At 2 a.m. this morning, Benjamin and I bolted awake at the sound of men approaching. I jumped out of the tent (we hadn’t put up the ladder) just in time to greet them when they arrived. There were about 15 men, ages 18–30, each with machetes and one with a rifle.
I greeted them in English and reached out to shake the hands of those nearest me. There was lots of animated conversation in what I’m guessing was mostly Dioula with smatterings of French for my benefit. I didn’t understand a word, and they didn’t understand me. More speaking and gesturing continued, devoid of understanding.
They circled the car, tried opening the doors, and tried looking inside the windows. They kicked the wheels and the bumper and tried to look up into the tent where Benjamin was lying as flat as possible.
All guesses I have for them being there result in nefarious judgments. However, after we de-escalated the situation, they resigned to just requesting they take me to their chief. I denied comprehension. After a while, they handed me a phone and had me talk with someone who spoke broken English. He explained that they wanted me to choose between leaving now or going to see the chief and leaving in the morning. I responded with perplexity. The phone was handed back and forth a couple of times. They asked for money. I waited patiently.
At last, after about 30 minutes, one man gestured that all was okay. I shook his hand. Everyone started heading back down the trail, packed in a couple of cars, or returned to where they had come from.
Benjamin and I waited until they had gone before closing up the rooftop tent. We would sleep the rest of the night in the front seat of the car. By 6 a.m., we left.
Upon reflection, we never felt truly threatened. However, it was certainly disconcerting to be woken up at 2 a.m. by so many people brandishing machetes. What the hey! It is hard to come up with any explanation that justifies the number of people and the weapons they carried besides something unsavory.
Also, we were very amazed that they saw us. We arrived in a torrential storm when no one was around. Before stopping for the night, we checked satellite maps and saw no villages nearby. And we were quite a ways off the road and difficult to see at night, or so we thought.
