Gao-ho!

Summary: 7 days, 6 nights on the Niger River from Mopti to Gao proved to be an experience that me and 13 PCVs earned. From swimming in one of Mali’s largest public toilets to surviving two sizable storms, our excursion to Timbuktu and beyond was paid for in full – in more ways than one.

At the start of this journey up the Niger, I was aware of three checkpoints. The first was our starting point of Mopti. We’d just left the second, Timbuktu, and the final lay right at the end of the journey. Four or five days from now, we’d disembark our vessel in the eastern city of Gao where we’d link up with one of the local PCVs and crash at his place. Between Timbuktu and Gao, all I knew is that there was a whole lot of river and plenty of time for spades and to crack the cover on the copy of “The Kite Runner” that I’d taken from the Peace Corps office in Sevaré. Someone had brought a large, fold-out map of Mali, but I hardly saw anyone show much interest in where we were. Much like the previous days, cards were shuffled and dealt, people nodded off, and lunch was served. Some decided to take their one-soda-a-day ration during lunch, others split one so as to get two halves a day while some stockpiled in preparation for some giant sugar rush. Watching the process, I was reminded of my father’s lectures about preference and its relationship to pricing; from an early age, and although not enrolled at CU yet, I was still given the occasional economics lesson.

Our fourth evening was nearly delightful. Josh and I donned headlamps, refreshed our vodka & cokes (I was heralded for bringing Absolut on the trip as the alcohol in Mali can easily be confused with gasoline), and headed out in search of marshmallow sticks. Emily had been smart enough to bring some of the fluffy treats and Josh and I had tasked ourselves with making sure we had the tools to prepare them appropriately. Across yet another sand flat, we walked in excess of 1km before finding a spiky bush that looked like it had branches that might suffice. Trees in the Niger delta are decently scarce close to shore as they are a primary source of fuel for cooking in villages. The one tree we did find was more of a stumpy trunk the limbs of which had been crudely hacked off some time before our arrival. Our arrival had brought out some curious locals who, lucky for us, spoke Bambura. While Josh conversed with them, I worked at trimming the spikes off one of the two workable roasting sticks we’d found. There was no mistaking it, we were very much in Africa.

After returning back to camp and eating, most of the group circled around the fire Kareem had built and began to roast marshmallows. Having just come from a land of creature comforts, I was much more interested in the stars above and in the unusually open conversation I’d found myself having with Kali. A striking girl, I’d noticed Kali very early in our journey – I’m a sucker for a brunette. We’d not really spoken much during the trip and were certainly making up for it now. We delved deep into issues of spirituality, purpose and personal history. Well over an hour passed as we sat, playing in the sand and exploring each other’s minds. I’d see more of Kali later including a bit of her fiery side as well one of her toes that had managed to pick up a nasty fungal infection. Always the medic, I assisted in the removal of the very dead nail and advised about the lengthy treatment course that she’d face in the future. I’d wager that there’s a great deal more to her than meets the eye – and there’s plenty on that front.

With clear skies above, concerns about heat won over concerns about rain and I once again shacked up with Yuri. While the temperature was much more comfortable that night, something inside me was very much not right and I was rousted from sleep, panicked. Thankfully, I’d gotten the side near the door and quickly exited before grabbing some TP and shuffling as far away from the camp as I thought I could make it. While it’s not nice to laugh at other people’s misfortunes, it’s completely acceptable to laugh at your own in retrospect and I must have been such the sight that night. I don’t think anyone saw me moving at pace, buttocks firmly clenched, taking the occasional pause to collect myself, but if they had I would have forgiven a hearty chuckle. Having made it as far as I could and with buttocks firmly clenched, I used my foot to awkwardly dig a hole in the sand before unleashing the funk of 40,000 years. Yuri, until he reads this, knows not how close he came to being subjected to a fate far worse than a fart.

