It started with my trip, of course.

Then NPR and National Geographic did a Radio Expedition to Timbuktu and beyond, visiting the salt mines at Taoudenni, and announcing the formation of Issa Mohammed's Timbuktu Heritage Institute, which seeks to preserve the ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu and reopen the University there.

Last week, a friend called to tell me that Channel 32 was showing the episode of the new PBS series called Africa that features the Sahel region of Africa. (The parts of Mali that are south of the Sahara are Sahelian.) I saw things I didn't get to see when I was over there: the annual cattle crossing on the Niger, Dogon festival dancing. I also watched the following Great Lakes episode; the series is really nicely done.

"I nearly killed a man to reach Timbuktu, but only after he made me dig our truck out of the sand with a stolen butter knife." So began Christopher Reardon's Washington Post article in Sunday's Travel section about The Road to Timbuktu.

Some manuscripts from Timbuktu's Mamma Haidara library are on view here at the Library of Congress, just down the South Corridor from my humble cube. Read the press release or today's Washington Post article for details: From the Desert, a Wellspring of Ancient Manuscripts.

Last but certainly not least, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2003 starts today. At the festival you may find a small cookbook entitled Mali: Cuisine and Culture, featuring a dozen or so of my photographs.

Meanwhile, Malian masons struggle to build a mud-brick house on the rain-soaked Mall.