All Along the River Niger

I knew the Niger River had hippopotami, and time was wasting. As I set out toward the river, men offered to guide me to the large animals. I politely explained that I had no gifts and no money, but I would be happy for would-be guides to accompany me as friends. Suddenly, I had fewer friends, but this would change when I reached the village near the river.

I was the only white person in the village and the only person that village children were convinced had come to bring them gifts. I maintained that I had no gifts, but my entourage grew as I walked. I quickly had at least half a dozen followers accompanying me to the far-away place where the hippos were. When we reached a group of boys playing soccer, my pied piper status skyrocketed. Children and teenagers learned that I still had no gifts, and I received new information about the possible whereabouts of hippos. New followers were sure that I could find hippos in the direction opposite to where we were walking, and they insisted that I walk down to the river.

I reached the river and encountered a man in a wooden, canoe-like floating object. He wanted me to join him in the boat. I explained that I had no gifts and no money. He got out of the boat. A few minutes later, he dragged one end of the boat to shore and helped me into it. A boy – his son, I gathered – joined us, and we (and by “we” I mean “he, the dad”) began paddling toward the direction from which I had walked.

I found myself sitting in a boat on the Niger River, armed with my camera and little else. It immediately occurred to me that I had no life vest and that my camera could get wet. It later occurred to me that the same hippos I was trying to locate in the river were much more powerful than the canoe-like floating object in which I was sitting.

Fortunately, two things happened: I came close enough to a hippo to take pictures of it, and the boat’s operator safely steered clear of the hippo. We never learned whether or not the hippo was hungry, hungry.


After a restful boat ride, we reached the shore. Before the entourage could join us again, I gave my pen to the boy in the boat. I figured that, after pointing out the hippo for me, he had probably earned it.