Mali » SocioLingo Africa

Brewing Local Millet Beer in Mali

Jul 012010

Beer brewery in Mali

[Photo credit: Erwin Bolwidt (El Rabbit)]

Millet beer is prepared in many parts of Africa. This opaque beer is part of local culture in Mali for some ethnic groups like the Bobo and Dogon. There are many small home breweries where beer is made by the women and drunk by the men. The grain is malted by soaking the grains to encourage them to sprout and then drying them. The next stage takes 3 days and involves mashing, boiling, fermenting and straining. The boiling is done either in multi-compartments as above or a single compartment stove. See http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/mali/beer.html for a good diagram.

There are some great pictures and description of brewing local millet beer in Mali at Michael and Doria’s Travel Tales. Please take time and look at the rest of this blog!

Homebrew, Bobo Style

In Segou we visited a Bobo family who run a small brewery in their home, making millet beer in small quantities that they sell from a shed in their compound. While Mali is predominantly Muslim, and thus not alcohol-friendly, there are a number of peoples within the country who have maintained their traditional religions. Our guide Oumar referred to the Bobo people as “hard-core animists”. Whatever that means, they certainly were into their beer, and I got quite a few pictures of their backyard brewing venture

Here the millet kernels are soaked in warm water in the sun until they sprout. This, as any self-respecting homebrewer knows, is the first step of the process known as malting. Grains are malted by encouraging them to germinate, or sprout, and then drying them out again before the process goes to far. This increases the sugar known as maltose in the grain.

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Africa Culture : Zebala, A Village in Mali

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Jun 302010

I was going through my old diaries the other day and I found entries from a trip to the south of Mali in Africa some years ago. We stayed in a village called Zebala which is about 50kms from the nearest big town, Koutiala.

Houses

Virtually every house in Zebala is built from mud brick. The bricks are then plastered over with a mud plaster to make the outside smooth. A corrugated tin roof is then put on top. All the houses are interlinked by passages and walk ways. It’s very difficult to decide where one family unit’s set of houses finish and another’s begin. There are few walls round groups of houses. Finding one’s way around is a real adventure and I got lost lots of times trying to find the little shop only yards from where I was living! Shops are not marked, they look like any other building, but usually you can tell them by the people going in and out. Inside, there are a few shelves with things like tinned tomato concentrate, little boxes of Chinese green tea (called gunpowder), twists of sugar, sachets of washing powder .. and .. amazingly .. boxes of chewing gum! People live outside their houses and use the house itself for storage and sleeping. The insides are very dark. There are often window openings with a shutter of corrugate, but these are more often left closed than open.

Houses in Zebala

Outside the houses people sit on low stools and cook, or make things. All life happens in the small courtyards between houses. Often the cooking is done on an open fire with a pot hanging or standing on three stones. There are wells dotted around and there is a constant flow of people to these bringing water to compounds. Washing is laid on walls, on the ground and any other free space, and the dust is shaken off when it is dry.

Children wander around, many little ones with few clothes on. Older girls help their mothers with the cooking and other chores. The boys are free to play.

Cotton

Zebala is a centre for cotton production. You’ll see the cotton trees all over the village. In fact, it’s hard to ignore cotton in Zebala. The fluffy balls blow around in the wind and get in your hair. Enormous lorries rumble into the village in the early dawn hour, shaking you in your bed. You’ll think it is thunder and wait for the lightening! They come to collect the cotton which is stored in huge collection pits all over the village. Women walk in with huge bales on their heads and these are loaded into the pits, and later onto the lorries. In the evening, the whole procession is reversed with the huge lorries rumbling out of the village into the darkening bush.

But not all the cotton is sent out of the village to be bought by middle-men and sold on – some of the cotton is reserved by families. I spent one afternoon filming a lady spinning cotton into thread. It was a process as fascinating as it was deft. She took a hank of rough cotton, tweaked out a corner of it, attached her weighted spindle to that and then, almost by magic, the cotton thread began to appear. This was wound on deftly.An age-old skill is still being maintained and the skill is passed on from mother to daughter.

