Last night, as I was turning around in bed trying to get to sleep in the twilight of the Scandinavian summer midnight I thought of Djenne.
In less than a week I will be there, Ne Ala Sonna. (God willing, Bambara). What is awaiting me ? What disasters have occurred in my absence ? It is the beginning of the rainy season, an unpleasant time for a hotel keeper with a hotel made of mud…Much hard work will be necessary as usual just to keep the hotel habitable for the first wave of visitors which begin to arrive in July.
‘Are you not lonely?’ asks my visitors sometimes. I always reply rather grandly : ‘The whole world comes to see me here in Djenne’. It is true, I do not normally have time to be lonely, there is too much happening and too many interesting people to talk to.
But today, thinking of my return I feel apprehensive...