Afrikisurf – A surf trip to West Africa

Got up early and sat down at a foodstall for an omelette, not sure what I wanted to do today. Wait for the others to wake up? Try to see some markets? Check out the river Niger and see what people do on it? Staying at home because it’s already hot at seven in the morning? Got into a conversation with Salif Bah while eating, turned out he was getting ready for the day as a friend of him marries. And there we go, I was invited right away. Got picked up half an hour later, cruising through the empty roads of Bamako in a fast BMW with Hip-Hop grooves, not sure if it’s better with more traffic or less. Less traffic is less dangerous, but means driving faster and more overtaking is possible. Joined the couple, named Sidi&Kadia and some friends and family at a nice spot for taking pictures, most of the women had this crazy make-up on the face, feet and hands traditionally and beautifully painted. From there on it got kind of out of control, more and more people joined and at the end we were about ten cars and fifty to seventy motorbikes, all packed. Went from one place to the other, greeting grandma and family-members here and there. Went to the “Mairie” to make the wedding official, the place where everyone has to go. A sunday in Bamako means lots of weddings, you can see them everywhere and tents and music are set up. So at the Mairie it was just crazy, many people and no way through. And somehow people where fighting every time when a couple came out, mostly it was a money thing as some family members wanted to claim some money back (if i understood that right) right there. Saw four couples coming out, every time it ended up in a fight. The biggest one was ours, some serious beating and shouting, the woman tried to calm it down. After this we drove to a nightclub they’ve rented for the afternoon, driving there was for sure the most dangerous thing i’ve ever seen. All the cars and bikes were like bees on a highway, trying to overtake, driving to the left and right like it’s done to warm up the tires before a race. We did hit some of our other cars and bikes a bit, the more the better as it seemed. People stood up on the bikes, did wheelies at highspeed, some guys managed to climb out of the windows and held on to whatever on top of the cars, at 80km/h. And this was just our wedding, all the others did the same. I saw accidents, and I am glad nothing happened to us, to me.
The nightclub was ridiculous, by then we were about three hundred and people started to drink already at noon and the music was way too loud. Luckily i could stay outside in the yard under the trees, in there it was for sure more than fifty degrees. Mid-afternoon i couldn’t take it anymore, went back to rest a bit and in the evening I took Pascal and Marc to the wedding too, another spot again. Eating and drinking, then on to the area we stayed. School-holydays, some kids of the neighbourhood organised a DJ, girls and boys danced in the middle of the road, with a ring of a couple of hundred kids around it. We had to sit right in the inside, luckily we never had to dance, altough they always wanted us to get into the middle and dance. After that we went on to a club closeby, got to see one of Mali’s most famous singer and storyteller, Saramba Kauyate. As we don’t speak a single word of Bambara we had no clue what she said, but everyone was fascinated. The music was alright, but Mali would have some better stuff to offer. For example Amadou & Mariam: Le Dimanche à Bamako, c’est le jour de mariage.