The next night saw even more fecal matter, but none of it mine. In contrast to what had become the norm, we arrived at camp about an hour before sundown. At the base of a 35m sand dune, we would spend the night in the middle of what looked like a poo farm. Of course, such places don’t exist (at least I haven’t seen them on “Dirty Jobs” and therefore presume), but the stuff was everywhere. Maybe it had come from goats, maybe cows, maybe sheep, but it certainly wasn’t human. I wondered why there would be such a concentration in this area and if Kareem was perhaps paying us back for complaining in Timbuktu. Past the poo was the much more pleasant dune which most of us hurried to climb. Sitting atop the silica, I noticed something move in the fading daylight. Pitch black and shiny, a dung beetle had climbed up the dune and was now moving with purpose across the sand. Others soon began to notice them and with dinner still to be had, we raced down the dune to eat. Some of the PCVs including Ryan Shaw mentioned wanting to camp on the dunes but were told by our guide Kareem that that's where the spirits live and so you can't stay there. Malians are also leery of frogs and lizards, too, so I wasn't so surprised about the spirits. At the base of this dune, I saw more of the beetles hard at work rolling the poo around. The concentration suddenly made sense, but the revelation didn’t change the fact that we were camped in the middle of a treacherous mine field – or maybe poo field. Most of the PCVs didn’t seem to mind and we spent that night playing a game much like heads-up-7up called “mafia”. Though we made a fire that night, it was certainly only for light as the heat of the day persisted long after nightfall. As discomfort tends to breed ingenuity, I made a combination shelter of my mosquito net draped over the open door of my tent and directed the opening towards the very light breeze coming from downriver. Sweating, I laid down and again, hoped for sleep.

Day 6 saw some swimming, complete with a game of keep away (a difficult concept for Malians to grasp), and we were excited about the possibility of making it to Gao a day early. While life on the boat had been fun, but the appeal of bathing in the Niger and sleeping with dung beetles has a limit. We learned late in the afternoon that Kareem had never been this far on the river; perhaps the crew had been, but I still don’t know. We were being guided by a man who’d never been to this section of the Niger River. Consequently, and with some frequency, we found ourselves bottomed out and the barefoot lads took to the water a number of times to dislodge us. At one point, we all had to jump in and help push lest we spent the night in the middle of the river. The cost of these delays would extend beyond not making it to Gao.

As dusk gave way to nightfall, the crew admitted defeat and motored into a giant sand flat which would be our final camp of the trip. If anyone was disappointed about not making it to Gao, no one publicly voiced their opinion opting rather to quickly offload their gear. An even greater expanse than our first campsite, this sand flat made me feel infinitely small. To the Northeast, we could see a white glow emanating over a dune; Sarah, who was stationed in Gao, quickly surmised that it was her town though we couldn’t tell how close we were. In the opposite direction, the darkness had swallowed everything we’d motored past less than an hour before. Above us, clouds obscured the thousands of stars that had been a source of wonderment for the last 5 days. Soon, the occasional bolt of lightning would light up a distant part of the sky above Gao. As time went on, the occasional bolt had been joined by others and before long, we were surrounded by a full fledged lightshow. Following Yuri’s clever captures on the first night, I busted out my camera and snapped a number of photos and shot some video of this silent lightning. While similar to the conditions on our first night, this night felt more intense with more lightning and increased cloud cover. Instead of retreating, I prepared further by staking down my tent, throwing on my rain fly and staking that as well. As prepared as I felt I could be, I laid in my tent and listened for 20 minutes while Christy and Louie put plastic over their Tropic II mosquito net and Kali and Yuri chatted on their mats having opted to sleep alfresco. We hadn’t even had time to fall asleep before it started.

