Dogon villages Niongono and Songho, Mali 6 Oct 07

First visitors to Niongono after the rainy season

Our guide also told us that the medicine that UNICEF provides doesn’t reach its rightful beneficiaries, but gets sold to local pharmacies by corrupt officials.

We pay a tourist tax to visit each village but also brought kola nuts for the old men. Abdullaye said they like chewing them because, rather like wine, it makes them more talkative.

We returned to the Kambary for lunch and a much needed siesta in our air conditioned igloo before venturing out again about an hour and a half before sunset to visit the nearby village of Songho. There we climbed up a steep path to the place where they hold the circumcision ceremony.

Abdullaye told us it is the blacksmith who is traditionally entrusted with making the circumcisions. Boys between 7 and 12 are circumcised at the ceremonies that take place once every 3 years. Apparently, a large live boa snake is brought out and given a live chicken to eat. The boys are told that they mustn’t cry or the snake will come and eat them too. I asked whether they still circumcise girls and was told that is hardly ever practiced these days.