31. Farewell to Timbuktu

The people with whom I have spent all my time over the last two and a half months, Ibrahim, Ali and his daughters, have accompanied me to the airport.

My last view as we take off, is of my friends on the ground.

From the sky Timbuktu, the city that has been mythical for centuries, reveals its true dimension of a large village in the desert.

I leave my heart with my friends, even though I am happy to be going home, now that the job is done.

Of course Timbuktu is a special city, there is a continuous parade of delegations and important people, presidents like Chirac or Khaddafi, ministers from Mali and all over Africa, religious leaders like the Imam of Mecca. They all come to Timbuktu in search of something that serves the people who govern. What does everyone want from Timbuktu?

One day I asked this question of several people without getting a satisfactory answer.

There is definitely a secret in Timbuktu.

Ali, Ibrahim and I became a team during two months. Our sole aim was to complete the construction of the well in the desert. We faced difficulties and doubts, people’s greed and superstitions together.

We have challenged a system of waste and corruption that was firmly installed in Timbuktu, where the rerouting of charitable funds is sophisticatedly organised.

We endured betrayals and desertions for this work, and took turns bravely reminding each other that we were working on behalf of God. In the end we overcame all obstacles and were successful.

Our effort was accepted. This bound us together like brothers in arms.

A month after my return, the news that reaches me is exhilarating, people are gathering around the well and asking Ali to thank me when he phones me. All the wells in the area are dry, now that the hot weather has arrived and the groundwater has dropped 1 metre as it does every summer.

The well brings together two administrative hamlets of Timbuktu, of about 500 people. I gave Ali the natural medicines that will allow him to treat everyone free of charge for a year. The Tuaregs of the desert have trusted Ali’s natural medicines and my friend’s clinic is always full of sick people.

Even the handicapped people who were against my offer to pay for their treatment for a year (they would have preferred money in their pockets) have realised the benefits of natural medicine and are calling Ali who goes around to treat them on the motorbike I left with him (the handicapped people have great difficulty getting around).

The seriously ill people I left behind, those for whom the hospital could not do anything, are healing amazingly well. Truly Ali is a doctor who has a gift for healing.

Little Baba has entered school and he really likes to study. We paid for his school year and bought him a change of clothes so that he is always clean at school.

Ibrahim has had many contracts to build and supervise wells in the desert. He attributes this good fortune to the blessing of our effort to rebuild the dry well, into which he put all his soul.

This work that we have done in Timbuktu has changed the lives of many people for the better, a seed has been planted that grows strong. We are happy.

Often in life we try to do a good deed, but the result is not what we hoped for. This happens because there was not a purity of intention in the beginning, or because there was not scrupulousness in applying the intention.

When success happens, it is only because our effort has been accepted by God, and that is the greatest reward, because purity of intention wants good to be done not for people but for God.

If you do good for people, you will always be disappointed by people, by their ingratitude, or by their imperfections, which will make you doubt whether these people really deserve your effort.

If, on the other hand, you try to do good to others only to please God, who loves good, you will never be disappointed and will be supported in such a way that no obstacle can stop you.

AbdesSalaam Attar