Tailor and Bogolan maker in Zebala

Another day, I was visiting the local tailor. His friend was there – the bogolan cloth maker. You can see him in this photo on the left. He proudly showed me hand woven cloth that he had dyed himself and which had been made into a suit by the tailor. This was the next step in the process. He was a Bogolan specialist. Bogolan is a special Malian process of printing on cotton using mud-based dyes. The mud is “mined” from the river. The cloth is first dyed a reddish brown, and then black designs are printed on. It is a very specialized trade and again is passed on from one generation to another. The inspiration is from nature and often incorporates animal prints, or tracks, and objects from nature. I admired the suit that he had on and asked him if he would make a suit just the same for my husband. These Bogolan suits are very much admired and are often worn by hunters. The suit he was wearing had an all over print that was a bit like a leopards paw print. I was delighted when he agreed. Then we sat down for a cup of sweet Malian tea before agreeing a price.

Some weeks later, when I was back in the capital, Bamako, a parcel arrived for me. It was the Bogolan suit for my husband. Specially printed, with the year on the front! He is very proud to wear it. We found out later that it is quite rare to own one of these suits, and he has had several envied comments. We feel really privileged that this bogolan cloth maker and the tailor were happy to make one for us.

Henna for feet!

In Bamako I had seen people have their feet henna‘d for celebrations such as weddings, Tabaski and big fetes, but I had never had it done myself. I was staying in the rural village of Zebala, about 50 kms from the nearest large town Koutiala, and one day I talked to my American hostess, and mentioned this. She said that she’d always wanted it done too. So we arranged with the daughters of some Zebalan friends of hers to prepare our feet for the coming Christmas fete. What an experience! The two young girls arrived at about 8 am with lots of old cloths and plastic bags. We had no idea what we were in for! We sat in state in the mosquito netting covered veranda of my friend’s house.

Henna for feet

The girls discussed with us what patterns we would like on our feet. The discussion was in Minianyka and French and got quite complicated. The girls started cutting strips of white first aid plaster. With these strips they made complicated designs on the sides of our feet and the top of our feet, leaving the soles blank. Once they were happy with their designs they mixed a paste of henna powder bought from the local shop with water. This made a khaki green ‘mess’. This paste was then applied to our feet. Our feet were wrapped in plastic bags and bound up in rags. Then they left! We were told they would be back in the evening. The paste on our feet, together with the plastic bag made walking very difficult, so we just sat. We had decided that this was going to be like a ‘spa’ day, a day for refreshment and renewal. So we had brought puzzle books, and other reading matter out to the porch with us.

Later on two little girls of about 8 years arrived and asked if they could ‘do our hair’. This involved washing our hair and then drying it…and for my friend who has long hair…plaiting it. This was great fun and there were a lot of giggles. It was getting very hot and one of the girls ran off and arrived back with a huge palm leaf that she used to fan us with. We felt like royalty.

Henna for feet

Eventually the two big girls arrived back to check if the Henna had ‘taken’ by unwrapping our feet and scraping a little off. It had. So, they then they scraped all the paste off our feet. To our amazement the skin where the paste had been was orange. They then made up another paste with a powder they had bought in the shop and water. I don’t know what the powder was. They warned us that this new paste would tingle a bit but that it wouldn’t be for long. They applied the new paste to our feet and wrapped them up again. After about an hour they unwrapped our feet, scraped the paste off and then took the first aid plaster strips off. Our feet were BLACK! We had intricate patterns along the sides of our feet and a design on top. The soles of our feet were completely black, as were my toenails. The girls admired their work and then ran off home to get ready for bed as it was already dark. We walked over to the girls parent’s compound to show them their daughters’ handiwork and our feet were admired by everyone by the light of an oil lamp.

The black feet lasted for a long time. We had to be careful not to use soap on our feet so that it lasted longer. The black toenails lasted a lot longer! Next time I will get them to cover my toenails with plaster.

Christmas in the Village

There is a little church in Zebala that holds services in Bambara and Minianka. We were privileged to take part in their celebrations for Christmas on Christmas Eve while we were staying there.The service was very colourful and the music was great.

Zebala Church

There are various groups in the church and they all took part at different times in the service. The young women did a very moving telling of the Christmas story using one of their own young babies as the baby Jesus. The young people did a great musical item that was very vigorous and fun. The tiny tots came to the front and sang together with their teachers.

After the service, we all had a meal together not far from the church. We sat on benches around bowls and ate with the right hand (the left hand is considered dirty). I guess we were there about five or six hours.

On Christmas day, there were further celebrations, but we were involved in helping to prepare a local celebration where we fed anyone who wanted to come along and eat. Other families in the village were doing the same, and there was a lot of visiting going on. We took small bowls of food to friends in the village and others brought small bowls of food to us. It was an exhausting day, but great fun.

