To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa

Book Review by Professor Geoffrey Lipman
UNWTO Assistant Secretary-General

To Timbuktu for a Haircut is a great read — a little bit of Bill Bryson, a little bit of Michael Palin, and quite a lot of Bob Hope on the road to Timbuktu. It has adventure — in the form of a journey into the unknown. It has knowledge — a wealth of information about the geography, history, and sociology of a fascinating land, its people, and their culture. It has discovery — of a hidden treasure trove of ancient manuscripts that tell of a civilization long forgotten that, in its day, rivalled modern-day mega-states. And it has romance — the love of a man for his quest, his encounters, his profession, his family, and for the essence of life itself. Once started, you simply don’t want to come to the end.

The story is compelling. And it’s told with passion, with self-deprecating humour, and with a strong sense of respect for the seemingly barren land where daily life is a constant reminder, to the rest of us, of the importance of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and of our global commitment to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Rick Antonson’s personal odyssey is peppered with commentary on issues that are geopolitically relevant, and his insights as an industry professional into those issues’ links with travel are right on the mark.

The reader truly feels a part of this journey, beginning with Rick’s agonized midlife decision to spend a month without work, without BlackBerry, without family and business obligations. Next comes the germination of the big idea of chasing a childhood fantasy in ‘Darkest Africa’ and then the bizarre travel planning with its self-imposed requirement to do it the hard way accompanied by a pivotal local agent who makes Fagin in Oliver Twist seem like St. Jude, the patron saint of travellers. Finally, there is the truly fascinating adventure itself — travelling overland to a city that at its peak rivalled London or Venice as a trading centre.

The story flows easily and lucidly, blending local community minutiae with serious global issues such as the disparity between haves and have-nots, shown in the dull monotony of a handful of rice as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The author shows us the contrast between today’s survival-of-the-fittest, market-based society and a railway carriage or hostel in Mali where you can leave your belongings with strangers. He reveals the awesome Sahara Desert’s creep into Timbuktu, demonstrating one of the most serious sides of climate change. And he evokes the radiant, innocent beauty of the smile on the face of a child who receives one of Rick’s seemingly endless supply of memorabilia, reminding us that children everywhere are so different in the conditions into which they are born, but are so alike in their characters, and that we owe the children of Africa a seriously better future.

We follow the adventure by train, Land Cruiser, riverboat, camel, and quite often on foot. We feel the weight of the overpacked knapsack, share the camaraderie of fellow travellers stuffed into a dank railway carriage, and experience vicariously the misery of basic sleeping, eating, and sanitary facilities. We begin, too, to understand why the word travel is believed to be a derivative of travail, the French word for work. And as we read of the early explorers, we marvel that so many kept searching for the legendary city even as they were mowed down by climate, terrain, and hostile inhabitants.

Yet we also discover how tourism really works at its basic level, where a journey can help provide jobs and export income in another country that has few other service exports — whether it’s the author travelling for leisure or the film crew who share part of his journey travelling for business. And we understand graphically what every extra dollar of tourism revenue can mean to a family that lives on less than a dollar a day in a country that is saddled with debt and disease and has few chances to compete in world markets. We see the endless pain of abject poverty that is everywhere, the horrors of AIDS as it decimates families, and the barbarity of female circumcision, which is still widely practised across the continent. And we learn about the pain of river blindness and read the fantastic story of a drug company that puts pure humanity ahead of pure profit.

We meet a cast of characters that Shakespeare would have been proud to bring to his pages: Mohammed, the travel agent from hell, who puts the trip together in a way that maximizes his profits and minimizes his client’s comfort and quality; the priceless Zak, the tour guide from heaven, who becomes a companion and a confidant and who takes the author on his own tour so that he can experience the traditional hospitality of his enchanting family; the coquettish Nema, whose hidden sensuality is a nice addition to her skill as a chef, creating palatable dishes from a handful of basic ingredients and finding ingenious ways to incorporate onions into everything despite her employer’s aversion to them; and an array of bit players who add colour to the journey at every stop.

