mali; A Story Not For the Faint of Heart

Finally my date for departure has arrived. I should have been writting about the remarkable journey to get ready to leave but it might horrify children and grown folks alike. In brief retrospect I'm not sure what it was that took 7 months of planning to get here. However, just a bit of thinking recalls a time when I knew no one in, from and nothing about Mali. While I sit in Tampa's airport waiting for my flight to New York maybe I'll tell you the tale...

Once upon a time a young man name Clarence thought about traveling the world. He wanted to go to Africa but where? He desired to achieve the award of awards, the fulbright. The Fulbright was a magic power, as well as a prestigous grant which funded great hero's to live in foriegn countries, to study, learn, research etc. It had the power to grant the person who recieved it a brightness. The brightness would shine through all the worlds, draw good things to them, and help people to see the already present, but often overlooked worth of a person and their dreams. Clarence wanted to go to Sierra Leone and to recieve the fulbright to study there. It was said that in Sierra Leone great horror and atrocities had occured. Some nameless madness first cousin to greed and granchild to colonisation had gripped an entire country. Regular people turned to villans who hacked off the arms and legs of their family members. There was so much killing everywhere, nonmilitary, but civilian killing, that all hope seemed lost. When hope had gone from Sierra Leone an interesting thing was done by some of her people. An ancient tradition of magical hunters began to intiate anyone into their ranks who would fight for the people. Thus the Kamajor were born, and thus was Sierra Leone brought back from chaos. These were the people Clarence wanted to learn from. He would learn the truth of their story from their own mouths, document and by inspired by their heroism and learn something of their magic. Yet the order of heros who granted the fulbright power would not support such a venture. They said even they could not support it due to the effects of the war, but maybe one day.

Clarence had spent quite a bit of time studying Sierra Leone and the Kamajor in hopes of achieving the fulbright. Upon learning his quest could not be undertaken he was forces to change directions. When he found a new direction it was toward Mali. He heard rumors of great men and women there and this time he set out on the road without hopes of achieving the fulbright, but brighteness through his own endeavors, and work.

Clarence new little of Mali and so began the serious study. Reading books, articles and whatever he could he learned of societies of men called Komo, Numu and Donso. He was reminded of the ancient history of Mali and of it's empires Wagadou, Mali, Songhay, Segou and more. All of this took months of study to simply learn what was in the area. Clarence was himself a blacksmith and upon learning about the Numu, the local name for blacksmiths, whose families stretched thousand years back, he was drawn to them.

After researching the region he next had to find blacksmiths to study with if he was to go to Mali. Mali being an ocean away, it's residents speaking a completely different language, and having a totally different culture, was shall we say, remote. Clarence wrote letters (emails, letter sounds better though) to hundreds of scholars around the world on Mali and the people there. Some expressed interest in helping him, but the language barrier was too great. Some could only communicate once in several weeks, and so the quest to make contacts in Mali dragged on. Out of hundreds about 3 names emerged, two of which could not help, one scholar Clarence already knew. Eventually a scholar cited in an article Clarence discovered digging through an obscure library in the countryside (BBC article from 2004) would become Clarence's primary link to Mali. This took almost half a year to come to fruition.

Then their was the raising money. As he raised money offered by his comunity in their support of his quest he had to spend too much to simply live. He was forced to abandon his own house when aa an evil landlord tried to steal huge amounts of money. Secretly hidding with his heroic friend the same landlord began to destory her house. The Evil magic of the landlord forced the temperature to incredible heats, making it almost impossible to work or think. holes emerged in the roof dripping frightening brown water into the house, while water flooded in through the walls and windows. Sewage spilled in from the wall onto the bed of Clarence's friend Kehinde. When it seemed they might go crazy, Kehinde found another place to live, and in one weekend, and recently having moved Clarence the same way, they moved Kehinde and Clarence to a new house. The endless work of lifting and moving was strained by the old evil lanlords magic making every box heavy as boulders, and without rest from move after move, working ceaselessy to get to Mali, Clarence lost a great deal of power. It's was as if his spirit was drifting and becoming lost.

