A few months back, I was privileged to see the blind music duo, Amadou et Mariam in concert in their native Bamako. It was, I must say, an entertaining, energetic and uplifting evening.

Now, I have to say that, compared to other Malian musicians, such as Toumani Diabaté, Bassekou Kouyaté or Ali Farka Toure, I didn’t find them as technically impressive or indeed as authentically ‘ethnic’ in their sound. Nevertheless, these are two very charismatic musicians who know how to keep their audience enthused!

They sing some great songs, including the famous “Beaux Dimanches”, “Senegal Fast Food” and “Taxi Bamako”.
Their latest album is called “Welcome to Mali”. Click here to see them performing the title song at the Fifa World Cup opening ceremony. They’ve also met Barack Obama, Stevie Wonder and have performed with Manu Chao and many others.

Other links:

Here’s their MySpace page – full of lots of treats!
Click here for their official website.
Here are their albums for sale on Amazon.
And here’s some more info about them on Wikipedia.

…for the dyslexic?!?

This made me laugh! Africa is riddled with ‘knock offs’ of various shapes and sizes: the fake Rolex, the ‘Bennelton’ designer t-shirts, Nike trainers, Ralph Lauren, Kappar, Sony, you name it! However, this one must’ve been devised by an anagram specialist – all the letters are there, but (in the words of Eric Morecombe) not necessarily in the right order!!

It’s all the more amusing for the fact that it also has a ‘Calvin Klein’ badge on the same bag!! In fact, Timberland don’t even make a bag like this (as far as I can see). The closest I found is this one (a ‘diaper bag’!)

More ‘spelling fun’ in Africa soon…

As soon as rainy season begins, the mosquitoes start to breed in the standing water and love all the damp earth in our garden!

In fact, there must be as many as several thousand of the wee beasties in our yard at times: I only have to poke a square foot of earth with a stick and 50 or so fly out! Thankfully, most of them don’t make it into the house because of the screens on all our windows and doors. Nevertheless, I’m killing between 5 and 20 a day indoors, mostly thanks to my mosquito-electricuting racket (like this one I blogged about in Benin).

But fear not! Help is at hand!
“There’s something strange in your neighbourhood,
Who you gonna call? Mozzie-busters!”

Or, more acurately, Mr Coulibaly and his mate with their amazing bug-busting sprayer! He charges 15,000cfa to do the whole garden (about $30) but it’s worth it to keep the mozzies at bay, not to mention the malaria risk. So we shut all our windows and leave the house for a couple of hours and he gets to work.

For about a week after his visit, we have virtually no mosquitos, then they slowly start returning. Ideally, we should have him come every month, but this works out a bit pricey (and a tad inconvenient), but we do call him in 2 or 3 times during rainy season. If you’d like his services and you live in Bamako, I can send you his number (as looking up ‘Coulibaly’ in a phone book would be like looking for Mr Smith in England!)

Other blog posts on mosquitos here.

…is all the graffiti:

I was surprised to see this when I first came here, as Cotonou and Lomé had virtually no graffiti. I’m not really sure why this happens here; I think it’s mostly bored youngsters with a can of paint to hand. Most of their ‘tags’ sound like names of gangs or groups of some kind, almost always made up of a suitable adjective followed by ‘boys’ or ‘men’ or equivalent: ‘Master Boys’ ‘Strong Men’ ‘Boston Clan’ etc. Fascinating indeed, though I’d still rather the walls were clean!

In one village I visited recently, someone had written “9 Cent” on the wall of a mosque! Now that’s gotta be wrong (and they’re 41 cents short, it would seem!)

It’s quite different from European graffiti; certainly not as artistic, which is interesting in a country which has some great artists! But I’m not sure the perpetrators of this kind of visual pollution even see it as a bad thing. Just like an African road is a ‘shared space’ (rather than the domain of cars alone, pedestrians, donkeys, barrows and the like also wander freely amongst the vehicles) then maybe a blank wall is also seen as ‘common domain’ and that – in writing upon it – it’s actually improving its appearance? Looking on the bright side, one could argue that it helps literacy in a country with relatively low literacy rates!

Here’s a second ‘African Arts’ video I have put together, this time showing how the ‘bogolan’ or ‘mud cloth’ is made. Also, how the yellow or orange ‘basilan’ cloth is dyed. I hope you enjoy this one too!

