Sociolingo’s Mali

From Reuters Africa

Saharan salt caravans ply ancient route

Wed 21 Feb 2007, 18:04 GMT

By David Rouge

TICHIT, Mauritania, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Caught between an encroaching sea of sand and a towering rocky plateau, Tichit has been a staging post for more than nine centuries for camel caravans snaking across the Sahara.

Isolated in the most inhospitable part of southeastern Mauritania, the crumbling buildings of the once-prosperous town are relentlessly buffeted by winds.

For nearly a millennium, nomadic traders have crossed this desert, braving sandstorms and searing temperatures, in search of “white gold” — salt from Tichit’s open-cast mine, or sebkha.

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From Reuters Africa

Three men run west-east across Sahara in 111 days

Wed 21 Feb 2007, 10:08 GMT

By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO (Reuters) - Three men from Canada, Taiwan and the United States have run 7,500 km across the Sahara Desert to draw attention to the lack of access to water in many countries they crossed, one runner said on Wednesday.

American Charlie Engle said the trio had crossed Africa from St. Louis in Senegal to the Red Sea coast in 111 days, running 98 percent of the way and walking when forced to by illness or the terrain.

Engle said he, Ray Zahab from Canada and Kevin Lin from Taiwan ran into the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Ain Sukhna on Tuesday, before taking a ride to a luxury hotel in Cairo.

They left the Atlantic Coast on November 2 last year and travelled through Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Egypt,

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Smoke in the desert. For ages patches of smoking earth have puzzled scientists in Northern Mali. Now they think they may have found the solution: bacteria!

See http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s899081.htm for the full story.

Patches of mysterious shoe-melting, foot-roasting hot ground in parts of West Africa may have been caused by bacteria, not volcanic activity as has been thought for decades.

On the Words Without Borders website I came across a translation of Among the Targi at Timbuktu by Birgit Biehl

I found it really evocative and interesting. Its definitely worth reading if you’re interested in the Timbuktu area.

In 1999 and 2000 Birgit Biehl journeyed alone through Africa’s Sahel from Senegal to the Sudan, and then through Yemen, Oman, and a half dozen other Middle Eastern countries. During the fourteen months of her trip, the then- fifty-five-year-old author hiked more than 700 miles, rode in overloaded ferries, dilapidated automobiles, minibuses, and old pickup trucks piled high with freight and people. After the trip she published Splitter im Sand, Lektionen am Wege (Athena Verlag 2001).

Tree Aid is an organisation that seeks to eliminate the effects of drought and poverty in the dry lands of Africa, not only by planting trees but also through educational programmes and the pro-vision of equipment. Since 1987 Tree Aid has raised over £3 million pounds, funding 76 projects across Africa and benefiting more than 180,000 people who have been trapped in the cycle of drought, soil erosion and infertile land.

Tree Aid implemented the planting of trees in lines around villages and crops – deep growing roots prevent soil erosion and supply the ground with vital nutrients. The trees also provide employment to the villagers by creating jobs in carpentry and fruiting varieties are harvested for selling.

Koulikoro, in Mali, is one of Tree Aid’s many success stories. Drought has turned 65 per cent of the country into desert or semi desert. Along with French project partners, Les Amis de L’Environment, they have helped to set up a seedling nursery where existing eucalyptus trees are utilized to make traditional style furniture. The eucalyptus in Koulikoro had until recently only been sold as fire wood but with Tree Aid’s funding they have set up two furniture depots on the main road to Bamako, the capital.

“Eu-calyptus is now the raw material for business that can earn us money,” said Djinfa Coulibaly, one of 4,900 indi-viduals who have benefited from the project. The women in the community plan to raise cattle on crops grown be-tween the newly planted trees and to process the shea nut, an ingredient used in cosmetic production and cooking.

Web Site: http://www.treeaid.org.uk

7sur7 reports that on the 7th September 2006 an object weighing about 10 kilograms fell from the sky into the desert near Samète, 80 km to the east of the town of Gao terrifying local inhabitants . It is surmised that it could be a weather probe but it has not yet been officially identified. It seems certain that the object is man-made and probably a technical machine gathering some sort of information. When the object was found it was not complete and the remains were transported to Gao to be examined by experts.

