Moussa shows us into the office of the main
librarian, a small room no more than twelve by twelve feet, all walls lined with
shelves full of books, and in the middle of the room a desk and behind the desk
an elderly man wearing a white gown and a white head cloth and dark rimmed,
thick glasses. The librarian speaks to us in French. He talks about
international scholars doing research in his library and shows me two books, one
written by an Oxford professor, the other one by a colleague from Berlin, both
published within the last five years. He opens the introduction and proudly
points to the German lines where the author gives thanks to him, the librarian.
I recognize slight disappointment when he realizes that I am fascinated more
with manuscripts than with books, and he passes us on to another member of the
staff. The next room is about the same modest size as the librarian's office. On
two tables manuscripts are on display
showing different stages of deterioration or destruction. "Mice," the man says
in French, "are the enemy."
30.000
manuscripts are held in the Ahmed Baba Library alone, more than a thousand are
restored and digitized and ready to be published on the web. They cover
geography, music, commerce, mathematics, theology, military strategy, and
medicine, written between the ninth and the sixteenth century. Most of them are
books published by the faculty of the oldest university in Africa, the
University of Timbuktu, founded in the ninth century. The most ancient exemplars
have survived in the tents of the desert dwellers for more than one millennium.
All of them are on paper and all of them are written in Arabic script but not
necessarily in Arabic language. Some books are in Fulani, Foulbe, Touareg and
other African tongues.
A
soldier enters the room and our tour comes to an abrupt end. Moussa quickly
pushes us into an empty hallway. Security personnel, heavily armed, talking into
their earphones, swarm the courtyard. Two Malian ministers and a delegation from
Norway appear and wander through the premises. Oil was discovered in Mali and
the government hopes to learn from Norway how to exploit it to the benefit of
the country. They do not want to repeat the mistakes of neighboring Nigeria,
where oil has brought bloodshed and misery. Once the delegation retreats, we are
shown to the next room, a workshop where the manuscripts are restored. Thirteen
men work in a room elbow to elbow, sitting around tables, wearing short-sleeved
white shirts. The old paper manuscripts are carefully taken apart, every page is
glued to transparent Papier Japonais
and cut to the size of the original manuscript, making it possible for scholars
to handle the delicate pages without destroying them. Then the books are
rebound, a leather cover is crafted by hand, imitating the color and design of
the original. A box is built from sturdy carton, hard as wood, covered with
bookbinder’s linen. Each box will hold one restored codex and in a separate
compartment the original leather cover. This is state-of-the-art. All workers
were trained for three months in South Africa with South African tax-money.
Africans helping Africans.
Dr.
Mohamed Diagayété introduces himself. He is the resident scholar. We shake
hands. We have not met before, we come from different worlds, and yet, being
scholars, we feel connected through an invisible bond, not so much by choice as
by destiny, like brothers. Dr. Diagayété shows us to the next two rooms, larger
than the ones we have seen so far. In one room two men are sitting at a
computer, transcribing a manuscript and the screen is projected on the wall. A
critical edition of a medical book is being prepared in the second room. Written
in medieval times, five copies have survived, but the text has never been
printed.
Moussa, our young guide, has helped us
graciously, but his intelligent eyes looked bored, as if wondering why we would
travel half way around the world to stare at old books. But all of a sudden
Moussa gets excited and presses his fist against my shoulder and points to the
Arabic sentences on the wall. "It's about Viagra," he shouts and begins to
translate to me what the manuscript says.
Dr. Diagayété laughs at the young man’s
reaction. The page from the medieval codex contains medical advice for patients
suffering from impotence. "The entries are all structured the same way," the
scholar explains. "First there is advice for exercises and diet, then there is a
paragraph about potions and herbal remedies, and the third paragraph is a quote
either from the Koran or from pious traditions about the prophet, repeating the
exact same advice given in the previous paragraphs.”
At the end of the tour we face another
problem. There are no taxis in Timbuktu. I look at Moussa’s motorcycle and
jokingly propose that I could drive us to the hotel, Moussa on the tank and
Gordon on the backseat. “A good idea,” Moussa responds. He is serious. Before I
know it, Gordon disappears in a cloud of sand dust on the back of Moussa’s bike.
Waiting
for my ride to return, I wonder how I can help. I am told that there are an
estimated additional sixty thousand manuscripts deposited in various libraries
in Timbuktu, many of them in dire need of restoration, and an unknown number is
still in the possession of families living in the desert. Despite the
destructive force of the Sahara, only in this climate could a paper manuscript
survive for one thousand years. I think about mysteries the unpublished
manuscripts of Timbuktu may contain. My parents, who loved Africa and who had
lived on this continent for more than a decade, still believed that Africa has
no history because Africans were not able to write it down. And here I am,
visiting a university, older than almost all European universities, amidst tens
of thousands of unprinted books about geography, history, medicine, and
theology, written by African scholars.
I am still lost in thought when Moussa
returns and I climb on the back seat of his motorcycle. The young Tuareg wears
his turban like a helmet, he pulls it over his eyes and covers his whole face
against the blowing sand and I hold on to him for dear life as he negotiates the
dirt road with its huge holes, straying donkeys, honking trucks, and happy
children. For nothing in the world would I want to miss the experience.
When we arrive, I ask him, “What do you
prefer, camel of motorcycle?”
Without hesitation he replies, "Camel of
course."