If there is a hero in this tale, it isn’t the author or any of the characters he meets along the way. No, what is heroic here is Mali itself and the indomitable spirit of its people. A land that has seen kingdoms come and go, Mali has a history as proud and rich as any country on the planet, but it is a nation that has also been dealt an incredibly tough hand by nature. Mali is a land with some of the most evocative place names on earth — the unyielding Sahara Desert, the seemingly endless River Niger, and the mysterious Timbuktu, an ancient capital of a long-lost empire — and it is a nation that has remarkably proud people, including the famed and feared Tuareg warriors, along with their equally celebrated Berber ancestors. Chronicled in these pages are the people of Mali, whose men love football and life, whose women are tireless and possessed of enduring perseverance, and whose cheerful, loving children, above all, anxiously reach out to touch the hands and hearts of strangers.

Timbuktu turns out to be a bit of a disappointment, though, given its status as a World Heritage Site. It is a surprise to learn that for hundreds of years it was a primary marketplace on great trade routes driven by gold and, above all, salt, which, in economic terms, was the oil of its day. It is equally amazing to read about Timbuktu’s rulers, who could destabilize global commerce by dumping gold in what was then a world commercial hub in Egypt. And it is also interesting to discover that Timbuktu was once home to scholars who were the leading lights in the fabled Muslim academic community that brought us so much of our science, mathematics, and literary heritage. Most traces of this culture have disappeared, however, as time, sand, wind, shifting markets, and escalating poverty have taken their toll and will continue to do so.

But the author finds two great compensations. One is his side trip to the remote Dogon region, the most memorable part of his journey, where the rugged beauty of the countryside and the charm of its long-suffering people capture his heart and mind. In a world where nature-based and community-based ecotourism is the Holy Grail, there is surely untapped potential. The other compensation is his rediscovery of the ancient manuscripts, which tell of the great days of Timbuktu and its role as a centre of learning, trade and, of course, tourism of its day. It is a “rediscovery” because a central purpose of the journey (other than the literal and figurative haircut) was to visit the libraries and peruse documents that have been described in archaeological terms as similar in importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls. What the author finds is that the papers and records are suffering from serious neglect, are far more numerous than imagined, are far more meaningful as a record of civilizations past, and are sadly in need of urgent action to save them from destruction by the desert. True to himself, he has committed to support the international campaign to save the manuscripts, including the donation of some of his royalties from this book.

So there you have it. To Timbuktu for a Haircut is a great read, a mine of information, and a fascinating insight into travel at its most fundamental level. In this book we see how tourism can be a learning experience and how it can act as a way to break down barriers between people and between nations and allow them to understand one another better. The author puts it this way: “At its core travel holds immense hope for a better world. Two hundred and eighteen countries call this tiny planet home: each of us is but a step or two away from a person in every one of those nations, perhaps family, a friend, or a fellow traveller. Tourism, more than any other industry, can bring people together to celebrate differences.”

But the reader is left with one nagging question: despite the glories of its past, is Mali and its hardy population, now existing in a different world characterized by extreme poverty, destined to remain that way, or is there a chance the world community can help the children have a better life? The answer that flows through every chapter of this book is that that we simply have to help.

World leaders have made great promises of change in the recent past, particularly in the case of the Rio and Johannesburg Earth Summits, the Monterrey Debt Summit, the Millennium Development Goals, the emerging Doha Development Round, and the Bali Climate Change Framework. In all this grand global design there is a massive promise to transfer funds, build infrastructure, and supply technical know-how to developing countries generally and to African nations specifically. The United Nations family, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and IMF systems, as well as the G8 and industrialized states, are committed to implement this development agenda by 2015.

If tourism were to be given a prime place in this support network, Mali and countries in the same poverty trap would have an area of proven wealth and job creation as a stepladder to sustainable development. The policymakers and bureaucrats who will be responsible for such a paradigm shift should start their research on the following pages.

Professor Geoffrey Lipman
Assistant Secretary-General
United Nations World Tourism Organization

Rick Antonson is the president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver and a director of the Pacific Asia Travel Association. He has had adventures in Tibet and Nepal, on the Trans-Siberian Railway, and in Libya and North Korea, among others. The co-author of the bestselling Slumach’s Gold: In Search of a Legend, he lives in Vancouver.

Part of the royalties from To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa will go toward preservation of the endangered Timbuktu manuscripts.

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To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa by Rick Antonson is published by Dundurn Press: ISBN: 978-1-55002-805-8, 256 pages, USD 26.99 / GBP 14.99.