Between the desert and the savan	DJENNÉ, NOW AND FOREVER Photos by Christien Jaspars; text by Albakaye Ousmane Kounta. Christien Jaspars, of the Netherlands, is an Amsterdam-based photographer. Albakaye Ousmane Kounta is a Malian writer, poet and story-teller whose publications include Un complot de chèvres (Jamana publishers, Mali, and Beauchemin, Canada, 1998), Les sans repères (Balanzan publishers, Mali, 1997) and Sanglots et dédains (Jamana publishers, 1995). To find out more: www.promali.org/kounta
Each year the people of the Malian town of Djenné put a new coating of adobe on their great earthen mosque. A festival held to celebrate the occasion starts at dawn, at the end of Ramadan.
It was a feast day. The end of Ramadan. The people of Djenné gathered on the great square in front of the mosque for nine o’clock prayers on this holy day. The ritual drew to a close. The men were sitting on the ground listening to the Imam’s sermon, spoken by the greatest griot (storyteller)1 a slim, alert man with a silver tongue. His metallic voice roamed through the audience, seeming to probe their reactions. With his hands and his gaze, he took the pulse of the crowd. At the end of the sermon, his eagle eye caught sight of the upraised staff of the patriarch, who sharply struck the ground with it three times. Everyone listened to the sound in complete silence. Then the storyteller prepared to pass on the old chief’s words. The storyteller listened to the words, the sentences and the sounds, gathering them for a moment in his ears, his heart and his head. Then his tongue caressed them, cleansed them, drew them out, spun them, rinsed them and delivered them to the gathering, purged of all anguish and poison. For the spoken word can be a pain that kills and a dagger that scars for life. He said: That the north wind rises with every dawn And murmurs each day And drains everything of water That the waters of the two rivers Flow eastward each day He said: That the walls have stopped weeping That it’s time to heal The wounds left by winter They understood: They turned towards the West Towards the temple of Tapama2 They called on the great fishermen On the Karanyara3 On the Famenta On the Kasaminta Lords of the waves of night On the Niomenta On the Sininta On the Tienda Lords of the manatees and the crocodiles They went straight through the southern gate and on to the one opposite, the Sory gate, and then turned east to “the Pond of Fresh Milk”. There were the masons The men who mark in the sand With wooden hands The magic formulas That turn into lizards And cling to the walls Or doves amid The pillars. They went to talk To those who slap the walls With slabs of clay Then they went to the place where the two rivers meet. The little river, the Bani, Pretty as a little sister. And the great river, the Djoliba4 Strong as a bull. They went off to look for all the Soninke, all the Songai, all the other peoples To re-plaster the sanctuary People bent with age Who sleep in the bosom of the earth. The chiefs used their staffs To decree to everyone Whatever their age or clan That Djenné shall be and shall remain forever. The clay was already Mixed with powdery rice straw Kneaded out of millet husks and bran Bare feet trampled it. Bare hands worked it. They filled all the containers with it Using shovels and big dabas5 And hundreds of women and men Formed a crowd that flowed Towards the giant walls Of the mosque of Djenné the Great. 1. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Imam, like all important figures, often does not speak directly to the crowd but through an intermediary, the griot. 2. A girl sacrificed to the spirit of the river when Djenné was founded. 3. This and the following names are those of families that founded Djenné. 4. The Bambara name for the river Niger. 5. Hoes.	Photos © Christien Jaspars/Panos Pictures, London Photos © Christien Jaspars/Panos Pictures, London Photos © Christien Jaspars/Panos Pictures, London They took the pillars by storm As if to climb up to heaven Carrying buckets and baskets As if filled with milk and honey. They splay out their feet On boxwood sticks stuck in the wall Their heads between the legs of their neighbour... ...Willing hands Take the slabs of clay Perched on the scaffolding Like horsemen in the sky. With his soft hands He caressed the minaret With slabs of clay hurled up from below. His body moved gracefully back and forth Like the wings of the Mandé pelican Accompanied by the sobbing of the drums Kara will not fall. But often on this heady day People have no time To eat or drink Without stopping, they make do With sachets of milk Meatballs and boiled rice… …Clay is everywhere Mud is everywhere You are Coated with it From head to foot. A heavy silence descended on the town, in fits and starts, in torrents, in sobs. The drums, the tall drums, the balafons and the flutes fell silent. Only the voice of the town crier echoed over the roofs and the minarets, announcing mealtime. The meal is holy and is for everyone. Eyes are raised To question Columns and minaret Have you been well coated? With the finest earth? You say in your heart of hearts Once again An idea greater Than the head and the body That endures and reaches up into the clouds. Between the desert and the savan Map of Mali The site of Djenné has been inhabited since 250 B.C. It has always been a commercial crossroads between the desert and the savannah, on the trans-Saharan caravan routes which vehicled the gold trade. From the 15th century on, Djenné also became a centre for the spread of Islam. Almost 2,000 traditional adobe houses with Arab decoration have survived. They are built on hillocks to escape flooding by the Bani and Niger rivers during the rainy season. Djenné was placed on Unesco’s World Heritage List in 1988.