A few years ago me and my Italian mate Paolo visited Mali and met this brilliantly charismatic, chatty, young kid (Amadou Ouedrago) who called himself L'Homme du Dourou who wanted to be our guide/minder. We travelled from Bamako to Timbuktu via the villages in the isolated Dogon region (which you should Google). Mali was the 3rd poorest country in the world even then and in the last decade has been ravaged by civil unrest and the type of religious extremism depicted in the Abderrahmane Sissako film Timbuktu. Visitors are so rare Amadou can't use his foreign language skills and enthusiasm to show people his country anymore so he's been working as a labourer. He recently sent me a photo of his (first) baby and said he's trying to set up a food shop in Mopti. So i'm trying to raise £ 1000 for the generator, fridges, and 100w France Solar Panels in the photo. Amadou and Mali have really been through terrible times when things were rough enough there as it was. It's not much but Amadou is so hard-working and upbeat I know he'll make the shop work. If we can do that then I'll ask him what else could be achievable. Thanx.