Trip to Dogon Country

Hi. You may have heard about our return from the trip to Dogon land. (Dogon people live up north near Mopti, Gao, San, etc. Many people were aware that Lisa was robbed on her way back to Bamako. Thanks for your prayers for her. She was not hurt, but lost passport, money, etc. We weren't sure she'd be able to go on to Dakar for schoolboard meetings. She was able to get a passport done same day! And she is in Dakar now.

But did you hear about what was good on the trip? Or did you see any pictures? No.
So here is a synopsis.

This past week we travelled to a village near Mopti to attend a CMA conference. (Christian Misionary Alliance.) It was a neat experience as far as the conference went, and Lisa was excited to see Dogon Country with fancy mosques, and cliff dwellings, as well as the River boats that leave Mopti to go upriver as far as Timbuktu. Emily was travelling with us, as well as 2 national believers.

Here are some of the sights we saw.

Grand Mosque at Mopti

Boats on the Niger river

This is a Mosque in a little village we went to.
Amazing how much money and effort went into it
from these poor village people.

We did have a long travel back by local buses and taxi buxes. (A taxi bus is a van with a license for 22 passengers!) A bus is like what you think of when you think greyhound. Minus the toilet, and 5 seats to a row instead of 4. You may ask why it is easy to have things stolen at a bus station. The two pics here of loading our taxi bus may explain that a bit. These stations are chaotic! People hanging all over you. You're not sure who actually works with the bus company, who is an innocent passenger like yourself, and who is up to no good! It is difficult to discern.

Here are a few transport/bus station pictures!

Loading up!

It does look a bit congested, doesn't it?

Here are the 7 of us in front of one of our transports!


So what do you do in a bus station when you have to wait a long time? We arrived in Mopti, on a little taxi bus, and had to wait 4 hours for our real bus to take us out of there to Koutiala, (where a guest house with hot water showers awaited us). My boys are armed with gameboy.

What is so interesting that all these kids want to see?

Oh---- Gameboy!

Now you've seen a bit of Mali that you may have never seen before!
Thanks for stopping by today!
Tom & Lisa Seward