Hi, I am a Tuareg
During the
tourist season many "guides" arrive from southern Mali,
Burkina Faso, and other countries, wrap ten meters of
fabric around their heads and approach you with the phrase
"Hi, I'm a Tuareg..." One way to be sure you have an actual
Timbuction, Tuareg or otherwise, is to ask for their
carte
professional issued by the
bureau of tourism (OMATHO). Making contact with a
particular person in advance and making sure you connect
with that person on arrival is another way to limit your
risk of being scammed. See below for some scams that have
been practised on tourists. If you have a scam story you
can post it on the blog.
Hi,
I am a Tuareg
You
will hear repeatedly, “Hello, I am a Tuareg. I live in the
desert. I have left my caravan on the edge of town. I just
want to sell this ____ to buy food for my family in
Taoudenit.” This is patently false. Even if the person
actually is a Tuareg, the rest is just a gimmick to sell
you whatever.
First off, no one lives in Taoudenit. Only the miners go
there to cut salt during the season and the caravaners go
to transport it. The rest of the time it is deserted.
Next, the nomads who do live in the open desert have
nothing to do with tourists. They prefer to stay in the
desert. They only come into town to sell some animals and
buy their millet, sugar and tea, then leave again as soon
as they can. They don’t speak French except a few old
ex-goumiers (camel cavalry for the French colonial army).
More importantly, there are two groups of Tuaregs, the
Tamecheq (pronounce tam-a-shek) and the Berabish
(see Who lives in
Timbuktu for details). The salt trade
and tans-Saharan caravans are the provenance of the
Berabish. The distance from and distrust that the
Berabesh have of towns has marginalized them in the
tourist trade. Therefore almost any Tuareg who
approaches tourists is a Tamacheq and does not have the
culture of the salt caravan or the tans-Saharan
commerce. In fact, in the past the Tamacheq were known
for attacking and pillaging caravans.
“Your sooo Beautiful! It is stronger than me, I just
can’t help myself, I’ve never felt this way before, God
knows ....” Extravagant and flowery flattery is very common
here and can be part of any legitimate sales pitch but it
can also go over the top. For young ladies who were
overlooked romantically because of being overweight, or
socially awkward in the west, or older ladies feeling old
and unloved, arriving here and being showered with
compliments can go to your head. Voluptuous women are the
standard of beauty in west Africa. Many men will find a
girl attractive who was shunned as fat in the West but
unfortunately many men also want a visa, a sugar mama or to
“try out a white woman” Sexual tourism is not as common in
Timbuktu as it is in the coastal resort countries but it
does exist. Beware of men who fall in love with you at
first glance. Occasionally it is real but so often it ends
in disappointment and disillusionment.
The
three legged camel dance As far as I know there is no
actual dance by this name if someone invites you out on the
dunes to show you the constellations and learn the
three-legged camel dance, you are being propositioned.
Oh
yes I know the person you are looking for he’s my
uncle. It is
possible to stumble onto a relative of the person you are
seeking; it is after all a very small world but often that
is just a confidence game. A young man passing himself off
as a student or admitting he is a guide will ask where you
intend to stay and immediately he is he is a relative of
the person you are looking for. He may even take you to
what he claims is the family home of the person. Once he
thinks he has your trust, he will explain how his “uncle”
the person you want to see is travelling right now or ill
or something so that he is unavailable but... then he
proposes himself or another relative “in the same family”
to fill in. In extreme cases the fraud may claim to be the
person you are looking for or take you to another fraud
pretending to be him. If you discover that it is false he
will use the excuse that it was a misunderstanding because
they share the same name.
In general if they discover that you know someone in town
even touts and jewellery vendors will turn out to be your
contacts friends and relatives in the hopes that you will
chose to buy with them out of solidarity. However even if
they are a friend or relative of your contact to not
believe they will give you a better price for it.
The hotel you are looking for is closed,
very far away,
expensive, completely full or any number of other
falsehoods to convince you to take a room at the
establishment of his choice. It may be that some hotels
offer a commission to guides that bring them clients or it
may just be that the guide has some sort of link to the
given hotel (or grudge against another one) but some guides
will put a lot of effort into pushing you to go to a
different location than the one you state. In some cases
they will try to take you to a different place claiming it
is the one you want and that it has just changed its name.
Alternatively after talking you out of going to your
intended hotel he may offer to lodge you in his home for a
reasonable fee. If you will not be talked out of your
choice he will suddenly become an employee of the
establishment and when you arrive he will act friendly with
the staff and quietly tell them that you are his client and
they had better leave you to him for any guide services
etc, figuring you will take him on out of gratitude for all
his assistance.
Counterfeit money One man showed me some
counterfeit money he had been passed. There was a
convoluted story of how he got it but in short beware of
sketchy business deals. Here is his story: he was
approached in Bamako by a young man with western union
papers claiming he had a transfer from a relative in France
but he needed to call the person to get the code if he
could just borrow some money to make the called he’d
reimburse as soon as he got the transfer. Our victim gave
him some cash not really thinking he’d get it back but as
his good deed for the day, he also made a render-vous time
and place to be reimbursed. No one showed up oh well he had
expected as much but later that evening the youth finds him
at his hotel with a story of how he had gone around asking
all over the place till he tracked him down there had been
a delay but he got the money only he doesn’t have change if
our victim could give him the difference he’d give him a
10,000 f bill. Fine the victim gave the money. Then it
turned out the young man did not have the money on his
person but his cousin... so they headed out to meat the
cousin. After several dark alleyways there was a man in the
shadows the victim wanted to go shake his hand and greet
him as is the custom here but the young man didn’t want him
to he gave him the 10,000 and left. On the way back to the
hotel the victim stepped into a shop to buy a soda and
break his big bill. The shop keeper looked at the bill and
told him it was fake. He looked at it in the light and sure
enough it was.
It is possible this was the extent of the scam it is also
possible that there was a plot to then accuse the victim of
passing counterfeit money and make him pay big fines or for
fear of big legal problems he would have shelled out large
bribes or any number of other larger nastier scams. He may
have been fortunate to have stepped into the shop and thus
put a stop to such plans. Anyhow if passing money in shady
places check out your bills in the light. The real money
has an obvious watermark, a holographic silver stripe, a
strips of something made into the paper (as is common in
large denomination bills in the west. This counterfeit bill
did not have that the silver stripe had no holographic
qualities, the paper was just a little lighter weight and
the printing was just a little feathery the way an ink jet
printer is vs a lazer printer.
Drugs A lot
of non-western countries have really scary strict drug
laws. I don’t know just what the laws are in Mali but it
seems to be common every where to try the sell him drugs
then rat him out to the police routine. Especially at an
event like the festival in the desert where inhibitions
seem to be down and so many people are so hyped up. Some
locals do take drugs and may offer them to you. It might be
all in a festival night but it may also be a scam to tag
you and you can find yourself far from home surrounded by
people who caught you red handed and believe you have a
mint in your back room. It could get very ugly and very
expensive.