Dogon villages Niongono and Songho, Mali 6 Oct 07

First visitors to Niongono after the rainy season

October is one of the hottest months of the year in Mali and it is unbearably hot in the middle of the day. On the plus side, that meant very few tourists. On the other hand, it was just too hot to visit the Dogon villages in the north where the Dogons still live in the cliffs. They can only be visited on foot and it involves walking for several hours. On our arrival at the Kambary hotel, we met a South African photographer who said he’d overdone it and was laid up for a couple of days with heat stroke. We heeded his warning.

However our guide, Abdullaye, chose some very picturesque and relatively untrammelled villages for our first day in Dogon country. In fact, we were the very first tourists to visit Niongono after the rainy season. As we passed through one village on the way, the children were so excited to see us that they kept following us and were overjoyed to pose for photos. One of the tracks was still impassable so one of the villagers showed us the way to another track that involved a steep climb up the bank on the other side of the river. I wasn’t at all sure we would make it but I should have trusted our skilful driver, also called Abdullaye.
 

Abdullaye (guide) was passionate about history and, as a Dogon himself, knew all the legends that had been passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. He explained that there were conflicts between the Dogons and invading Moslems in the 19th century. In order to end the fighting, they decided to ‘convert’ to Islam but retained their animist beliefs and rituals.

The village of Niongono is perched on top of a cliff in a beautiful setting. The villagers enjoy great views but have a hard time to make a living, and often go hungry when crops fail. Abdullaye told us that there hadn’t been enough rain this year after the floods in July and pointed out the millet plants. The stems should have been white but they looked reddish due to lack of water. This is serious as millet is the staple diet and their main source of income.