lounging with a Tuareg family from Timbuktu in Bobo-Dioulasso
I have not yet posted the sequel to the piece on toits rouges. I was traveling to Burkina Faso, attending the FESPACO film festival and spending a few days in Bobo. I will finish that post up in the next few days, but right now I want to write a short note about something that I think some travelers to West Africa are missing out on.
I spent a good part of last Thursday laying on a carpet, taking tea, falling in and out of sleep, talking and joking with a family and a couple of friends. I spent Sunday doing more of the same, only with a few card games thrown in and the carpets moved to an outdoor patio to profit from the cool evening air.
Travelers who are chasing sights and attractions have a tendency to miss this — the simple pleasure of sitting and being with people. Perhaps they don’t know that you can make discoveries about a place while lounging around a living room. Maybe it sounds too much like “doing nothing.”
If you are planning on visiting the region, go ahead and pencil in some time to post up in a living room, under a tree, on a street corner, wherever, with new friends and the only objective being to enjoy each other’s company. It will be worthwhile. Promise.
Cool! This is the best about visiting new countries and this is why I don’t really like traveling from one recommended spot to the other… you miss the time to just be with people.
I’m all for being not doing……especially when I travel. All that ticking off places on maps and guidebooks, makes me dizzy.
I once spent practically an entire day at a market in Harare, sitting on a crate, doing absolutely nothing. The world came to me – people selling popsicles, hardboiled eggs, beer, others just to chat. It has been about 15 years, but I still remember it vividly.
Sounds perfect!
Back in Europe yesterday after four weeks in Ouaga… harsch !! A collegue of mine was asking me before I left : “Four weeks… what are you going to do such a long time there ?!” Not understanding when I answered that I won’t travel anywhere, won’t visit any perticular site, won’t do any safari or so. “Just” lounge with friends, drink tea, talk, laugh, dream, drink a second tea, play with children, rebuild the world, smile to people I can’t communicate with, eat what comes around, drink a third tea, and so on. “Just” so much !!
Well said, Chantal!
You seem to do a lot of travelling, ever been to Nigeria ?
not yet!