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!