Other personal conflicts began to destroy Clarence's spirit and he ceased to be productive in his work. Clarence could not reach Mali for months even after he had contacts there. When finally finding a secret magical spell to make his letters go through (can't call with a cell, only skype seems efficient, especially now that no one has landlines anymore) Clarence was still ineffective because no one spoke his language. And once again all felt lost. But Clarence never gave up hope. There would be quite a few more trials, but through the powerful magic and blessings of his Mother, Kehinde the good the tireless and constant, and Nzinga the enthusiastic he was able to regain his spirit. Now nothing happens without the blessing of God. No magic moves without God, no prayer is answered either, because God is the pressence that magic, prayer and blessing move on, in and are made of. Also no great action happens thorugh the efforts of one person. Clarence's community, friends, gave and gave. Some people supported him with their hearts, some gave what they had even if only a few dollars, and others with their enthusiam.

Now I sit looking out of the window. Ready to fly accross the seas to Mali and study with her heros to learn about the brilliance in man. I can tell you... it's brighter, and it will continue to grow so, until I and the world are truly full of brightness.

The Epic of Sundiata

I'm sure some people know this while others don't, but the epic of Sundiata took place in Mali. Mali is a modern country formed around a rather remarkable region in West Africa where ancient and mythic kingdoms rose and fell for a thousand years and beyond. Many people have heard of Wagadu, though you've likely heard it refered to as Ghana. The Ghana was actually the name of the king of Wagadu. Historians say it was the first of several famous medieval kingdoms in the region. And yet I've read a myth saying it was a mystic city that at least at some point could only be seen every so many years, or after undergoing something of a magical quest. So we are not simply talking about some random kingdom. Mali came after Wagadu, and was run by another set of villages and families, but the empire spanned across the territory of Wagadu to the ocean. Mali was eventually known for the wealth of it's Mansas (kings) as one account says one Mansa tethered his horse to a boulder of gold larger than a man, and another account, speaking of the legendary Mansa Musa says on the king's pilgrimage to Mecca, his caravan's stop in Egpyt left so much gold behind they devalued the currency there for years. Mali supplied gold through trade to the Middle East, Europe, Eastern Europe etc. being the pricinple supplier before the Europeans left and came into Africa and America seeking gold. In the case of the empire of Mali this all began with a remarkable man who would become known as Sundjata, the lion king.

I found a version of the story online and I like it because it speaks to some specifics about Malian spiritual and cultural traditions. I think it is quite informative. There is talk of animal spirit battle, magic shape-shifting woman, quests, intrigue etc. The hunting experiences they speak about in the story are similar to things hunters still talk about to this day. The link is below, enjoy the story

Sundjata, The Lion King of Mali

Shorter, Alabama, my father's village

This weekend, in preparation for my trip, I visited the town where my Dad was born. I grew up in Seattle, Washington, the city my parents moved to after they got married and left the city they grew up in, Kalamazoo, Michingan. For the most part the only family I knew was my parents and sister and my Mom's people in Kalamazoo. I knew some of my Dad's brothers and sisters, but I didn't grow up around them, nor my Mother's folks and we've only visited Kalamazoo some number of times I can count on two hands. In some random conversation I was having with my Dad I learned the named Shorter, Alabama and suprisingly, that it was about 4 hours from Tallahassee where I've lived all of my adult life. I'd been planning to go and visit, but this weekend I saddled up the Kia and hopped on the road to Shorter.



Let me tell you though the town had some bad press. You see in the South, not too long ago, and today in the minds of some folk, Black people were lynched. Lynch means killed by groups of White people who would have parties around the event. They would kill grown people, children, what-have-you. The Black person would be hung by a rope, by the neck from a tree until dead, burned, maybe both. Sometimes parts of the body would be cut off and kept as souvinirs. This type of thing happened in Shorter when my father was a child. Which may have been what? 40+ years ago? Just a few years before disco, and likely during disco... Soooo my Dad doesn't go there, aint been there since he was a child. My parents seemed to be quite frightened at the prospect of me going there.



