Mali

I had my tent set up on a sandy area that seemed to be isolated and quiet. It was dark when I set up my camp and the moon was not out yet so I went by star light. I got a good night's sleep. The sun came up and I was just sitting there getting ready to get up and pee outside. I was staring out the door of my tent when all of a sudden there was a naked girl in front of my tent looking in at me sitting there naked. I was caught off guard by this. I quickly grabbed my shorts and put them on before going outside my tent to see what was going on with naked girls running around. I stood up as I came out of my tent and the girl had not moved yet. She was frozen in place staring at me. Then she turned and ran off over a sandy rise. I started to take my piss and as I was standing there peeing a mixed group of about fifteen or twenty youths came bounding over the rise and stood there staring at me. They were all naked and ranged in age from maybe six to fifteen years old about half boys and half girls. They had already caught me pissing and I just went ahead and finished. They were all staring at me in silence. I told them hello and they did not respond so I switched over to French and they all started to giggle and laugh then they started to run around jumping and dancing. They started to run off over the rise one by one and I followed as the last few disappeared. As I came over the low crest of the sand dune I saw a beautiful scene. There was a river curving across the center and about fifty women were washing clothes and bathing in the river. Most of them had infants on their backs and toddlers right by their sides. Almost the entire group was naked or near naked. They heard the kids squealing and they all looked up in my direction as I came over the crest. They all stopped moving and just stood there staring at me. I waved and said hi in French. They all acted like they didn't hear me or something. They still just stood there staring. I turned my attention to the kids. A few of them were creeping up closer to me. I went "Boo!" and when they acted scared I started to laugh and then they all laughed along with me. The first girl came up to about two feet in front of me. She was a very beautiful dark black skinned girl with an almost fully mature body. Her hair was almost shaved and she had on some jewelry on her wrist and neck but nothing else on. She was not shy. She clearly led the group of children and would soon be joining the adults. She spoke to me but it was in an unknown language for me. I just smiled and spoke in English and then some French but she spoke neither. So we just smiled at each other. The other kids started to gather closer to me and the adults started to walk in my direction too. I started to play games with the kids. I held my left big toe in my right hand and then I hopped through the circle that my arm and leg made then hopped back through the other way and pointed at the kids indicating it was their turn to try doing it. They all started to try to hop through the circle and they were all falling down. I did it a few more times to show them how easy it was but none of them could do it. We were all laughing together. The adults crowded around me just like the kids. A few of them even tried jumping through the loop but fell down as well. Then they were all laughing. Finally one little boy about six managed to do it and he kept repeating his feat over and over again. We all laughed with him. Then the adults walked back over and went back to work convinced that I wasn't a danger to them of their children.

I had to take a dump. These people around me would not have been phased at all if I had just squatted and took a dump right there with them all watching. That is how they did it. But I just wasn't comfortable doing that with a hundred people staring at me. I walked down and swam in the river and took my dump under water. I made sure I was down river from the adults. Then I went back to my tent and packed up my stuff. I came back over the hill and walked across the river and sat down. I just watched the whole scene. National Geographic magazine pictures kep rolling around in my mind. All those naked natives that I had perved at as a kid were standing right in front of me. I wanted to take a picture for the magazine of this scene. I enjoyed sitting there admiring the beauty of it all.

In a short while the women had finished their work washing clothes and bathing them selves and their kids. They bundled up the clothes which had already dried in the hot dry air and after filling some urns with water they started walking as a group back to the town. I followed them. Playing with the kids.

We were in the town after a short walk. The buildings were all built out of adobe plastered smooth and white washed. There were no trees or anything green other than a small well tended garden here and there. I walked into the heart of the town with about thirty to fifty people following me. I found a stall selling fruit and I bought a few mangos and bananas. I ate them as I walked on. Then I found a little cafe stall and bought some coffee and bread. It tasted good to me. I wandered around the town for a couple of hours. I was able to talk to a few of the people in my broken French. I asked them how to get to Timbuktu. They all directed me to the church in the middle of town. I found out why when I arrived at the church school. The missionaries all spoke English. They invited me in for lunch.

I ate my nice lunch and drank a few beers with the missionaries. We had an after lunch cocktail also. The missionaries told me a lot of the history of the area and what to be careful about as far as dangers. They also told me how to get to Timbuktu. We talked for a couple of hours and then they invited me to speak at the school in the morning. I was caught off guard by that invitation. I didn't know what they wanted me to talk about. My French was lousy. They told me they would use a translator for one class but that they had an English class that they wanted me to speak English with. I reluctantly agreed to do it. So they fed me and put me up in a nice clean room for a couple of nights. We drank a lot of beer and cocktails from their fully stocked bar.

My talks at the school were interesting for me. It worked out into a question and answer format. I fielded lots of tough questions from them. They asked me to explain the racial animosity in the United States which was all in the news with riots and huge demonstrations going on regularly and they were aware of it all. I tried to explain the problems as misunderstandings between two groups of people and that the color was not the issue but rather the distinguishing traits identifying and separating the groups but the color was not important. I pointed out other groups with similar problems that were different colors and then I pointed out that even in a group all the same color the same issues came up and I pointed out the city nearby that they didn't like the people in. They understood that. We also talked about music and western culture. I explained what a daily routine for a typical kid their age in the United States entailed. It went smoothly and I actually enjoyed the talking.

I ended up speaking in many schools just like this all over Africa. The questions were all very similar and I refined my answers to the difficult race questions which always popped up. The missionaries treated me well everywhere I went. they always had good food and good booze to share with me too. Sometimes they gave me directions to the next closest missionary school to go there also. It worked out well for me and I hope the students benefited also.

A few days later I was packed up and the missionary gave me a ride to what he referred to as the station. It was just and empty lot with a few cars in it. There were a few people around and the drivers of the vehicles were hawking their destinations. They left whenever they were full and not before. I told them I wanted to go to Timbuktu and they pointed me to a car. I went over and hung out until we had a full load and then we left. The car just headed out into the sea of sand. There was no road and no landmarks just rolling arid land with mostly sand and a few rocks. I have no idea how they knew were they were going. They drove fast and looked like they knew exactly where they were going despite the lack of roadmarks to my eyes anyway.

We rolled into Timbuktu in the late afternoon. The town was all closed up and looked to be vacant to me. There were no people anywhere in sight. I good out of my vehicle all sweaty and dusty with sand in every crack and crevice or orifice of my body. I was in serious need of a shower. I went looking for a place to stay. I walked around the town amazed at the cliff side buildings and all the other unusual architecture of the place. I am not sure it was worth the hassle to get here though. There certainly wasn't much excitement going on in town. I finally found a place to stay. It was a tiny little room with a narrow little cot in it but I rested in peace for a few hours.