Bikes and birds and breaking new ground
On Sundays when my body isn’t protesting too violently, I spend a good half of the day on long, rambling bike rides out through the fields and hills of central Mali. Just an opportunity to get away from village life and move into semi-solitude of sunken rice fields and canals and far-off hills hazy in the heat. When I escape the village and head for the big rocks at the outskirts, I follow a dirt road out through a mango grove that’s blissfully shady and cool, passing donkey carts trying to feel my legs reviving after a week of class. crossing the canal and choosing a direction, following the canal and leaving any traces of collective life in the dust. Quite literally. Family groups bathing and washing dishes and miles of garishly patterened, beautiful clothing along the canal, the other side turning into rice, corn and millet fields. A few miles down the road turning away from the canal towards the distant hills, with the goal of reaching their mysterious “African-ness.”
The path in between the fields narrows and the ride suddenly becomes a single track-like experience of extreme mountain biking. Perfect. Blissfully short of breath and dodging bushes and passing children, watching the farming work happening in the peaceful sun. Mud flying behind me. And in front of me. And on me. Always with the sight of those hils to push me on. They look refreshingly cool and green, driving me forward. Maybe I’m channeling a little Captain Ahab. I find it difficult to worry about obsession right now.
The most pleasant part of any of these rides is the searching out of birds, wild and beautiful, the only real wildlife worth mentioning here, but deserving in their own right. Vast migrating flocks of bright yellow things flitting around in gorgeous clouds of sunshine. Tiny red finch-like ones that are simply gentle and pretty. The girl-next-door of Malian birds. Some big, majestic, royal blue birds that butter wouldn’t melt on. Gorgeous and proud. Pure white storks, something a sort of fox-like color, sleek and predatory, dangerous and unknown, and electric orange darts of color that fly boldly across your path. I need to learn about these things.
And suddenly, along a tiny white path and around an herd of cattle, the Niger.
Well, there go the hills. But heading along the river takes on a cathartic power of it’s own, following its bends and watching the current, turning around only when the next village becomes visible, heading back through the cow paths to the field divisions, finally stopping for a break. And promptly falling into a rice field. Maybe nobody saw that.
Sarah George
Bev Henderson-George
