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FELLOW HUMBLEDOLLAR contributor Marjorie Kondrack concluded a recent article by saying she’d “never been to Paris or Prague, Timbuktu or Tokyo.” I had always thought of Timbuktu as an imaginary, faraway place. Only recently did I discover that it actually exists.
Timbuktu is a town in Mali with a population just north of 50,000 people. But according to Wikipedia, thanks to gold and salt that could be found in the area, it was once a “world-renowned trading powerhouse” with a population of 250,000. From the 1200s through the 1600s, “Timbuktu was a world centre of Islamic learning.”
Even in the best of times, Timbuktu is not a place I’d want to visit. It sits on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. In May, the average daily high temperature is 108 degrees Fahrenheit, with an average low of 79 degrees. January is the coolest month, but it still has an average high of 86 degrees. Timbuktu gets virtually no rain at all for six consecutive months. For the other six months, rainfall totals only seven inches.
But assuredly, it is not the best of times in Timbuktu. Beginning in 2008, rebels started kidnapping—and occasionally killing—tourists. In 2012, rebel forces briefly seized control of the town.
The entire country of Mali is suffering. For more than 10 years, there have been various coups. In June, the Mali government announced it’s kicking out the United Nations peacekeeping forces that have been in the country for the past decade.
I imagine most HumbleDollar readers have heard of Timbuktu, at least in the way I knew it, as a mysterious, perhaps mythical place. Have younger people even heard of Timbuktu? Based on a sample of three—our teenage granddaughters—they haven’t.
My brother Kenyon told me that, for about $15, I can have a postcard sent from Timbuktu to my grandchildren or, for that matter, to anybody else. He said this provides income to people who were previously employed in the now-defunct tourist trade. I’ve done this a few times. You pick a postcard from several options and write you own message. Mail time is highly variable, but recipients typically get the postcard within a month. If you want, you can even ask for a postcard with a unique picture hand-drawn by a student in Timbuktu. If you select this option, you have no idea what the picture will be, but $2.50 is donated to a school for sorely needed supplies.
Whether or not you elect to participate in a charity that will send postcards for a good purpose, the art of sending postcards seems to have faded away. A postcard is still a good way to tell someone you are thinking of them, regardless of the location from which it is sent.
Years ago, my nephew had a grammar school class where, for a full calendar year, they brought in postcards from places where someone in their family had sent (or received) one, and they tacked them up on a world map. I happened to be doing a lot of travel for work that year, and I tried to send one from each of the cities where I had to work. I continued to do it (at a less furious pace) even after my nephew moved to the next grade, and then extended the habit to other family members with whom I was close even after I retired. It has let me stay close to my family’s next generation.
Larry—what a humanitarian and charitable idea! Thank you.
A personal note—often thought about your “clown college” article. Unique and appealing.
Marjorie, for a week I had been thinking about writing a short article about Timbuktu, and then I saw your use of the word! I wrote this article the next day.
Glad for what little motivation I could inspire. Love the postcard idea.
thanks, Larry.
For those who missed Larry’s two clown articles, here they are:
https://humbledollar.com/2022/03/lifes-a-circus/
https://humbledollar.com/2022/04/a-tentful-of-lessons/
Your piece remind us that, whatever its shortcomings, we US-based HumbleDollar readers are beyond blessed to live in this country. Thank you for that. Here’s hoping the people of Mali can know peace some day soon.
Amen. Mail’s troubles make our political squabbles and the economic challenges I think I’ve had in my life seem insignificant.
I recommend an internet search using “timbuktu library” and/or “timbuktu manuscripts”. Some photos of the city here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/article/timbuktu
Sorry to hear the situation is deteriorating, Larry.
Alas, things are not going at all well in Timbuktu. Terrorists have begun attacking the city, and a few days ago an 11-year old girl was killed by a terrorist mortar shell.
But the postcard service is still operating. Because postcards have been getting “lost” in the mail, they now get the Timbuktu postmark on the postcard, then put the postcard in envelope, and mail the envelope from the capital of Mali. They say this has been working well.