Ivan my traveling pantrer this morning at sunrise, when we break camp and get back on the boat.It is our second day of three on the river, taking a boat to Timbuktu. I rise early, before dawn under a full moon, and walk inland, straight from the water over flat desert scrubland, nothing on the horizon except scrawny, thorny bushes. After a mile, I hear the bleats from a lamb, but see no sheep. I can walk forever in the nothingness, like an arctic expanse. I have never known such solitude. I traveled this far to get past loneliness.Back on the boat, I realize how fortunate I am to be able to tour the Niger and see the land of Timbuktu (Buktu’s well, from the ninth century C.E.). And fortunate for the opportunity to practice humility when encountering the connecting spirit of the Malian peoples and their response to the harsh conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries. They say bas***e’, no problem.The Bozo people have villages and encampments all along the river, supported by the men casting their nets while their sons, some quite young, pole the boats in place. How many of these boys will fish when they are adults? The fish are dying from desertification and the growing population. The temporary camps of the Fulab8 herders of brahma bulls and heifers and sheep. Both tribes are bound to their vocations by their castes. Both extract a living from a land less giving, the desert slowly wrapping its arms around all and wringing out the water and life. The children wave at us as we pass. I can’t here their cries, but I know they’re asking for “Cadeaux, cadeaux” (“Gift, gift”). I wave back, exhorting them in English to study hard, obey their parents, and vote Republican.In Timbuktu, the Tauregs (Tamasheks in their language) are everywhere, I don’t mean the Volkswagen SUV. They are nomads with a fierce reputation, who are also Sufi Muslims. The Festival of the Desert started 12 years ago, pulling in the yearly gathering of the Taureg tribes that have roamed this desert before the Timbuktu. Their music, mostly Takumba, is seemingly simple, but with a complicated syncopation that becomes trancelike and even religious in the call and response of its vocals. The dancing becomes ecstatic after a while and many rounds of hot desert tea. These people party hard, perhaps as respite from the harshness of their daily life. I was repeatedly pulled into their dance circles and pushed to go higher and higher, the fine dust of the Sahara rising like a foggy mirage.Tinariwen, the world reknown Takumba band, closed the Festival from 2:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. A Sufi singer from India sang with them on a couple songs. She reminded me of the Qawali singer, Neusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Only the tuobabs (foreigners) drank the alcohol provided by roving vendors, who prowl just like at the ball game, but can’t seem to make change or open a beer. There were only 150 of us Tuobabs at the festival this year (17 from Portland), a small fraction of those attending in prior years, because of the terrorist threat. Malians were let in for free and easily made the attendance equal to other festivals. The crowd was therefore African, which was great for connecting with the people, but also meant that we tuobabs were pestered all night to buy stuff by the same swarms that surrounded during the day.Thursday night, the female emcee announces that we have a surprise guest (although we really didn’t see him until the next night, so I guess she ruined the surprise): Bow-No, like in Bonobo, the ape, except it was really like Bon-oh, like in U2. The next night, Tinariwen backed him up during his nine-minute exercise in failed crowd exhortation. Very few Africans know who he was, even after an extensive intro. He thrust his hands out in peace symbols, sort of like the anti-Nixon, and chanted “Viva!”, and then Viva Timbuktu, Viva Festival of the Desert, Viva Musique, Viva Tinariwen, Viva Basekou (Basekou Kouyate, well known ngoni player from Mali (an ngoni is a rudimentary string instrument said to be the father of the banjo because of its jangly metallic sound)). The lead singer of Tinariwen sang Bono’s praises, although the praise seemed a bit begrudging. Bono’s command performance seemed to run on a little bit too long, especially when the crowd did not pick up that when Bono shook his hands at the audience like he was measuring a woman’s cup size, we supposed to repeat what he just sang. I’m sure he has had more success in other venues. He said his goodbyes and was escorted away by his two soldiers, who never let any black person near him when he sat in the celebrity stands before his gig. He had a videographer there, capturing ecstatic and exotic people of color dancing, so maybe we’ll be in his next video.I know I should give the guy a little slack for showing up to tell the world we should not be afraid and should come to the festival because music brings us all together. Who can argue with that? Well, maybe one little quibble. For a guy that talks about music bringing us together, he never really was with us, the people who don’t have special accommodations or soldiers that shoo away Malians.The act before Tinariwen closed it was Habib Koite and Bamana, music for Malian southerners, the Bambara and Mandinke. Our buddy, Ibrahim Kelly (who fronts the Portland band Dusu Mali) played djembe’ with Habib on his last song, a song advising people to quit smoking. A djembe’, which means harmony-peace in Bambara, is an African conga. Buoyed by good music and the half moon rising over the cool desert, we persevered until the end, the fine dust of the Sahara covering us all. We had eaten and breathed it for a week and left town three hours later in a 4 by 4 (a fine Galoper, made by Mitsubishi) on a ride that was as much vertical in up and down as it was forward. Three days of hard travel, and a touch of physical malady that didn’t require Cipro or hospitalization, I start the dance and drum workshop. So far the old saw, white men can’t dance, has not been challenged.