Mali

Moving on to our 147th country, we're back in west Africa for Mali. 

I wanted to do something a little different for Mali. So, Mali is kind of a snack, or a desert rather than a meal. We're wrapping up our West African countries and we had yet to make the famous West African Puff-Puff!  Think, west Africa's answer to beignets. We rolled some in powdered sugar and some in regular sugar, and left some plain.

Ours maybe didn't look as perfectly round as the original recipe, but we made dough! Amazing right? 

Also, these earned five spoons up. Because, um, fried dough with sugar? Duh. 

We ate them while we did our Mali lesson, and they were gone before the postcards were finished. I got high fives for clearing another African country off the list and not making the boys eat another rice/chicken/tomato/peanut dish.

The boys snacked on those happily while we had our Mali lesson. Unfortunately, Mali is not a safe place to travel to. The official U.S. Department of State Travel Warning tells U.S. Citizens to avoid all travel to Mali due to terrorist attacks, criminal violence and potential political instability. The travel warning is from June, but things have not improved.

Just googling what's going on in Mali today, 4 UN Peacekeepers were killed last week along with one soldier from Mali, and citizens have been killed along the Guinea border in a dispute over gold.  Both Guinea and Mali may be rich in gold, but they are among the poorest countries in the world. Seventy-percent of the population earns less than a dollar a day, and less than 10 percent earn over 2 dollars a day.

The whole thing is sad, thinking about how Mali really peaked centuries ago. Our landmark is a perfect example. Mali is home to the famed Timbuktu. (I mean, that was 1000 years before Mali was actually Mali- but you get the point). A city known for it's extreme inaccessibility, it's now used to mean any extremely distant or inaccessible location. But, the real Timbuktu was once a city of gold and ancient learning.

Visitors approaching the city on camel-back after a month-long journey desert crossing were greeted with fresh air, mango trees bearing fruit, and a network of canals. Timbuktu was described as a magical place, so extraordinary that it might not be real at all, where Arabs and Africans exchanged salt for gold.

Just how rich was Mali? Well, Mansa Musa, known as the 'King of Kings', lead Mali in the 14th century and is known as the richest man in all of history, mostly thanks to the large gold deposits under his rule. They say in today's market he'd be worth somewhere around $400 billion. 

The King of Kings made a pilgrimage to Mecca with 60,000 of his people, and 80 camels. Those camels each carried between 50 and 30 pounds of gold. Along the way, Mansa Musa just handed out gold to the poor. They built a mosque every Friday on their journey. But, all of his generosity actually caused inflation in the cities he passed, and ruined economies for decades. 

In its day, the wealthy country built amazing mosques. In fact the Grand Mosquee in Djenne  is the largest mud structure in the world. It is one of the most famous buildings in Africa and looks like a gigantic sand castle, since it is made exclusively out of sun-baked mud bricks. 

Mali is a country that once saw Europeans dying trying to its famed Timbuktu, but today the Sahara desert has stifled life and slowly turned the whole city to dust. Timbuktu has become the victim of human neglect, war and greed. Today the city is silent and slow. There is no traffic lights, and hardly any cars. The canal hasn't provided year round water in over 60 years. Most of the population in Timbuku, much like the rest of the country lives in poverty. 

Making things even worse, in 2012, the city was overtaken by radical Islamic rebels. Citizens were forced to leave, while rebels took over and destroyed important buildings and manuscripts. All was not lost though- apparently some brave Malian smuggled important manuscripts out of town or hid them in their houses Indian Jones style to keep them safe. 

If the Mali flag seems familar, it's because it's Guinea's flag, with the red and green switched, and we did those as our last two African countries, which means in our flashcards, they are back to back. So, that's not easy to keep track of. 

Mali is the biggest country in West Africa, at about twice the size of Texas. Now a big country like that needs a big name. So, it's appropriate that 'Mali' translates to' hippopotamus' in Bamanakan the main language of the country, though the official language is French. (Bamanakan must be where the capital of Bamako gets it's name too). Hippos are basically Mali's mascot, which obviously makes it one of my favorite countries. Because, yay, hippos! 

The boys made their postcards. 

Calib's featured the Dogon people known for their masked dance performed on stilts. 

Peyton's featured the vast area of desert. 

Aand Hayden cut his out in the shape of a hippo!! (So, he got my vote!) 

I was such a fan of Hayden's hippo, I gave out Quarters for the voting, and promptly voted for Hayden (after of course he gave a good presentation!) I was a little bummed nobody had Timbuktu on their's though.

We colored Mali in orange, east of  yellow Mauritania, south of red Algeria, north of brown Burkina Faso and west of light green Niger.

Look how full west Africa is! We're only missing Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Morocco! 

That's 147 down, only 49 to go! WE'RE IN THE 40S!! 

Next Up: Explorer's Week and Iceland