Mali - In The Village

From time to time I like to infiltrate this blog with some photos that I have taken during my seven year stay in Mali in West-Africa. Simply because they are so beautiful.  All the pictures, me and my brother have taken during that time, are on film and they have that depth and deepness of colors you don't get so easily with a digital camera.

It is now after a couple of years that I find the time to process the material that me and my brother have accumulated during this amazing and enriching time. While I have worked as a project coordinator for a holistic village development programm in the North of Mali that reached out to over 60 villages, my brother did research on labor migration in West-Africa for two years and wrote his final thesis on this topic. There are some beautiful stories to tell.

Wheel Of Life

 

The wheel of life at my father's house.

It always turns

Germania's Pride

I have noticed over the years, that a deep desire for the consumation of Germanian Sausage can occur in expats who live far from their homeland. And the Germans, being the practical people they are, have recognized this deep desire, that can take on un-healthy dimension if not satisfied, and have set-up German butchery shops all over the world

But nothing equals a fourth generation family butchery in a tiny village where your stories, joys and pain's are everybody stories, joy and pains. Recipes handed over and guarded from the grandfather, to the father to the son and so on.... and on. There is no way that you could sell non-tasty sausage here. You would be jobless soon.

A brave German citizen, who is in the favourite position to be able to buy these delicacies every day, approaches in a warrior-like-gait his destination.

For some this set-up might  rather ressemble your grandmother's lounge room in cleanliness and homeliness  a couple of years back. Including the three matching glass ceiling lamps.

 

 To make a choice is a confusing task and can be considered more than difficult.

Let's hang in there, rather take a little bit more. The shop owner and butcher's wife is patient, helpful and ready to explain all the ingredients that have been used to create these delicacies. Without revealing secrets of cause.

 But in the end the war is won and the treasure is brought home !

What a beautiful moment ! Thanks Dad !

This Ole House Of Mine

In the same tiny village "Au at the Rhine"

opposite the one petrol station that exists in the village - you can find this fascinating old farm house

a piece of art.