An 8-month bicycle trip in 2010/2011 took me from Dakar to Ouagadougou, more than 7,000 km. Whether I was in Senegal, or Mali, or Burkina Faso, I ran into many Fulani along the road. I saw them leading their herds through the brush looking for watering spots for example, and I sometimes found a place to sleep in their houses and villages. At the beginning of the rainy season, I began to encounter in the Sahel regions of Senegal and Mali, the ones who from time to time make long migrations. On those occasions I frequently left the road or trail to follow them through the savanna. Most often they were amused and curious to see me following them for several kilometers, a camera in one hand and guiding the bike with the other.
In Mali, near Seque more precisely, I met whole families who were returning to their village in the Circle of Nara after several months of migration. For about 3 days, I documented their lives, to the extent that they would permit me.
I have sympathy for these people, never complaining in the face of living conditions we might suppose to be fairly difficult; proud, it seems to me, of who they are and bringing to life every day their identity, culture, their dress, their music, without, nevertheless, completely refusing outside influences. These snatches of their life have given me the impulse to know more and I hope one day to be able to follow them for a longer time and to travel farther with them.
I arranged this subject in two parts. The first shows a bit of the life in the Fulani villages and hamlets, the difficulties they have to deal with during a period of drought, but also the prospects for the future represented by a mobile dairy to collect their production and transform it, thereby acting as a model for a system of milk production that suffers multiple faults. The second part showcases the migrating shepherds, passing occasionally across borders, and then their itinerant families, setting up and taking down, day after day, their amazing encampments.
In December 2001 an alert was sent out by a number to NGOs to the Sahel concerning the food situation. Here is a section of the text from the RFI on December 12, 2011: “Following the World Food Programme and Action against Hunger, Oxfam International has turned its attention to the food situation in the Sahel. According to the NGO the conditions that may lead to a serious crisis are taking shape. Millions of inhabitants of the Sahel region are at risk of being affected. In certain areas the crisis is already present and there is a need to act quickly to prevent the worst". *
* http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20111212-ong-oxfam-appelle-agir-maintenant-sahel
An 8-month bicycle trip in 2010/2011 took me from Dakar to Ouagadougou, more than 7,000 km. Whether I was in Senegal, or Mali, or Burkina Faso, I ran into many Fulani along the road. I saw them leading their herds through the brush looking for watering spots for example, and I sometimes found a place to sleep in their houses and villages. At the beginning of the rainy season, I began to encounter in the Sahel regions of Senegal and Mali, the ones who from time to time make long migrations. On those occasions I frequently left the road or trail to follow them through the savanna. Most often they were amused and curious to see me following them for several kilometers, a camera in one hand and guiding the bike with the other.
In Mali, near Seque more precisely, I met whole families who were returning to their village in the Circle of Nara after several months of migration. For about 3 days, I documented their lives, to the extent that they would permit me.
I have sympathy for these people, never complaining in the face of living conditions we might suppose to be fairly difficult; proud, it seems to me, of who they are and bringing to life every day their identity, culture, their dress, their music, without, nevertheless, completely refusing outside influences. These snatches of their life have given me the impulse to know more and I hope one day to be able to follow them for a longer time and to travel farther with them.