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November 29, 2006
Forgive me Dogon - I got you so wrong
Dear Stephen,
Congratulations for your nice and interesting blog Voice in the desert. I reached it par hasard through Technorati. I read your post about Dogon Country. I can agree with your statement that it’s a rather improbable place :) And also a magic one.
But there are some things that I must say are not completely exact in what you say.
First thing: the word 'Dogon' has no plural, something rather surprising for Occidentals. It is 'the Dogon', which refers to individuals as well as to the whole ethnic group.
Concerning masks: the masks you can see in Dogon Country are...Dogon. As you mentioned, Fulani don’t use masks. Maybe the mistake came from the fact that Dogon do wear Fulani hats. Making masks is actually one of the most famous pieces of Dogon art. They are only used for traditional animist feasts, especially the Great Mask, called Kanaga.
Dogon don’t pound onions in order to charge tourists 1000CFA for a picture. This assessment is very simplistic! If you visit a Dogon market, you will notice that onions are under various states (fresh, sun dried, pounded... and even rotten!) When they are pounded, it’s because they are ready to use, like many other spices or leaves (baobab, karite), in order to prepare the traditional sauce. And Dogon did it from long before tourists discovered Dogon Country. Dogon women spend a long time mashing millet and getting water (wells are often far from villages). So, the dealers offer them pounded onions to save time. For example, in order to prepare the da, an incredible mixture of mutton head and tripe with a sauce made with baobab, onion, sorrel and chilli. Not bad but they eat it for breakfast. Tough!
About granaries: all of them are not circular. They are circular when they belong to women, and square when they belong to men.
The Hogon is often the oldest man of the village but not always. He is the spiritual head and considered as the wisest. He has a very tough life once he is appointed Hogon by the oldest men of the village after long talks under the Toguna (Word House). He must live on his own, outside of the village just under the cliff, he must never leave his house and only his wife is allowed to bring him food, he is supposed to have no contact with water (even for drinking: according to the beliefs, he is cleaned and receives water only from the sacred serpent Lébé during the night as you mentioned) and he stays a Hogon till his death.
If you wish to know (a little bit) more about Dogon, have a look at this Dogon page.
Cheers
François http://aceras-photos.over-blog.com/
Posted by sahelsteve at 07:20 AM
November 26, 2006
The Yellowcake Mystery is finished
I am very happy and relieved. Yellowcake is finished.
No doubt there will be some editing/tweaking in the weeks to come, but the basic story is complete and it's 50,000 words long.
I know a lot more about nuclear science than I used to, and a lot more about surveillance equipment. And ferrets. And ancient Tifinagh script. And Kalashnikovs.
It's strictly for boys, this one. 11-14s, probably. I'll let you know when it comes out.
Posted by sahelsteve at 11:01 PM
November 19, 2006
National Novel Writing Month
As you may be aware, November is National Novel Writing Month. The aim is to write a 50,000 word novel by midnight on 30 November.
By uncanny coincidence, my contract for 'The Yellowcake Mystery' states that I must submit the 50,000 word manuscript by 1 December 2006. So I have signed up to NaNoWriMo - it would have been rude not to. (Besides, they email you a weekly pep talk and keep track of your wordcount for you and generally shower you with motivational gimmicks).
These days I tend to do the day job in the mornings and writing in the afternoons and evenings.
Current wordcount will be displayed automatically by the widget on the right of the screen there. Haha, funny old world.
Posted by sahelsteve at 10:29 PM
November 15, 2006
Grovelling apologies
I have 77 apologies to make.
Those of you who have emailed me over the last two years via the email address on this site may have wondered why I haven’t replied. The answer is: I thought my voiceinthedesert email account was set up to auto-forward to my ntlworld account, the one I use on a day-to-day basis. I thought wrong.
I was shocked/horrified/amused last night to find my voiceinthedesert inbox, stuffed with the dozens of messages I have totally ignored. Please accept my abject apologies, and thank you, Quakers, for the digestive biscuits, which I DID receive and enjoyed very much.
I will try to reply individually to as many as possible.
I now officially CAN be contacted via the contact page on the right there. It works. I get the messages. I reply.
Sorry.
Posted by sahelsteve at 06:25 AM
November 13, 2006
Bin Laden found in salad
Here are some highlights from the menu at our hotel in Battambang, Cambodia:
Then we saw it: the chef’s piece de résistance:
Me: Excuse me, what is in the ‘Salad Binladen’?
Waiter: I do not know.
Me: Could you find out for me, please?
Waiter goes off and whispers with his colleagues in a corner. Then he comes back.
Waiter (hesitantly): Eggs
Silence.
Me: So why do you call it a Salad Binladen?
Silence.
Waiter: I do not know.
Posted by sahelsteve at 09:23 AM
Cambodia pics
Here is Charlie at Angkor Wat, training to join the notorious Spider Girl Gang in Chile:
And here is a waterbuffalo washing his ears. I have a soft spot for waterbuffalos, cf Kosuke Koyama's wonderful book Waterbuffalo Theology and my 2001 dissertation Wonders and Waterbuffalos.
Posted by sahelsteve at 08:27 AM
November 04, 2006
One for a rainy afternoon!
Sophie and the Albino Camel is going into a second printing, following its Glen Dimplex success the other night. So if you want a first edition, you might want to get one quick!
Here is a photo of Klaus Flugge (director of Andersen Press) accepting the award on my behalf, flanked by electrical-heating tycoons Sean O’Driscoll (Chief Executive of Glen Dimplex) and Martin Naughton (Chairman of Glen Dimplex).
And here are the winners in the other categories. Congratulations especially to Alice Hogge (left), who won the overall Glen Dimplex New Writer of the Year 2006 award for her book God’s Secret Agents.
Carlo Gébler, one of the judges in the Children’s category, had some nice things to say about Sophie:
‘Of the many books entered for the best first book for children, a few were woeful; many were good; five were excellent; and one was outstanding. ‘Sophie and the Albino Camel’ had a charismatic and inventive central character; the story telling was beautifully clear and unpretentious; and, most importantly of all, it passed the rainy afternoon test. On any afternoon of rain this was a book, we believed, that you could give to any child secure in the knowledge that he or she would enjoy it.’
Here is a Press Release about the Presentation Ceremony.
Posted by sahelsteve at 09:55 AM
November 02, 2006
Albino Camel wins Glen Dimplex
I have just heard that 'Sophie and the Albino Camel' has won the Glen Dimplex New Writers Award in the Children's Book Category.
Klaus Flugge, founder and director of Andersen Press, kindly went to Dublin and accepted the award on my behalf. When the result was announced, they showed a little acceptance speech which I had pre-recorded. Quite exciting to win something like this with a first book.
Special thanks to:
- Glen Dimplex and the Irish Writers Centre
- My friends and neighbours in Burkina Faso
- Dave Shelton, for his uncannily apt illustrations
- Robin Watson, for proofreading so thoroughly
- Andersen Press, for rescuing Sophie from the slush-pile and taking a chance on her
- Mum, Dad, Debbie, Sven, Charlie
So much of what we hear about Africa is bad news: war, famine, pestilence, corruption and misery. It is easy to forget that there is also a great deal of humour, courage and faith to be found there, not to mention bottomless wells of wonderful stories and proverbs. My hope is that the Sophie books will make children laugh and inspire them about Africa.