Sociolingo’s Mali

Things you see transported constantly win the funny photo stakes in Mali. I never cease to be amazed at what people transport and how they do it. Today’s topic is sheep.

Here’s a pic from  Peter Baldwin

and one from Ferdinand Reus

Here’s one from Johanne Veilleux

  

Photos from my Flickr collection

This is so typical of driving in Mali. A tarmaced road only two lanes wide, just enough for a car and a bus to pass each other. Red laterite crushed stone either side, and dense brush.

Off the main road laterite dirt roads branch off to far off villages.

Dense scrub bush goes as far as the eye can see with small stunted trees pushing above it.

Zebala is a large village, about 50 kilometers from Koutiala. The groupings of family houses meld into each other through myriad corridors of mudbrick. It’s easy for the stranger to get lost in the labyrinth. Storehouses are built on small piles of brick with thatched roofs. Houses often have corrugate roofs with mud brick walls.

zebala village houses

Zebala is a large village about 50 kms from Koutiala in the Sikasso Region of Mali. The internetworked compounds spread out from a central area where celebrations like weddings are held. There is a small market area for the weekly market, and small boutiques are hidden on the edge of the interlocked compounds. All the buildings are made from mudbrick, often with corrugate roofs and window shutters. The main cash crop for the area is cotton, and there are huge’holding areas’ where the cotton is collected ready to be sold to the middle men. Large trucks rumble in and out of the village taking cotton to Koutiala for processing.

Zebala for me conjures up pictures of ‘real Mali’. A rural village in the south which is rich in culture and interest. I stayed in the village for 10 days over Christmas in 2000 and I have many good memories, some of which I have posted here in the Zebala series of postings.

Zebala, a village in the Sikasso Region, Mali, originally uploaded by Malilady.

This photo was taken on a Minyanka compound in a rural village. The building behind the girl is a sleeping room. A bamboo bed can be seen airing in the sun. This is done to reduce bedbugs.

I took this picture of a group of houses (a compound) on the road to Guinea in 2000. I had not seen houses painted like these before. The paint is a kind of coloured mud. Notice also the style of the thatching on the roofs.