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Introduction: It
is the Niger's amazing size and scope -- 20,000 square kilometers
of water in Mali alone -- that in part gave Mali its reputation
as "The Granary of West Africa" during colonial
times. But despite the potential for irrigation on a colossal
scale, population growth, drought and desertification (much
of it caused by goats nibbling away at the nation's groundcover)
have made the lives of Mali's farmers ever harder. Organizations
like CARE are now taking a new look at how the river can
be used.
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Djenné: Djenné
sits on the banks of a tributary river of the Niger called
the Bani, and it was into these waters that we launched
ourselves, on a mission to see CARE's work with villages
along the river. We traveled by pinasse, the long, saber-thin
boats used by generations of fishermen and one of the primary
modes of transport for more than 1,000 kilometers.
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Syn : Syn
is a jumble of sand-colored buildings cut by twisting
narrow passageways that all lead eventually to the turreted
mosque on the hill's highest point. Due to yearly flooding
that makes such villages virtual islands, a pinasse is
the only way in and out. Working
with CARE, dozens of villages -- more than 10,000 families
in all -- are engaged in a vast effort to build dikes,
sluice gates and irrigation ditches across a stretch of
more than 30,000 acres.
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Mopti: The teeming port town of Mopti is called the Venice of Africa,
but 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.
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Diré: CARE
is working to improve the lot of rice farmers on this
dry stretch from Diré to Tombouctou. "Before,
you could not count on anything," says Mohamoudou
Alhousseini, a rice farmer from the small village of Chirfiga.
"If the rain and the tide was good, the farm was
good. If it was bad, you suffered."
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Tombouctou: Tombouctou lay
at the end of our journey, a hot, dusty four-hour boat
trip from Diré. As we drew closer, our excitement
grew. On the banks of the river, huge tents of swooping
white canvas heralded our approach to this country of
nomads. We
drove an hour out into the sands to a CARE-built water
hole visited by the Tuareg, the famous nomads who wander
the Sahara from Libya down to Burkina Faso.
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