I called my cousin and said... Uhm... in Shorter, dangerous? She said naw, it's gotten much better, these towns have Black police chiefs and mayors etc. these days. Much of that is in the past. Say no more. Only God can take my life, Gede, Papa Baron has to give the word before anybody dies.



Flash forward and I'm driving into Shorter. It's a forest. I looooove the forest, and trees and well, I love this place. The earth is red, even more so than Tallahassee. There are endless trees and it is quite, peaceful, rural, but not what I expected. I'm thinking big farms and the flat Mid-West. Nope Shorter is my Dad's village where there are tons of people who look just like us, his mother's people and fathers people, cousins, great aunties and uncles, all with little colorful gardens and houses in the middle of a forest. Have you ever returned home after having never been there? Have you ever gone to a place and it was... I don't know so very you, you fit like a old shoe? Let me tell you, I love it.



I'm kinda odd to people. I'm an artist which is odd enough, but I'm a Blacksmith (learning anyways) in 2009. Obama just became president, my Dad just brought a hallographic keyboard to work on his computer from his cellphone when he's chillin at the lake and I beat glowing steel with hammers over an anvil. People are usually just like uhh... ok. It doesn't some there though. I collect wood. I find it beautiful. I've carried huge logs on my back through Tallahassee right though the city like I lived in East Afrika in some village. Even the Afrikan centered people find my version of reconnecting with Africa a bit rustic shall we say. Buutttt... I think I get it from somewhere.



I've spent much of my adult life working to build community. I believe in it. It's what I need and I ebelieve it can help people and especially Black people. It's another things that's made me seem odd in an increasingly global, mobile(speel?) world where people largely move where the money is. Well that's Shorter, all these people who look soo much alike, some who collect old tools and things from the past to remember their people, so many who have little gardens growing everything, and it's this little area hidden beneath the trees quite and wonderful. The shades of green under the overcast sky just glow and sing. Brilliant light greens of unchecked nature, birds, and deer, buzzards, frogs, you name it. Somebody down the street was ridding a horse and suprise, suprise it was a cousin. People hunt, which I'm going to study in Mali, they keep chickens, pigs, dogs and as I said, horses. I've seen several lakes that are man made out in people's yards. One of my older cousin builds and made a lake house on his lake. It's a house with very little bottom floor, but a second floor which seems tailor-made for viewing the lake. There are handmade chicken coops and fences, flowers, garlic, onions, greens, trees growing out on logs cut and lining my father's grandparent's house. They call it the home-house. The churches have the family graveyards right next to them where all my people are. I'm told by one of my cousins that human beings, being spirit and a body have a connection to their people and sometimes you see them in dreams because, well, that's there spirit. Also that certain people have certain types of connection, like prophecy, some want to stay connected to the past and thus know the family history. One of my cousins shows me an anvil of her father, or uncle and some metalwork they did. The place looks like something I made in my mind. If you just put some more Afrika in there, people flying, and headed out into the woods a bit, you'd have a place that existed to my knowledge only inside of me.



So what does it all mean? The uncanny way this place is things I've imagined at least at this first very brief short glance makes me wonder. Do the subjective imaginings in our hearts and mind actually simply exist on earth and we simply have not yet found them? Is what we dream of truly simply what we truly are deep down inside? And in the process of Sankofa, where we reach back to find what we have lost to better our future, might it be said that what we also will build in our future what was lost in our past? That time is a circle flowing out of our hearts and our souls where the angels and demons our our past and future are not on some line far out of our reach in the front and behind us, but indelibly and inextricably bound up in us, flowing out of us, and back in? In my African spirituality these days I find the most amazing truths. I find Afrika now whereever I am. I find myself less looking for the great mysteries but looked to to generate them. I've found also in Shorter that while it is my past it's also quite modern and much of the old things, and people have passed and gone and people aren't really trying to connect to them like I am. But, at every turn I'm encouraged to do that work. This Afrikan America, I am finding, is a world of wonder, when we dream past fear.

Here are some photos of Shorter

My visit to get my Immunizations!

