In Arm's Reach

It is well over 100 degrees outside and hotter on the bus. Malians generally dislike wind and the doors and windows of the crowded bus are kept closed tight. I feel the sweat roll down my legs and look ahead. Jennifer and I are perched atop 20 liter jugs in the aisles. The back seats are crowded with Nigerians, their distinctive style easily separating them from the Malians. The woman have huge Rihanna-style bouffants and the men have pierced ears. When we stop at the checkpoint outside of Sevare, we are stuck for an hour as the gendarmes try to communicate with the Nigerians, who do not speak Bambara or French. The Nigerian women's faces, crowded with facial scarring, turn to one another and laugh at their inability to understand and the staring eyes of the crowd, feeling out of the place, I suppose, much like we do as toubabs.

In Sevare, the Nigerians get out and Joe and Ashley get on. We take the Nigerians seats in the back. While night has fallen, the busy churning of the motor beneath us keeps the sweat pouring down my legs. A Songhrai boy wears mittens for some inexplicable reason and stares back at us. In Douentza, a man sits down in front of Ashley and takes anxious sips from his non-Alcoholic Malt beer. He takes off his sunglasses, polishes them thoroughly, puts them on, polishes them again, puts them on, and finally moves them to perch atop his head. Every time the back doors open, he cleans his glasses again. The road between Douentza and Hombori, our destination is dusty as we move closer and closer to the Sahara. The bus soon fills with dust and when the lights turn on when we hit potholes, we can see the dust lying everywhere around us. The man in front of Ashley becomes even more anxious with the dust and repeatedly stands up to wildly shake out his clothes. He checks the floor of the bus -- littered with egg shells and plastic bags, orange and banana peals -- and sweeps away the trash surrounding him. He continually rises to check that his baggage is as he left it, sitting back down and frantically running his hands over his prayer beads. Ashley and I, after first supposing the man was perhaps drunk, realize he must have some form of OCD. In a country where you often have to travel to your regional capital to find a doctor, much less a psychiatrist, I cannot begin to imagine the struggles this man must face.

We reach Hombori well past midnight and it is not until morning, waking up to a hot sun, that we see the desolate landscape we have found ourselves in. The land surrounding the town is dry, filled with sparse brush grass and broken by huge rock formations. We can see sand dunes from the roof and there is a shop down the road renting snowboards to tourists to ride down the dunes. but we are here to climb Hombori Tondo, the highest point in Mali.

We pack as much water as we can carry into our bags and head out with little else. There is no water on the trail, the sun is hot, and we won't be back until tomorrow. We climb for three hours until we reach the back of Hombori Tondo, a huge rock formation with a flat top that overlooks Hombori. We are already tired when we reach the cable, where we will clip in and climb to the top. Jennifer goes first, clipping into the cable and using the rocks to leverage her body up the steep rock face. I am at the back, following Ashley, and the ascent is immediately terrifying and hard. Even though we are secured by our harnesses, I'm sure I'll fall and when I look down the descent is steep and the chance of help minimal. But Jennifer keeps moving, Joe clips into the next bolt and instructs Ashley on where to put her feet and all I can do is follow.

It is nightfall before we reach the top and we climb the last bit with our headlamps on and the bright moon shining over us. Exhausted, we roll out our mats and pull out food. I try not to think about the descent. We begin to talk about the life goals we will have crossed off after leaving Peace Corps. Crossing African borders by land, Joe says, and learning an African language. We laugh and Jennifer says it sounds like Joe is writing his goals to fit what life has offered him.

I start to think not so much about my own goals, but about what I've done here that I certainly wouldn't have had the guts to do on my own, without these friends by my side. Without these friends teaching me new words, there would be severe shortages in my Bambara vocabulary. My understanding of Malian culture would be limited only to what I saw and how I interpreted it. I wouldn't have climbed Hombori Tondo. I wouldn't have pushed so hard or asked for so much. Without these friends, I am not sure I would have had it in me to stay here or be so happy doing it.

Joe lights a fire to keep away the bugs and I spread my shirt in front of it to try to dry the sweat. The wind blows up in the night and I haven't been this cold since I left America. I sit up on my mat and put on my glasses. The moon has fallen and the stars are bright and oh-so-close, O'Ryan's Belt within arm's reach.

When I joined the Peace Corps, I did not think of the other volunteers I would meet. I didn't know how much I would depend on them to listen to my stories, pull me out of the dark days and make me laugh at it all. Without them, it would be too much to digest on my own. Combined, we can piece our experiences together to try to understand where we are and how we fit in.

In just months now, we will separate as we choose new adventures beyond Mali. But I have a feeling: coming home will not be easy either. Just as I clipped into the cable to keep me from falling, I will hold onto those Peace Corps friends. Here, they have kept me from losing my identity as Cassie. At home, they will be the few who know me as Samouhan.

*I continue to neglect my camera, but check out photos on Joe and Ashley's blog: http://wollersheimtime.blogspot.com/