IRIN special report on Mali:

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

GAO, 17 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - When Tashcout Worra Kofan was young, she would gather together her small children, pack her thatched domed hut onto donkeys and together the family would trudge alongside their grazing sheep across the semi-desert of eastern Mali.

But last year’s drought killed the last of her herd and with them the nomadic lifestyle that she had always known.

She still lives in the traditional portable hut of the Tamashek nomads, but nowadays it’s static and never moves from Gao, the main town in the region, a dusty trading post near the Niger border.

A piece of USAID embossed cardboard and an old piece of bed frame have been incorporated, adding a tatty permanence to the structure.

“Before, when there were lots of animals we would move with them. But the animals all died and I had to come to Gao to find a means to live,” explained Tashcout.

“It was during the dry season that they would die. Each year we lost more,” said Tashcout, who raised five children in the arid desert plains, north of Gao.

She is now a stocky grandmother with big rough hands, whose grey hair is gathered together in the traditional three twists, one on her forehead and one over each ear.

“When I married my husband,” she reminisced, “we had 30 sheep and two donkeys. Then the sheep had children too so we ended up with 40 sheep,” she said, beaming.

Tashcout Worra Kofan, as the sun sets over her once mobile hut in Gao

“That was the best time. I was young and I was very happy,” said Tashcout taking a break from sweeping the earth outside her hut as the sun sets, taking it with it the blazing heat.

“But as the animals died, life became tougher and even finding enough to eat became impossible,” she shrugged.

Across West Africa, more and more nomad families have been forced to give up their traditional lifestyle as years of successive drought have decimated valuable herds.

Now Tashcout, a widower, lives with one of her daughters and some grandchildren. No one has a job.

Tashcout goes out very morning and sweeps other people’s doorsteps in the hope of getting a small coin. Or she’ll laboriously pound millet, if she’s given some in return.

Comparisons with the history’s big droughts

Last year’s drought combined with the worst infestation of locusts seen in the region for 15 years, has prompted comparisons to the conditions that followed the great droughts of the 70s and 80s.

“The situation is certainly more severe than we have seen for five years. People are likening the situation to 1973 and 1985,” said Mohamed Ould Mahmoud, the country director in Mali for the UK-based charity Oxfam.

In the Tamashek village of Marsi, nearly 100 km south of Gao and 80 km away from a tarmac road, Mohammed A’hmed Ag Moya says that his herd, which he inherited from his father, has never recovered to pre-1985 levels.

Drought not only kills off the beasts but also forces herders to sell skinny animals, often at knock-down prices, so that they can buy food.

“When there’s no rain there’s nothing to eat and we have to sell our animals to sustain ourselves until the rains arrive,” said Mohammed who is grateful that he managed to get through the year with five goats and one camel to his name.

Mahmoud Abdullayi, left, chief of Marsi

According to Christophe Breyne, the technical coordinator for French NGO Action Contre la Faim, the rains that have brought a flush of green to the plains around Marsi are enabling animals to recover weight, health and even reproduce.

“But if the rains stop, next year will be harder than this….. We need to remain vigilant,” Breyne said.

The rainy season ends in September and the first harvests will follow soon after. But in Marsi, where there is no electricity, no clinic and only a religious school where children learn to recite the Koran, there is the sense that each year is getting harder than the last.

“Life for my father was easier than for me,” said Mahmoud Abdullayi, the village chief.

“But for my children, I don’t know. If I have a child that becomes a judge in New York perhaps life will get better.”

A report just out indicates that Mali is having some success in provoking rainfall by seeding clouds. This new innovation, which has cost 2.8 billion FCFA has been paid for out of the national budget and was recently allowed by law (January 2006). So far the results seem good and production has increased due to increased rain. The process is somewhat complicated and depends on the right atmospheric conditions. Malians are being trained by American specialists.

Translated from http://www.malikounda.com/nouvelle_voir.php?idNouvelle=8883

Smoke in the desert. For ages patches of smoking earth have puzzled scientists in Northern Mali. Now they think they may have found the solution: bacteria!

See http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s899081.htm for the full story.

Patches of mysterious shoe-melting, foot-roasting hot ground in parts of West Africa may have been caused by bacteria, not volcanic activity as has been thought for decades.