The Potter Village of "Kalabougou"
	The other weekend, I took a pinasse ride up the Niger River to visit a village whose members make pottery to sell. It is there way to make a living. The name of the village is ‘Kalabougou’. By the way, a pinasse is a motorized pirogue, an ancient form of boat that was, and still is in many cases, powered by men with long sticks pushing off the bottom of the river. Each family in the village makes a certain type or design of pottery. There are very big containers for water and grain. There are very small containers also. They do not have pottery wheels. The people move around the pots to form the desired circular shapes. Children as young as 2 years old are working at breaking up chunks of clay to use to make the pots. It appears very natural for them, almost being a game. During the week the young men go into the fields and bring back large bundles of dried grass. Then on Saturday & Sunday the women create 4 large mounds of sun drived pottery, and they cover the pottery with the dried grass. Then they ignite the grass, and that is how they fire their pottery. Once or twice a week, the finished pottery is loaded on big pirogues and transported to Segou, where it is sold and transported across Mali as far as Bamako and Mopti (about 4 hours away in either direction.) A few things struck me. - the poverty - the simplicity - the peace Click here to see some pictures.