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I have arrived in Bamako, Mali, after a grueling 36 hours in transit. On the way over, I read a series of stories about the series of explorers that the British African Association sent to find the Niger and the fabled Tombouctou. One after another succumbed to disease, the desert, and hostile locals. In fact, it was a Frenchman, Rene Caillie, who finally reached Tombouctou in 1828 after living a year as a Muslim ascetic among the Braknas nomads so that he might appear to be a local, being denied a spot on official expeditions, casting away on a slave ship, and suffering malaria, nearly mortal sores on his feet, and scurvy.
Now I am sitting here in my hotel on the Niger with satellite TV, a swimming pool, and hopefully a comfortable bed. The taming of nature that has occurred in the last 200 years is remarkable, but, as I'm sure I am about to see, it is far from complete. Over the next week, I'll be on the ground here in Mali observing an integrated health campaign that will deliver insecticide-treated bed nets, measles and polio vaccines, Vitamin A, and deworming pills to 2.8 million children who desperately need it across this sprawling, land-locked country, which is the size of California and Texas. I'll keep you all updated on the progress.