Reflections From Africa
Large fields of millet are grown during the rainy season, and the ubiquitous baobab trees have dry millet stalks and other provender arranged neatly in the branches about 20 feet off the ground, to be used for feeding livestock and thatching roofs. The high vertical face of the adjacent cliff is lined with ancient caves from previous tribal inhabitants, and stone and adobe granaries are lined up under the overhanging stone, far above the cultivated valley plain.
The village was small, protected by an adobe wall. We walked in narrow corridors between walls because the families each enclose their own area with an open space in the center for cooking, for their goats and sheep (and sometimes donkeys)...and where the many children play.
Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Blog update February 5-8: Mali
Among other things the Carters, through the Carter Center, have taken on the the eradication of Guinea worm disease, working with an international coalition including the Red Cross and the UN, and achieving a case reduction of 99 per cent since 1986. Guinea worm is the one where it sticks its head out and you grab it with some pliers and pull it slowly out over a period of days. But it's also seriously debilitating and unnecessary and when the campaign started there were 3.5 million people who had it. Now there's less than 35,000.
