I wound up in Mali, in West Africa, because my friend Geoffrey wanted to go there. Geoffrey collects African tribal masks and statutes. I had spent a few days in Miami visiting Geoffrey and his wife, and over drinks one night Geoff mentioned how much he wanted to visit West Africa to see where the masks came from. He'd been planning the trip for years but had run into a snag: Mrs. Geoffrey.

Originally luke-warm on the idea, Mrs.Geoffrey had turned downright cold when she learned what shots she'd have to take.

Geoffrey said to his wife, "Come on, it won't be that bad."

Mrs. Geoffrey said, "That's what you think. Look, if you want to go to Africa so bad, go with someone else. Go with, say ..." She turned to me. Her eyes lit up. She pointed her finger. "Him," she said, triumphantly. "Go with Paul."

One thing led to another and on October 13, 1990, Geoffrey and I--Vicki wasn't any more enthusiastic than Mrs. Geoffrey--headed for Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast for a three week trip.

The countries we visited lie in the western part of the Sahel. The Sahel is the semi-arid plain that separates the Sahara desert to the north from the coastal rain forests to the south.

In the Middle Ages Arabs crossed the Sahara on camels to haul slaves and gold out of the area. Those Arabs converted the locals to Islam, and many villages today practice a mix of Islam and native religions. In the 18th and early 19th centuries slave raiders from the coast shipped millions of slaves from West Africa to the New World. When slave trading ended in the latter part of 19th century, the French colonized much of the area into French West Africa. Independence came in 1960, and French West Africa was split into several small countries.

Our primary destination was the Dogon country in Mali, one of the most barren, isolated places on earth. There we'd study culture and religion, admire native art, and make friends with people--people who live as far from western civilization as one can get.

Our first stop in Africa was Bamako, Mali's capital. Bamako is a city of half a million people, far from the Dogon. Still, it took us over two days to get there. We met in New York on a Friday night. Saturday noon we took an Air Afrique flight to Dakar, Senegal. We arrived in Dakar at midnight and had a seventeen-hour layover. On Sunday night we flew to Bamako, arriving at ten p.m. Bamako was very hot and very sticky, even at that time of night.

We took a cab from the airport to a hotel we had chosen from our guidebook. The cab dropped us in front of the hotel, and Geoff and I went for a look. The US$ 30 room consisted of four windowless walls with a hole for a door. Inside was a mattress and a prayer mat. Even assuming the hotel could come up with sheets, the room had no circulation, no fan, no light, no furniture, no mosquito net, and no bathroom. We told the owner, "No thanks."

We were tired and sweating from the heat. We sprayed with mosquito repellant, put our lightweight packs on our backs, and headed out. It was midnight, and some people slept on the sidewalks. But many, many Africans and foreigners were out and about, in bars and discos and in the streets, talking, laughing, singing, working. It was our first surprise of the trip: Africa never sleeps. The next hotel cost US$ 50 and had air conditioning, but was otherwise as bad as the first. The third hotel was at the train station. It cost US$ 75, was claustrophobic, and had a loud nightclub below. Hot and exhausted, we finally went to the Grand Hotel and paid US$ 130 for a double room. US$ 130 was about four times our budget. It was our second surprise: West Africa is expensive. The local currency, the franc, is tied to the French franc. During our time in the area the French franc was at its all-time high against the dollar.

On Monday morning we went to the U.S. Embassy, to register and tell them we were going to travel up-country. Down the street from the Embassy was a bank. To save time, we decided Geoff would register at the Embassy and I would change money at the bank. We would meet back at the Embassy in half an hour.

The bank was jammed with people waiting in line. I squeezed inside, but it was hopeless. Crowds in front of the teller cages were frenzied. The French had bequeathed Mali their language and hard currency. Now I realized the French had also left their dead-weight bureaucracy. A French banker who puts his heart into it can make simple operations like changing money take as long as negotiating the foreign debt.

Instead of waiting in line I picked out a dapper, middle-aged man who was wandering through the lobby. I said in my best French, "Change money?"

He took my arm, ushered me out of the bank, and put me into his car. He drove half a mile across town, to a bank near one of the hotels we had inspected the night before. He pointed to the bank and said, "Change."

I got out of the car. I wondered if Africans were always so friendly and helpful. I wondered how a capital city like Bamako, with 500,000 people, could have only one bank that changed money. And I wondered how I would make it back to the Embassy to meet Geoff within half an hour.

In the bank I went to a window that said "Foreign Exchange." The woman there looked at me with dark, dead eyes, eyes filled with bureaucratic contempt. Those eyes told me, "The French were here."

I said, as hopefully as I could manage, "A hundred dollars?"

She disappeared for a moment and returned with a form--the kind of form that trained lawyers take months to complete. She was counting her carbons when I noticed her rate sheet: 229 local francs to the dollar. No good. I said, "Thanks, I'll change elsewhere."

I hurried out, intent on meeting Geoff at the appointed hour. But on the sidewalk in front of the bank a man approached. He was maybe 20 years old, dressed in a clean, pressed cotton shirt and dark slacks. I was sweating, but this young man was crisp and cool.

In French he said, "Change?"

I said, "Dollars."

In English he said, "I'll give you two forty-five. Come."

He changed a hundred dollars for me in about ten seconds. The transaction was probably illegal, and I noticed that a woman in the area was staring at us. It was beginning to make me nervous when, to my surprise, my moneychanger ushered me to over to the woman. She was cooking over a charcoal fire. She was maybe 37 years old and had a baby sucking on one of her breasts. As we approached she handed a customer a skewer of meat. My host nodded toward the woman and said to me, "Please meet my mother. If I'm not here, you can change with her." He handed her my hundred dollars. "We're open Monday through Friday, from eight to eight. Cash or traveler's cheques, any currency, no problem."

Mom flashed me a friendly smile and said something to the son I didn't understand. The son translated. "You had lunch?" I thanked them and hurried off to the Embassy. I made it back with time to spare. Two days later we returned to the same stew vendor and changed over a thousand dollars.

Bamako's market can be described in one word: colorful. Women wrapped themselves in bright, greenish yellow and red mostly, although some wore green, orange, brown, or blue. Men too wore startling colors: purple robes and gold caps, with gold chains and rings. As these men and women moved about the market they created color in motion, a great sea of color that flowed and returned, riveting the senses.

The market drummed with activity. Everyone, it seemed, was busily, purposefully engaged. There was no need to hurry--it was far too hot to hurry--yet the day's errands must get done. Market is where a man who grows rice trades some of it for flour. Where a woman who makes millet beer trades it for a chick she can take home to fatten. Where a woman who raises goats can trade it for cloth that she can take to a man who can sew it into something she can wear. These days traders use money as a medium of exchange, rather than barter. But the market still enables those with too much of something to exchange it for something else. And everyone DOES have something to exchange. What we might call solid waste in the U.S. doesn't exist in Mali. Broken bottles, tin cans,and paper are traded at market rather than piled up in dumps. Bottles store precious water. Tin cans can be flattened and joined to make a roof. Paper can fuel fires; in the barren Sahel, firewood and charcoal are scarce.

In one of the market stalls a dozen men sat at sewing machines. I approached one of the operators, pulled a coin out of my pocket (about US$ .40), and pointed to a six-inch tear in the seat of my pants. He nodded agreement. I pulled off my pants. Standing there in my underwear, my money belt hanging on my hip, I watched the sweatshop tailor sew up the tear. When he finished I put my pants on, handed him the coin, thanked him, and went on my way. I was ready to tackle the Dogon country.

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