Day 6 - Traveling from Segou to Mopti - Mali

Day 6 – leaving Segou and traveling to Mopti, Mali

It was a beautiful, sunny clear day in Segou, Mali as we once again boarded the bus for another day of adventure. Our hotel was located in an area with local artisans and we perused the vendors before departing. Many of the available items included local masks and fabrics, leather bound boxes, wooden carved chairs and various adornments. Local vendors did their best to make sure that we saw everything they had to offer and prices were African negotiable.

Leaving Segou, we headed out for the old city of Segou, which as about 13 km away. The original kingdom was established in the 15th century and continues to be governed by descendants of the original ruling family- Coulibali. The village is located on the banks of the Niger River. The people there raise their own cotton and spin and weave to make cloth. Fabrics are dyed using indigo and mud (bogolan). They raise cattle, goats and chickens and they grow various foods including rice, millet and sorghum. About 25,000 people live in the village.

We again boarded the bus to travel to Djenne. To get to Djenne we had to cross the Bani River. There is no bridge so we were shuttled across about a 50 foot span of the river by pinasse boats. These were long flat bottom canoe like wooden boats. We then boarded two smaller busses which took us into the city. The city of Djenne is one of the oldest in Mali dating back to 250BC. It is home to one of the worlds largest Mosque, established around the 15th century. The Mosque can hold about 3000 people the city is home to around 40,000. As with many villages they raise their own food locally. They city was beautiful and the people were very friendly.

Back to the bus, we headed North to Mopti. About half way along we heard a large bang and saw a piece of rubber laying on the road behind us, the retread of the inner right rear tire. We pulled over near a few homes and began the task of changing the tire. Several of the classmates helped the bus driver and we were back on the road again in about 30 minutes, which was good because it was getting late in the day. Several of the local people wondered over to watch and it was fun to interact with them. About 20minutes down the road a sound was heard that another tire had lost pressure but we just kept on along, we had a good bus driver. Not much we could do, we had used the spare.

We got to Mopti about 8:00pm, not much time to look around. Most of us ate buffet dinner at the hotel and went to bed. It had been a long day. In summary we had seen several different levels of Mali environments, a newer city, an old city, and villages. In general the people have many of the same challenges in day to day life, obtaining food. In the cities they have more opportunities but costs are high. In talking with the people and our guide Ali, some of the things that could help would be the availability for seeds and loans to help establish businesses, plus more schools and teachers.

Trip Writers: Les Crutcher, Lori Kautz, Bryan Wilson
Presiding Fellows: Michael Frantz, Naty Jaime, Mark Quisenberry