Children of the Millet.

They materialize suddenly from the maze of millet fields, stumbling after you, eyes glazed, hands outstretched, moaning over and over, “bonbon, bonbon.” They are bonbon zombies, and they are five years old. Welcome to Dogon country, Mali.

Several weeks ago, I went on vacation in this region with a couple other Americans, to hike part of the famous Bandiagara Escarpment, a series of high crags once home to the cliff-dwelling Tellem tribes, who built their structures into the very sides of these looming precipices. Although located in the middle of the arid Sahel Desert—a short camel caravan away from the fabled city of Timbuktu—the valleys hidden among the towering rock formations were surprisingly lush, with flourishing gardens and waterfalls. Even during the West African hot season, when temperatures often rise above 110ºF, there are water pockets here that never go dry—no mean feat, I’ve learned after living a year in Burkina Faso.

As may be guessed from the name, the current primary residents of this region are the Dogon, and it was through their villages my companions and I backpacked, following a guide down mud streets and through familial courtyards literally perched on the jagged cliff edges. In the last few decades, Dogon country has become quite the sightseer hotspot, and while they have certainly benefited from the money now flowing through their land, the people have been irrevocably changed by tourism. Examples of foreign funding by wealthy, well-intentioned visitors abound. Our guide steered us through villages with "That's Italian, that's Japanese," pointing out schools and other buildings, all soundly made, all brand-new. But with few exceptions, these structures stood on the outside of communities, pristine yet alien, neglected by the Dogon in favor of the crumbling mud-brick houses to which they were used.

Once I grudgingly admitted to myself that in this situation I was indeed a tourist (Peace Corps volunteers generally hate being grouped in with travelers-for-pleasure), I grasped the sad relationship I was to have with the Dogon villagers during my stay: for us, they were merely part of an exotic landscape to be observed and photographed, unapproachable, inscrutable but for the insights offered by our guide; and for them, we were outsiders wandering through their streets and homes, possibly bearing gifts (from bonbons or kola nuts to straightforward, hard cash) as toll for our intrusion. To neither group was the other completely human, more like strange ghosts drifting through each other’s lives.

Of course, it would be hypocritical for me to completely bemoan the touristization of Dogon country, because it is exactly this system that allowed me to visit this beautiful, fascinating region. I just wish there were a way to see it without getting stared back at, feeling judged (sometimes envied, even disliked) for being a foreigner... a large part of the reason I joined the Peace Corps in the first place. The lesson learned here: if you want to play the tourist game, you're going to have to wear the neon tourist nametag as well; grit your teeth, get used to the idea... then go take a look at that fascinating little hard-carved, locally-made, genuine, authentically-African trinket that would look absolutely splendid in the living room!

Farewell My Peuhlotte.

She lived among the Peuhl, a tribe apart from all others in Burkina Faso. Known by many names—the Fula, Fulani, Foulbé—they could easily be called the Gypsies of West Africa. A traditionally nomadic people, they were among the first Africans to be exposed to Islam, by traders coming from the north, and today are almost exclusively Muslim; traces of Arabic can be heard throughout their musical language, Fulfulde. Peuhl-worked leather is prized by all, and both women and men frequently dress in colorful robes and scarves, the women plaiting silver discs in their hair and rings in their ears. Their shy and reclusive Peuhlottes are renowned throughout the region as the most beautiful, exotic, and desirable of African women.

Acknowledged by other Burkinabé as the masters of animal husbandry, the Peuhl are still distrusted (and sometimes disliked) for their wandering lifestyle and their refusal to intermix with outsiders or compromise their traditions, and are envied for the wealth derived from owning herds of cattle. Indeed, many of my Gulimancé and Mossi neighbors quietly suspect a Peuhl influence behind every bandit strike on local roads. Perhaps the greatest reason for this friction between the Peuhl and other Burkinabé is their commitment to herding rather than farming, leading to conflict when Peuhl-owned livestock wander onto others’ lands and devour their crops. Perhaps this is why—aside from scattered, isolated villages—the Peuhl have chosen the Sahel desert in the north of Burkina for their homeland, far away from angry and suspicious farmers.

For two years she dwelled in a city in the Sahel, learning the customs and language of the Peuhl, determined to become integrated into their carefully-guarded community. Accustomed to being mistaken for a Mexican or Arab at home, in Burkina Faso she encountered a different kind of casual racial profiling, where her competence with Fulfulde and her skin tone convinced many Africans she was a Peuhlotte in truth, and they treated her accordingly. She shared another trait with the women of the Peuhl: a sharp tongue, which she used mercilessly on anyone who crossed her, be they African or American—quite frequently, me. Her sarcasm was tempered, however, with the sweetness and vulnerability that flashed out when one least expected it. Not a blindly bleeding heart, she still cared intensely for the well-being of her Burkinabé friends, and diligently worked for their benefit when many of us, her fellow volunteers, were thinking about our next break with a much-craved cold beer.

She liked me in spite of herself. She admitted to me on numerous occasions she had tried not to. I represented a distraction from her work, her goals. That, and I was a cynic and a flirt, not to be trusted. Now, several months after our first kiss, I reflect on all I learned from her, about Africa and her own culture, and I marvel at the privilege I gained in being with her, her sharing of herself. She’s gone now, an American having triumphantly spent two years in the African desert, and still she worries whether she had any effect, made any difference, during her time here. Let this be my testament that indeed she has… from the city women with whom she worked to start a savings and credit club, to the artisans she helped organize into a certified association, to the little boy who lived in her courtyard and whom she practically adopted… to me, a lone, lonely Dabbler, pondering his experience here in Africa now that he is once again on his own.