Now, she lives among the nomadic Tuareg in northern Mali. The couple flew to Cape Breton at the end of November so that Ms. Dodd could give birth in a fully equipped hospital. The African village has no formal health care. If someone needs help, the nearest facility is a four-day camel ride away. "If you’re healthy, and the baby’s healthy, then it doesn’t really matter where you deliver," Ms. Dodd said. "But if ever there was something that went wrong or that needed more (skill) than standard delivery, I’d much rather be in a place where I could have that care."
Mauritania RPCV Miranda Dodd finds a life and love with nomadic community in Mali
From Whycocomagh to Timbuktu
Cape Breton woman finds a life and love with nomadic community in West Africa
By LAURA FRASER Cape Breton Bureau
Thu. Dec 20 - 5:09 AM
Caption: Miranda Dodd, her husband, Shindouk, and their newborn son, Najim, brave Cape Breton’s pre-winter weather the day before Shindouk was to go home to his native Timbuktu. Ms. Dodd and her son will stay in Whycocomagh during the winter months and return to Mali in late spring. (LAURA FRASER / Cape Breton Bureau)
A GUST of wind decorates the Tuareg chief’s headscarf with snowflakes instead of grains of golden sand. The Timbuktu native and his wife, Miranda Dodd, stand shivering in front of a snowdrift during a visit to downtown Sydney.
At home, the pair can look out their window and see yellow sand dunes rising from the desert.
If they stop to listen, they can hear the constant rhythm of women pounding millet for the evening meal.
And in the peak of summer, the African sun bakes the couple in 50-degree heat.
But Ms. Dodd, 30, says she sees the similarity between her two homes.
She grew up in a little log cabin in Whycocomagh without electricity and running water, conveniences she still goes without in Timbuktu.
"Out in the rural areas of Cape Breton, you know all your neighbours (and) all your neighbours know you. And that’s the same thing that happens in Timbuktu."
In 2005, The Chronicle Herald published a story about Ms. Dodd’s life in a desert village about 150 kilometres north of Timbuktu.
She met and married Shindouk Mohamed Lamine Ould Najim, a Tuareg chief, after spending several years in Africa working with the Peace Corps.
Now, she lives among the nomadic Tuareg in northern Mali.
The couple flew to Cape Breton at the end of November so that Ms. Dodd could give birth in a fully equipped hospital.
The African village has no formal health care. If someone needs help, the nearest facility is a four-day camel ride away.
"If you’re healthy, and the baby’s healthy, then it doesn’t really matter where you deliver," Ms. Dodd said.
"But if ever there was something that went wrong or that needed more (skill) than standard delivery, I’d much rather be in a place where I could have that care."
The United Nations human poverty index measures the wealth of developing countries by their standards of living.
Some of the measures include access to water, levels of education and the chances residents have of living past the age of 40.
Mali is the second-poorest country in the developing world, according to that index.
More than three-quarters of its population is illiterate, more than 30 per cent of its residents die before they turn 40 and half of its citizens have no improved water source.
And the northern region is one of the most neglected areas in the country, Ms. Dodd said.
Shindouk has started several development projects in his village, one of which is the first desert school.
The lack of public funding in the Tuareg-populated northern regions highlights the ongoing tension between the nomadic people and the Malian government, Shindouk says.
"It’s a part of Mali that has been forgotten by the nation," he says in an interview conducted in French.
"On the surface, it’s one big happy family," Ms. Dodd says.
"But underneath, it’s dysfunctional."
There is a tentative peace now between the Tuareg and the Malian government, Shindouk says.
But it was during a time of civil war that Shindouk first heard of Canada.
He received a box of food from a foreign aid worker that had the Canadian flag stamped on the outside.
"The word refugee is synonymous with misery, with fear, with despair," he said.
"And if someone comes from 20,000 kilometres away to comfort you . . . well, that is something I cannot forget."
After that, he said, he was curious about the country and listened to news about it on the radio, learning about figures like Jean Chretien and Celine Dion.
But a month after arriving in this country for the first time, Shindouk said he is still in shock.
Everything is so different that he would need more time to filter through his feelings to explain what is so shocking, he said.
The weather is definitely an issue, though, he said.
Shindouk planned to return home to Timbuktu on Wednesday.
Ms. Dodd said that she and her new son, Najim, born Dec. 1, will stay in Cape Breton until the spring.
And then the family will reunite on the golden sands, under the red sun.
