Timbuktu once more

 A tiny propeller plane winged me safely to Timbuktu once more, this time in the company of Dr. Maria Luisa Russo, my Italian friend and collegue- that is to say she is a real manuscript scholar, whereas it must be admitted that I am not... although I know quite a lot about them by now. And here is the team again, above at the Imam Essayouti library by the Djingreyber Mosque. 
Everything is always extreme in Timbuktu (no, actually, in Mali as a whole..) . The project itself frequently  hangs on a thread, but we always manage to save it somehow. This time we had a very difficult time with one of our libraries, which had run out of manuscripts, but still expected to get paid until the end of their contracts at the end of July!
A lawyer was consulted before I left Bamako, and the whole project was once more threatened of course...
In the end we managed to come to a friendly solution- and here are the two main protagonists in the dispute- Toubab and Alassane, once more friends, since a whole new bundle of manuscripts had been found suddenly and work was therefore reinstated at the library by the Sidi Yahia Mosque- one of the three great ancient mosques of Timbuktu, in connection with  which we are privileged to work.
                                                                        

                                                                                
 So celebration seemed to be in order, and celebration in Timbuktu involves slaughtering a lamb and turning it into the culinary speciality of Timbuktu: Tukaso, a delicious stew with large dumplings, always eated around a communal large dish: this time it was generously provided by Saadou Traore, our friend and collegue who worked in the Djenne Manuscript Library for three years, compiling its catalogue for the University of Hamburg. He has now returned to his home town Timbuktu and he wanted to regale his two collegues with the best that Timbuktu has to offer and slaughered a sheep for us! Here we are in his lovely old Timbuktu house, far down a sandy alleyway amongst the chalkstone houses of the old city... below Saadou and his wife with Maria Luisa (left).

        We  stayed  once more in the UN 'Supercamp' and were escorted by armed soldiers who stood guard outside wherever we found ourselves in Timbuktu.
There was a ceremony during our stay at the camp for recenly arrived Nigerian troops: here they are by the memorial inscribed  ' For Our Fallen Peace Keepers' .
                                                                

There are so many different nationalities at the UN camp, and we don't all have the same bathroom habits... therefore these informative plaques can be seen around the camp.

The day we left Timbuktu Moktar Cisse, (seen in the middle of the first picture, sitting down) the archivist at the Al Aquib library where we are working by the Sankore Mosque, also left for Bamako- he had been chosen to represent Timbuktu in the National meeting of the Haut Conseil Islamique to vote in  the new leader- and Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara was chosen, to replace Mahmoud Dicko- this is a popular choice in Mali:  Haidara can be said to represent traditional Malian Islam  whereas Dicko's Wahabist faith was influenced from the Gulf; an influence many feel can be the portal  to extremism.

 

and now I am once more back in London- where  we have just had four glorious  Easter days, albeit marred by the terrifying attacks in Sri Lanka...