Timbuktu

 A picture from Timbuktu two years ago. I am with Halimatou, the local manager of our project ELIT. We are standing by the Djingareyber Mosque.
Halimatou lost her father two days ago. Yesterday she lost her grandmother. The Essayouti family are in mourning, and I wrote an email of condoleance. I received a message back from Ben Essayouti, Halimatou's uncle:

"Yes, Sophie, he has died like so many others in Timbuktu, carried off these last weeks by the Corona virus which is killing more here than in Bamako, and which makes more victims than the armed Islamists here. The population is traumatised  in Timbuktu, the hospital and aid centres are saturated without any adequate equipment. Every moment people arrive to announce the death of yet another relative or close one. Some die in silence at home without medical assistance and are buried without any ceremony.  Tents are installed in the courtyard of the hospital with pitiful means  ...some of the  sick are fleeing the hospital and mixing with the population. It is an atmosphere of the end of the world. Columba should make a requiem for the dead and the orphans.."

This was all totally new to me- no one has  mentioned anything at all! The official figures for Mali are still very low. Today the Ministry of Health announce 70 deaths so far  in Mali. This is clearly not a correct figure.
And Djenne too- perhaps Babou's fears are correct? All those dead in Djenne- are they from Corona too, after all?
My old friend the neurologist Dr. Guida Landoure confirmed to me today my fears that the figures published are wildly under estimated. He also let me know his frustration with Ben Essayouti's message to me which I had passed on- the Essayouti family are in charge of the Djingarey Ber Mosque, which holds public prayers, like the other mosques in Timbuktu and elsewhere. This must stop- but is that not too late? Is it possible to impose any sort of isolation in Mali where people live close together in large porous families? 
Ala k'an Kissi...
 (MayAllah protect us..)

The Night of Destiny

This afternoon  I am writing on the 13th, last  and most difficult chapter of the memoir I am preparing about my life in Mali. I am downloading the parts of my blog DjenneDjenno to do with Keita's last year and trying to write about it. 

I was looking at the section which describes Keita and me together in Djenne under the stars on the Night of Destiny... and just then  there was a message on my phone- it was from Halimatou in Timbuktu who told me that tomorrow they are not working because it will be a national holiday in Mali.   Tonight is the Night of Destiny....

"When  the faithful break the fast at sunset on the 27^th day of Ramadan : (Laylatul-Qadr : Night of Destiny) a feast is prepared for those who have the means in order to sustain themselves for a vigil and prayer throughout the night.  It is said that during this night Allah sends his angels out over  the world; every soul is counted and everyone’s destiny is decided for the coming year.

Keita and I sat in our garden last night while the prayers and recitations of the Koran drifted across from Djenné’s faithful. The sky was filled with the sparkling abundance of stars which fill the firmament on some nights in the rainy season when the air has been washed clean and all is bright. Maybe Allah’s Angel of Destiny passed and counted us too. But his decisions are not known to humans, Alhamdillulah…."

Djenne phone call

 I had a lovely call with the Djenne Manuscript Library today (above). I spoke with them all on WhatsApp: it felt as if I was back in Djenne. I wanted to know from my old friend and colleague Babou Toure,  whom I have chosen as the local manager of our project at the library, what the situation was. He had worried me yesterday with his message regarding an unusual amount of deaths. Babou is one of Djenne's 11  kintigi (neighbourhood chiefs) and keeps a check on all the births, deaths etc. for his Sankore neighbourhood. Here, below right he sits by his ancient home which houses the Wangara sacred well, through which legend has it that it is possible to communicate with Timbuktu. According to  Yelpha, the Imam of Djenne, and our erstwhile mutual colleague at the library the marabouts used this means of communication during the Jihadist siege of Timbuktu. A bit like ZOOM for those under siege from the Corona virus, perhaps,  just with some extra magic thrown in?

Babou, as the kintigi of Sankore has been busy recently at an extraordinary amount of funerals to which he is obliged to make an appearance. The deaths are normally the old and those that may have suffered from illness in any case, he now told me. He did not think it was corona virus, but instead he thought it was a result of the very excessive heat this year- the temperature hovers in the upper forties right now. And this is also the time of the dust storms- a hard time for the old, especially since there are no air conditioners to speak of in people's houses.
I was relieved to hear that he did not think it had anything to do with Covid 19. But then again, who knows? People die in Djenne and no one normally knows the cause of death...there is no way of finding out, even at the hospital, said Babou.
Here below in the library is the gentle Ousmane Yaro, our manuscript expert and a descendant of many generations of  Djenne poets and scholars. I spoke to him too. I miss them all...!
Have optimistically booked my return to Mali  on the first available Air France flight, which start again in July.

More tea?

Lonely, busy days...

 Yes, the days are lonely but full, which is why I don't get to write much now in this journal. Now it is soon two months since everything closed down...
I am approaching the last chapters in the memoir I have been writing about my life in Mali. It is going to be hard, because I will have to write about Keita's last days and death, so I am procrastinating... Have spoken to my great friend Kathy about the subject of procrastination. She is an artist- and another dear  friend, Lucy,  is a writer. They both agree that procrastination is the scourge of the creative process, but it is inevitable and everyone knows it and does it.
I know I have to sit down to write, and in fact I know I will enjoy it once I start, but I find what ever reason at hand NOT to do it. I found myself dusting behind the books on the book shelves yesterday. I then phoned Kathy and she said she had just been cleaning out the toothbrush holders.

 Boris has just announced some relaxation of the confinement rules. We are now allowed to go walking with ONE friend not from our household, as long as that person stays two metres away. Well, so what? Surely all single householders have been doing that anyway? I have often walked with friends at a distance, here below is dear David. If I hadn't done that I would probably have gone potty by now- or MORE potty.

I am  also attempting to reach out to rather ambitious new  horizons, and this includes learning Arabic with Youssouf- below-  who sends me  weekly lessons from Timbuktu. The projects still go on in both Djenne and Timbuktu under my distant direction and I have, optimistically, booked my flight for Bamako on the 8th of July. On the way I will pop into Amsterdam to see my dear friend Birgit, who was so important to the hotel and figures prominently in my memoir...

 The Malian official figures for Corona virus deaths stands at 39 this morning. But how accurate is that? Extremely hard to tell. I had a chilling message from Babou at the Djenne Manuscript Library yesterday which told me there were a lot of unexplained deaths in Djenne...


And what else? I continue to explore my new passion: cooking but sadly there is a  lack of people to feed here now...and to impress...nevertheless on the weekends I  treat myself to something special:
 The below is a couple of little octopus I picked up at the fish mongers in Golborne Road to prepare Leonardo's Sicilian grandmother's splendid recipe.  A scary thing to prepare an octopus of course. It looks at one quite accusingly as one is about to slice it up...