"The man in the saffron robe accompanying Catherine to her starting point is a witch doctor who's modernized. Under his robe he's got a jazz trumpet. He's going to blow a magic cadenza or two to bless her on her way"
...one of the ancient burial chambers of the Tellen Pygmies; although some of the skeletons she notes are more recent than that, the sort of place for a failed freestyle climber, perhaps."Catherine Destivelle's gravity-defying freeclimb of Mali's Bandyagara (SLYT)
posted by obscurator
on Jul 11, 2011 -
39 comments
Judy's tour diary (pdf, somewhat long) isn't your standard travelogue. The author is
Judy Porter, a professor of sociology from Bryn Mawr Collge. Her expertise in the fields of AIDS and poverty are apparent as she paints a vivid picture of life in West Africa, and the health and social conditions that come with it. She also set up a
web page that has links to a number of photo slide shows and hand shot video footage.
West Africa has been extensively discussed previously.
posted by The Straightener
on Mar 16, 2007 -
6 comments
Malian bluesman and
Ry Cooder collaborator Ali Farka Touré has
died at age 66 (or maybe 67). Through his music, and especially his collaborative projects with Western musicians, Touré convincingly made the case that the rhythms and melodies of the Delta blues came straight from Mali and neighboring countries.
posted by kcds
on Mar 7, 2006 -
33 comments
The failure of biotech. "In June 1996, the University of California, Davis, began an unprecedented effort to help the West African nation of Mali, using the promising and controversial new tool of agricultural biotechnology... Eight years later, no help whatsoever has arrived... In the hopes that inspired the effort - and the missteps that stifled it - lies a drama larger than the sum of its parts, one that shows both the promise and pitfalls of the largest technological leap in American agriculture since the tractor: biotechnology." The start of a five-part series in the
Sacramento Bee: long, but well worth it. (Via
MonkeyFilter.)
posted by languagehat
on Jun 6, 2004 -
17 comments
The
beautiful and
complex culture of the
Dogon tribe of Mali... they
may have had advanced
astronomical knowledge long before their European counterparts. Particularly, their tribe has had a long mystical association with
Sirius, leading some to speculate that their ideas had
phenomenal roots. Regardless of the mystery, the tribe is also well known for it's amazing
masks and intricate
art.
posted by moonbird
on Oct 20, 2003 -
9 comments
"I think that first world environmental groups (who oppose development of genetically modified crops) should put on the hat and shoes of farmers in Mali who are faced by repeated crop failure." -- Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, lead author of the U.N. Development Programme's annual Human Development Report. (Here's
another report on the same issue which includes a great deal of background information about the problems which still need to be solved, and why genetic modification of food crops is an essential part of the solution.)
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Jul 12, 2001 -
35 comments
