Sophie Sarin, screen goddess

Of course she takes to the camera like a duck to water; how could she not, after her early years as a model in Paris? But our dearest Sophie achieves a crowning glory as the Australian Broadcasting Company gives her over ten minutes' worth of guiding in its excellent Foreign Correspondent two-part documentary Mali - The Road to Timbuktu.

As readers of this blog will know - and, I repeat myself, Sophie's djennedjenno was the prompt - the latest and perhaps the most enduring of her multiple incarnations has been as hostess of her own specially mud-built hotel in the central Malian town of Djenné, a place of culture and history which as she points out in the film is a hundred times more beautiful than Timbuktu. There she is above with husband Keita snapped by the consummate - and ever-modest - Malick Sidibé when he came to Djenné.

The route taken by the film crew is the one formerly travelled by many visitors like ourselves, including the toughest leg by four-wheel drive across the Sahel and ferry across the river Niger to Timbuktu.

But circumstances are now, of course, very different. The French have essentially driven out the Islamic extremists but incursions remain; the night after this film crew left Timbuktu 11 people were killed in an attack on the hotel where the ABC folk had been staying. It hardly needs adding that the Al-Qaida affiliated insurgents' extreme brand of Islam is one nearly all Malian Muslims reject.

Ridicule is one answer: the film shows walls of Timbuktu shops in which the faces not only of humans but also of camels have been painted out. Malians, moderate and tolerant in their religious practices, simply can't understand it. The peaceful scene below was prayer time at Djenné Mosque during the religious festival of Tabaski, with which we happened to coincide on our Christmas visit.

I like documentary presenter Eric Campbell's good humour as well as his instinct for getting the right facts and talking to the right people. His cameraman, David Martin, captures much of the indestructible treasure of Mali as well as the horrible legacy of the recent past (some of that also featuring on surprising wartime footage). And let's not forget they were travelling at considerable risk, despite the armed guards. Anyway, they arrived safely back in Bamako, where the film ends with coverage of Sophie's 'surreal', once-postponed fashion show. Her chunk of Part One, which can be seen - I link once again - here, runs from 11'56 to 19'27.

You'll surely agree she comes over very well indeed, and  the range of what she's done for Djenné is well represented, from the weaving to the invaluable work in the British Library-funded manuscript library. The upshot is good business for malimali.org from Australia, and certain proposals, she says, from several Sydney businessmen (Keita can see them off).

In the meantime I withdraw again from the Malian scene with a memory of one of the best stretches - a moment of post-dawn bliss on our two-day pinasse journey down the Niger from Timbuktu to Mopti. That's not an experience anyone will be repeating again in the foreseeable future.

Peddler’s tales for the low-gear reader

Dauntless Dervla Murphy has cycled what were, at her various times of writing, the undiscovered corners of the world – when she could, that is, because from the harshest winter on record which dogs the quickly-told early stages of her first journey, Full Tilt, to the incapacities and robbery which cut short her bike rides in a much later, train-dominated jaunt around Siberia, circumstances have not always allowed. She’s also trekked with daughter Rachel – when aged five, to southern India, when six, to Baltistan – as well as enlisted several mules or donkeys for company and baggage, treated with love but subject to the same erratic diet as well as the perilous ascents and descents la Murphy herself favours.

These are the only books I’ve found easy to read during my several sojourns in the underworld* – and to re-read with pleasure this time round, in most cases; new to the trusty library this year were Cameroon with Egbert, Transylvania and Beyond and Through the Embers of Chaos (a tough, singular take on the post-fractured Balkans) . It doesn’t worry me that our Dervla has become ever more wild with her punches at What The West Calls Progress. Unscientific she may be; language is often a barrier; but her unique ability to rough it on hard floors among bedbugs and rats wherever she goes opens her to other ways of life, and endears her to local people. She follows her instincts, which are usually right; shrugs off robberies and broken bones; and, in the later books, simply talks to the casualties of war and AIDS.

Though the personal tone is always companionable, the books are often as good – I suspect – as the editor and proofreader have made them. Which doesn’t stop me loving the rougher-hewn tomes, like Six Feet in the Andes. But the little masterpiece is surely Where the Indus is Young – for the pith of its encounters, unsentimentally recorded, with the Balts and others, for the guileless observations of young Rachel and above all for the sheer bloody-mindedness of a mother taking her daughter trekking with a mule from the dead of winter up to avalanche time as the spring thaw begins.


