There was once a little village that woke at the muezzin's first call and went to bed after the cows were milked. There lived a small, prosperous community of farmers, settled herders and marabouts.
Life unfolded peacefully there, until the day the rain failed to keep its appointment.
June went by without a single drop falling from the sky. July, August, September slipped past, ever as dry, ever as torrid. Sacrifices were made, God was implored. But not the smallest cloud came to stain the desperately blue sky.
Thus began a long and terrible drought.
The earth, scorched by the sun, became unfit for cultivation. The livestock were decimated by hunger, thirst and disease. The inhabitants of the little village left it for the big city. There, farmers and herders swelled the ranks of the unemployed; as for the marabouts, they turned into beggars. And today, out there, beneath a shroud of sand, the little village is slowly dying.