The nomad guide who decodes the Sahara's secrets

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As the sun neared the horizon, before the day's final call to prayer, Azima Ag Mohamed Ali began his nightly walk through the sandy streets of Timbuktu in Mali. Along the way, first one, then a second friend fell into step alongside him. The greetings continued long after the friends met, with soft handshakes slipping together and apart, as each asked, over and again, after the health of their friends and families. This call-and-response carried deep into the conversation, as unhurried as their pace.

Swathed in voluminous robes of indigo, they passed through the streets of Timbuktu and continued out into the sand dunes, just beyond the city's western outskirts. Finally free of the city, they sat down in the sand and brewed a pot of tea as the heat drained from the day.

"The first tea is always strong like death," Ag Mohamed Ali said. "The second is mild like life. And the third", he smiled, "is sweet like love. You must drink all three."

Like many Tuareg, the once-nomadic people of the Sahara Desert, Ag Mohamed Ali was born out in the desert, far beyond Timbuktu. His birth certificate states that he was born in 1970, but it is an estimate used only for official documents. No-one really knows for sure. "I think I am much older than that," he said.

As a child in the Sahara, danger was never more than one big sandstorm away: "One day, when I was a small boy, I went to find water on my camel. On my way back to the camp, there was a sandstorm," he said. "The sky was black and I couldn't even see my hand. There was no warning, maybe five minutes at the most. I sat down and waited for the storm to end. It lasted maybe three hours. Then I went back to the camp. But then we had to go and find my father because he had gone to look for me."

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210906-the-nomad-guide-who-decodes-the-saharas-secrets