The Hill

“We’re going out today,” my hostess said to me. “Want to come?” Well, of course I was up to any adventure that came my way. “Do you want to see the sight of Zebala?” she asked. On further questioning, it appeared that we would be taking a picnic to “The Hill.” Now I really must explain that the area around the village of Zebala in fact the area around Koutiala, the BIG town some 50km away, is flat…really flat. So…a hill??? Really? Well, we packed up the picnic basket, rounded up my friend’s kids, sent packing a whole load of others who weren’t hers, and loaded up the truck. I was intrigued…why did we need the truck to get there? She made sure I had packed my binoculars and West African bird book. We set off on the road out of the village in the opposite direction to Koutiala. Of course, because it is a village and everyone knows everyone else, we hadn’t gone very far before we had to stop and talk to someone, and then someone else, and then someone else. Finally, we left the village. Where was this hill? She drove and drove and then stopped. I got out. “Are we there?” I asked, feeling extremely puzzled. “This is IT,” she said, beaming with pride. I looked around. Well, we really were on a slight incline, I had to admit that. This is a hill? She explained that it was the only slightly inclined ground for many, many kilometers, and yes, this was our picnic place. I put my piece of cloth on the ground, and contemplated how significant a slight rise of ground is in a landscape where there are no hills. I sat quietly, and took in the peace of the countryside. Suddenly, there was a commotion. A small dog appeared, closely followed by a rather strange looking man in a Bogolan suit. A hunter! One of those enigmatic people that one hears about, but rarely sees. I put my binoculars away quickly in case he thought they were a camera and that I was trying to take his photo. Hunters are prickly creatures. But this one was friendly and my host greeted him in Minianka. He stopped, talked about the weather, and passed on. I did see some rather nice birds, but really it was the peace of the place that struck me – out in the bush, away from most people. Quiet…except for the birdsong and chatter of crickets.

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African Street Children - you can make a difference

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Jun 292010

: Streetchildren at Daara market, Senegal

[Photo credit: nebedaay under a Creative Commons license]

An article on IRIN NEWS about street children in Gambia set me thinking. In many African countries tribes of street children work the streets, selling, begging and washing car windows (whether you want them to or not!). Often, as in the Gambian story, the authorities crack down on this and round the kids up.

Anyone travelling in West Africa will be familiar with the phenomenon of groups of children begging. These children are sometimes dressed in unbleached cloth and wearing a kind of bonnet, in local dress or in ragged western clothes. They all carry a large tomato tin, often tied with string round their necks. This is organised begging and is different to the homeless groups of street children. These children ‘belong’ to a local marabout or Islamic religious teacher. They are known as ‘almodous’ in Gambia and ‘talibés’ in Senegal. They beg for food for themselves and money for the marabout. They are often beaten if they don’t come back with enough money. Parents sending their boys to the marabout think that they are giving them a Koranic education, but, as the article says:

in some cases they inadvertently feed a thriving network of child traffickers and smugglers, says child rights protection NGO Samu Social.

I remember sitting at a street-side breakfast bar in Ségou, Mali where we were eating before starting our research work in a local school. We were eating bread spread with mayonnaise and drinking milky coffee when we were approached by four little boys dressed in the typical talibé uniform and carrying tomato tins. The boys just stood and watched us. I broke off the end part of my ‘sandwich’ and passed it to the eldest boy. He carefully broke it into four equal pieces and solemnly gave each boy their piece. The way the children ate that bread showed how hungry they were. I did the same with my coffee and passed the eldest boy my mug. He gave it to the youngest boy first and each took a good sip before he solemnly passed the mug back to me. Each morning when we ate breakfast before going to the local school we went through the same pantomime. On our final morning we told the boys that we were going back to Bamako that day. They lined up and solemnly shook our hands. In its way it was a humbling experience.

Talibé child, Thiès, Senegal

[Photo credit: jooseph under a Creative Commons license]

ACTION!

So, what can be done to help these kids? Well, a coordinated effort has been made by a consortium of agencies called STREET CHILD AFRICA. At the moment they work in: Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal.

Street Child Africa mobilises kids in the UK to help kids in Africa. You can help too, by supporting the work they do. As they say – a little goes a long way!

Please explore their site and consider donating to help their work. Thank you.

