A desert party near Timbuktu
ESSAKANE, Mali — Walking across the grounds of the Desert Festival in this small, sandy village outside Tombouctou (Timbuktu) in northern Mali, the first impression was that foreign tourists had taken over.
They arrived in packs, at least 800 of them, pulling up in giant 4×4 jeeps and, it seemed, rushing from their cars to immediately begin haggling over handcrafted jewelry and camel rides.
The Malians who weren’t performing catered to the crowd. The local Tuareg tribesmen erected tents for the crowds to sleep in, dressed up in their most traditional and, they claimed, authentic gear to appeal to tourist customers, and then wandered about hawking everything from hot sweet tea to phone cards.
The Desert Festival is billed as one of West Africa’s greatest cultural events, featuring the haunting chants of Tuareg music wafting across the dunes in a remote spot near Timbuktu. But it seemed to be little more than a big backpackers’ party on the dunes.
Then the music started. And the Malians — Tuareg and otherwise — reacted with unbridled enthusiasm. From the moment the first notes were sounded, kicking off the first day of the three-day concert, it was clear that the American and European travelers were merely guests. The Desert Festival was very much a Malian cultural celebration.
Malians swarmed local musicians in the band Kabalala, who stood in the sand, singing and tapping on calabashes, their fingers laced with large rings. Later, a local crowd was front and center at the stage, swaying, cheering and clapping as timeless chants blended with electric pop from across West Africa.
By the time Mali’s international pop star Salif Keita appeared, the crowds had reached a frenzy. The energetic Keita leapt across the stage, and below him Malians scrambled for a better view, men shouting along with every lyric and women screaming and ululating at the close of every song. At one point they lifted a would-be crowdsurfer into the air for a few brief seconds before a guard tugged her back down.
Away from the scheduled events, the musical camaraderie continued. Impromptu performances dotted the festival grounds in tents and around campfires, where even the festival’s brightest stars mingled with locals. Although tourists were invited not only to watch these spontaneous jam sessions but also to join in with their own instruments, the Tuaregs, many of whom were reuniting for the first time in a year, were much more interested in each other.
Foreigners were welcomed but seemed a bit out of place, as if they had stumbled in on a family reunion. Some snuck away “early” at 3 a.m. to get some rest. The Malians continued with the twang of guitar chords almost until dawn.
For them, these campfire meetings are the true roots of the celebration. For generations, the Tuareg tribes that roam the southern edge of the Sahara have gathered at the close of each nomadic season, meeting to exchange information, resolve conflict, celebrate births and weddings of the previous year, and create music.
Foreign performers were first invited to join the festivities in January 2001, when a French band and three bands from other parts of Mali accompanied the Tuareg musicians for an intimate desert concert. Since then the festival has become an international phenomenon, with 30 to 40 bands performing on a permanently constructed stage in front of crowds of thousands.
For festival founder and organizer Manny Ansar, attracting performers and music-lovers from across the country to Tuareg lands is one of the concert’s greatest successes.
“A few years ago there was war here, and now there is music,” Ansar said, referring to Tuareg separatist uprisings that led to a civil war from 1994 to 1996. “The festival helps the nomadic and sedentary peoples get to know each other. It allows local artists to be exposed to other influences, and there’s an opportunity for their music to be exported.”
“Of course, there’s always the danger of tainting it,” he added.
But overly tainting local music and culture is something that organizers are determined to avoid. For starters, Ansar refuses to move the concert to Timbuktu, which would cut out the expensive, hours-long, and potentially hazardous trek through the desert. Between worldwide financial woes and travel advisories in the region, 2009 was the first time in the festival’s history that fewer people attended than the previous year. Still, Ansar is resistant to making the festival more accessible to tourists.
“There’s always a question of whether to go closer to Timbuktu to get more tourists, or staying in the desert to get more Tuaregs,” Ansar said. “But the choice is a quick one.”
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