4. The dry well of the Tuaregs

Ali Ould Sidi is the director of the cultural mission in Timbuktu. In his company, you are always sure to eat well because he is a gourmet who never misses an opportunity to taste something good. He not only takes care of managing projects that foreigners have financed, such as the preservation of Timbuktu’s ancient manuscripts, but he also takes care of helping his Tuareg relatives in the desert.
It wass he, who kindly took us to the dry well of the Tuareg, to his cousins, in his car.

The Tuareg are the princes of the desert, nomads and sometimes brigands, they are called the blue men because they all wear various shades of blue.
They live by bringing flocks of grazing animals to pasture in the desert but since the drought hit the region they are desperately poor.

Despite this, they are always laughing and joking, like naughty children, and we really had fun with them.
Their well was dug with the help of an American who came to visit, but since it was built in the desert, the well fills up from the inside with sand that comes up from the bottom of the well, so the water is scarce. There is no way to dig to remove the sand because then the well would collapse, lacking a support at the bottom.”We know this problem very well,” says the chief Tuareg, “When a well takes sand there is nothing to do”.

It is a very deep well but it is useless, and the sixty families who lived scattered in tents around the well were no longer able to drink and allow the animals to drink. Now only two families remain.
The government made a very deep hole not far away, and they found water sixty meters deep, but as usual when using public money, the job was done badly and only half done. They had put a plastic tube in to get to the water but the pump to draw it up is still missing.
The Tuaregs tell me that this work is useless for them, because they know only too well that the plastic tube will break soon and the solar pump that is needed to draw water is too expensive and too fragile for the desert.
According to them, the only solution is to dig a new pastoral well, from which they can pull the water by hand as they have always done.
It takes 3 months to build a well and I don’t know if I can stay here for that long. I don’t want to start a job that I can’t personally complete.
The next day I will have to ask the well expert in Timbuktu if it is possible to adjust the existing one to increase the amount of water it produces, or if it is possible to dig a new well in a month, working day and night.
Meanwhile, we go to buy 2 tons of wheat for these people with Ali Maiga, but we tell them nothing, it should be a surprise.

We will have fun because the Tuaregs will come to pick us up with their camels, and Ali and I want to travel with them on camels.
I noticed that the Tuareg do not like being photographed by foreigners very much, but the Tuareg chief, Sheikh Adda, saw my interest in their well and gained confidence, so he asked to be photographed with me.