Under the hot white sky, with an ocean of spreading green around you, Syn and villages like it present a timeless tableau of ancient Africa. So too does the teeming port town of Mopti further up the river, the traditional crossroads for traders and travelers plying the Niger River. Called the Venice of Africa, the reality is considerably more chaotic -- hundreds of colorfully painted pinasses jostle each other, some more than 100 feet long and piled with every kind of animal, vegetable and mineral. The air reeks of fish and other interesting, but unidentified odors. Travelers sprawl on nearby sidewalks setting up camp for the night; the port literally becomes a tent city after dark. Young men wash the dust of their journey off their bodies on adjacent beaches, splashing in plain view of the multitudes.

Mopti is ideally located at the confluence of the Bani and the Niger Rivers and as such serves as a central trading port on the 1,000-kilometer stretch of navigable river from Bamako to Tombouctou and beyond. CARE works to the southwest of Mopti in the neighboring Massina region on a range of programs including literacy and numeracy. Such skills are essential in a region as famous for trade as this; rice farmers will need basic business skills if they wish to ship and sell their crop in the competitive environment of Mopti and other trading towns. Yet literacy rates in Mali are shockingly low: 76 percent of men and 83 percent of women cannot read.

To encourage people -- especially young people -- to commit the time and effort required of literacy classes, CARE links its programs to other activities. Highly-desired programs such as credit (where the need to manage funds puts pressure on participants to become literate) as well as health (where being able to read simple medical instructions may make the difference between life and death) increase the demand for literacy skills.

Such programs may be key to Mali's future. Like so many countries in Africa, Mali is currently experimenting with a broad range of measures to decentralize and liberalize its economy. In the face of sweeping economic change, literacy and numeracy skills are essential if the farmers and tradesman living along the Niger are not to be swept away by larger economic currents.

Continue to Day 4