Part II

Chapter 8

Bamako — The Griot’s Garden

By dawn the familiar heaviness has faded. Karim greets me with a small breakfast. “Adama will meet us soon,” he says quietly.

Centre Djoliba’s compound smells of earth and hibiscus. Light filters through mango leaves, dappling low tables where men and children laugh, where an old radio sighs out kora notes.

Abdoulaye Diabaté stands cloaked in indigo, waiting in the shade. This is no shrine, yet it feels sacred.

“You come with questions, but also a spirit carrying life. The ancestors listen when we gather like this.”

He plucks the kora. The notes rise like birds.

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