PAINFUL FAREWELLS; MY STAPLE DIET!

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN AFTER A TEARFUL FAREWELL. Post No.42 (A 7 minute read) 

The tears that fell on my parting from my beloved group of Wodaabe ladies and children!!?? I FELT that my heart would never recover from the pain of that moment. I had to move on, that is to live. I had a quest and part of that quest had been to meet some Wodaabe women. Now my eyes, ears, nose, mind and heart, were all flooded with Wodaabe women.

I read through those chapters in my book last night and the tears still come, I did not want to say goodbye. I cursed the mosquitos and all the other flying insects that made every day so cumbersome. I could not take it. I knew a place where there were no mosquitos, my homeland!

I FEEL as though all my life I have been subjecting myself to painful farewells because there has always been something missing and so, I have had to continue my quest for the truth. Because I find only lies where I am at! So, do not want to stay. I am in that situation now too. The truth of all around me is so ugly that all I want to do, is change it to a more beautiful truth.

I have been alone in that sentiment for so long as to give up hope altogether of a better world. I do not believe in MAN-KIND to change, EVOLVE. I have no faith in HUMAN-KIND either. Me, myself, I, that is our modern world! Not so in the Wodaabe world; it is us, us, us and us. All the way it is US! Our HUMAN superiors. The living examples of how we could be if only we became more African again.

THE DAY DAWNS AGAIN FOR THIS INFJ, FAR FROM HOME!

Chapter thirty-nine is entitled ON THE ROAD AGAIN. Having had a long, long train journey down to Abidjan and spent some days there with my Wodaabe ladies, I had to head back northwards and had some good luck and managed to get a grande taxi to Bamako, the capital city of Mali. I quote myself from this chapter:

As such, much of that morning went by without me registering it. I was still with my ladies. I kept feeling my earrings, yes, they were there, it had all been real. My bracelets and my necklace, yes, it had all been real. This has been one of the most special meetings of my life, without any doubt!

My travel group today, were a group of Ivory Coaster´s and Malian´s. There was so much to learn, if only I could bring myself into today. Sadly, what happens when you are having so many experiences back to back, is that they seem to catch up with you and even steam roller over you, leaving you flattened out. Rather like the Roadrunner´s coyote!! 

But just like the poor coyote, you have got to peel yourself off the ground and re-inflate yourself and quickly too, if you are going to continue enjoying your trip. Maybe there is a limit to how many times you can re-inflate yourself in a given period of time! I know it was coming hard to me that morning! End of quote.

Some days were spent in Bamako,which was so mosquito laden that one did not want to hang around. I was headed north now to the Dogon Valley for another taste of ethnic peoples and their traditional life styles. These are a small statured peoples and I found myself taller than any of them. It was a mind-blowing experience to visit and stay in an ethnic village up on cliff tops with these wonderfully warm people.

I had found all of my expectations exceeded by many times. What it is to really be able to FEEL something. INFJs are all about FEELING and following their INTUITION and making their own JUDGMENT of all things (no man-made taboos). I have no doubt that these ethnic peoples, just as the Wodaabe peoples and the Tuareg peoples, are all INFJ personality types!!

Never have I felt more in tune with the inner me than in these days of African discovery. This is where our previous youthful desire to share, which maybe led us to appear EXTROVERTED, is left behind. We were maybe bolder as youths and as we so needed to share, so we would find the courage to speak up and let ourselves be seen!

I believe that having that support from your peers is a very positive factor in an INTROVERTED person´s life. You come out of your shell and you receive praise and evaluation. You enjoy coming out of your shell but you can only do so with others who want you to come out of your shell and SHARE some of the beauty that you have within.

These nomadic peoples that I had met were all very INTROVERTED people. They are very deep and very intimate. Their personal feelings are very private, they do not make their own feelings everybody else´s business. They share their feelings with their intimates only. This was what I could see was now missing from my life in Europe.

I had friends at times but I had no intimates anymore! And I still do not have any intimates. I have known intimacy between that date and this. That has all come from the southern hemisphere though!

At that moment in time, my FEELINGS were overwhelming me and I had to appeal to the THINKING part of my brain to keep me on track because no, I could not JUST stay down here indefinitely. My heart wanted to but my bite ridden body was telling me that severe sickness was always just around the corner. Money was very hard to come by. No, I could not stay.

None the less, I did still have some of my dreams yet to become reality and so my quest continued. Having got back to Mopti, on the banks of the great River Niger, I find myself a place on a river boat and spend some days slowly floating up the River Niger towards the ancient crossroads city, formerly known as The City of Gold, Tombouctou!

Next post then, will be chapters forty and forty-one, GOING UPSTREAM, RIVER NIGER and UP THE RIVER AND ROUND THE BEND respectively. So, check back for that. I really did enjoy that part oh, yes I did!

Anyone been boating on the River Niger? Have you done any boat travelling? Have you enjoyed boat travel?

Thank you for reading as always. Please do FEEL free to comment in the box below. If you are FEELING lost, check out the Post Index and start from the beginning, usually the best place to begin!! I have just noticed that I have been joined by readers in Hungary and Sweden, welcome to you all, I hope you will keep checking back with me.

If you would like to read my book, you can find it with these links: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

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