When they stuck the foot long needle into my spine I lost feeling in the lower half of my body... The pains we'll go through for our dreams... Actually no, I'm kidding. Walking up to Thagard, the Florida State University clinic, I felt like I was opening up a brightly colored door label Africa-or-bust and walking through. Somehow the promise of getting shot with small doses of diseases, so that on my great pilgrimage home to the land of my ancestors I don't keel over dead, made Africa all the more real. I walked through the hot sun, into the cool clinic, into the elevator, announced my arrival and into the waiting room filled with nurses and needles. "Yes this makes it official I thought."


I was sitting, waiting and truly cool, but something strange was brewing. Nurses were moving about the room coming in and out making remarks like "oh wow, you're getting a lot of shots," "five shots, wow," "well I have given 6 shots before but not often..." But I'm still cool you know? I'm thinking well they may hurt but hey, I'm a metalworker. Flying sparks and burning metal regularly singe my skin, I breathe iron and make knives. I'll be okay. "Well, this arm is going to be sore," "sore," "this arm is going to be sore," "well the tetanus shot will be the worse". Then nurse looks at me sincerely and says something like "well I guess you need Aaall of these, so... well hopefully it wont hurt too much."

I dunno, maybe it's just me but there seemed to be a theme emerging. I figured maybe I'd chant my mantra. For those of you who don't know mantras are magic words learned in yoga class that make everything better. Sort of, kinda... well y'know... Anyways so I'm hoping on this mantra. The nurse pulls out an oil drill disguising itself as a needle that's just been filled with some disease I'm hoping not to get and well... I think I stopped breathing. Imagine your at the starting blocks in a race and the gun goes off. Well something in you changes, most likely your heart is electrocuted and your limbs start failing trying to get you down the track. Well for a millisecond that was me on the inside. Panic. But remarkably I felt nothing. Magic nurse right? Wow, I'm thinking she's good. I'm good to tho because besides that millisecond of horror y'know I'm chillin'. My outer facade is a peaceful lake and a cool breeze. Plus the chanting has me feeling pretty good (I'm chanting inside my head of course).


She sticks the Grandfather of all mosquitos in my arm a few more times and I'm good, just maybe one twinge of ow-there-is-sharp-metal-stabbing-into-my-muscle. Then she says okay here's the Typhoid. Now again... I don't know about you, but doesn't Typhoid sound a lot like death. Bubonic plague? Then she sticks it in my arm... I also forgot to mention early on the nurses mentioning all the possible side-effect of these shots and how I had to stay there for 30 minutes so they could watch and see, I guess, if I actually caught the disease or something. So I'm just thinking about what if I catch TYPHOID... It may not be bad but it sound like it. Then the nurse says and here's the Hepatitis. So I'm thinking no. In retrospect I look back and I see myself running screaming down the hall, though I didn't. Hepatitis... can't we call it the pretty Green shot? Geez. I think the last shot was leprosy mixed with a little uranium. Actually I don't remember, but well... that was slightly disturbing. The nurses would say I'm exaggerating all this because I was truly sitting there looking half asleep (chanting), but some words are bad words that shouldn't be said.


All in all it was a funny trip, really a breeze, so much in fact I thought I wouldn't feel anything much afterwords. Unfortunately I did. I didn't get sick, it just felt like someone had taken a hammer to the area I received my tetanus shot in. For a day it was hard to use my arms and I looked a bit pitiful the next day, because as most people know about me I'm usually trying to do things the hard way engines at 150%. I'm never bored I will tell you. At any rate I am now certified to gain entrance into African countries and not drop dead upon arrival, at least from Typhoid, Tetanus, Hepatitis, Yellow Fever, and Uranium. Next stop entrance visas! Airline tickets and Afffffrrika! You have to stretch the f to make it dramatic!

Welcome!!!

Just wanted to welcome everybody to my blog. I'll be posting here about my preparations for the trip, things I need that you, or someone you may know may be able to help me with, donate, what-have-you. Once I get to Africa I intend to post photographs and notes and all that. I'm not sure exactly how it'll work since I'll be in the villages often, but when I'm in an urban area this should provide a little window into my exciting journey into... home... well sorta, I mean Mali specifically, and Cote D'Ivoire, and Ghana... anyways holler atchya!!!