Surprise, surprise! What had been one of the biggest question marks on our World Tour agenda back when we were planning in early 2006 has now become one of our nicest surprises! Believe it or not, Mali has been one of the most responsive and communicative countries in the world for N7W! So much for what we and most people in the Western world would automatically anticipate from developing countries. The arrival of the N7W team was meticulously planned; right from beginning through the next three days of the World Tour visit. Everything went smoothly, even though the distances to be covered were the longest to date, between Mali’s capital Bamako and the N7W candidate Timbuktu lay 800 km/480 miles, which we covered via plane.
Early in the morning, the Prime Minister of Mali, Mr. Ousmane Issoufi Maiga, invited us for a visit to his cabinet. Together with the Ministers of Culture, Tourism and Trade and other members of Parliament, we enjoyed his warm welcome speech and commitment to champion the N7W campaign and, in particular, Mali’s candidate Timbuktu which also represents sub-Saharan Africa. On this occasion, I took the opportunity to hand him a second copy of our candidate certificate- “unofficially,” so to speak. His appreciation and our mutual agreement on the importance of promoting positive values set the tone of our Mali/Timbuktu visit for the next days.
For me personally, the visit to Mali and Timbuktu became the rediscovery of HUMANISM. A word and a subject that has long been much forgotten in many Western societies – these, it seems to me, mainly strive for more profits rather than looking for values that enrich our lives.
Surprise, surprise! What had been one of the biggest question marks on our World Tour agenda back when we were planning in early 2006 has now become one of our nicest surprises! Believe it or not, Mali has been one of the most responsive and communicative countries in the world for N7W! So much for what we and most people in the Western world would automatically anticipate from developing countries. The arrival of the N7W team was meticulously planned; right from beginning through the next three days of the World Tour visit. Everything went smoothly, even though the distances to be covered were the longest to date, between Mali’s capital Bamako and the N7W candidate Timbuktu lay 800 km/480 miles, which we covered via plane.
Early in the morning, the Prime Minister of Mali, Mr. Ousmane Issoufi Maiga, invited us for a visit to his cabinet. Together with the Ministers of Culture, Tourism and Trade and other members of Parliament, we enjoyed his warm welcome speech and commitment to champion the N7W campaign and, in particular, Mali’s candidate Timbuktu which also represents sub-Saharan Africa. On this occasion, I took the opportunity to hand him a second copy of our candidate certificate- “unofficially,” so to speak. His appreciation and our mutual agreement on the importance of promoting positive values set the tone of our Mali/Timbuktu visit for the next days.
For me personally, the visit to Mali and Timbuktu became the rediscovery of HUMANISM. A word and a subject that has long been much forgotten in many Western societies – these, it seems to me, mainly strive for more profits rather than looking for values that enrich our lives.