Mali Stories

Stories of the people of Mali

To the amazing people of Mali - this is what these images are an homage to, but their story is more than just photos. It’s hard not to feel your heart constrict when you think about Mali and its people - after decades of internal strife and a litany of horribly corrupt governments, it was barely a decade ago when the country tried to turn a leaf and start an entirely new chapter, one of stability and growth and hopes of joining its many neighbours in welcoming visitors and tourists. Alas it was not to be.

In a perfect storm of geography, indifference, economic factors, Covid19 and international politics, everything aligned against this lovely country and its population of warm hospitable people and fierce warriors and tribal communities. The collapse of ISIS led to a lot of “homeless” fighters and warlords to stream out of Libya and other countries onto the north of Mali and, within less than six months establish themselves as a defect regional government around Timbuktu. Taking advantage of the less-than-dedicated government support and various tribal disagreements, the various warlords quickly started implementing their own flavour of strict islamic government and rapidly expanded their territories, almost reaching as far south as Djenne (nearly the middle of the country) before the government at Bamako woke up and started pushing back.

But push back was really all they did. They stopped the incursions barely 30kms from Djenne by placing few army units and encouraging the creation and operation of multiple local, tribal, militias who would, for the next 8 years attempt to stem the tide. However at the same time, this marked a new era for Mali where the north and the south were completely divided with much of the north and middle of the country left completely to their own devices, without education, utilities, energy or commerce. Millions of people were essentially abandoned to live under what is effectively ISIL government and somehow make do.

People are turning to traditional crafts as means of generating additional income, but the lack of tourism has hit them significantly.

I travelled to Mali during the second part of the Covid outbreak (with all the logistical, legal and health-related complexities this entailed) to document some of these new realities and boy did I experience a world unlike anything I had ever known before. But let me start from the beginning.

Getting to Mali is very complicated - not because flights are difficult to organise or because they are expensive, but because of all those things we tend to take for granted: travel insurance - no normal company will insure you so you need specialist high-risk insurance. Accommodation - do not count on finding hotels on the internet (and even if you do, chances are the reality on the ground will be much, much different). Local guides - extremely difficult to find and organise as tourism is very new and still way too disorganised and erratic.

It took me around 7 months to put together this trip and let me tell you, when I stepped into the airplane I still was largely unsure of what would happen. And, as it does, some things went well while others, well…not so. If I were to impart a single bit of advice it is to NOT choose a western-based travel company as (a) they will charge you enormous amounts of money for not massively different service, (b) they will absolutely subcontract to a local company (to which they will pay peanuts) and finally (c) you’d be forced into a predefined trip which will almost certainly keep you away from everything that really is Mali.

Anyway, let me walk you through the situation facing the people of Mali right now:

Sand fishing.

Yeah, it is as crazy and out-there as it sounds. Let me explain: poor people, frequently entire families, spend their entire day up to their chest inside the mighty Niger river, gathering different sand types from the riverbed, usually by hand but sometimes using small plastic buckets. The sand is then carried outside, dried and the filtered before being loaded into sacks and trucks to be used by the construction industry which is currently experiencing a massive boom in Bamako and its environs. Large companies naturally use massive earth-moving equipment to do the same thing, but individuals can earn as much as $3-4 a sack of sand if it’s of good quality.

Once sand has been collected by hand from the river bed, it is deposited in mounts, according to type, where workers constantly shift it so it dries completely

Furthermore, young children can augment the family income by waiting at the areas where barges unload sand collected further upriver and collecting the sand which falls during the unloading process. For really poor families this can mean a daily income of $10-$20 which let me tell you, in Mali, it makes the difference between starvation and survival.

Children as young as 7 or 8 spend entire days, from sunrise to sunset, in the water, collecting and carrying sand

Younger girls are taught how to count bushels or buckets and keep tally of their family's output, marking them on wooden tablets

For the families without access to plastic buckets, sand is carried using calabashes

It’s hard, back-breaking work and one I had to see to believe and while I wanted to feel sorry about the people, I could not but see the strength and dignity in their faces and realise that they too are doing what they need to do to survive - not unlike what people all over the world do.

Despite this being a rough manual work, women still dress in their traditional colourful fabrics, even when working in the river

For the really young children, the riverside offers unlimited ways to play and amuse themselves, something necessary when the rest of the family is busy

It is not unusual to see teenagers simply stopping for a few moments, frequently exhausted, from the day's labours

Driftwood gathering.

Probably the biggest “industry” all along the Niger river and one responsible for anything from building materials to firewood, coal and crafts and providing a living to tens of thousands of people. As to what it is, well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. People simply float with anything from a boat to a raft to a tiny canoe on the river and gather any and all types of driftwood floating past. The wood is then brought to collection points along the banks, it is sorted by type, length and girth before being dried under the blazing sun. Once dried, it is processed and then sold - longer pieces are cleaned and repurposed as construction and building materials, smaller pieces become firewood and thick ones are traditional earmarked for coal.

