Pays Dogon

Ende at pre-dusk: The rocks on which we are sitting are hot but the day, now in late afternoon, is beginning to cool. Below us the Ende market is spread out in a shifting maze of colour and movement. More than half the women wear the indigo patterened wraps, some with rainbow embroidered stripes. Many are beginning to pack their wares of millet, onion, cucumber and sahel grapes, or make their final trades and sales of the day. Some children have joined us on the rocks that overlook the market. Others skip between the women or help to prepare the donkey carts. The scene is both calming and invigorating - made so by the pace, flow, colours and sounds bounced off the escarpment behind and above us. We have walked along the bottom of the escarpment on our amble today - tomorrow we will climb up to the top to explore the villages above. The cliffs are doted with the tiny dwellings of the pygmie Telum people - hunters who lived in the area from the seventh century until the Dogon agriculturalists came seven centuries later. The Dogon initally built their villages up on the rock face as well, then moved down to the plain where their crops and animals were. Millet and donkeys. We scamper down from the rocks, joining those on their way back to their homes, heading to the campement. K takes the lead and I pause to watch the beginning of a local football match on a sandy pitch. There is a crowd of small boys and men also watching and it reminds me so much of summer evenings with my dad, watching softball games at Wanless Park, placing nickel bets on the outcomes of innings. I am slowly on my way home.