LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mali
built 187 days ago
Mali was one of the greatest states in the world of its time, but is now one of the poorest countries on earth. Timbuktu has been a magnet for travelers for many years. Le Main de Fatma is a giant rock formation bursting out of the ground like an enormous hand near Hombori village 250 km southwest of Gao, and is featured on many tourist posters. This offers the best technical rock climbing in West Africa (some say the world). Halfway up the cliff is the original village of Teli, one of a score of such places where the Dogons retreated 700 years ago. When the Dogons arrived, many of these easily defended sites were already occupied by the Tellem people of which little known except that they were excellent climbers and of small stature.
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The very best time to visit Mali is between November and January, before the heat hits in March and after the wet humid season. Trips down the Niger are ... a good bet in November as the river is usually high enough for passenger boats to get through. By December and January boat trips may be more of a hop from one sandbank to another if not cancelled altogether. November, though, is also the high tourist season so if you prefer to sacrifice a bit of comfort for peace and quiet, you could go in December for the crossing of the cattle at Diafarabé. Mali's most famous cultural event is the Festival in the Desert, a musical extravaganza of the country's best musicians amid the sand dunes near Timbuktu which takes place in early January. In fact anytime from October through to February is a reasonable time to go, but trying to get around Mali in the hot season from March to May is strictly for masochists.
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Mali has two major rivers, the Niger and the Sénégal. Both of them flow through the southern part of the country. The Niger turns east in the Sahel and cuts a large arc through the region. Between the town of Mopti, where the Bani River flows into the Niger, and the city of Tombouktou is a large inland delta with river channels and many lakes. The Sénégal and its tributaries flow northward in the extreme west of Mali. High ground is found in the southwest, where sandstone plateaus ring the plains of the Niger and Bani river basins.
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Presented by the Museum for African Art, Visual Griots of Mali: An Exhibit of Photography by African Youth has landed in New York. After successful shows at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Kansas City Public Library, Shawn Davis' expo is currently on view at the World Financial Center Courtyard Gallery, 220 Vesey St, NY, NY. Hours are 12-6 Tues-Fri and 1-5 Sat & Sun, Sept 7 to Nov 25 2007. More information is available here.
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One other project, which has proven successful in Mali, operates under the auspices of the KoZon Foundation, a Dutch organization that works through the western African Sahelian nations. From a beginning in Burkina Faso (see above), the efforts of KoZon and its dedicated volunteer Wietske Jongbloed, have introduced CooKits in Mali since 2001. Wietzke operates at a very grassroots level, taking cookers (mostly using CooKits made in the Sahel to keep cost low) to marketplaces for demonstrations. The CooKits themselves were initially imported from abroad, and then purchased from Burkina Faso. This operation, relatively new, has not yet been evaluated by KoZon, but is gradually moving forward, in cooperation with the Association des Femmes Ingénieurs du Mali.
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The Mali Country Programme is still in the process of being expanded, and policy-influencing processes will probably not begin until the end of 2007. However, thanks to the success of the IKON project IICD was invited by the Ministry of Health to help it formulate an ICT policy for the health sector.
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