Ballake Sissoko playing the kora, Babane Kone dancing ...

Yesterday evening, lolling in the snug, warmed by a log fire, I dreamed of Mali - I stirred the apple logs with the poker - flames shot up from the fragrant burning wood - sparks flew up the wide mouthed chimney like shreds of summer -

I opened the Times Atlas, looking at the map of West Africa - I marvelled at the strange configuration of Mali's borders - I traced the course of the Niger - I smelt its brackish water, I heard the hiss of oceans of sand -  

I recited the names of remote desert towns, El Mraiti, Aghezzaf, Ti-n-Zaoutatene - these names could, I thought, be the names of djinns -

I imagined Antoine de Saint-Exupery, flying a frail aircraft from Toulouse to Dakar - perhaps he'd seen the lights of Timbuktu from his open cockpit, the white moon over the dunes - 

The day before, we'd heard Ballake Sissoko play the kora - he'd played such tender laments my eyes filled with tears - he closed his eyes whilst he played, his face a calm, archaic, mask - 

We were in The Lighthouse, next to a man with curly black hair - his much younger girlfriend swayed in time to the music - she had heavy curtains of hair, and she looked like a girl drawn by Robert Crumb - 

Other musicians joined Ballake in the performance space - there were two guitarists - one had pointed shoes of scuffed brown leather - their names were Moussa Diabete and Aboubacar Diabete - they played their guitars with a delicacy that reflected great skill and subtlety -  

Fassery Diabete played balafon - he was very tall - from time to time, he smiled gravely - he struck the wooden keys of the balafon with the assurance of a magician, a master of his arcane craft - 

Babane Kone danced with sinuous motions of her hips - her singing thrilled my soul - I watched her, as Odysseus would have watched the sirens - 

Later she invited us to dance - tous, dancez! -

I was in heaven, dancing -