Lomography

Bamako Capital of Mali Africa
written by azurblue on May 8th, 2009 , 5 comments (7 votes)

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Bamako is the capital of Mali, located in the southwestern part of the country on the Niger River. In the local Bambara, “bama” means crocodile and “ko” a pool, or a river. This city has grown very fast: it has more than tripled in size from 1960 to 1970, largely because of rural immigration. Now the current population of the city is over 1 million, maybe 2.

The city is relatively flat, except to the immediate north where there is an escarpment, and where the Presidential Palace and main hospital are located, but we didn’t see it because of the pollution. The traffic is very dense, there are a lot of motorcycles and mopeds, and people cook with charcoal, so the air is very polluted.

We didn’t stay long so we didn’t have time to visit the National Museum.We only went to the big market – le grand marché -, where you can find every kind of things : tissues, like basins, or bogolans, music instruments, statues for tourists, jewelery of gold, and so on, don’t forget to negotiate, because every sellers want a very high price.

I couldn’t take pictures of magical stuffs : monkeys hands, hyenas skulls, lion’s urine…
Two advices :

First, people DON’T WANT to be photographed, and if they agree, they ask you for money, so this city is not a photographer’s paradise.
Second, watch at your things : a girl of the group was robbed her camera.