There are very few people that I’d want to walk 10K a day in a million degree weather with.  I think they’re all pictured above.  Amadou and Ibrahim were our guides in Dogon and completely made our trip for us.  Whenever we were at a camp ground with other tourists, I’d walk around and compare our guides with theirs, kind of like when you’re on a date and you look around at all of the other datey couples at the restaurant and decide who’s having a more awkward time than you are.  (Anyone else?  Just me?)  But, instead of winning the Fakest Wallet Reach Award, this time, I got Best Tour Guide.  They were the perfect mix of ridiculous and responsible and just took such great care of us.  They even brought us to the village where they grew up and we got to meet Ibrahim’s grandmother and see her house which was a trip highlight.  Then she asked if Leila and I were men or women, which might have been the trip lowlight though.

I think I was the only Jewish person that either guide had ever met and they had a lot of questions.  The best question came the one time (fine, two times) that I passed on a taking a shower.  Ibrahim asked me “This not ever taking showers, is it a Jewish philosophy?”  I tried to take personal responsibility and explain that being a dirtbag was just my philosophy, but I’m not sure how well I did.  I think I might have let my people down.  Sorry, guys and G-d.  

Anyway, there’s no way there are more caring or capable guides out there.  If anyone you know is going to Mali, pass on these e-mail addresses.  AmadouDembele10 (at) hotmail.com and IbrahimKassoke (at) yahoo.fr.  Just watch out though, they cheat at cards.  It took Leila and me about 25 rounds of losing to figure it out.