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GUINEA-BISSAU: The long road home for talibés

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KENYA: Collins Ochieng, “I know the importance of going back to school”

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The Art of Livelihood: Creating Expressive Agri-Culture in Rural Mali, Book Review

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Jun 282010

Chi Wara headdress, Mali

[Photo credit: Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library under a Creative Commons license]

I think you’ll find the following book an interesting read. The book is reviewed on H-Africa, H-Net Reviews.

Stephen Wooten. The Art of Livelihood: Creating Expressive Agri-Culture in Rural Mali. Durham Carolina Academic Press, 2009. xxiii + 182 pp. $30.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-59460-731-8.

Reviewed by Pascal James Imperato (SUNY Downstate Medical Center)

Farming on the Mande Plateau in Mali

This superbly researched and unique volume explores the intimate relationships between the agriculture-based economy and social and cultural traditions of a group of Mande villages in central Mali. Although these villages are only twenty kilometers from Bamako, Mali’s capital, their location high up in rugged terrain that is difficult to access has significantly distanced them from some of the influences of the largest metropole in the country.

Stephen Wooten, who is a faculty member in the Departments of International Studies and Anthropology at the University of Oregon, conducted extensive field work in this area during several stays in Mali between 1992 and 2008. In this volume, he frames his in-depth exploration of Mande agrarian traditions within the contexts of continuity and change as modulated by two indigenous social constructs, badenya (mother-childness) and fadenya (father-childness). Badenya, which signifies people born of the same mother, fosters stability, constancy, and community action. Fadenya, which unifies people through parentage from the same father, but not necessarily from the same mother, promotes competition, individuality, creativity, and change. Wooten uses the example of the village of Niamakoroni to demonstrate the importance of badenya to village cohesion, harmony, and community building. Yet fadenya is always there, propelling change even in agricultural communities where farming is very much a badenya affair.

The roots of the differences in these principles relate to the fact that succession to power and assets is a uniquely male process in which the oldest male member of the oldest generation inherits primacy over all others, including the sons of the last patriarch. This process creates serious tensions among some who perceive themselves as possibly disenfranchised from future successes by the traditional rules of an oligarchic gerontocracy. In addition, half brothers (usually the same father but different mothers), common in this polygamous society, more often tend toward rivalry than brothers born of the same parents. Such rivalries arise from affiliation with different matri-segments and a desire for future leadership. Many young Mande men have, in recent decades, resolved this dilemma by out-migration to the cash economies of the cities, the West African coast, Europe, and more recently, the United States. Wooten discusses fadenya in the context of a tension that leads to creativity in different domains, which results in change and which provides rewards and satisfactions to the initiators.

The penultimate chapter of the book examines the sculpted wooden tyiwara (ciwara) antelope headdresses, their use in agricultural celebrations, and their connection to badenya through continuity with previous practices and to fadenya through creative change. This analytic perspective of _tyi wara_ is unique, and makes a very important new contribution to our knowledge of this tradition. The author provides a comprehensive review of past field research on this tradition, and based on performances in three different villages, examines the interaction of badenya and fadenya not only in the dance performances but also in the sculptures themselves.

The Art of Livelihood provides a new and unique perspective on Mande farmers, contextualized in two sociological constructs that play an important role in both maintaining continuity and engendering change. Meticulous in its scholarship, and textured with insightful analyses, it is a pleasure to read.

Citation: Pascal James Imperato. Review of Wooten, Stephen, The Art of Livelihood: Creating Expressive Agri-Culture in Rural Mali. H-AfrArts, H-Net Reviews. June, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30588

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

H-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail: H-AFRARTS@H-NET.MSU.EDU
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/

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Beekeeping and Poverty Alleviation in Africa

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Jun 262010

This is the modern type of bee hive used in Cameroon called a Kenyan Top Bar. The other kind is like an artificial hollow log made from bamboo-- kind of like Winnie the Pooh. And all of the bees here are African Killer Bees.

[Photo credit: rbairdpccam under a Creative Commons license]

The following programme would be a good opportunity for candidates with a first degree who are already working with NGOs in the African countries listed. You need to read the advert carefully and if you meet their criteria apply directly to the University through the links in the information section below. (I can’t pass on details for you).

The information below comes from http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/ghent

Training programme at Ghent University, Belgium

The Laboratory of Zoophysiology of the Ghent University organizes the International Training Programme ‘Beekeeping for Poverty Alleviation’ with the support of the Belgium Government and VLIR-UOS.

