Camels Don't Mind a Little Green in the Desert

Issa is the village chief of Dan-Makaho and he is SITIA.org's partner in Niger. He recently sent along a few photos showing how his people plant their crops.

It makes sense that a camel could be used to pull a plow. The young guy riding the camel in his flip flops makes it look relatively easy. The nice, fresh greens that have sprouted from the desert floor make tasty treats for the camel, and must put him in a good mood for plowing.

This year's crops are sorghum, millet, and cow peas. Issa and SITIA.org are partnering to build a more modern warehouse to store the harvest and to save seeds for next year's planting.

Another Way of Seeing

My friend's village is more visible now that a few of our photos are visible on Google Earth and on Panoramio. Viewed on Google Earth or Panoramio, these pictures include the lattitude and longitude and are placed on a real map of southern Niger. Zooming in on the village of Dan-Makaho from the air, the village well is clearly there in the clearing surrounded by a few trees. There are also modest houses and the arid fields where the people grow their sorghum, millet, and cow peas.

In addition to the precision map experience on our Panoramio page, we can also gain context. Clicking out to view the wider Maradi region shows dozens of villages. Clicking out to view Niger as a whole reveals the proximity of important neighbors like Nigeria, which is only a few kilometers away from Dan-Makaho and which shares the Hausa tribal ethnicity. The other neighbors to the north, east, and west include a diverse assortment of ethnicities, histories, and landscapes: Algeria, Libya, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin.