Will the river run dry?
Steve Richards, our Children’s Communication Specialist, recently went out to Niger to see and work with some of the communities where we are supporting sustainable development like food security and agriculture projects that help improve children’s nutrition.
While he was out there, Steve met with 80-year-old village Chief of the Karbakassey area, Zakaria Abdoulaye. This is his story, in his words:
Will the River Run Dry?
A long time ago when I was young, I remember how green this area was. That was about 70 years ago. There were many trees and wild animals such as lions and hyenas that lived here.
I can remember one day when I was watching over our cattle, one of the cows delivered a calf. I was so happy that I ran to the village to tell my father.
When he heard the news he said to me “What are you doing here?”
He urged me to go back quickly… if not, hyenas will devour the newborn. I ran back to the animals as fast as I could and I found that the hyenas had already eaten the baby cow and they were struggling to kill the mother too.
Long ago we used to live at the left side of the river which we left and came to settle here in order to take care of our animals.
In those times you cannot leave your animals for a second because hyenas and lions will eat them. We had to watch over our animals day and night, in order to protect them.
When people from that time return, they can no longer recognise this place because it has become desert and all the trees disappeared and the wild animals with them.
The reason of this may be climate change as said by the educated people, but also through time people have been cutting the trees for firewood or clear space for crop cultivation.
As you can see now we cannot even grow anything here as it has become a complete desert and even the river is threatened with sand.
Story captured by Steve Richards & Amadou Baraze – Niger, January 2013.
If you’re interested to learn more about the work Steve does with communities all over the world, he’ll be sharing some of his techniques this time next week on the blog.
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