In 2010 we have again the opportunity to invite 16 candidates to come to Belgium to follow a four-month intensive training course that addresses all aspects involved in developing beekeeping into a powerful factor of rural development.

Only residents and nationals of a selected group of countries are eligible for this VLIR-UOS scholarship. In the past years we had none or only a few candidates from certain countries listed below.
Africa
Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DR Congo, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia

We aim at candidates that are holders of a bachelor’s degree with experience in beekeeping that wish to implement beekeeping for rural development purposes. They should have a good written and spoken command in English. Candidates meeting any of the following profiles are preferred:

Researchers connected to local universities or research institutes, preferably with a clear link to extension;

Staff members of extension centers, NGOs or other institutions actively involved in rural development and with some (applied) research facilities;

People who have recently completed their studies and have a firm intention to commit themselves to rural development.

More Information

More information and the application procedure can be found at the Belgium VLIR-UOS website: www.scholarships.vliruos.be. Please look for the Training Programme ‘Beekeeping for Poverty Alleviation’ at the University of Ghent.

If you have any questions, please email: Inge.Roman@Ugent.be

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Sahel Region : The hungry season starts

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May 282010

An aerial view of the inland Niger delta and surrounding farmlands, Mali. Image via Wikipedia

Back in the days when I lived in The Gambia we used to call this time of year ‘hungry season’. There was little available to eat in the villages and people were reliant on stored groundnuts and millet. The September harvest seems a looong time away. Today there is a warning from the World Food Programme that the situation this year is bad, really bad. Migration from villages to towns has already started as people seek to feed their families.

The following press release gives you an overview.

WFP WARNS OF GROWING CHALLENGES AS DROUGHT-STRICKEN SAHEL ENTERS HUNGER SEASON

DAKAR – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned of growing needs in the Eastern Sahel region of West Africa, where some 10 million people are facing a challenging season of hunger before the next harvest is due in September.

“The Sahel is one of the most destitute regions in the world and the spectre of hunger is pushing increasing numbers of people from the countryside and into cities where they are searching for food to feed their families,” said Thomas Yanga, WFP Regional Director for West Africa. “People have lost crops, livestock, and the ability to cope on their own, and the levels of malnutrition among women and children have already risen to very high levels.”

Yanga said despite efforts by governments and humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organizations, the situation in Sahel regions of eastern Mali, northern Cameroon, Chad and Niger is critical and more contributions are urgently needed to ease the suffering of the 3.6 million drought victims WFP is planning to assist.

NIGER: A government-led food security survey this month has confirmed the critical situation, finding nearly half of the population to be food insecure — 3.3 million people highly food insecure and 3.8 million moderately food insecure. So far, the World Food Programme is planning to provide assistance to save lives and boost the nutrition of some 2.3 million people in the worst-affected areas. To do so, WFP needs US$125 million to scale up feeding from May to December 2010.

CHAD: 2 million people require assistance due to poor harvests and unusually high rates of acute malnutrition are reported. WFP has launched an emergency operation to assist more than 700,000 people hit by drought in western and central regions.

CAMEROON: the 2009 cereal harvest in the North was 10 percent below the five-year average and 19 percent below the previous year’s production. Flooded valleys that are usually watering points for cattle dried up earlier than usual. WFP has responded with an emergency operation to feed 339,000 vulnerable people from June 2010 to 30 April 2011.

MALI: late and erratic rains in the Northeast during the last two crop seasons led to poor agro-pastoral production, resulting in more than 20 municipalities being declared highly food insecure. An estimated 258,000 people most at risk are currently receiving emergency food assistance from the government, WFP and humanitarian partners.
# # #

WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. Each year, on average, WFP feeds more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries.

WFP now provides RSS feeds to help journalists keep up with the latest press releases, videos and photos as they are published on WFP.org. For more details see: http://www.wfp.org/rss

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Africa dance : New Programme 'Je danse donc je suis' in Ouagadougou and Bamako!

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May 112010

Dogon dancers, Mali

[Photo credit: Erwin Bolwidt (El Rabbit) under a Creative Commons license]

The programme “Je danse donc je suis” is an initiative of Africalia in partnership with two centers for contemporary dance, Donko Seko in Bamako and ‘La Termitière’- Centre de Développement Chorégraphique in Ouagadougou. It was officially launched end January 2010 in the capital of Burkina Faso. It is financially supported by the European Commission through its programme “Investing in People” – EuropeAid.