Yes, Mali – and Africa in general it would seem – continues to possess, sell and display numerous examples of ‘Obama’ goods in all shapes and sizes:

Africans are understandibly very proud that someone with African roots is now running such a powerful country. Almost wherever you go now, you will see small children wearing ‘Obama’ t-shirts or vehicles with Obama stickers on them. Here are some other examples:

TL: The Obama hold-all (travel bag), TR: The Obama t-shirt (not much of a likeness, though), BL: The Obama ‘posh’ shirt and BR: The Obama underpants! Don’t blame me – I just take the photos and tell you about them!!

Mind you, even I was surprised by the following example – Barack Obama’s face is even being used to sell toothbrushes, accompanied by the slogan “Change we Need”:

…but I don’t need to change my toothbrush just now and, even if I did, I think I’d buy a make I’ve heard of! Such fun in Africa, eh?

Yes, somehow I managed to wangle a kora lesson from the great Toumani Diabate himself (blogged about here).

Here’s how: a few weeks ago, my wife and I were invited to a soirée with the British Ambassador, to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (as you do!) As I walked into the large conference room at the hotel, I immediately recognized the kora guru himself, but did a double take. “That looks like Toumani Diabaté! It can’t be!” But it was: you British tax-payers, fret not; your money is being well spent!!! The evening’s entertainment included various singing griots and Toumani playing the kora (he even had a bash at “God save the Queen” but I prefered his rendition of the Malian National Anthem!)

Afterwards, a colleague encouraged me to go up and greet him, so I did (in my best Bambara). Turns out he speaks excellent English!

Do a bit of train-spotting and take a ride:

Yes, Bamako has a regular (but infrequent) rail service all the way to Dakar, Senegal! I took a short ride one one of the trains a while back (with my mate Clive) and was impressed by (i) the punctuality of its departure (only about 15 mins late) (ii) the state of the locomotive (nicely painted and running well) and (iii) the quality of the carriages – quite comfortable. Also, you even get numbered seats, so you know exactly where to sit and that you will get a seat! Trains only run about three times a week, so it’s worth checking which days in advance!

That’s Bamako station and – like all stations and jazz clubs – it’s in the ‘dodgy’ part of town. Oh, and the ceiling fans look very nice, but didn’t actually work! Of course, at every stop you get the ladies coming to your window selling bananas, yams, peanuts, oranges…you name it. Very handy! It was a very pleasant trip, which we did in just one morning: we left Bamako and travelled about three stops NW to the village of Negala. We had to pay for a ticket further, but this far took an hour or so and only cost a few pounds.

Nothing much to see there – just a typical African village – but the journey was fun and some quite nice views too. From there, the return journey was simple and cheap: a ‘bush taxi’ was waiting at the edge of the village (by the main road) and took us back from about £1.30 each!

Don’t expect a comfortable or spacious ride back, but it will definitely be a cultural experience! It’s not unusual to share your space with sacks of rice, live chickens or breast-feeding mothers! In fact, ours actually broke down on the outskirts of Bamako and we had to walk/taxi our way home! Such fun!

So, if you’re looking for an interesting public transport experience in W Africa, look no further! Bon voyage!

I like t-shirts; they’re comfortable, cool and fun to wear! Therefore, I was delighted to see this one, being worn by a motorcyclist in Bamako, and even more delighted that my friend had a camera to capture it:

It says: “When we unite in song, we find a common ground: our love for music.” What a great motto – I agree 100%. Let’s have more singing! Finding this on a t-shirt in Bamako is all the more rare and bizarre given that Mali is a French-speaking country and this is in English! I wonder if the owner even knows what it means…

By the way, I also blogged about t-shirts here, here and here. Have a look!

(a) For decoration.
(b) To see what is coming from behind.
(c) To make into a nice triangular shape.
(d) None of the above.

Well, I’m afraid many of Bamako’s 1,000s of motorcyclists would, in fact, opt for any of the above answers but (b). Have a look:

Yes, a significant proportion of motos in the city will have their mirrors pushed up together like this, rendering them useless as rear-view mirrors and thereby jeopardizing their road-safety.

I asked why this was the case and someone told me it was because men consider mirrors to be a ‘girly’ accessory and so any ‘macho man’ would not want to be seen looking in one whilst riding his motorbike!

Whatever the reason, I am sure that lives could be saved and injuries avoided if folk started to use these mirrors for their designed intention!