Last Sunset, Timbuktu
I interview Lamont about Ted Joans. We are sitting on sofas in the middle of the desert. Bea is taking a long shot. The young man in a ski parka is bringing us our tea. Lamont is answering my question,
OK, if Ted was a surrealist—
What is surrealism?
Sana is saying good-bye. He won the sword vs stick dance and taught us an Ali Farka Toure song. He used Lamont’s cane like a ringmaster at the well. He is, like Laura described him in her letter, a tree planter. He knows the scientific names for all the species. (How surrealist is that?) Lamont wants to know if you can just get the material and build a house in the desert – who owns the desert? First, says Sana, you must build a well. Then you plant the trees.
Bea is shooting a mirror in the middle of the desert. We borrowed it from Sana, where Bea shot his Tabaski goat climbing the stairs. We send a postcard to Laura, signed by all of us, and Sana too. Lunch at the Poulet d’Or includes an interview with the chef Dedeo Maigre, whose luncheon, tukassou, boiled dough in sauce (think big African dumpling in cinnamon sauce) was totally M’yum-m’yum (Karamo’s compound nickname)! Dedeo believes in Timbuktu as a hometown village, nothing mysterious about it. After lunch, he pulls out a century-old tambour and plays a marvelous, wild, desert beat. Then his son takes over (www.timbuktumusicproject.com) and suddenly there’s a monster in the room. A scary mask, made out of a calabash of course, is dancing. It’s the nonmysterious but totally artistic, Dedeo behind the mask. Bea borrows the mask and shoots him through it.
We’re saying good-bye to Sana. He’s telling us that you can know someone for three days and it’s like you’ve always known them. And then, whoever they are, they always disappear. He has been offered three times to visit Europe and United States, but he only knows the desert and Timbuktu. They disappear, but they are still family. Ted Joans brought our family together. Now I’m an old cynic who plays with ideas as if they were words, working in all order, there’s always a punch line, LOL. But Sana Sibily opened up the mysteries of Timbuktu in a way that I understand. And believe. If it’s in the footage I’ll be happy. I want you to know this place. The end of the earth. The beginning of friendship. A mystery, a miracle, a story. Timbuktu.
Bob Holman is the host of a new travel series focused on endangered languages called ON THE ROAD WITH BOB HOLMAN on LINK TV. He traveled to West Africa, Middle East and Asia and these are his blog stories from his travels. More information at http://www.rattapallax.com/blog/on_the_road/
