This blog is a past time account of a seven year stay in a small village, called "Nara in the Sahel" situated in Mali, West Africa close to the Mauretanian border. It is a look back in narrative form into the past and a photographic documentary of a miraculous and wondrous place. All the photographic work exhibited here was still shot on film.
It tells the tales and adventures of the Malian men and some women who went into " Exode rurale ". Labor migration, one of the biggest phenomen in West Africa, has influenced the life of each and every family I have met in the Sahel. My own personal stories, lessons and adventures that I have collected in many hand written diaries for seven years can be found here as well. I was a wanderer, a migrant,an adventurer myself who went to seek work in another country.
I share my thoughts on Field Research and Development Aid for Africa. But my focus is on the human side of it. I speak about what can happen when you immerse yourself in a foreign culture deeply, a culture very much different from your own. A culture, so fascinating that it can make you loose your way on your wanderings on foreign shores and not find your way home - partly because you do not want to go home and partly because you do not know how to travel back. Once in Exodus it can become difficult to stop because life has become so much richer and brighter. Or let me say, this is how it was for me.
In simpler words this is the story of the "Sahel The Great Enchantress".
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When British anthropologist Nigel Barley set up home among the Dowayo people in northern Cameroon, he knew how fieldwork should be conducted. Unfortunately, nobody had told the Dowayo.
Nigel Barley, The Innocent Anthropologist, notes from a mud hut
© Chocolat Negro and Nara – La Saheliènne, 2009 - 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Chocolat Negro and Nara – La Saheliènne, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Nara - La Saheliènne 