"Last night had been a very hot one, may I add, in two senses of the word. My new husband had again stimulated the passion within me and I lay there savoring the tingling after effects coursing through my well-satisfied body.
Only months previously, I had been a free spirit, traveling the world, going wherever my fancy took me, meeting wonderful interesting people. I was staying in the best hotels money could buy, dressed to the nines in designer clothes, living life to the full. Now at the ripe old age of 57, I was in Mali, a primitive country in West Africa, married to Bokar a young 24 year-old Dogon Chief’s son. I was living with his tribe in a mud hut, with no electricity, no running water, no form of income, dressing in simple cotton caftans, in heat reaching 45 degrees C."
"I was passionately in love with my new husband a beautiful young black man sleeping peacefully by my side. I mused at my situation, and the series of events, which had brought me to this remote place. I had been searching for information about the Dogon tribe for years but never in my wildest dreams believed that I would be searching for this with a Dogon husband."
Excerpts from the book
"This book is a moving love story, a drama, a comedy and an incredible spiritual journey".
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! My eyes opened wide. I had been awakened from my restless sleep by a familiar dull rhythmic throbbing sound. It was just after 4.30 a.m. and still dark. The sound came from the village women crushing millet seeds. This was their first chore of the day, while it was still relatively cool for such active work.
The women, young and old, held long thin heavy wooden poles, which they tossed high into the air, and let slip through their fingers as they guided them into narrow necked, deep-sided carved wooden mortars. Tiny seeds, not much bigger than sesame seeds, were being prepared to make millet cream or cakes for breakfast. Millet is their staple diet and of vital importance. I remembered in my childhood, seeing my father feed stalks covered with millet seeds to his prized birds, but it never occurred to me that people actually ate them."
I was in a difficult situation. I didn’t fit into this kind of lifestyle. I was not playing a women’s role and yet was like a baby if I ventured out alone. It was on foot on difficult terrain, exhausting and nowhere really to go. I had led a very independent life before and was free to travel wherever and whenever I wanted.
Bokar went for his shower and I lay on the bed thinking. The cultural differences ran through my head. Could I ever possibly fit into a society so foreign to my own? I considered myself to be a very adaptable person but the difference between our cultural values and our backgrounds and everything about us were so different. Could I ever adapt to the heat, to his culture, to his beliefs.
"The Wedding
Rasta man arrived with a taxi and his big friend. He told us that he would be my bridesmaid and his friend would be the witness for Bokar. Gee whiz two Rastafarian bridesmaids. I bet that made the Guinness Book of Records
It was an interesting group that entered that taxi to negotiate the dreadful roads to the Mayor’s office. No seat belts, of course, this was Africa. My God, if my Mother could see me now. If she hadn’t already passed on, she would have done so at this sight. Here was I, in a, less than safe taxi, hurtling through the back streets of Africa with three young black men, one of which I would be marrying that very morning."