After one big puff, it came like a freight train. With what I can only estimate at well over 100mph winds, this storm was instantly upon us. Going from near total calm to utter chaos in less than a minute, I did my best to stay calm; I’d prepared my tent and I was going to ride this one out. Like a screaming banshee, the edge of the rain fly near my head was whipping back and forth against the tent and was soon joined by the entire front section which changed the sound from banshee to flag hanging on for dear life. After 2 seconds, the sound had changed once again – my rain fly had been ripped from my around my tent and was being blown back down the Niger; I imagine it reached Senegal after a few minutes. Still, I held my ground. With no rain fly to deflect the sustained winds, my tent was getting the full force of the storm which was now producing some rain as well as a spraying everything like a sandblaster. Hitting the top of my tent, the wind lifted the bottom of my tent just enough to create a small pocket underneath me. Showing no sign of fading, the wind pushed underneath me and began to pick up my tent – with me in it. To combat this surprising turn of events, I flailed my arms and legs out towards the corners of my tent hoping to use my nearly 100kg to keep from launching from the surface of Mali. Meanwhile, all of Christy and Louie’s hard work had been erased and they were attempting to form an evacuation plan without losing more of their gear. It wasn’t long before I gave in and came up with a plan of my own. I’d kept the loose gear inside my tent to a minimum that night, just in case and didn’t have much to pack, but there was still the issue of how to single-handedly take down a tent during 100+mph winds. I knew that as soon as I opened the door, the small pocket that’d been created underneath me would seem miniscule in comparison to the entirety of the inside of my tent and that holding on to some part of the tent would be vitally important. Unzipping just a small section of the top of the door, I reached through and grabbed one of the poles holding the tent up before unzipping the rest of the door. Instantly, my tent became a sail and I was scooted nearly a foot before I was able to reach around the tent and disengage the pole from its strap and get the tent down. Shirtless, I had no time to focus on the flying sand that was pelting me from behind and instead called out to Yuri and Kali who had rolled their mats over them as they sat in the fetal position. “I don’t think this is a maintainable situation!” I hollered. While I was sure they’d heard me, they weren’t moving and so I advised them, again, to pack it in and head for the boat. Yuri got up and came back into the storm towards me to help me fold up my poles while I balled up my tent and stuffed it under the lid of my rucksack. Hefting my pack onto my back, I went to check on Christy and Louie who were frozen over their gear, unable to move lest their stuff blow away. Getting them sorted enough to move towards the boat, we all headed in the direction of the boat. To our surprise, it wasn’t where we’d left it, but nearly 100 feet downstream and about 8 feet from shore. The wind had unanchored the boat and left it adrift before the barefoot lads had jumped in and re-anchored it. Tossing my back onto the bow, I saw Yuri drop his pillow and take off running into the Niger, dropping his mat in the process. Chasing after the mat, I caught it and went around the other side of the boat to offload it before jumping into the side of the boat near the kitchen. There sat Louie, visibly perturbed, but with a seat next to him. Taking the seat, he looked at me and said calmly, “you know, we should have been in Gao by now”. I gave a small chuckle and looked toward the bow where Yuri was attempting to hold one of the mats up over the opening at the front of the boat. Not seeing much progress, I made the decision to hop back into the storm and go help. By this point, I was already completely soaked and jumping into the river was the only quick way to get to the front of the boat. Before I went, Kareem, who had been sitting opposite Louie, grabbed my arm and in his very limited English said “take care yourself” and smiled. Like a navy seal, I rolled under the thatch side and into the river. The wind knocked my maglight right out the holder on my head; thank goodness those things are waterproof as, in the 4 feet of water, I could see it and reached down to pick it up and put it back on my head. After another acrobatic move to get into the boat again, I met Yuri and asked him if he needed some help. He explained his plan and I grabbed some twine from my bag and had someone from the middle of the boat hand me my knife. At least half of the group were engineers and the irony of the two business students perched at the front of the boat rigging up a protective barrier was not lost on me. Shocked were most and by morning, miserable were nearly all. Crammed in a wet boat like sardines, Yuri and I had the seats of dishonor at the front where wind and rain pelted us all night. Yuri was quick to don as much clothing as he could find before grabbing his blanket. He had, like me, run into the river to get into the boat and the blanket had gotten a thorough soaking. “Wool keeps you warm even when it’s wet”, he said unconvinced of the statement’s truth.

That night was spent wet, cold and wholly uncomfortable as we rode out what was later dubbed Hurricane Batoma while huddled on our tiny boat. We later learned in Gao that a similar storm had, a week previous, killed a U.S. soldier and paralyzed two others. As a final payment for the privilege of motoring up the Niger, we all paid the price of the river hurricane which, as of publication, has yet to be given an appropriate name. We were sure we would arrive in Gao the next day, but it wasn’t until we arrived that we saw just how close we’d been to durable shelter.