Timbaktu by Amira Altamimi

 

At Timbaktu | Photo by Anna Guevarra

At an organic farm | Photo by Amira Altamimi

Timbaktu was by far my favorite part of this trip. The first thing that struck me about it was the near unbearable heat, not only because it was incredibly physically uncomfortable but also because of how impressive the rest of their work seemed after factoring that in. Timbaktu was started by three individuals in the 90s in this arid area. The land before the collective grew was dry, humid, and relatively bereft of vegetation. The progress they've made in wilding the area in the years since is inspiring. Not only did the land begin to grow, but so did the people. Timbaktu has a handful of programs that run on revolutionary models. They've helped their farmers switch to organic farming and take control of their profits, they started a women's collective to allow women to take out loans on a thrift model that's dependant on social capital to keep each person accountable, and my personal favorite is the soap making collective made up entirely of disabled individuals looking for dignified work. All of these collectives have slowly become self-sustaining and now operate separately from Timbaktu.

 

Timbaktu grounds | Photos by Amira Altamimi

I think the most interesting part is how each collective works not only together, loosely tethered by Timbaktu, but also work symbiotically with the environment around them. For instance, within the farmers collective, there was a big push to move from chemical farming that was providing smaller and less nutritious yields to organic farming and through that, the land began healing itself from all the government sponsored pesticides that had been used in the past. The soapmakers utilize all natural ingredients from the surrounding area. Their soap uses aloe vera grown locally. It uses oils, including groundnut oils which are an incredibly popular crop to grow in the state, harvested from the farmers collective. Their scents are natural. They work together to do everything by hand. Everything about the process is designed to use non harmful processes to not only the environment but also the people themselves.

 

Amira making soap with a worker at the soap collective | Photo by Anna Guevarra

Some of the soap and oil products | Photo by Amira Altamimi

                                               
Despite the work ahead of them, Timbaktu has shown us a direction the environmental movement should begin to shift toward. They operate not for the sake of maximizing profits or for separating nature and people in an effort to "protect" the environment but to help one another thrive, to help the land around them thrive, to educate and give historically oppressed communities a platform to stand on, economically, socially, and in terms of dignity.

 

At the Bhavani - Khadi Weaving Center of Timbaktu | Photo by Amira Altamimi