Bamako

I spent five days in Bamako. It astounded me by being more choked with bodies and motos, actually more chaotic and harder to walk around in than anywhere I can recall in Cameroon. It's exhausting, psychologically, being a white woman traveling solo in Africa. It's like I radiate some signal out in all directions, emit a sound, like a dog whistle that attracts lonely men and sloppy, amateur conartists. Example: I was standing on the side of the road in Bamako examining a sign board for the African Cup in 2002 when a twenty-somethingish guy comes up to me saying he recognizes me from the Maison des Jeunes, where I was staying. He's missing one front tooth, and has a bandage over his eye, and speaks in a slurred, labored way because he's drunk or high, or something. He explains that he got into a fist fight with a Malian (he's Senegalese, he says) the night before over a cigarette lighter, Malians are all mechant, and oh, would I like to go see crocodiles with him? No, I say, I would definitely not like to go see crocodiles with him. He was like a villan in a cartoon, all that was missing was goofy, sinister back ground music and a waxed mustache. All the hustlers that I've encountered so far -and I'm extremely thankful for it-are so incredibly conspicuous I wonder how any of them manage to eek out a living.