Word: ago
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...story of frustration told time and again, even by professional housing counselors like Tom Birch, who last month finally landed the Livelys a modification. One day not too long ago, Birch got a call back from a servicer - a cause for celebration, considering how rarely his messages are returned. When he called the number back, the extension didn't work, but he tried not to let that dampen his excitement. His take: one step at a time...
...front of him. Even in the dim light it's clear that these are no ordinary volumes. The books are covered with intricately hand-tooled sheep- or goatskin; inside, hundreds of pages of yellowed paper are filled with Arabic calligraphy - the painstaking penmanship of Mohammed's forebears centuries ago. "One of my ancestors from the 12th century began our family library," Mohammed says. "There are hundreds of collections like this...
...sophisticated history has inspired a series of projects to restore, conserve and keep them in Mali. A few of the 32 family libraries in Timbuktu have received foreign funding from institutions such as the Ford Foundation or governments such as those of Spain, Norway and Dubai. Six years ago, South Africa's government began the museum project to house the Ahmed Baba Institute's huge collection. Until now there has been no building in Timbuktu with the space or sophisticated temperature control in which to keep old documents. Curators hope the new building will persuade locals to entrust their collections...
...real threat comes from people - both outsiders and insiders. Ber might at first seem unchanged by modern life. Tuareg traders still arrive on camel, bearing giant bricks of salt which they transport across the Sahara for weeks - just as traders did centuries ago when the area's manuscripts were originally written. In Mahmoud's mind, too, local attitudes remain unchanged. Locals remain fiercely distrustful of outsiders, he says, including Mali's government in Bamako, with which locals have been at odds for years. Many people still jealously guard family heirlooms as a tangible form of security. "We won't sell...
...noticed that one of our headlights was out: We were told to repair it at the next gas station.) It would not have occurred to this gray-haired Caucasian female to count on a policeman's sympathy; the last time I tried joking with a policeman, some 40 years ago, my quip cost me an extra $15 on my fine...