Something of the descriptions of the river and mountain landscape both here and especially in the later stages of Full Tilt, when Dervla heads out of Gilgit in several directions, brings back strong memories of our much less doughty Karakoram journey from Chitral to Gilgit by jeep (majestic Tirich Mir in the distance above); all we can claim in common is dossing down on local floors with mountain folk en route, waking to scenes like this.


When Dervla waxes lyrical, as she often does, about the beauty of high solitude, I can understand at least a little of what she means. And I guess the places we visited on the earlier stages of our trip, which took us up several valleys inhabited by different tribes under the aegis of the Kalash Environmental Protection Agency, aka another extraordinary woman, Maureen Lines, will now have slipped back post-insurgency into untouristed obscurity. Anyway, all hail to the great Murphy for providing an invalid’s solace.


And in another all too recent reminder that other places in the world once accessible to the tourist can so quickly become out of bounds, I’ve been following with alarm our dear Sophie’s narrative from her Hotel Djenne Djenno in Mali. When we were there it wasn’t exactly easy to get to Timbuktu


and back down the river Niger. Now not only is it impossible, as I hazarded before Christmas, to head north to what seems likely to become known as Azawad, but the trouble is very much on Djenne’s doorstep. With only the sketchiest of outlines to be gleaned from the international press, Sophie is perhaps the best port of call for a woefully under-reported crisis that’s worsening by the day.

*normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Three seasonal suggestions

1. If you’ve planned a trip to Mali, don’t cancel completely because of what you’ve read in the news. I’m not trying to drum up more business for our dear Sophie’s fabulous mud hotel in Djenne if I say that you should perhaps think of following Foreign Office advice and not venture north to Timbuktu – as we did a couple of years ago (Sankore Mosque pictured above) - or to the annual music festival in the desert, but instead spend time (if you hadn’t already planned it) chez Sarin at the Hotel Djenne Djenno. I imagine the singular Maison Rouge at Mopti would not be out of bounds either.


Weirdly – and I’ve no idea on what intelligence these things are decided – the FO’s danger line seems to include Djenne in the no-go area. But the fact is that the recent debacle which happened in Timbuktu only has one other counterpart south of the Niger, in Hombore, and the circumstances of that kidnapping are dodgy, I’m told. As Sophie points out, the isolated situation of Djenne and the fact that it has to be reached by ferry would make it difficult for would-be terrorists to make a quick getaway.


I wonder if the favourite part of our trip (apart from staying with Sophie in Djenne, of course) – a journey down the Niger on a pinasse from Timbuktu to Mopti, scene from which pictured above – would be ill-advised these days. Shame; but bigger shame on the extreme Islamist movement which is decimating Mali’s fragile tourism. One plus is that you might see less of the haughty French tour-groups who ruined our time in Dogon country. The whole France-Mali relationship has long been highly dubious with respect to the way that the French consulate seems to have been punishing its former African colony by advising its citizens not to go; but it’s true that Mali needs to take a tougher stance on harbouring terrorists.


2. Sophie’s equally inventive artist-friend, and one of our most loyal, the wondrous Cressida Bell (pictured above with the selection of designs, and choice, for the cover of the latest London Review of Books), has just hosted an open-studio weekend along with other artists in Hackney, always a treat. The neighbouring shops proudly put out a flyer saying ‘as seen on TV’; you know what that means. But I enjoy a jaunt to Clarence Mews and get a kick from the vibrant fabrics; so in this instance my advice, rather than plea, is to take a look at Cressida’s online shop for a few gift ideas. In case you're wondering, the below shot was taken after close of business on Saturday, when many of the silks had been sold. But it still looks very colourful.


3. There are plenty of non-seasonal events still to absorb – I’m going to a string of master-recitals this week – but by Wednesday 14th, if you’re in London and free, you might feel sufficiently in the mood to attend an event organized by another dynamic friend. It’s ‘a celebration of Christmas’ at St Botolph without Aldgate (not to be confused with the one without Bishopsgate), adjacent to Aldgate tube station, a splendid place for a concert.


The event is in aid of the very worthwhile charity Maytree, which provides a London sanctuary along with counselling for the suicidal. Check out the charity’s website.


Star, keynote speaker, call her what you will, of the proceedings is actress Adjoa Andoh, who featured in Clint Eastwood’s film Invictus and may be a familiar telly face from Casualty, Eastenders and Dr Who. Other artists include the Belair Wind Quintet, the Hawthorn Singers and a team of hand-bell ringers. Audience participation, wine and mince pies included; 7.30 start, tickets a bargain at £10 on the door or online here. Hope to see some of you there.