Life
before death
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Date:
September, 2002
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Garnet Parris
and Bourema Dembelé. Photo:
Christian Aid/Adrian Arbib |
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"We
will sell all our onions, then we sell our herds, if we want to live and not die.”
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We
were a few hours outside of Bandiagara, in a village of the Dogon people called
Tounoulna. The day before we had travelled for twelve hours to get to Bandiagara,
where we were informed by one of Christian Aid’s partners that 75% of the
maize harvest was lost due to poor rains.
The signs of this were
evident as we travelled for many hours, as we seem to be in a land of many dry
river-beds, except of course for the Niger and two of the other big rivers. In
this village we were taken to see very dry fields and very little else on the
high rocky terrain.
In contrast, we took up rock-climbing as we climbed
down to little pools of water, used for watering the onion plants and for the
household. Women and children clambered up the rocks carrying water on their heads
and in their hands. A bore-hole on the other side of the village provided drinking
water and special equipment had to be used to obtain water at such a depth. As
the levels of water dropped in the pools for household use, the villagers used
old shovels to dig deeper. Yet these onion plants were now essential in their
survival plan and in their desperation, they used water inefficiently, watering
plants at various times including near mid-day when 90% of the water could be
lost by evaporation in temperatures in the high 80s.
When we visited
another village Daga- Tereli which has been provided with a well and a dam we
saw the difference this made.
But everyone is suffering from the poor
harvests. When the harvest fails, it takes a whole year for the villagers to recover
their “losses,” and even then, there is no guarantee that the rains
will come to give a good harvest. So I asked Antandou Karambé, “ What
will you do to survive up to the next harvest?” He replied, “ We will
sell all our onions, then we sell our herds, if we want to live and not die.”
Another implication was the loss of some of their young people who would move
away to find jobs to send money back to the village. These would return when the
new rains came for planting and tilling the soil.
Despite their poverty,
the villagers fed us generously, as they believed in sharing the things of life.
There was no concern about what the next few months would bring, just, that now,
we were their guests. Yes, I firmly believe in life before death.
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final diary entry
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