Wood stevedore amidst the massive piles of driftwood collected and organised by type and size

A moment's rest from spending the entire day hanging over the side collecting driftwood

Subsistence farming and fishing.

With the government nearly completely absent anywhere outside Bamako, people are taking advantage and grabbing tiny parcels of land anywhere they can - the banks of the river and its tributaries, in the hearts of small woods and at random clearings and plant tiny crops - sometimes not even actual crops, just enough vegetables and other plants they can consume at different times of the year, with the surpluses either sold or bartered in the local markets. When the family also has a canoe or small boat, they will also send someone - usually the middle son - to fish out onto the river and bring whatever they catch back to the family to consume, smoke, dry and/or trade to supplement the family income.

Frequently you will see the elder women working the gardens and small subsistence farms, a task considered easier than wood gathering or sand fishing

For the small gardens or farms away from the riverside, water must be drawn from wells and carried to the plants manually

To me, this is far more demanding and stressful than the other two and, from what I was able to find out, family usually make around $15 a week from farming and fishing - plus, of course, what they are able to consume.

Young fisherman stretching and untangling the net at the end of the day

Taking a well deserved rest after a long day is both necessary and welcome

For those without access to a canoe or boat, net fishing from shore is the only option

Quranic schools.

This was, for me, one of the main reasons I travelled not only to Mali, but also ventured - against all advice - to Djenne. One of the greatest casualties of the situation in Mali is - sadly - children and more specifically, their education. Pretty much half the country now has no access to any education at all - and this holds true for both boys and girls, so in more ways than one, the situation in Mali is worse than that in Afghanistan. But, unlike Afghanistan, Mali has an ace up its proverbial sleeve: travelling scholars. These people are not teachers per se - they are scholars in the holy Quran who travel the length and breadth of Mali, moving from village to village, exchanging knowledge and education for food and lodging.

Classes are held everywhere possible, including the middle of the street, under a palm shade. Animal hides or old carpets are laid down and the lesson starts

They will stay between a week and a month in each place - sometimes more - and during that time they will teach everyone who comes to them reading and writing using the only omni-present book: the Qu’ran. They will hold classes in any available space, from empty storage rooms to family rooms made available for a few hours to - I kid you not - the streets. News of the lessons travels by worth of mouth and class sizes range from 6-7 kids to more than 20. Because there is no access to writing implements, the students use wooden tablets and small pieces of charcoal to write. When a board is full, they wipe it clean and start again.

It's rare for students to have access to their own copy of the Qu'ran, so they take extremely good care of it

With space at a premium and writing tablets rare, sometimes students take turns writing and reading

Of course, someone might argue that this is religious indoctrination, but the reality is quite different. Yes, the texts used are verses from the Qu’ran but the scholars I met use them to teach language structures, vocabulary, syntax and spelling - their teaching is not restricted to the meaning of the text and I think this is admirable. They also do this completely selflessly, exchanging their lives for nothing more than food and a place to sleep and there is a kindness in their eyes and the way they speak I have not met in any western teacher.

I also learned to admire the students - at a time when their families’ lives depends on every single person working non-stop to provide for the family, these kids choose to spend 2-3 hrs a day to learn, to educate themselves, in an attempt to become better people, to have more choices in life. Speaking to them (through the interpreter) is an education in itself: there is no pity or sadness or regret about their lives - only hope for the future. And joy for the learning process. These children have never been in an organised classroom, never had the resources kids in Europe or the US so easily disregard or even actively destroy - they carefully clean their wooden tablets, some of which are nothing more than pieces of wood or slats from roofs, they put their pieces of charcoal in small plastic boxes to preserve them and always thank and honour their teacher, both before and after the lesson. Some of them bring him food from their homes - something amazing considering they have little to spare.

Visiting the Quranic schools in and around Djenne was an incredible education, mostly in the resilience of the human spirit, something we tend to forget where we live. I wish I could give you the usual adage about perspective and so on, but I can’t! This is beyond that in more ways than words and even images, but regardless of how it may shape my life moving forward, it was an education for sure. In more ways than one.

We had to cut our time in Djenne short - our driver ran where we were shooting and pretty much bundled us into the car, speeding pretty much before we had a chance to close the door. As we exited the town square (with its amazing mud mosque) we heard the shots in the distance - a band of ISIS fighters were approaching the town and the local militia were rushing to meet them before they crossed the river. We actually saw them, riding small motorcycles with their RPGs and machine-guns balanced on their shoulders, as they rushed to meet ISIS. I actually blame myself for not following them a bit and maybe waiting for the outcome of the battle to capture their stories - that was the opportunity of a lifetime but our driver and our guide would simply not listen as we drove at 80 miles an hour to the south and safety.

My time in Mali was absolutely wonderful - not comfortable or relaxing or easy, but filed with amazing images and stories of incredible people. I really am looking forward to return and this is now scheduled for April 2026 and this time I’m hoping to venture into Timbuktu one way or another… there’s still a few things to organise, but if this works out, it will mark a return to my photoreportage days and times of dodging tear gas canisters and bullets. And I want to do this more than anything else! Wish me luck!

Using Zenfolio