do
eat
sleep
drink
know
see
We went to Dogon country one of the nicest places I've ever visited.
It was two nights of hiking, riding oxcarts, fording streams and scrambling over rocks in Dogon Country. It was a journey of extreme contrasts - sublime views and maddening insects, warm hospitality and unimaginable poverty.
The
Dogon homeland is beside the 200 kilometre Bandiagara cliff that
sticks up from the desert in the centre of the country.
The Dogon travelled to this hot, dusty, remote area in the 15th
century when they were Animists - who believe that the sun, the
wind, trees and o
ther natural objects have souls- and were losing
battles with the larger Muslim community. Islam, however, still
found them and these days the 250,000 Dogon are mostly Muslim or
Christian with only a few Animists remaining.
Although the area is infertile and inhospitable Mali's Dogon people have developed some of the best art in Africa and a unique system to water their vegetable fields. They also construct exceptional mud buildings, bury their dead in caves in the cliff, and perform traditional dances while wearing grotesque masks.
