Mali By Will Leamon

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Mali Culture. ! Mali has loads of culture from music to festivals! Kora is the most popular instrument in Mali it is like a harp, and can have between 21 and 25 strings, and it has a rosewood neck and is so popular that it's the choice instrument in jails. The Mande people sing folk music and professional performers are called Jeliw. Malians wear colorful robes called boubous. Malians participate in festivals, dances, and ceremonies on the weekends. A famous festival in Mali is the festival in the desert which is a 3 day which has traditional Tuareg dances and music, camel races, but the festival really gets exciting at night when modern Malian music is played. Rice and milet (grass) are common Malian food, which is based on cereal grains. Malians make a handmade cotton fabric dyed with mud and has become a symbol of Malians cultural identity. Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Mali. Most towns. in Mali have regular and most children grow up playing backyard games. When football (soccer) is played in Mali most times they play with something like a rag. Mali is one of Africa’s liveliest intellectual centers. with many famous writers. In Mali there are many different religions about 90 percent of the people in Mali are Muslims, 5 percent are Christians, the last 5 percent are traditional animist beliefs. The Mande people claim to come from a legendary warrior named Sunjata Keita, who founded the Mali Empire. Sunjata Keita was the descendant of Nare Maghann, and Sogolon Conde (the daughter of the buffalo woman). Later Sunjata became the very first leader of the Mali Empire and obtained the royal title Mansa. He died around the time of 1255. His cause of death is unknown, some think he drowned trying to cross a river others think he was assassinated. He became legendary because he was the first Mali Empire leader and some think he was the best Mali Empire leader. Culture in Mali is very important because it helps families bond and without it would make Mali be very similar as any other country.

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Mali History. ! BOOM BOOM! Mali’s history is filled with fighting and empires starting and falling. From around 1230 and around 1600 the Mali Empire was formed and destroyed. The Mali Empire was founded by Sundiata Keita. Mansa Musa was one of the Mali Empire’s wealthiest leaders. In the mid-14th century the Mali Empire began to weaken, although it survived through the 15th century it lost most of its importance and strength in the 16th century. Once the Mali Empire began to fall in the mid- 14th century the Songhai Empire began to take over and proclaim their independence. Gao was the Songhai Empire’s capital. When the Songhai Empire started to emerge they co-existed with the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire was more technologically advanced then the Mali Empire. The Moroccan destroyed the Songhai Empire and they then took over Gao, Timbuktu, and Djenne for a short time. After the Songhai Empire got defeated a single state never ruled the country/region. Mali finally obtained their independence with the withdrawal of Senegal in August 1960, and got there independence on September 22 1960 to the present day.

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Mali Economy � Mali has a small economy but it was still very fascinating to learn about. One of the reasons it is a small economy is because Mali is one of 10 of the nations poorest countries. The Niger River is very important because of the fishing because when the fish are caught they are given to communities and, are then smocked, dried, salted, and exported, but the fishing exports later declined in the early 1980s. In the mid 2000s gold took up 80 percent of mining and the other 20 percent was kaolin,salt,phosphate, and limestone. Gold is Mali's 3rd largest export. 43 villages lost there home and land for the Sadiola Gold Mine to start a gold mine there. Although gold mines made lots of money but it also caused bad pollution problems. Gold mining is a job that most likely pays well but it also has a small chance of you getting sick and many die. Mali started exporting the gold in . There tons of rice growing next to the Niger River, and I mean tons. Around 600 km of land are used for growing rice and sugarcane. Sorgum is grown in drier areas of Mali and on banks of Athens Niger. Once at a 1997-1998 harvest there was record breaking harvest of Cotton there was over 500,000 tons of Cotton! Mali has millions of cattle,sheep, and goats but 40 percent died because of a big drought which happened from 1972-1974. Like I said Mali has a small economy, but it was still really fun too. research.

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Mali Geography

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Mali has some pretty weird geography, some months it almost never rains! The location for Mali is 17 degrees north and 4 degrees west. Next let's talk about the rains in Mali. In January and December Mali has almost no rain, in August it has the most rain in a year, Mali has around 4-5 months of a rainy season. The coldest month in Mali is January. The climate in Mali is subtropical. There is 1.22 million square miles of land in Mali and 20,000 square miles of water in Mali which has a total of 1.24 million square miles altogether. It is mostly hot and dry from February to June, it's medium temperature from June to November, and it's cold and dry from November to February. Mali is almost double the size of Texas but a bit too small. The highest point in Mali is Hombori Tondo which is 1,155 miles high. And the lowest point is the Senegal River which is 23 miles. Mali is located in Western Africa. Mali's natural resources are bauxite, copper, diamonds, gold, granite, gypsum, iron ore, kaolin, limestone, lithium, manganese, phosphates, salt, silver, uranium, and zinc. Sadly in Mali there are a abundant of natural hazards such as sandstorms in the Sahara desert, bush fires down south, droughts that keep coming back, thunderstorms also down south which sometimes brings lightning and wind damage and even flash floods, and occasional flooding in the Niger River. This paragraph was one of my favorite one out of the five chapters because it has disasters and I learned about all of the different types of resources in Mali.

Mali Government

Mali’s government represents all citizens of Mali! Mali’s government is presidential republic which means that the people of Mali elect a ruler to make the laws for them, and that the ruler can only be in office for a certain amount of time so he/she can’t be in office as long as they want. The current president of Mali is Ibrahim Boubacar Keita or IBK for short Before IBK became a president he was the Prime Minister of Mali from 1994 to 2000 and then became the President of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007. IBK was elected on the 4th of September 2013. The current prime minister of Mali is Oumar Tatam Ly who was elected on September 5th 2013. The 1992 constitution of Mali was suspended after a military coup on March 21, 2013. Coup leaders quickly established a new 1992 constitution. Solders from Mali overthrew the Mali government and they looted the presidential palace, arrested ministers and had said that they had seized power, but that only lasted a few months. So in this paragraph you learned about who’s in the government and fighting sounds like fun to me.

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