On the agenda: a series of workshops by African dancers, awareness actions, dissemination of ‘work in progress’ in popular neigborhoods of Ouagadougou and Bamako and regional exchanges between the young participants from both cities. An audiovisual follow up of this programme and actions of reflection, monitoring and evaluation will serve as measuring tools of the impact of artistic initiation on these young people.

Contact: africalia@africalia.be

[via OCPA News No 251]

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Africa Culture : Shopping in Mali

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Apr 162010

Shopping in Mali is fun – most of the time. In the markets are many little shops. They are usually grouped together in sections, so you’ll find all the material sellers together, and all the household goods together. Not always, but mostly.

My favourite market was Medina Coura which is a huge sprawling market on the northern outskirts of Bamako. The backdrop of hills behind and the multitude of winding paths through the market make this an unforgettable experience. Few tourists go there, and if you go wearing local dress you will be welcomed with open arms. I think it is one of the friendliest markets I have ever been in. Don’t be surprised to get lost though ….

Here is a fabric shop in Timbuktu. It is quite typical of fabric shops you’ll find all over Mali. A wonderful collection of materials. This one seems to have mostly men’s material, although some of the patterned material on the right of the photo is unisex. The darker colour material in the foreground is for business suits and trousers.

: Fabric shop in Timbuktu Mali

[Photo credit: Jonah Horowitz a (Creative Commons license)]

This shop shows a typical sight which can be seen all over Mali. Household items, mostly imported from China, arranged beautifully. Some of the recycled materials are made in Mali or neighbouring countries. This shop is in Timbuktu

: Timbuktu shop Mali

[Photo credit: marshall.mayer (Creative Commons license)]

In Sevare there is a tourist shop called Farafina Tigne (http://www.farafina-tigne.com/) you will find all sorts of things on sale here, all made by local artisans, but of particular interest are the beads. There is one big section in the shop which is all lengths of beads strung on string. Other items include Bogolan cloth (mudcloth), carvings, bags and some clothes. If you go up the stairs in the shop you’ll find the Bead Museum. It is quite fascinating.

: Farafina Tigne shop in Sevare Mali

[Photo credit: cdntraveller (used with permission)]

As you drive around Bamako you’ll see lots of things by the side of the road for sale. Artisans tend to group together, so for example in one section of road you’ll find beds for sale.

: Beds for sale in Bamako Mali

[Photo credit: 10b travelling (Creative Commons license)]

In the centre of Bamako there is an Artisanat which sells goods from all over Mali. It’s really for tourists but you can buy all sorts of nice stuff, leather, jewellery etc without much hassle and at good prices. There is an extensive jewellery section with gold and silver jewellery being made and sold. The price is by weight.

Artisanat in Bamako Mali

[Photo credit: rustinpc (Creative Commons license)]

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Africa Education Mali : Community Schools

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Mar 142010

Manena Walett Issafeytane, the animatrice for the village of Intedeyni, sings songs with the children. “I am like a ‘mum’ to everyone, and I try to visit the families as often as possible to listen to any problems they may be having – especially if it affects their children’s schooling. I am constantly talking to parents about the advantages of sending their children to school, but I also talk to people about health matters.” Picture credit: Ami Vitale/Oxfam Picture date: 22 March 07

[Photo credit: Oxfam International]

Aid is not just a hypothetical construct, but a reality that affects lives. In many rural areas in Mali there are no government run schools. Education in Mali has been helped through aid projects community schools have been built and these are then run by communities themselves with parents paying monthly fees or the community running a farm to support the school. This USAID webpage gives some personal insight into the lives of children who attend these schools by focussing on one child, Aminata.

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Africa Music : Festival in the Desert Mali

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Mar 082010

Festival in the Desert 2007

[Photo credit: Photographer: Damian Rafferty
Fly | Global Music Culture flykr]

The Festival in the Desert in Mali has become a yearly 3 day World Music event with thousands making the trek to one of the most inaccessible areas of Mali. The festival was started by Tuaregs to celebrate the end of the war against the government, but now is a world event every January. The following documentary from 2010 gives a really good view of the festival.

Older Entries

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Houses

Cotton

Henna for feet!

Christmas in the Village

The Hill

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ACTION!

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Training programme at Ghent University, Belgium

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