My last years in Africa.

• Author: Baker, Robert
• Position: Essay

My last years in Africa, 1968-1969, were in Mali, mostly sahel or desert except around the Niger and Senegal rivers. It was called "a hardship post" because of the isolation, heat, diseases, and the local Marxist anti-American dictatorship. The government lambasted the U.S. daily in the radio and press. Mali's history and culture were often brilliant and fascinating, but the present was very hard for ordinary Malians and tough for my family. As local Africans said, "Le Mali c'est le vrai, vrai Afrique." Mali is the real, real Africa, and given its truculent independence, glorious ancient history, complex culture and still largely intact tribal identities, they were right.

The Americans in Mali, less than 50 including the dozen Embassy staff, got drunk to mark the New Year (not the Ambassador or his Deputy). Next day at dawn I was blown awake by a blast of martial music from my front yard. The entire Malian Army Band was there playing a very loud, lively French march. Brass shone, drums boomed, and they even had shined their shoes for the occasion. It was customary to give them a tip to go away. I was generous and swift. They quietly pocketed their go away bribe and marched silently to the next "European" house and mercilessly blasted that guy awake also. They never appeared except at tipsy tip time on New Year day.

A week later, a headless sacrificial victim came floating down the Niger River through Bamako. The Malian government was upset and sent an Army company upstream to find the killers. They simply beat up village after village for miles until they extracted a confession in one and shot the malefactors. Juju was not at all in line with Mali's official political style, avowedly, rational Marxism.

It all added up to no more Africa for me. I hated my little kids ages four and six, laughing and grandly tossing bread from their sandwiches out the back of our station wagon to little Malian kids begging for food. One day in the living room, Sasha held a stick out in front of her with her eyes closed, and Toby led her around our large, boxy living room by it. I asked what was going on. She said they were playing blind beggar, just like in town. That was how blind beggars got around Bamako, an older man holding a stick and led by a child.

I liked to drink my gin and tonic of an evening at the only bar in town, The Parisienne. The Levantine who ran it also cooked. It was also the only restaurant in town. He was not zealously clean. Fat brown roaches sometimes dropped off the walls onto your table. Long-time habitues dining together made it a point of honor to flick the roach on your table across the narrow aisle onto your friend's table.

I sat at the bar's shady outdoor table one day while a white robed Malian pedaled his dilapidated, rusty, squeaking bike down the dusty street. The bar's jukebox blared "Gaite Parisienne." The cyclist had no feet, just stumps on the pedals. He was a leper. He didn't even keep time with the music.

The other public diversion was the one cinema. When the Malians stopped using French francs, and issued their own currency, nobody wanted it. Gaumont, the French movie distribution company, refused to send any more films without payment in French francs. As none were allocated for that, we saw the same two black and white 1960's French crime films over and over again. The cinema owner refused to return them. His audience in desperation saw them repeatedly. It was like meeting old friends, boring old friends, but friends.

Mali's natural poverty was enhanced by its nationalistic, Marxist policies. Mali's chief export to the United States in 1968 was parakeets, $20,000 worth annually. The chief source of foreign currency were the French army retirement checks sent to Malian veterans who had been porters or soldiers in French units in WW II in Europe, and later in Cambodia and Vietnam. The Malian government intercepted the checks, kept the French francs and forced the ancien combattants to take Malian currency in exchange. Aside from that flow of French...