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Magic and Myth in Timbuktu

Magic and Myth in Timbuktu

Author: Jo Rushby
Date: 2023-03-05
"Turning to face north, we enter our own unconscious. Always, in retrospect, the journey north has the quality of a dream" Margaret Atwood

Some of the greatest literature is about journeys. The Odyssey is still read with awe, new generations discerning new lessons. Mandela's "Long Walk to Freedom" written whilst occupying a cramped prison cell. My most remarkable journey was when I left the southern tip of Africa to head north; destination Timbuktu.

I woke up often in the night on the boat, either shivering from cold or because I was sleeping on bags of peanuts. Like me, the peanuts kept moving to find a place to rest. I peered out into the African sky. Silence matched the stillness. The landscape of the River Niger was enveloped with a display of stars so dazzling it felt like universal fairy dust had been luxuriously and magically sprinkled. I looked around to share this magic show but everyone was deep in slumber. I drank it in. Alone.

People always say it is an impossible journey to Timbuktu, for there are many forks and guides speak in tongues. But I was as determined as a deployed cadre pursuing a tender. For what lay ahead was the promise of books and ancient libraries full of alchemy and wonder. Papers and manuscripts, which had been hidden in trunks, smuggled into the surrounding deserts away from those who threatened the written word with fire, and then brought back to this mythical city.

The landscape was sparse, dust everywhere. But then, old men with bent sticks beckoned into tiny rooms. Even older men, eyes narrowed and backs bent, opened pages into the 14th century. Here, laid out were intricate astronomical diagrams, guides to farming by the moon, spells and alchemy. I thought quietly; were these, the people Livingstone set out to civilise?

In the morning, a cacophony of sounds. A makeshift school outside in the street where children learnt the alphabet on slate boards. And by the afternoon, dust swirled, danger lurked. Later, I would hear that many manuscripts were burnt. But Timbuktu still stands. The wizened returned from hiding and have taken up the tasks of preservation once more.

In this neck of the desert, the pen and the sword are in constant combat. Conrad saw a heart of darkness but I saw a light in Timbuktu. After nearly ten centuries, the desert encroaches, dust swirls, but the books remain, history and knowledge remain, and the fairies still sprinkle stars into the night sky.

Come visit me in my treasure trove, Ike's Books and Collectables at 48A Florida Road Durban or call 031 303 9214.